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Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Michael Mullen, warned Congress in September that, "We can't kill our way to 'victory', and no armed force anywhere -- no matter how good -- can deliver these keys alone."
"It is not possible to win this or succeed in Afghanistan militarily alone," Mullen told soldiers in a February speech. "It has to be met with a commensurate surge from other agencies, particularly the State Department, in order for us to start generating success in 2009, which is a critical year," he said.
Perhaps the most controversial aspects of that diplomacy has been openly broached in an extraordinarily civil discussion by military and administration officials of the prospect of 'outreach' and 'negotiation' with 'moderate' and 'peaceful' elements of the Taliban in an attempt to dissuade them away from their support and assistance to the militarized resistance elements in the country.
The discussion began in response to questions about the ceasefire negotiated by the Pakistan government with Taliban in the Swat region in their country in an effort to halt the seemingly unending, corrosive cycle of violent attacks and reprisals. SoD Gates was asked about the deal and replied that: "If there is a reconciliation, if insurgents are willing to put down their arms, if the reconciliation is essentially on the terms being offered by the government then I think we would be very open to that."
President Obama echoed the SoD's openness to conciliation in Afghanistan, telling the NYT that, "There may be some comparable opportunities in Afghanistan and the Pakistani region, but the situation in Afghanistan is, if anything, more complex."
"If you talk to General Petraeus, I think he would argue that part of the success in Iraq involved reaching out to people that we would consider to be Islamic fundamentalists, but who were willing to work with us because they had been completely alienated by the tactics of al-Qaeda in Iraq," Obama said. "The Taliban is bolder than it was. I think ... in the southern regions of the country, you're seeing them attack us in ways that we have not seen previously."
"The national government still has not gained the confidence of the Afghan people. And so it's going to be critical for us to not only, get through these national elections to stabilize the security situation, but we've got to recast our policy so that our military, diplomatic and development goals are all aligned to ensure that al-Qaeda and extremists that would do us harm don't have the kinds of safe havens that allow them to operate," President Obama said.
Vice Pres. Biden provided the most comprehensive opinion of the administration's view of the 'way forward' in Afghanistan in his remarks at the NATO press conference Tuesday. "Five-percent of the Taliban is incorrigible, not susceptible to anything other than being defeated. Another 25 percent or so are not quite sure, in my view, the intensity of their commitment to the insurgency," he said. "And roughly 70 percent are involved because of the money, because of them being -- getting paid.
"To state the obvious, as you know, the Taliban, most of whom are Pashtun -- you have 60 percent of the Pashtun population in Pakistan; only 40 percent live in Afghanistan. The objectives that flow from Kandahar may be different than Quetta, may be different than the FATA. So it's worth exploring," Biden told reporters.
"I think the President is accurate; we are not now winning the war, but the war is far from lost -- number one," Biden continued. "Number two, with regard to the experience, it is different, but not wholly different. We engaged in Iraq the most extreme elements of the Sunni resistance in Anbar Province. We ended up with an operation called the Sons of Iraq, because we accurately determined, as some of us had pointed out in numerous visits there, that the idea that every Sunni was a supporter of -- every Sunni insurgent was a supporter of al Qaeda was simply not true -- simply not true," Biden said.
"The idea of what concessions would be made is well beyond the scope of my being able to answer, except to say that whatever is initiated will have to be ultimately initiated by the Afghan government, and will have to be such that it would not undermine a legitimate Afghan government," Biden said. "But I do think it is worth engaging and determining whether or not there are those who are willing to participate in a secure and stable Afghan state."
"Whether or not it will bear as much fruit remains to be seen," Biden concluded. "There's only one way, and that is to engage -- engage in the process, looking for pragmatic solutions to accomplishing what our goal is; that is an Afghanistan that is, at minimum goal, is not a haven for terror and is able to sustain itself on its own and provide its own security."
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