Taliban leader rejects U.S. attempts to lure away fighters with money

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A top Taliban political leader delivered a message Friday to President Obama, calling his attempt to lure away Taliban fighters with money “an old weapon that has failed already.”

Obama meets Friday with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who will tell the U.S. leader how a large deployment to Afghanistan would affect the military. Akhund warned Obama against maintaining a military presence in Afghanistan, saying it “will only deepen your economic crisis and will harm your international reputation.” “Pull all your forces out of our prideful country and put an end to the game of colonialization by shedding the blood of innocent Muslim people under the unjustified name of terrorism,” he said. The Taliban reintegration provision is part of the Commander’s Emergency Response Program, which is now receiving $1.3 billion. CERP funding also is intended for humanitarian relief and reconstruction projects at commanders’ discretion. “Afghan leaders and our military say that local Taliban fighters are motivated largely by the need for a job or loyalty to the local leader who pays them and not by ideology or religious zeal,” Levin said in a Senate floor speech on September 11. “They believe an effort to attract these fighters to the government’s side could succeed, if they are offered security for themselves and their families, and if there is no penalty for previous activity against us.” While the plan has a “reasonable chance for some success,” analyst Nicholas Schmidle said that it may not be a long-term solution. “So long as the Americans are keenly aware of this, you’re buying a very, very, very temporary allegiance,” said Schmidle, an expert on the Afghanistan-Pakistan region for the nonpartisan New America Foundation. “If that’s the foundation for moving forward, it’s a shaky foundation.” Peter Bergen, CNN security analyst, said the idea of paying off Taliban members to quit is nothing new. “There’s been an amnesty program for low-level Taliban in place for many years now, and thousands of people have taken advantage of it,” he said. “So this is not entirely a new idea. The idea of bribing people, local guys, to come over. … It’s one of the most cost-effective ways to get people to lay down their arms, either to negotiate a peace or coerce them.” McChrystal has backed the Taliban reintegration plan, saying that most are not ideologically or even politically motivated. “Most of the fighters we see in Afghanistan are Afghans, some with [a] foreign cadre with them,” he said in a July 28 Los Angeles Times interview. “Most are operating for pay; some are under a commander’s charismatic leadership; some are frustrated with local leaders.”CNN’s Ed Hornick, Thomas Evans, Adam Levine, Barbara Starr and Nic Robertson contributed to this report.