Final Word from Wednesday, March 13, 2019

Miloš Zeman has the memory of an elephant, which is one more reason for the Americans to dislike him. He remembers that the 9/11 Commission (on Page 171 of its report) was clear in identifying the Taliban as the sole state sponsor of the events of Sept. 11, 2001. At a Nato celebration at the Castle yesterday, Zeman compared the current peace talks with the Taliban to the Four Power talks with Hitler in Munich in 1938. If the Taliban is allowed to retake control of Afghanistan, Zeman said, the country will again become a terrorist base. Yet the U.S. government doesn't consider the Taliban itself to be a terrorist organization. It's not on the list, because putting it there would make it politically difficult to negotiate with it. So despite Zeman's assertion that "there is no negotiating with terrorists; we fight against them," the official U.S. policy is in fact to negotiate with the sponsor of the biggest terrorist act in U.S. history. Allies aren't supposed to point out such inconvenient truths. [ Czech Republic United States Agreement Adolf Germany France Italy United Kingdom ]