When last I heard from Gen. David McKiernan, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, it was early October and he was only grudgingly in favor of supporting
“„Ultimately this will be a political solution, ultimately people will decide to stop fighting and come together for a better future. So I think the idea of reconciliation — or whatever term we want to use, that’s a very Western term, not an Afghan term — the idea of reconciliation, the idea of fighters putting down their weapons and agreeing to support a legitimate constitution of Afghanistan I think is a very powerful weapon and something that ought to be pursued.
“„I like to refer to the Taliban as Taliban with a small ‘t’ — those who pick up weapons and fight for the Taliban because they are either unemployed, they are fighting for intra-tribal reasons, they are fighting because their family is intimidated, they are fighting for reasons of power, a variety of reasons — and to the Taliban with a capital ‘t,’ those who perhaps fight for ideological reasons.