U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Afghan Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak (right) talk to reporters in Kabul in March. Are Western media seeing the problems of Afghanistan through a lens of self-interest?
October 22, 2010
KABUL -- Behind the high walls of Kabul's tightly guarded government offices and diplomatic missions, peace and reconciliation are the new buzz words.
International media coverage of Afghanistan echoes with stories about how Afghan officials and NATO are making progress reaching out to -- and even talking to -- Taliban commanders, some of whom have reportedly been given safe passage to Kabul.
Most such stories are based on unnamed sources and paint a confusing picture, leaving readers in the West wondering whether a final settlement with the Taliban is around the corner.
International media coverage of Afghanistan echoes with stories about how Afghan officials and NATO are making progress reaching out to -- and even talking to -- Taliban commanders, some of whom have reportedly been given safe passage to Kabul.
Most such stories are based on unnamed sources and paint a confusing picture, leaving readers in the West wondering whether a final settlement with the Taliban is around the corner.
But miles away from official Kabul live former members of the Taliban regime, and they paint a very different picture. In homes guarded closely by Afghan intelligence agents in the dusty streets of western Kabul, live former Taliban Foreign Minister Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil and former Taliban diplomat and minister Abdul Salam Zaif. Both see peace as being a long way off.
Muttawakil and Zaif were incarcerated by the Americans, with Zaif spending more than four years in Guantanamo. They say that the recent formation of the High Peace Council means that the Taliban knows who to talk to about reconciliation within the Afghan government. But in their view, reaching a final settlement would require a variety of actors -- Afghan, international, and regional -- to come to terms. And that, they say, won't be easy to achieve.
Muttawakil and Zaif reject the widely reported notions in the media that reclusive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar is now a marginal actor to any negotiations, or that the hard-line movement is divided into several independent factions and not controlled by a central leadership. Drawing on unnamed Afghan and international officials, international media have recently reported that the Taliban leader has been explicitly left out of current negotiations because of his close ties to the Pakistani security services.
http://www.rferl.org/content/Getting_Afghanistan_Wrong/2198697.html
Muttawakil and Zaif were incarcerated by the Americans, with Zaif spending more than four years in Guantanamo. They say that the recent formation of the High Peace Council means that the Taliban knows who to talk to about reconciliation within the Afghan government. But in their view, reaching a final settlement would require a variety of actors -- Afghan, international, and regional -- to come to terms. And that, they say, won't be easy to achieve.
Muttawakil and Zaif reject the widely reported notions in the media that reclusive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar is now a marginal actor to any negotiations, or that the hard-line movement is divided into several independent factions and not controlled by a central leadership. Drawing on unnamed Afghan and international officials, international media have recently reported that the Taliban leader has been explicitly left out of current negotiations because of his close ties to the Pakistani security services.
http://www.rferl.org/content/Getting_Afghanistan_Wrong/2198697.html