William Crosbie

Canada's Ambassador to Afghanistan has managed to put his finger on one dire aspect of this new "peace" proposal to funnel cash to the Taliban in the hopes that they'll stop murdering their fellow citizens (Spectator):

"There's no point developing some kind of a fund to which former insurgents are eligible if we're not equally providing support to Afghans who are not part of the insurgency now," he said.

"So we don't want to create the impression that somehow if you're a member of the insurgency that you would be uniquely be able to benefit from the fund."

The article goes on to summarize the lame results of past efforts along this line:

Other efforts to entice the Taliban to stop fighting generally haven't worked. Past incentives have tended to attract low-level fighters, many of whom eventually return to the ranks of the insurgency.

To the Canadian government's credit, they have not signed on to this scheme as yet. We hope that they continue to avoid getting involved in this "trust fund for the Taliban" idea and focus resources on Afghans who actually want to help build their country.