TALIBAN TALKS? - AT 7:18 P.M. ET:  Strangely enough, this is a joint dispatch from both Britain's Guardian and Telegraph:

BARACK Obama's call for "moderate" Taliban members to be brought in from the cold has met with scepticism from leading Afghan opposition figures, who warned that co-opting fighters would fail as long as Hamid Karzai's Government appeared weak and corrupt.

Ashraf Ghani, a former Afghan finance minister who plans to run for president in August, said: "I don't know of a single peace process that has been successfully negotiated from a position of weakness or stalemate."

COMMENT:  There's some wisdom there.  Obama's call for talks - his standard line - will run parallel to military action.  It's his war now.

March 9, 2009