US Drops Bombs on Taliban

Well, it didn't take long for the "peace" between the United States and the Taliban to hit its first bump in the road per se. U.S. forces conducted airstrikes on Taliban forces in Helmand province. The attack was in support of local ANDSF (Afghanistan National Defense and Security Forces) whom the Taliban had not agreed to be at peace with. The "next step" in the peace process for Afghanistan is for the Afghan government to release five thousand Taliban prisoners.The Taliban has made it clear they will not stop fighting indigenous forces until those prisoners are released. We also doubt that they are going to remain "at peace" (there's a reason it's in quotations) with the United States if we keep intervening on behalf of the Afghans. So basically what it looks like is that we had peace in Afghanistan for like...what...a day or so? If even that?Is it just us or is this whole ordeal getting ridiculous on a level only reserved for movies like "Delta Farce"?The Afghan government is not going to release to prisoners...we think...how dumb could you be to give the people who want to kill you five thousand more dudes to do it with? The United States is not going to suddenly stop supporting the ANDSF...we think. The only certainty is that the Taliban, undoubtedly and true to their nature, will continue to fight whomever they damn well please, whenever they damn well please because they're not beholden to anyone, and why should they be?So with the stage set as it is, do we really think there is going to be a real peace deal there anytime soon?Afghanistan is clearly a clusterfluck and the odds of that changing anytime soon are about the same as your lovable writer convincing PETA to disband. We all want it to happen, but it's just highly highly highly...highly highly unlikely.But...as always, we reserve to right to be wrong, and we really hope in this case that we are, but we doubt it.