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French Surrendering in Afghanistan?

James Joyner
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French defense minister Bernard Kouchner said yesterday that “We should accept the result of the forthcoming elections whatever it is,” adding, “If nationalist-minded Taliban come to power through the ballot-box and respect the constitution, that is the Afghans’ business.”

To be sure, he added an important caveat: “What we reject is support for international jihad.”  Still, as I ask in my New Atlanticist essay “Afghanistan: Time to Give Up?,” “If the Taliban’s return to power is an acceptable outcome, what the hell have our forces been fighting and dying for these past seven years?”

Even the American general in charge of ISAF, David McKiernan, acknowledges that we’re “not winning” over there right now.  But are we really prepared to simply give up and go home?

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3 responses to “French Surrendering in Afghanistan?”

  1. Michael Avatar
    Michael

    Would you similarly view an electoral victory by the Baath party in Iraq to be a failure of everything we’ve worked for there?

  2. James Joyner Avatar
    James Joyner

    Would you similarly view an electoral victory by the Baath party in Iraq to be a failure of everything we’ve worked for there?

    If it were going to govern by extreme rules of sharia and not observe human rights in any meaningful sense, absolutely.

    If the Nazis were still running Germany after WWII, I’d call that failure, too, in case you were wondering. Ditto if the British royal family maintained sovereignty of the USA after the War for Independence.

  3. Michael Avatar
    Michael

    If it were going to govern by extreme rules of sharia and not observe human rights in any meaningful sense, absolutely.

    Not exactly tenets of the Baath party. But anyway, I just wanted clarification as to whether you were opposed to the Taliban party, or the former Taliban party’s methods of governing, and I got that.

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