Obama wants to talk to the moderate Taliban??

President Obama wants to open negotiations with moderate factions of the Taliban. On first reflection, that sounds reasonable. Something like this worked in Iraq, after all. Obama says that “part of the success in Iraq involved reaching out to people that we would consider to be Islamic fundamentalists, but who were willing to work with us because they had been completely alienated by the tactics of Al Qaeda in Iraq.” And “there may be some comparable opportunities in Afghanistan and the Pakistani region,” although he grants that “the situation in Afghanistan is, if anything, more complex.”

And who are these moderate Taliban? Where can they be found? Waheed Mozhdah, the director of the Afghan Foreign Ministry’s Middle East and Africa department when the Taliban were in power, dismisses the President’s hopes as “a dream more than reality,” asking derisively: “Where are the so-called moderate Taliban? Who are the moderate Taliban?” Newspaper editor Muhammad Qaseem Akhgar declared: “‘Moderate Taliban’ is like ‘moderate killer.’ Is there such a thing?”

Obama offered no details as to why he believed in these fantastical creatures, but Vice President Joe Biden, ever helpful, chimed in with some statistics manifesting his confidence in their existence. Read in entirety here.

What do you think? Will Obama find them, the fantastical creatures. I’m betting the Obambats believe so.

Don’t you feel safer now?