Welcoming the Taliban with open arms: Defectors and deception in Afghanistan

Last week the U.S. Government began floating the idea of welcoming low and mid-level Taliban defectors into its war on terror against Al Qaeda. After waging an eight-year "dirty war" against the Taliban, U.S. military commanders and politicians are publicly acknowledging their "insurgent" enemy is actually part of the "fabric" of Afghan society. U.S. and NATO officials are also offering bribes from a billion dollar "Peace and Reintegration Trust Fund" to Taliban fighters to defect. Taliban leaders have condemned the buyout strategy as a "trick" to divide and conquer its forces, and said that offers of reconciliation were futile without a withdrawal of foreign troops. This billion-dollar buyout may, indeed, seem a bizarre reversal of fortunes, but only if one believes the U.S. genuinely wants reconciliation with the Taliban. In reality, defectors programs like the one proposed for Afghanistan are an essential part of the traditional U.S. pacification policy. For example, the so-called Chieu Hoi "Open Arms" program is touted by military historians as having produced positive results throughout the Vietnam War by offering "clemency to insurgents." Make no mistake about it: this too is propaganda. Defector "amnesty" or "clemency" or "open arms" programs are aggressive CIA intelligence operations and have nothing to do with reconciliation.