Taliban suggest an “independent investigation team on the killing of civilians” including Taliban and NATO soldiers working together...

Am I the only one to have noticed this?  In a fascinating posting from late May that purports to come from the “Leadership council of Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan”, ie the Taliban, appears a request for the international community and the Taliban to work together to investigate civilian war deaths in Afghanistan since 2001.  They actually suggest that small teams including Taliban and NATO soldiers are formed to conduct a country-wide assessment.   An earlier April posting from the same source was entitled “Why are independent media and human rights silent over the massacre of civilians?”  This latter report attempted to provide open source and press reports as evidence that the US and international community were killing civilians.  All the reports cited came from November and December 2001.

I have to quote this bit in full:

“...once again the leadership council of Islamic Emirate makes a request to different organisations of common people, tribal elders and independent journalists to investigate the people who are involved in the butchering of thousands and thousands of innocent Afghans, and after carrying out a comprehensive non-bias investigation they should share their findings with the world, so that the whole world could see and identify who the real terrorists are.

The leadership council of Islamic Emirate purposes that the investigation team should be divided into small groups and with each group one Taliban and one NATO soldier should be assigned at all times, the investigation should be conducted all over Afghanistan, were the investigation team members will directly ask the Afghan civilians, who is it that his murdering their love ones, arresting innocent people, destroying their homes and fields.”

Well, clearly the Taliban suggestion is naïve and the agenda transparent.  But first things first.  On balance, I think this has probably come from the Taliban leadership in some form.  I've been tracking this site for some time and the views, attitudes and statements match much of the Taliban website before it was taken off the air in early 2007.  Never mind ISAF lists of Taliban killed, this site really does show an obsession with bodycount.  And “tank” count.  The number of ISAF “tanks” so far reportedly destroyed by the Taliban must now be into the hundreds (fancy adding it up, anyone?  I'd love to know).  There must be a tank graveyard somewhere to the south of Kandahar that ISAF isn't telling us about...   

But what an intriguing suggestion from the Taliban on so many levels.  Questions and thoughts that spring to mind:

• Why are they saying this now?
• Are they concerned that they are losing the media war in this particular aspect?  The now deceased former Taliban commander Mullah Dadullah once said “we have the Islamic right to kill journalists” who were not reporting Taliban casualties in the correct manner.
• Are they trying to present themselves as “Human Rights aware”?  To what end?
  
• Do they really think this is a workable solution?
• Wouldn't it be fascinating if their bluff was called?  Step forward the UN, HRW, independent journalists everywhere...
  
• Would they be prepared to have some form of ceasefire while the investigation took place?
• How would they deal with a conclusion that they have killed hundreds, if not thousands, of innocent Afghans – or will they stick to their apparent view that suicide bombers deployed by the Taliban are in fact precision weapons?  The Taliban were supposedly very unhappy with a HRW report last year which highlighted how many civilian casualties the insurgents had probably caused. 
• Would they have the organisational ability to take part in such a survey?