An Afghanistan Exit Strategy: Buying Off the Taliban?

August 15, 2009 by Infowars Ireland

Taliban militants appear at an undisclosed location in Afghanistan

www.time.com

By measure both of blood and of treasure, the war in Afghanistan is a costly business. To date, 782 U.S. troops have been killed there, and the conflict is costing Washington $4 billion a month. Is that a good investment? Some suggest it may be far more cost-effective to simply pay those currently earning their keep as gunmen for the Taliban to stay out of the fight.

The notion may have gained more traction Thursday, Aug. 13, after a reporter asked Defense Secretary Robert Gates how much longer U.S. troops will have to keep fighting in the now eight-year-old Afghan war. Gates, recalling his years as a top CIA official, said the war’s end date is one of those national-security “mysteries” for which there are “too many variables to predict.” (See pictures of the new U.S. offensive in Afghanistan.)

Uncertainties are unavoidable in war, of course. One of them is the exact number of bad guys in Afghanistan, many of whom are paid to fight, and just how much their paymasters are spending on them. But a new report from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee this week says U.S. commanders commonly refer to the “$10 Taliban” — alluding to the amount insurgents earn each day from Taliban coffers swelled by drug proceeds and Islamist benefactors. That’s more than an Afghan cop makes. “They can collect double or triple pay for planting an improvised explosive device,” the report adds. So how many fighters are on the Taliban payroll? Earlier this year during a visit to Washington, Mohammad Hanif Atmar, Afghanistan’s Interior Minister, estimated there are between 10,000 and 15,000 Taliban fighting his government and its U.S. allies.

Read full article…