The Daily - Making Peace With the Taliban

Episode Date: February 4, 2019

Nearly 18 years ago, the United States declared war on the Taliban, promising to drive it from power in Afghanistan. Here’s a look at why American officials are now offering peace to the same group. Guest: Mujib Mashal, a New York Times senior correspondent in Afghanistan. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily.

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. Today. Eighteen years ago, the U.S. declared war on the Taliban, promising to drive it from power in Afghanistan. Mujib Mashal on why we are now offering peace to the same group. It's Monday, February 4th. I come to you this evening to discuss the extremely important and rapidly changing circumstances in Southwest Asia.

rapidly changing circumstances in southwest Asia. 50,000 heavily armed Soviet troops have crossed the border and are now dispersed throughout Afghanistan. Mujib, remind us how the Taliban came to rule in Afghanistan. So it was in a space where... This invasion is an extremely serious threat to peace. The Soviet Union was trying to install a government and control Afghanistan. It is a deliberate effort of a powerful atheistic government to subjugate an independent Islamic people.

And the U.S. and the CIA was funneling money to resist that. And if they maintain their dominance over Afghanistan and then extend their control to adjacent countries, the stable, strategic, and peaceful balance of the entire world will be changed. When they first came down this road in December 1979, few Russians realized it would take more than nine years to get back again. Once the Soviets were pushed out... The Soviets withdrew, defeated in 1989.

By that guerrilla effort the CIA was funding. Many Soviets will ask of Afghanistan, what was it all for? All those guerrilla fighters started fighting each other over power. The country quickly disintegrated into civil war. And with the Russians gone, the Americans lost interest in Afghanistan. There's murder, looting, everything. And out of that emerges a group of sort of village mullahs trying to rally for order and security and justice.

The Taliban emerged as this kind of altruistic group which wanted to bring peace to Afghanistan, and initially they were very popular. And because there's so much anarchy and chaos, they're pretty well received, and they sweep across the country pretty quickly. But once they do take over most of the country, they are stuck with this realization,

how do we govern now? They had no experience in governing. Now we have control of these areas, people must pray five times a day, and anything recognized as a vice must be stopped. So they try to focus on what was most important to them, which was religious beliefs and piety. The way to salvation is to stop our young and old people committing sins like shaving beards, chewing tobacco, smoking cigarettes or crimes like robbery. They try to control how long your beard is, how short your hair is, whether women cover up enough, where they show any ankle.

Women should not walk on the streets or go to the shops. They should stay at home and wear hijabs. Television, music, photography, all those things they take away. But on service delivery, on health, sanitation and all that stuff, they were stuck. They didn't know what to do. The United States launched an attack this morning on one of the most active terrorist bases in the world. So the U.S. started paying attention again. It is located in Afghanistan and operated by groups affiliated with Osama bin Laden. When some of the actors that he was

following elsewhere, people like bin Laden of Al-Qaeda. Terrorism is one of the greatest dangers we face in this new global era. Found their way to the space that the Taliban had created in Afghanistan. We saw its twisted mentality at work last week in the embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. And what does the U.S. want from the Taliban when it comes to people like bin Laden and the group he represents, al-Qaeda? Well, the U.S. wanted the Taliban to surrender bin Laden. And the U.S., under Clinton, carried out a few strikes that barely missed bin Laden. But the pressure wasn't to a level that kind of made the Taliban pause

and make that their only calculation. Do we give up bin Laden or do we not? That calculation changed after the attacks on 9-11. The attacks were carried out and planned by al-Qaeda and by bin Laden out of Afghanistan. So as an act of revenge and retaliation, the Bush administration gave the Taliban an ultimatum. More than two weeks ago, I gave Taliban leaders a series of clear and specific demands. Close terrorist training camps, hand over leaders of the al-Qaeda network, and return all foreign nationals, including American citizens unjustly detained in your country.

None of these demands were met. And now the Taliban will pay a price. Missile explosions light up the nighttime skies. Anti-aircraft tracers streak over the capital city Kabul. And specifically, what was the Taliban's role in the planning and the execution of the September 11th attacks? There's decent consensus that most of the Taliban were not aware of the specifics of what bin Laden and al-Qaeda were planning, cooking up. So what the Taliban ended up kind of providing was the protection for a guy who had a history of doing things like this. And that history suggests that he was probably going to do it again. And despite that, they had harbored him.

So that's what came to bite them. On my orders, the United States military has begun strikes against al-Qaeda terrorist training camps and military installations of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. When the U.S. undertakes this military action in Afghanistan, what kind of distinction does it make between al-Qaeda, which has waged the attack, and the Taliban, which has given al-Qaeda refuge? There is no distinction. The military action we are taking will be targeted against places we know to be involved in the al-Qaeda network of terror or against the military apparatus of the Taliban. We are joined in this operation by our staunch friend, Great Britain.

Other close friends, including Canada, Australia, Germany and France, have pledged forces as the operation unfolds. We're talking about a government of largely simple mullahs who are all of a sudden finding themselves in the middle of one of the biggest stories in the world. More than 40 countries in the Middle East, Africa, Europe and across Asia have granted air transit or landing rights. We are supported by the collective will of the world. It is a complete sense of retaliation. And the Taliban didn't put up much of a resistance, actually. They've never faced the kind of power that they faced from U.S. air campaign. The jets flying overhead, the size of the bombs,

and the frequency of the airstrikes. They started running pretty quickly. And at that moment, something happens that could have changed the course of this war pretty early on. Which is what? which is what? Some of their most important leaders draw up a letter, which essentially is a surrender letter for very, very minimal demands,

which is they wanted safety in return for surrender. And they sent that letter that they drafted to Hamid Karzai, who had just been appointed as an interim president of Afghanistan. So they sent this letter to him saying, hey, we don't think we can win anymore. We're done, we want safety in return for this. And our understanding is that Hamid Karzai communicated that message to the Pentagon and to the American officials he was in contact with. And what happened was the signal that came back was a pretty clear signal from Donald Rumsfeld, who was the Secretary of Defense at the time, saying, we do not talk to terrorists. We are not authorizing, if anyone wonders, negotiations which would result in freeing

of people that ought not to be free, freeing of people who kill other people as terrorists, freeing of people who have a record of harboring terrorists. We are not in the business of authorizing any kind of negotiation which would let people like that go. So what was the Bush administration's thinking in so quickly rejecting this offer to end the war and enter some kind of negotiation with the Taliban? Well, we have to remember that all of this is happening in a matter of weeks after those massive attacks. So in the psyche, in the American psyche, but also in the calculation of the Bush administration, there's a lot of sense of hurt and revenge and all of that. So they are running on that kind of an energy. How do we retaliate in a way that makes it clear we

won't tolerate something like this again? And partially because the nature of the Taliban defeat was so swift that one could see why the U.S. would want a pure victory. That if this government of the Taliban has collapsed in just a matter of weeks, then why not finish it off and you can have the full glory? And that was the launch of what has become the 17-year bloody war. We'll be right back. in one of the most violent regions of the country, left six American soldiers... Just this morning, a suicide bomber killed 32 people in an attack in eastern Afghanistan. The body of Staff Sergeant Chester McBride came home today. A new report from the United Nations says civilian casualties of the war in Afghanistan have risen to record levels in the last year. As Commander-in-Chief, I have determined that it is in our vital national interest

to send an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan. In Afghanistan, enemy sniper teams attack U.S. Marines and Afghan troops as several gun battles erupted Monday. The financial and human cost of the war in Afghanistan has gone up every year over the past five years. No one denies that we have inherited a challenging and troubling situation in Afghanistan. The war in Afghanistan now entering its 18th year. The American people are weary of war without victory. The war in Afghanistan has cost America

the lives of more than 2,200 U.S. troops and $1 trillion U.S. dollars. Yet the Taliban now holds more territory than at any time since the invasion. Mujib, how is it that the Taliban remained such a potent fighting force in this period, despite the military might of the U.S. and its coalition allies? I mean, it seems almost inconceivable. The most important factor is that the Taliban had a safe haven across the border in Pakistan in a place where they could not be targeted. They could take rest, they could plan,

they could be trained, and they could be supplied, they could come back. And that problem of safe havens just did not change at all in 17 years. That was one problem. The second thing was that we're talking about a place where there was no government structures. The U.S. turned to warlords, to militia leaders, to politicians who didn't have a great track record as their partners. And the power and the money and the weapons that went to them, they abused all of that. That created grievances, that created space for the Taliban to exploit and to recruit from and to rally against what was this American-funded project in Afghanistan. And during these years, as the Taliban insurgency is growing in strength and effectiveness, does the U.S. at all reconsider the possibility

of negotiating with them, of sitting down and starting to think through what a peace deal might look like with them? For a good decade, the U.S. had a military-first policy. The idea of talking to the Taliban was not entertained much. And why did that military-first approach last for so long? Was it U.S. national pride? Was it still smoldering anger at the Taliban over September 11th?

What was keeping the U.S. from acknowledging what seems like the reality of the Taliban's reach and power and threat? I think it was a mix of all those things. If you talk to diplomats and commanders and officials who were involved during those years, they would say initially the military hubris and pride in this greatest military in the world wanting to tackle this problem and going at it head on, that kicked in. So that decade then became a mindset that the military was so heavily invested in this place. An entire generation of military leaders kind of grew up in this war that for them, admitting, not even defeat, admitting to the weakness that they couldn't tackle this problem militarily. It was a big roadblock that it was hard for them to cross.

So what began as we refuse to negotiate with the Taliban because of what they have been a part of became, we refuse to lose to the Taliban. Absolutely. And now it has become, we won't lose this war and you can win this war either. Until, I guess, now. Until now. The United States is eager to end its nearly 18-year involvement in the war in Afghanistan, which has killed tens of thousands of civilian soldiers and Taliban fighters. Our Secretary of State, Mr. Pompeo, has said that we, the United States, are ready to talk with the Taliban

and discuss the role of international forces. Now... The United States will support, facilitate, and participate in these peace discussions. The American military commanders are talking more about peace than civilians sometimes. It feels a little odd. And we'll see what happens, but we are talking about peace. I don't know that they're going to be successful. Maybe they're not. Probably they're not. Who knows?

They might be, they might not be. You know my attitude on all of that stuff, whether it's North Korea or anybody else. Maybe they are going to be successful. Maybe they're not going to be. But we have negotiations going on right now in Afghanistan. So, Mujib, what do these negotiations that the U.S. is now having with the Taliban look like? So you've got a pretty large size of American diplomats and officials in the room across the table from a decently sized Taliban delegation and a couple Qatari diplomats in there sort of mediating and facilitating. And they've been going at it for hours and hours, some sessions lasting eight,

nine hours. What has changed now is that the Taliban side comes with a little more authority where they engage in discussions of limited couple issues. And those two issues are the American withdrawal of their forces in return for the American demand of the Taliban, that the Taliban guarantee that the Afghan soil would not be used again by terrorists like al-Qaeda to attack the United States. So how different is that deal from what the Taliban was offering when it wrote that letter in 2001 to Karzai in the U.S.? In terms of what the outcome ends up being in practical terms for the U.S. and for the U.S. national security interests. It is pretty similar, but in terms of the spirit, this perception, back then it would have been a defeated Taliban offering a surrender. Now you've got a Taliban trying to negotiate the best terms they can out of a pretty strong position against an American government that is in a hurry to get out.

diplomats who are negotiating for President Trump at that table are moving with a kind of urgency where everybody else is saying, this is an American withdrawal. This is Americans trying to create as much a face saving for leaving a war they could not win as possible. So it's kind of the same deal for the Taliban that they offered 17 years ago, but arguably a significantly worse deal for the Taliban that they offered 17 years ago, but arguably a significantly worse deal for the United States? The same deal in terms of what the Taliban are conceding, but not the same deal because the Taliban at the time would be conceding at a defeat, but now they would be conceding in return for pretty good terms. And the nature of those terms, that is what is creating concern now,

is that the U.S. is so entirely focused on these two issues, but the Taliban are willing to give these to the U.S. pretty easily because they have their eye on the real prize. Which is what? Which is their role in the future of Afghanistan, how much share of the power they'll get. future of Afghanistan, how much share of the power they'll get. And they think if they can satisfy the U.S. and the U.S. starts wrapping up here, they will only get more than what they already think they can get in Afghanistan. Because the Afghan government side is so dependent on the U.S., both financially, militarily, but also in this perception of having a strong bulwark of a partner in the U.S. And the U.S. is signaling such rush and such urgency to get out that it's leaving them

vulnerable on all those fronts. So the U.S. is negotiating primarily with the Taliban, it sounds like you're saying, and kind of cutting out the Afghan government that it supported for 17 years. That's intriguing. Yes, yes. And partially that was because the Taliban for a long time had that as their main demand, that they would only negotiate with those who overthrew them, which was the U.S. military. And even conceding to that demand of the Taliban, that they would only negotiate with the U.S. first. A lot of people are seeing in that the signs of how desperate the U.S. is and how slippery its negotiating positions are in this effort to secure a disengagement from this costly, long conflict.

So we are negotiating with the Taliban now on their own terms? On their own terms, basically. And how has that left the people in Afghanistan feeling? I have to imagine you talk to people, your friends, your neighbors, your family about this. What do they think about the fact that the U.S. is negotiating with the Taliban and negotiating as the Taliban wants these negotiations to go? We need to remember that when the Taliban first started, they came off the back of this anarchy. And although they were an oppressive group,

they brought people physical safety. In the past 17 years, and increasingly more and more so, the Taliban have resorted to tactics that have been absolutely brutal. Afghanistan has seen a recent surge of deadly violence. The Taliban claiming responsibility for a suicide bombing overnight, at least 63 people dead and 151 others injured. Officials say the attacker driving an ambulance packed with explosives through security checkpoints,

detonating the bombs when police recognized him. Explosives and ambulances that blow up in a public roundabout, killing dozens and dozens of people. The Taliban has claimed responsibility for the attack. This morning's blast comes one week after a Taliban attack on a hotel in the city. Six people died after an attack on a children's aid agency. Afghanistan this morning have killed 19 security personnel. Officials say eight of them were gunned down by... The following day, more than 10 Afghan soldiers died during an assault on a military academy. It was the 15th attack in Kabul in the past 12 months, the deadliest since 2001.

The kind of bloody attacks that people will not forget. the kind of bloody attacks that people will not forget. So on the one hand, when people think that this group will return to have a share of the power, all of the brutality that they've been associated with in recent years will be very fresh. On the other hand, you have parts of the country where the values and the freedoms and the luxuries that came with the past 17 years of attention and money that came to the urban areas and the cities to build this new democratic Afghanistan as an alternative to Taliban. There are large parts of the country that those values, that money, that attention did not trickle down to. And in those parts, the only thing that has trickled in the past 17 years has been the violence and the bombing.

So for them, they just want it to end. Because it makes little difference whether it is the government of Ashraf Ghani or if it's the Taliban that's in power. I wonder, has the Taliban become more of a terrorist group, more of a deadly, lethal force now than when the U.S. dismissed them in 2001 as a terror group that it wouldn't negotiate with? And is that perhaps in part because of the war

that it's waged against the U.S. and its allies? Absolutely. There's no doubt about that. So if we are giving the Taliban a peace deal now, or are on the verge of giving them a peace deal, when they are more violent than when this all started in 2001, and when we dismissed them and said, no, we won't talk to you because we think of you as terrorists, what was the point of this almost 20-year-long war? and said, no, we won't talk to you because we think of you as terrorists.

What was the point of this almost 20-year-long war? Precisely. That is a question where a lot of people are asking. And the only way out of this war, when you talk to American officials, is if they gave the Taliban a public justification that the war that they have waged, the insurgency that they fought for 17 years, was justified and worth it. And it seems like the Americans are willing to give them that to find a way out of this.

And it raises the question, what did the United States then fight for here for 17 years. Majib, thank you very much. Thank you, Michael. In an interview with CBS's Margaret Brennan, broadcast on Sunday, President Trump said that the U.S. was close to a peace deal with the Taliban. And I think that they want, I think they're tired. And I think everybody's tired.

We had to get out of these endless wars and bring our folks back home. Now, that doesn't mean we're not going to be watching with intelligence. We're going to be watching and watching closely. Brennan asked the president what would happen if al-Qaeda or any other terror group returned to Afghanistan after U.S. troops leave. And you know what we'll do? We'll come back if we have to. We have very fast airplanes. We have very good cargo planes. We can come back very quickly.

Here's what else you need to know today. Is there anything he can do that would somehow convince you to give him more time in office? The governor of Virginia, Ralph Northam, is rejecting calls from fellow Democrats that he resign after the revelation of a racist photograph on his medical school yearbook page. No, and I consider Ralph a friend. We were elected to the state senate at the same time. But look, he's lost the authority to lead. He's lost the authority to govern. He has to resign.

It's in the best interest of the Commonwealth. It's in the best interest of the party. The photograph of one man wearing blackface, the other a Ku Klux Klan hood, was discovered by a local blogger on Friday, prompting a written apology from Northam. But on Saturday, Northam reversed himself during a news conference, saying he had not appeared in the photo

and was unsure how it ended up on his yearbook page. When I was confronted with the images yesterday, I was appalled that they appeared on my page. But I believe then and now that I am not either of the people in that photo. By Sunday, almost every major Democratic leader in the country, as well as the head of the NAACP, had called on Northam to step down, saying the decision to put the photo on his yearbook page, whether he was in the photo or not, made it impossible for him to represent Virginia as governor.

So just to be clear, if it turned out that he's not in that photo, that wasn't him in the photo, and he had nothing to do with that photo going on his page, he was there as a mix-up as he seemed to indicate at the press conference yesterday, that would make no difference to you? At this juncture, no. You know, he finished medical school, received a yearbook with a racist picture on his page in the yearbook, and he has said nothing about it. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.