Taliban releases the South Korean hostages...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6968179.stm

This is of course great news to hear. Personally I am happy that the hostages were freed however it makes me wonder if this sets a bad precendent. By directly negotiating with the Taliban, South Korea has inadvertently given recognition to Taliban. South Korea has basically complied with Taliban's demands for taking out all its troops from Afghanistan within a year and to not allow any more missionary activity on Afghani soil. There have been reports that South Korea may have paid a ransom as well but that has yet to be substantiated.

My problem with this arrangement is that it exposes a major weakness in the coalition forces armor. First of all, non-military or non-NGO(other than ones approved by coalition forces and Afghani authorities) should not have been allowed to go to Afghanistan in the first place. Missionary work in that part of the world is tantamount to suicide and can produce cultural and religious friction. Until there is a semblence of stability in Afghanistan, I feel that only secular and non religious organizations should be allowed to go to Afghanistan. Secondly, by directly negotiating with Taliban, you give them legitimacy and completely destory almost 6 years worth of effort to stamp Taliban presence and importance out of the area. By releasing the hostages, Taliban has won a major PR battle; perhaps not as much in the Western world, but definately in the Islamic world. Now radical Islamists or hardcore conservatives have a new reason to admire the group because not only did they get recognition, the Taliban also managed to influence negotiations to their liking. It sets a very bad precedent.

On another note, by getting the results and concessions they wanted, Taliban forces can now pull the same stunt again on other coalition forces citizens. There's already a German national in Taliban clutches; Angela Merkel has insisted that Germany will never negotiate with Taliban. However its possible that some German citizens will say that if South Korea can negotiate with Taliban and get their citizens released, then why can't we? And as more people are taken hostages, the people of the respective countries will ask the same thing. Suddenly, governments will have no choice but to see Taliban as a legitimate, negotiating party.

Hopefully, coalition forces will take extra precautions and protect their citizens from being kidnapped but this is only th beginning. My prediction is that Taliban will come back in full force and use this incident as the inspiration for large scale black mailing and PR campaign to appeal to the radical Islamic world for support.