http://www.deliberatelyconsidered.com/2010/09/from-the-head-of-state-a-call-to-action/ Informed reflection on the events of the day Wed, 15 Jul 2015 17:00:00 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.4.23 http://www.deliberatelyconsidered.com/2010/09/from-the-head-of-state-a-call-to-action/comment-page-1/#comment-386 Fri, 08 Oct 2010 02:46:20 +0000 http://www.deliberatelyconsidered.com/?p=245#comment-386 I despise this war. When will the bloodshed stop? Seems more like it’ll never end.

]]> http://www.deliberatelyconsidered.com/2010/09/from-the-head-of-state-a-call-to-action/comment-page-1/#comment-165 Wed, 29 Sep 2010 02:09:57 +0000 http://www.deliberatelyconsidered.com/?p=245#comment-165 A “peace council” established Tuesday by Afghan President Hamid Karzai to negotiate with the Taliban includes the man who is thought to have invited Osama bin Laden to Afghanistan and another who served as a mentor to the mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks.The High Council for Peace’s inclusion of former warlords and ex-Taliban officials is seen by some as antithetical to the body’s goal of ending the 9-year-old insurgency. Sixty-eight of the council’s 70 members have been announced.”Many of these men are unlikely peacemakers,” said Rachel Reid, an Afghan-based Human Rights Watch analyst. “There are too many names here that Afghans will associate with war crimes, warlordism and corruption.”those names include Ustad Abdul Rabi Rasul Sayyaf, a former mujahedeen commander who is thought to have invited bin Laden to Afghanistan after the al Qaeda leader was expelled from Sudan in 1996, and Abdul Hakim Mujahid, who served as the Taliban’s permanent representative to the United Nations.In setting up the peace council, Mr. Karzai on Tuesday formalized efforts to reconcile with Taliban leaders and coax less-ideological fighters off the battlefield. His spokesman, Waheed Omar, described the council as the “sole body to take care of peace tals,” according to an Associated Press report.Meanwhile, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, said Tuesday that some Taliban members have made “overtures” to NATO forces and the Kabul government about ending their insurgency.But those overtures seemed rendered moot by a suicide bomb attack that killed a provincial official and five others in Ghazni province in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday. Deputy Gov. Khazim Allahyar was killed when one of two vehicles in a convoy carrying him was rammed by a bomber operating a motorized rickshaw laden with explosives.Mr. Allahyar’s son, nephew, a bodyguard and two civilians were also killed, and eight other people were seriously injured.On a day when his peace council was to have been the focus of the news, Mr. Karzai was brought to tears in decrying the violence and expressed the fear that young Afghans will eventually seek to flee their country to escape the mayhem.The council also includes Mohammed Mohaqiq, who fought with the Taliban, and former Presidents Sibghatullah Mojadeddi and Burhanuddin Rabbani. Mr. Mohaqiq and Mr. Rabbani have been implicated in war crimes by several Afghan and international human rights groups.

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