staff and Department of Defense personnel alike have repeatedly stated that the combination of nebulousness and breadth , along with that court ruling , had a strong chilling effect on their level of outreach to local actors in high-threat environments .
This is critical because getting the necessary people in the room to make peacebuilding and reconstruction operations successful and sustainable , requires working with people who have been involved in conflict . By definition , they are not without stain ; paraphrasing General Petraeus , you don ’ t need to make peace with your friends . This is emphatically not a relativist argument that everything is a grey area , and thus US interveners should turn a blind eye to dark histories . It is , however , recognition that in conditions of war , angels are somewhat thin on the ground .
The historical list of failed peace processes correlates as much with who was shut out of the room as it does with who sat at the table . American planners and operators cannot hope to partner with the necessary people to make post-war reconstruction successful or sustainable if they are prohibited from having the conversations that would identify them and allow them a seat in the room . Such a change is , of course , easier said than done . But if the goal of reconstruction is peace and escape from the cycle of wars , American policy must reflect the need to deal with all actors within a conflict , which been reinforced across the board in recent experience . When General Phipps , former commander of the 101 st Airborne Division in Afghanistan , was pressed on why he had begun holding talks with the Taliban , he replied “ that ’ s how wars end .” 40
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