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For 9/11 Families, Mixed Views on Trump-Taliban Talks

Associated Press

   NEW YORK - If President Donald Trump's now-canceled plan for secret
   talks with Afghanistan's Taliban insurgents on U.S. soil was stunning,
   the date chosen was perhaps even more so: days before the anniversary
   of 9/11, the reason for the war they were going to talk about ending.

   Sept. 11 victims' relatives and first responders digested the news
   Monday with mixed feelings. Several called the timing unfortunate but
   the idea of talks worthwhile, a potential path toward peace for Afghans
   and Americans weary of Washington's longest war.

   "I don't want to see other families suffer the way I did. That's the
   bottom line. Not soldiers or innocent victims of terrorism," said Jim
   Riches, a retired New York deputy fire chief who responded to the
   terror 2001 attacks and lost his son, Jimmy, a fellow firefighter.

   Rosaleen Tallon was angry -- though not at the U.S.-Taliban
   negotiations. She sees the Afghan Islamic militants as "small fish"
   compared with the nation she feels hasn't been held sufficiently
   accountable for 9/11: Saudi Arabia.

   "We're not really getting at 9/11. That makes my blood boil," said
   Tallon, who lost her brother, probationary firefighter Sean Tallon.

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