America will begin withdrawing its troops from Afghanistan this July, U.S. President Barack Obama said in a speech on May 19. Yet judging by the men the American and Afghan governments are negotiating with, the United States may be a bit too keen to retreat.

The Washington Post reports that the U.S. has “accelerated direct talks with the Taliban.” It says that a senior Afghan official told the paper that an American representative has met with a Taliban official at least three times. It writes that this Taliban official is considered close to Taliban leader Mohammad Omar and that the meetings took place in Qatar and Germany.

The Taliban wants a guarantee that it will have a substantive role in the Afghan government, writes the Post. The Taliban, however, denies that it is in direct negotiations with the U.S.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid calls reports that America and the Taliban are in direct negotiations “baseless rumors.”

The Afghan government, however, definitely has negotiated with the Taliban. Around 1,740 Taliban militants have joined a reintegration program begun by the Afghan government nearly a year ago, according to British Maj. Gen. Phil Johns.

“On top of this, the High Peace Council has at least another 40 to 45 groups in negotiations across the country,” he said. “That may be as much as 2,000 fighters.”

The program may be convincing Taliban fighters to lay down their arms, but some are concerned about whom the Afghan government is working with.

Maulavi Isfandar, for example, has been granted amnesty under the program. Isfandar oversaw the execution of Bibi Sanubar, an Afghan woman accused of having an affair, who was imprisoned, given 200 lashes and then shot, while a crowd looked on.

“It’s very disturbing,” said a commissioner with the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, Nader Nadery. “It seems that whatever it takes, the important point is just to get these people to come over.”

nato’s deadline for withdrawing from Afghanistan is 2014. Both Washington and Kabul seem willing to compromise with their former enemies in order to meet that deadline. But if America leaves behind an Afghanistan with a powerful Taliban and where the terrorists walk free, it will not have won the Afghan war.

Instead the nation will still be under the sway of radical Islam.