Recent news reports suggest Taliban, seeking positive relations with the U.S. following Trump’s reelection, are requesting that the group no longer be designated as a terrorist organization. If this is true, our country may be able to negotiate a deal that will be largely beneficial for us.
As we all know, America suffered an embarrassing withdrawal of our troops from Afghanistan at the start of the Biden administration. On May 1st, 2021, the Taliban began to move through Afghanistan, city by city, culminating in the capture of the capital, Kabul, and the fleeing of President Ashraf Ghani to Tajikistan on August 15th, 2021. They had control over all of Afghanistan, except Hamid Karzai International Airport. Hostilities ceased and the Taliban worked with U.S. and NATO forces, helping to evacuate all remaining U.S. citizens and vulnerable Afghans seeking asylum abroad, until the last flight left Kabul Airport on the night of August 30th, 2021. And let us not forget the 170 killed, including 13 U.S. service members, and over 150 wounded, including 18 U.S. service members, from the detonation of an ISIL-K suicide bomb, outside of the Abbey Gate on August 26th, 2021.
During their unfortunate takeover of the country, the Taliban captured numerous firearms, explosives, vehicles, aircraft, and other U.S. military hardware that our country had provided the Afghan Army over the preceding 20 year period. While the exact amount and the breakdown of specific hardware is unknown, it is estimated that the value of captured military hardware is multiple billions of dollars. If the Taliban is truly requesting to have the “terrorist” designation removed from their organization’s name, we may wish to consider agreeing to this, if the Taliban agrees to a FULL AND COMPLETE RETURN OF ALL OF OUR CAPTURED MILITARY HARDWARE.
There are methods and technologies available to us to ensure they do not attempt to hide any hardware and keep it until after such an agreement has concluded. Satellites can observe vehicle movements and recognize any suspicious movement of gear after we make the proposal to them, and we can make it known to them that the “terrorist” designation will be redesignated, in the event that they are witnessed possessing any US military hardware after the date we agree to.
Finally, we can always redesignate them as terrorists in the future, should they do something that would qualify them as such.