The White House said that Taliban is an “armed insurgency” and not a terrorist group, a handy semantic tactic to allow President Barack Obama to declare he was won the war on terror.
It is strange why no one thought of this solution before. You get rid of terror simply by re-defining it. Perhaps he has learned from the Palestinian Authority how to re-write the dictionary. Mahmoud Abbas has convinced the world that “ultimatum,” as in “Israel must agree to my terms or else,” actually mean “negotiations.”
So is Taliban a terrorist organization?
ABC News’ Jon Karl asked White House Press Deputy Press Secretary Eric Schultz Wednesday how the government can explain if there is any difference between a Jordanian and Americans agreement to free terrorists in return for the release of hostages.
Jordan has agreed to trade a convicted terrorists for the release by the ISIS of one of their air force pilots. Karl asked if Jordan simply is not doing exactly what the United States did when it agreed to release five Taliban leaders from Guantanamo Bay in return for Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl.
Karl pointed out that Taliban ”is clearly a terrorist organization,” like ISIS.
No, no, no, said Schultz.
“We don’t make concessions to terrorist groups,” he said, assuring reporters that the Islamic State “is a terrorist group.”
But what about Taliban?
Wasn’t Taliban once the ruling government of Afghanistan that refused to hand over members of Al Qaeda who were allegedly involved in the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington?
Doesn’t Taliban maintain a powerful force in Afghanistan and Pakistan from where it attacks U.S. soldiers as well as children in a Pakistani school?
Isn’t Taliban included in the State Dept.’s Specially Designated Global Terrorist list?
Doesn’t the National Counterterrorism Center list the “Taliban Presence in Afghanistan” on a map of global terrorism presences?
The answer to all of these questions is, “yes.”
So Taliban is a terrorist group,. right?
Schultz said:
I don’t think that the Taliban, um — uh – the Taliban is an armed insurgency.
White House Press Secretary tried a bit of damage control on Thursday.
“They [Taliban] do carry out tactics that are akin to terrorism. They do pursue terror attacks in an effort to try to advance their agenda,” he told reporters.
Nu?
Well, says Earnest, “it’s important to draw a distinction between the Taliban and al-Qaeda. The Taliban has resorted to terror tactics, but those terror tactics have principally been focused on Afghanistan” although many American personnel and soldiers in Afghanistan “are in harm’s way.
Got it? Taliban only uses “terror tactics.” If it quacks, it doesn’t mean it’s a duck. Maybe it’s a ventriloquist.
“The Taliban is a very dangerous organization,” Earnest admitted but it still is different from ISIS.
His twisted narrative goes like this:
What the President has pursued is a clear strategy for building up the central government of Afghanistan and the Afghan security forces, so that they could be responsible for security in their own country and take the fight to the Taliban
That, however, is different than the strategy that we have pursued against Al Qaeda. Al Qaeda is a terrorist organization that has aspirations that extend beyond just the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan..
Al-Qaeda and their affiliates around the globe have sought to carry out terror attacks against Americans and American interests all around the globe….
There’s no doubt that the threat from the Taliban is different than the threat that is posed by al-Qaeda.
By that reasoning, Hamas is not a terrorist group because it is not a worldwide threat.