Barney Rubin does know how to start a blog post:
Last week I was at a meeting in Madrid to discuss a “Political Solution” to the conflict in Afghanistan. Among the topics discussed was prospects for talking to the Taliban. I was surprised, however, at how literally some of the participants seemed to take it. One of my friends was interrupted over tea by a call from a Taliban commander in southern Afghanistan who was trying to figure out who was behind an incident in which some of his men were killed by a remote-controlled mine.
