This ain't your run-of-the-mill "the situation in Afghanistan still sucks" story. In these "fictitious times" -- as Michael Moore famously characterized this period during his Oscar acceptance speech -- anything is possible. So, in a story which doesn't emanate from the Comedy Central, the National Enquirer, the fevered imaginings of some leftist cult, or Bill Maher, it appears United States and Pakistani intelligence officials have entered into the beginning stages of negotiations with the Taliban.

Syed Saleem Shahzad reports in the June 14th edition of the Hong Kong-based Asia Times Online that, due to the deteriorating conditions inside Afghanistan and "the return to the country of a large number of former Afghan communist refugees," the FBI and the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) "met with Taliban leaders in an effort to devise a political solution to prevent the country from being further ripped apart."

Of course the US and Pakistani officials didn't show up to the meeting at the Pakistan Air Force base of Samungli, near Quetta, empty-handed. But neither did they show up with a welcome wagon full of goodies. Instead, they came with "four conditions" which were "put to the Taliban before any form of reconciliation can take place that could potentially lead to them having a role in the Kabul government":

* "Mullah Omar must be removed as supreme leader of the Taliban. * "All Pakistani, Arab and other foreign fighters currently engaged in operations against international troops in Afghanistan must be thrown out of the country. * "Any US or allied soldiers held captive must be released. * "Afghans currently living abroad, notably in the United States and England, must be given a part in the government -- through being allowed to contest elections -- even though many do not even speak their mother tongue, such as Dari or Pashtu."

Grim and grimerer As those following events in Afghanistan know, the situation is grim. The Karzai government, such as it is, is pretty much limited to the confines of Kabul. The rest of the country is divided among longtime warlords with well-armed militias. A United Nations official said recently that as much as one-third of the country was, according to a Reuters report, "off limits to U.N. reconstruction, aid and political personnel." Jean-Marie Guehenno, the U.N. undersecretary-general for peacekeeping, told the U.N. Security Council "that U.N.-organized elections for next June could also be endangered by the lack of security."

Peacekeepers are operating only in the Kabul area. The 8,000 or so US troops still in country are reportedly attempting to weed out Taliban supporters and al Qaeda remnants.

The opium trade is flourishing and, according to another Reuters report, spreading into new regions of the country. In a briefing to the UN Security Council, Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, stated Afghanistan remains the number one opium producer in the world. The country could produce nearly 4,000 tons this year.

Human rights have, and continue to be, assaulted on various fronts.

US bombs are still "going astray" and killing civilians. In late April, an air attack killed 11 Afghans in a village near the Pakistan border. US officials issued another in a long line of so-called comforting statements: "The bomb missed its intended target and landed on the house. The circumstances of the bombing are being investigated."

While the Pentagon continues to exhibit no interest in tracking civilians deaths, University of New Hampshire Professor Marc Herold maintains his tireless task of compiling the numbers: As of May 25, 2003, Professor Herold's database reports that 3,070 (low count) and 3,590 (high count) civilians have been killed in Afghanistan.

"Religious fundamentalism is on the rise, with new restrictions on freedom of expression and movement of women and girls. Gains in education are now at risk as many parents, afraid of attacks by troops and other gunmen, keep their daughters out of school," Human Rights Watch's Loubna Freih told the U.N. Human Rights Commission in late April.

In early May, on the eve of World Press Freedom Day (May 3), Human Rights Watch reported that "attacks and threats against Afghan journalists have increased sharply in recent weeks," and "Afghan security personnel have created a pervasive climate of fear in which journalists are afraid to openly publish articles that criticize leaders." (For more, see "Sharp Rise in Press Attacks in Afghanistan Security Forces Threatening and Arresting Journalists".)

Most Americans likely know little of this because most of the mainstream media flooding Afghanistan in the aftermath of the US bombing campaign in Afghanistan have moved on to oilier pastures -- otherwise known as Iraq. In an extended piece in the June 2003 issue of American Journalism Review, Lori Robertson reports "a Baltimore Sun story began with this question: "Remember Afghanistan? Anybody?"

The Baltimore Sun's lead, writes Robertson, "spoke volumes about the short attention span of the American public, or maybe the White House, or the press. Or was it all of the above?" The so-called "story of a lifetime" -- as many reporters originally described Afghanistan -- has evolved into the "all-but-forgotten Afghanistan." (For more from Robertson, see "Whatever Happened to Afghanistan?".)

The 'new' Taliban? Syed Saleem Shahzad of the Asia Times: "The backdrop to the first meeting [between US and Pakistani intelligence officials and the Taliban] is an ever-increasing escalation in the guerrilla war being waged against foreign troops. ... According to people familiar with Afghan resistance movements, the one that has emerged over the past year and a half since the fall of the Taliban is about four times as strong as the movement that opposed Soviet invaders for nearly a decade starting in 1979. The key reason for this is that the previous Taliban government -- which is dispersed almost intact in the country after capitulating to advancing Northern Alliance forces without a fight -- is backed by the most powerful force in Afghanistan: clerics and religious students."

In Afghanistan, the Bush Administration is caught in a rapidly developing quagmire. Its plan for reconstruction has been a non-starter. And now, against the everyday mayhem of suicide bombings, car blasts, grenade attacks, government corruption, and human rights violations, comes the nearly inconceivable news that US and Pakistani intelligence officials have met with Taliban officials to explore the possibility of crafting alternative scenarios.

Flummoxed is an understatement for what I'm thinking. But what is Karzai thinking? The women of Afghanistan? The Bush Administration? The Pentagon? And you?