US will pay Taliban members to switch sides

The United States is set to pay off Afghan members who are part of the Taliban organization to switch sides, which adds to $1.3 billion under a new $680 billion defense appropriations bill.

On Wednesday, President Barack Obama signed a new $680 billion defense appropriations bill, which includes a $1.3 billion “Taliban reintegration provision” under the Commander's Emergency Response Program. Generally, CERP funding is usually intended for humanitarian relief and reconstruction projects. However, the US army will begin to pay members of the Taliban to switch sides, according to Reuters. This strategy is to separate local Taliban from their leaders and a similar tactic was used in Iraq to neutralize the insurgency in that country called Sons of Iraq. Democratic Senator Carl Levin, Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, recently stated, “You got 90,000 Iraqis who switched sides, and are involved in protecting their hometowns against attack and violence.” Nicholas Schmidle, an expert on the Afghanistan-Pakistan region, told CNN that the program has some chance for some success but the old Afghan saying, “You can rent an Afghan, but you can’t buy him,” will eventually win. President Obama is also considering adding another 40,000 troops to the region, as per the request of commander in Afghanistan; General Stanley McChrystal. As BBC notes, Obama recently said he will not risk the lives “unless it is absolutely necessary.” The President has already approved 21,000 more troops, which will tally to total number of US forces in the region to 68,000. According to Press TV, 420 troops have been killed this year alone and 1,500 Afghan civilians have been killed, which has been mostly due to US-led air raids.