Taliban reject Karzai's protection and talks

Reuters/Washington Post:

A Taliban militant leader rejected Monday an offer from Afghan President Hamid Karzai of safe passage for insurgent leaders who wanted to talk peace.

Karzai, back from a trip to Britain and the United States, said Sunday he would guarantee the safety of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar if he was prepared to negotiate.

With the Taliban insurgency intensifying seven years after the hardline Islamists were forced from power, the possibility of talks with more moderate Taliban leaders is increasingly being considered, both in Afghanistan and among its allies.

The Afghan government says it is willing to talk to anyone who recognizes the constitution.

The Taliban have ruled out any talks as long as foreign troops remain in Afghanistan. Karzai said Sunday that condition was unacceptable.

Mullah Brother, deputy leader of the Taliban, rejected Karzai's offer of safe passage and again said foreign troops had to leave before negotiations could start.

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Of course, if the foreign troops left the Taliban would have even less of an incentive to talk. They would have accomplished their major objective without making any concession and would be in position to take over the government and continue their genocide against those who do not accept their weird religious beliefs.

Karzai's offer puzzles me. The only rationale I can think of for such an offer is that the Taliban had said they would not engage in talks because they feared they would be captured or killed by the coalition. I suppose that is a reasonable fear since that has happened to many Taliban leaders, but none under a flag of truce.

I suspect the Taliban are engaging in projection of what they would do under similar circumstances. Since they mostly behead prisoners or hold them for ransom they probably cannot conceive of an honorable truce negotiation.

That does not explain why Karzai is so bent on negotiations. The Taliban are a nihilistic enemy. Their belief system is based on intolerence of those who disagree with their weird religious belief. They just do not strike me as people who would negotiate in good faith or operate in good faith once an agreement might be made. In other words the negotiations are a fools errand.