No honor among thieves

I've mentioned the Taliban amnesty program before. Now the Christian Science Monitor reports that the program may have unintended consequences - for bin Laden and the remaining holdouts.

Rahman Akhund has been battling US and Afghan government troops for three long, hard years. He misses raising his kids among the quiet pomegranate orchards he used to tend at home.

With another frigid winter setting in, and a new US offensive being launched this week, this weary Taliban fighter says he's ready to come in from the cold.

"If the government will let us peacefully return to our villages and our children, we will come," he says. "We are tired living on the run in these snowy mountains."

His fellow tribesman, Sarwar Akhund, goes one step further: Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar and terror kingpin Osama bin Laden, he charges, tricked followers like him into believing they were fighting a holy war against infidels, "when really they just wanted to consolidate their own seats of power." If allowed back into society, he pledges to "do whatever I can" to help kill or capture the fugitive leaders.

I wonder what the "experts" would have to say about that? (Hat tip to Winds of Change.)