Oswald in the doorway: the blog of the Oswald Innocence Campaign, by Ralph Cinque

Back to Afghanistan, the 7 day "reduction in violence" is underway, and Trump says that if it holds, he'll sign the peace treaty with the Taliban on February 29. But, President Ghani has ordered that he be sworn in for his next term two days before that, on February 27.

https://ariananews.af/ghani-to-take-oath-of-office-as-president-thursday/

Now, the Taliban have agreed to hold "intra-Afghan talks" but they keep believing that Afghanistan is a believing nation that wants an Islamic government. And regardless, they hate Ghani; they don't recognize him as President, and the future Afghanistan that they foresee does not include him as President. 

So, the first thing they are going to say at the intra-Afghan talks is that Ghani has to go. And then Ghani will say that he's not going. And that is going ignite conflict on a major scale. 

Now, is it possible that Trump, Pompeo, and Esper are too stupid to realize that that is going to happen? Even they have to realize that it's looming. So, what are they thinking? What we don't know is how much money they have promised the Taliban to rebuild the country. In 1973, at the Paris Peace Accords, Henry Kissinger promised the Vietcong billions of dollars -and that was 1973 billions, not 2020 billions, which are a lot less billious. So, you know that there must a huge green poultice involved this time as well. So maybe they think they can coax the Taliban to accept Ghani on some basis by offering them even more money? If so, I'll be very surprised if it works. The Taliban have said all along: ALL OCCUPIERS AND THEIR PUPPETS MUST GO. 

So, what I'm saying is that for peace to have a chance, Ghani has to step down. I think they can probably get a commitment from the Taliban not to kill him. But, he can't be President in a government that the Taliban is going to accept. 

The best to hope for is to form a new government, and it will have religious leanings, but hope that at the same time it shows some tolerance, and that the Taliban is willing to make some concessions  for the sake of inclusiveness. That's all there is to hope for. Hoping that the Taliban is going to accept Ghani is a pipe dream. There is no chance of that. 

So, when the time comes, will we inform Ghani that he needs to step down for the sake of peace? We might. It's very possible that we will. But, it's also very possible that he'll tell us to go fuck ourselves. And I think we know that too. But then, if war resumes between the Afghan government and the Taliban, we can say, "it's between them now; it's not our fight." Yet, NATO has said that they are going to continue to support Ghani even if the U.S. doesn't. And that's OK with us too. This is about Donald Trump delivering a campaign promise to get us out of there. If he does it, then whatever happens afterwards is a different narrative, as far as he's concerned. 

So, how are the chances looking for peace? Not too good. I certainly wouldn't bet on it. It's going to take a miracle.