Word: qaeda
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...under the Taliban banner. The London conference roundly endorsed a reconciliation fund aimed at wooing Taliban fighters to cross sides, while Pakistan and other regional players are pressing for some form of power-sharing deal to be negotiated with the movement's leaders if they cut ties with al-Qaeda. Such talk has Afghan women fearing that their own hard-won freedoms could be in jeopardy. "As we see the Taliban coming back, what will happen to the women of Afghanistan?" asked Mary Akrami, director of the Afghan Women Skills Development Centre, in a meeting in Westminster before the summit...
...Your bosses are sociopaths! A bunch of Ted Bundys in $10,000 suits!" The words were hurled by an unnamed Democratic Congressman at a bank lobbyist who must also remain anonymous. Suffice it to say the lobbyist is getting used to hostile greetings. "We get it: we're al-Qaeda, and nobody wants to be seen with us," he says. "Obviously, we're going to take some abuse in 2010." Like most bank lobbyists, he says he supports financial reform - as long as it doesn't include a consumer agency or a bunch of other provisions that Obama supports...
...clear that there are going to be many takers. And the Taliban leadership has demands of its own: while Mullah Omar has lately been promising that a Taliban regime would not threaten the security of any other state in the world (translation: no sanctuary for al-Qaeda), he and those around him insist that there can be talks only when Western armies agree to leave Afghanistan. And, of course, the Taliban leaders believe they have the wind at their backs, while the U.S. is reaching for an exit strategy. U.S. officials insist the insurgents won't be interested in compromise...
America went to war in 2001 to rid Afghanistan not only of al-Qaeda but also of an extremist Taliban regime that viciously abused its own people. But as the international community prepares to gather in London on Thursday to plot an endgame for the eight-year conflict, it is becoming increasingly clear that the war will end with the Taliban being restored to some measure of power. Indeed, the strategic purpose of President Obama's troop surge now appears primarily to be setting the table for an acceptable compromise with the Taliban...
...leaders and urging Washington to do the same. Pakistan hopes to orchestrate a political settlement in which the Taliban and other Pakistan-friendly Pashtuns would be given far greater influence in a new regime but would agree to share power with other communities and cut ties with al-Qaeda...