He may be down, but you can’t count him out yet. According to a Sept. 27 article in “The Washington Post,” the Taliban has invited the Rev. Jesse Jackson to lead a peace delegation to Afghanistan.

Jackson, leader of the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, actually is considering the proposal — pending discussion with other religious leaders.

We at the Star would like to help him pack his bags.

Unfortunately, the U.S. government issued a statement that the Taliban’s invitation is a mere ploy for time, and its talks of peace are entirely false.

How could we realistically expect a man who doesn’t even have his family life in order to stabilize an entire hemisphere?

How could they?

In January, Karin Stanford, a former staff member of his, went public with their extramarital affair. Their out-of-wedlock daughter was born in 1999. Soon after, his personal ethics and use of organizational contributions came under fire when he made a $40,000 payment to Stanford.

Jackson announced he was taking time off to “revive [his] spirit and reconnect with [his] family.”

But within weeks, he was back in front of the cameras announcing his journey to China.

Yes, Jackson was successful in aiding the effort to free 24 crew members from the reconnaissance plane in China, but this one is out of his league.

Even if this were a sincere attempt, sending Jackson possibly could make the situation worse.

The Taliban isn’t looking for negotiations, it’s looking for a target, or better yet, a hostage.

It wouldn’t be beneficial to national security or to Jackson’s safety to send him, a man with no training in terrorism, into hostile territory expecting him to save the nation.

Rather, our leaders — the men and women we’ve elected to lead our country — should send a cordial thanks, but no thanks when we send them the bill for the damage they’ve caused.