Words, Not War – Obama Needs to Support Talks with the Taliban in Afghanistan

Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai is in Washington this week meeting with President Barack Obama and other officials. A big part of the agenda is Karzai’s desire to garner Obama’s support for negotiations with the Taliban in Afghanistan. The Taliban are not choirboys, but then neither is anyone else with any power in that war-ravaged country, including us. Almost all wars end with negotiations, and now is as good a time for them as any.

Peace Action and our coalition partners the Friends Committee on National Legislation, Just Foreign Policy and ten other groups have sent a letter to President Obama and placed an ad in Politico calling on President Obama to say “yes” to negotiations.

The letter begins with the following:

Dear President Obama:

President Hamid Karzai’s visit to Washington this week will mark a critical juncture for U.S. policy in the war in Afghanistan.

After conducting “talks about talks” with Taliban leaders and intermediaries for more than a year, President Karzai will seek U.S. support to launch Afghan national reconciliation talks that include the Afghan Taliban. We strongly urge you to agree. Hindering Afghan efforts to resolve their differences can only prolong the war and increase its human suffering and material costs.

Also, this week is a call-in week to Congress urging an end to the war, here is our action alert.