Peace Talks With Taliban Going Nowhere

If the peace talks fail, President Obama can always surrender.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Talks between the Afghan Taliban and the United States in Qatar almost failed as the Taliban leadership reportedly refused to accept the U.S. demand of a ceasefire before swapping prisoners.

Sources in the Afghan Taliban said the Taliban had set up an office in Qatar hoping that it would help in a prisoners’ swap, especially for their five top commanders held at the Guantanamo Bay base since 2002.

The Taliban sources said their talks with the U.S. had been going for the past few years in exchange for an American soldier, Bowe Bergdahl, captured by Taliban militants in Afghanistan’s Paktika province in June 2009, bordering Pakistan’s South Waziristan.