Taliban Left With the Old Left Hand

It seems that the push is on, from various officials and leaders in Afghanistan, to treat the Taliban as something other than a caste of Untouchables when it comes to discussing the future of that ill-starred country. (Well, maybe not so "ill-starred", since they managed to eke out a victory over the Russians, the way North Vietnam eked out a victory over the U.S., albeit with a little help from their friends.) This notion has, of course, caused great consternation in Neocon/internationalist ranks, because, after all, there are certain people, and groups, that one simply never talks to. Better to bomb them back to the (take your pick) Age. Plus, the Taliban in particular represent everything the true-believing internationist is not -- they are "theocratic", absolutist, "Medieval", dogmatic, provincial, "primitive", and haven't yet discovered the benefits of personal hygiene.

And it never ceases to amaze Americans, with their "unconditional surrender" mindset, how, for example, the South Koreans have no trouble sitting down and talking with a civil tongue to the North Koreans... or how, to give an even more extreme case, the post-Khmer Rouge government of Cambodia included, and continues to include, quite a few suspiciously Rouge-ish characters. Our point of view is somewhat different, of course. No one who ever so much as served a beer to a Nazi was allowed within a hundred miles of the postwar German government... and ditto the Japanese militarist warlord samurai. They had to be driven out with a flaming sword (much to the benefit of Paraguay, in the case of the Nazis) and never ever -- no, never! -- given a voice in any government ever again. That's the American way. Sow the ground from which they sprang with salt, is the rule. And it's funny how a society such as ours, with all of its moral and ethical relativism, can be so absolutist and dogmatic when it comes to _other_ people's societies. They must be kept pure, and virginal, even if ours is a moral and ethical crazy quilt. They must be prime rib, even if we are sausage. But, of course, they live there and we don't (no matter who you're talking about) and maybe, just maybe, they know something we don't -- like for instance how to survive, and how to build coalitions (or at least uneasy truces). And thus the latest enormity, by which the Taliban are being invited in out of the cold, asked to shed their sheepskins and AK-47s, and spoken to -- "consulted", even! And to further the insult, some of our allies, e.g. the British, are not as bothered by the notion as they ought to be. Ah, it's nice to have, still, after all these years, the vast oceans to divide us from the hardscrabble realities of the "Third World". Western Europe is under assault by vast, unwashed hordes of Moslems... kind of the way we are vis-a-vis Latin Americans, in fact, and we're working out compromises with them every day of the week. So maybe the Taliban are just juvenile delinquents who need a hug; who knows? In any case it's still another test of American parochialism vis-a-vis the other hemisphere, and we're failing as usual. "They can't talk with 'our' enemies!" But of course no one ever asks why they're "our" enemies and not the enemies of the people who live in those same countries. Ah yes, our ham-handed diplomacy, which served us so well as long as we held all the cards, is starting to look a bit silly to the rest of the world. We're also telling the Iraqis that they can't throw us out because... well, they just can't, that's all. We invaded their country, made great sacrifices, and now we're in charge -- can't they see that? And just wait until they appeal to the U.N.! The laughter coming from the White House will echo across the entire Mall. The problem is, one of these days someone is going to say, "Thanks, but no thanks", and we're not going to be able to back up our argument to the contrary. This will be the real beginning of the end of the American Empire.