The Taliban kidnapping game

Ann Marlowe:

LATELY, Afghanistan's president, Hamid Karzai, has shown a genius for doing exactly the wrong thing for the Afghan people and their fledgling democracy.

He has been asking, indeed begging, the Taliban to negotiate with him. Not because the rebels are gaining ground - in fact, more and more of rural Afghanistan is finally seeing the benefits of government. The Taliban's destructiveness is limited to bombings that kill Afghan civilians and lightly armed Afghan police. Sad, yes, but not a threat to the state.

Part of the problem is Afghanistan's "friends." On Thursday, Karzai bowed to German pressure and exchanged five prisoners and, German sources say, a few hundred thousand dollars for the freedom of Rudolf Blechschmidt, a German taken hostage in July, and five Afghans kidnapped with him.

The initial kidnappers seem to have been radicalized gangsters unaffiliated with the Taliban's leadership. But higher-ups endorsed their act, and the demands grew to include the withdrawal of Germany's 3,000-some soldiers from Afghanistan.

While the lower house of Germany's legislature just voted to extend the troops' stay, the Taliban's Mullah Omar posted an online statement calling the prisoner release "a great victory."

But the reason lots of foreigners have been getting kidnapped is that Karzai has been so willing to negotiate with kidnappers - and European governments have been even more willing.

The day after Blechschmidt's abduction, another group calling itself Taliban kidnapped 23 South Korean missionaries nearby. Two were executed before South Korea's government cut a still secret deal for the release of the other 21. Taliban officials have claimed that $10 million paid by South Korea for the release of their citizens is being used to fund operations both in Afghanistan and overseas.

In March, the Afghan government exchanged five Taliban prisoners for an Italian journalist, under heavy pressure from Italy's government. Karzai refused to trade prisoners for the life of the journalist's young Afghan fixer, whom the Taliban promptly murdered.

No Americans have been kidnapped in Afghanistan - probably because the Taliban and other criminal gangs know that our government won't negotiate with thugs or even consider withdrawing our troops there under duress. Indeed, the kidnappings are plainly meant to drive a wedge between our wavering Coalition partners and us.

Bowing to kidnappers' demands is always a bad idea, because it encourages more kidnapping. That's why it's illegal in many countries for the relatives of a kidnap victim to pay a ransom. (The very severe U.S. penalties have virtually eliminated kidnappings for ransom here.)

But negotiating with kidnappers is an even worse idea in a country like Afghanistan, where the government's ability to maintain a monopoly on force is just now being established.

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Karzai may think he can't afford to antagonize Coalition nations or endanger foreigners working to help the people of Afghanistan. But, in reality, negotiating with kidnappers makes life much more dangerous for non-American foreigners there.

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As long as the countries are willing to deal the Taliban will keep kidnapping their citizens and benefiting from the criminal activity. Doing the deals is a mistake that should stop now.

As for Karzai's eagerness to negotiate with the Taliban I suspect the State Department is the culprit. They are always big on "reconciliation" attempts. It must be a State Department religious belief since there is little evidence to suggest that the Taliban religious bigots will enter into any compromise, because their religious belief system is one that condemns them to hell for such a compromise.