government and the united states. they encourage them to be held in pakistan. it's likely to be the pakistani and not the afghani taliban that captured him. they have different leaders and very different goals that complicated all negotiations. all of this comes as the white house is waiting on hamid karzai to sign a long-term agreement that the taliban can decide how many troops they will keep. he refused to sign this agreement and it's not clear what type of military presence the united states will have after this year. they will elect a new president in april and all of the major candidates have said they support a u.s. presence in afghanistan post 2014, but the ta was a really bad speller? your word is...cow.