Media reports on the efforts to counter ideas with money, rather than challenge extremist beliefs with our shared universal human rights:

Afghanistan: Taliban fighters to be ‘bought off’ with $500 million
— Afghanistan: Millions of dollars offered to wean away Taliban militants
— Trust fund for Taliban to quit fight
— Paying off the Taliban – Incentive or Bribe?
— Graphic showing billions of dollars of aid pledged
— CNN: “Your view: Negotiating with the Taliban”

Taliban reject peace talks
— In Advance of January 28 London Conference on Afghanistan, Senior Taliban Affairs Expert Rahimullah Yusufzai Says: ‘It Would Be Naïve to Assume That the Taliban Would Cut a Deal with the U.S…. On Terms More Favorable to Islamabad than to Their Leader Mullah Omar’
— Taliban issues statement on London conference

Meantime, while one part of the government seeks to give money to Taliban extremists another part seeks to stop their “financing”:

Afghanistan: US Tsy Cohen: Working To Cripple Taliban Financing
— WSJ: “Treasury is leading an inter-agency effort to develop new initiatives to disrupt financing for extremist groups operating in Afghanistan and Pakistan, he said”
— U.S. Treasury targets Taliban cash funding

See also:

— November 24, 2009 – Afghanistan: U.S. Special Envoy Holbrooke on Extremist Taliban: U.S. Does Not Seek “A Perfect Democracy” – Room for Taliban to Rejoin “Political Fabric”

— October 8, 2009: Afghanistan: Media Reports US Willing To Accept Taliban, As General Calls for 40,000 Additional Troops

— September 24, 2009: Afghan women hiding for their lives

— August 31, 2009: Afghanistan: Taliban disfigure Muslims who dare to vote

— Afghan women victims of ‘widespread’ rape: UN

— New ‘poisoning’ hits 98 Afghan schoolgirls

— Afghanistan: Women Flee as Taliban Laws Return

— Afghanistan: extremist  law “legalizing rape”

— Accountability and Defying Extremism

— October 17, 2008 – Violent Extemism and the “Reconciliation” with Extremism