Trump Complains That Taliban Fight the American Way, Pretends to Tear Up Deal in Righteous Anger
Taliban bad for not granting the US a ceasefire during talks -- something the US never does for its foes
Trump took to Twitter to claim he was canceling peace talks with the Taliban that were supposedly to take at Camp David over an attack in Kabul that killed one American soldier and 11 civilians:
Unbeknownst to almost everyone, the major Taliban leaders and, separately, the President of Afghanistan, were going to secretly meet with me at Camp David on Sunday. They were coming to the United States tonight. Unfortunately, in order to build false leverage, they admitted to..
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 7, 2019
….an attack in Kabul that killed one of our great great soldiers, and 11 other people. I immediately cancelled the meeting and called off peace negotiations. What kind of people would kill so many in order to seemingly strengthen their bargaining position? They didn’t, they….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 7, 2019
….only made it worse! If they cannot agree to a ceasefire during these very important peace talks, and would even kill 12 innocent people, then they probably don’t have the power to negotiate a meaningful agreement anyway. How many more decades are they willing to fight?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 7, 2019
As far as I am concerned any amount of “collateral damage” is a war crime, but I don’t know that Trump who has escalated the air war in Afghanistan so that the UN now says the US and proxies are killing more civilians than the Taliban has any moral high ground to claim or can feint outrage.
Trump’s complaint that the Taliban declined to have a ceasefire during the talks but instead wanted to keep the pressure on is equally charming. Isn’t that just what the US is known for?
The US famously ended its bombing of North Vietnam in late 1968 to start the Paris peace process, but Hanoi could insist on that precondition only because it was strong. It wasn’t granted to Yugoslavia in 1999 which kept being bombed right through the negotiations at Kumanovo, as was North Korea through nearly two years of negotiations from 1951 to 1953.
Obama launched the Afghan surge in 2009 with the explicit goal of forcing the Taliban to the negotiating table from a position of US strength. Trump’s rationale for his own much more haphazard surge which brought in 5,000 additional US troops and escalated the air war was the same.
The only reason the US is even talking to the Taliban and contemplating concessions is that they are strong, stronger in fact than ever. Earlier this year as its control of Afghanistan territory (as opposed to population) approached 50 percent the Pentagon said it would stop tracking (and reporting) the metric.
Also ideally the US wants to stay in Afghanistan but doesn’t want to deal with the Taliban attacks on its and proxy forces. Should the Taliban then really freeze the struggle that is the only leverage they have? Is that something the US would have done in their boots?
And is the US really so trustworthy that it will keep negotiating with the same urgency even if the Taliban stop shooting, and will not seek to take advantage of the ceasefire for tactical gains?
Moreover, the US itself through Pompeo claims a (fanciful) body count of 1,000 Taliban for the past 10 days alone:
.@SecPompeo: “We haven't been negotiating while they've been killing us and we've been standing still, we've been taking it to the Taliban as well, over 1,000 Taliban killed in just the last 10 days alone" https://t.co/IxUrPfTSPF
— Ryan Browne (@rabrowne75) September 8, 2019
So what exactly is Trump’s complaint?
US officials are now saying the real reason talks broke down were “deep disagreements” between the two sides, and Moon of Alabama finds reasons to doubt any talks were being prepared for Camp David at all:
It is doubtful that the meeting was planned at all. The optics of such a meeting, shortly before an 9/11 anniversary, would have been too terrible. On Friday the Afghan President Ghani already said that he would not come to Washington. And would the Taliban leaders really step on a U.S. plane or helicopter to fly to Camp David when the real destination might well be Guantanamo Bay?
There is also this:
I hope reporters will investigate this. As a resident of Frederick County, where Camp David is located, I'm highly skeptical as I have seen no evidence of planning and preparation. There is usually increased helicopter activity for events held at CD. https://t.co/HURnEdrwiQ
— Dalchico (@Dalchico) September 7, 2019
I have my own theory. Trump didn’t back out of the deal because the 2,437th US (and the 3,581th foreign) soldier was killed, but because the Taliban are strong and can therefore demand meaningful concessions from the US. Concessions which are not going to be popular with the establishment media or even within his administration.
Just as on Russia, North Korea and Syria Trump has once again backed down on what he actually wants. What a lightweight.
Antiwar.com with a great comment:
[O]ther officials are now trying to rebrand what actually happened to make it less of a hasty decision to abandon months of progress.
They are now arguing that the US and Taliban had “deep disagreements” on several issues, though what few issues they named, like timing of announcing the deal, all seemed minor, and every major issue had already been resolved.
This raises the possibility that the end of the peace process was a Trump whim, or perhaps more likely that the administration believed some of the terms of the deal would be unpop
The merits of backing out at such a late date are dubious, however. With a virtually finished deal in hand, the US has effectively chosen to recommit to a losing war indefinitely, while knowing that ultimately they’ll have to settle for a deal remarkably similar to what they could have right now.
Of course, the Taliban — albeit with a body count nowhere near that of the Empire, and nowhere the international jihadi tendencies of the Empire-backed rebels and foreign fighters in Syria — are still oppressive Islamists.
Blessing their takeover of at least half of Afghanistan outright as well as perhaps decisive influence in Kabul in a treaty is neither particularly palpable nor necessarily morally upright.
However, keeping the war going to keep a faction sidelined that has probably more popular legitimacy in the country than any other, and certainly more so than foreign occupiers, is worse.
But luckily no deal with the Taliban is required for the US to stop making it worse. All that is required is that the US packs up and leaves as it has in fact already done from wide swathes of Pashtun-inhabited southern Afghanistan it no longer contests but is contended to leave in Taliban hands.
Roads in #Afghanistan today's situation based on @ArianaNews_ and my data
red-total #Taliban control
orange-occasional #Taliban control pic.twitter.com/4DoC0gGb25— Dr. Drexluddin Khan Spiveyzai (Drexy Baba) (@RisboLensky) September 6, 2019
United murderers of america back off🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕🖕
The Taliban are smart enough to know the US government is full of lies. They may as well keep defending their nation against the invaders.
A bigger picture! Pompeo, follows the back side of the wagging dog tails, Bolton is just a another carrot stick. There was a big disagreement between Bolton, the vice president and others. Bolton said the meetings were no big deal and was discouraging the talks.
Who is to say that Bolton contacted certain people and staged the attacks. He is an untrustworthy part of the US gov. IF you recall, this same thing happened in North Korea when Bolton was indirectly responsible for the ending of talks. He is a Killer at large, who shoots his mouth off over others to accomplish his dirty deeds. SOOO who does this guy “facehair ball” actually work for. HE is part of the sick scum.trying to overthrow governments, including his own. I would not call him an american patriot.
if the Taliban overran the poppy fields, this whole thing would be over in a day.
“Trump Complains That Taliban Fight the American Way, Pretends to Tear Up Deal in Righteous Anger
“Taliban bad for not granting the US a ceasefire during talks — something the US never does for its foes”
Yes, indeed.
It’s the ultimate arrogance.
Readers might enjoy this just posted on aspects of Afghanistan and American war crimes there:
https://chuckmanwordsincomments.wordpress.com/2019/09/09/john-chuckman-comment-the-empire-strikes-back/
USA/DC yankees!
‘The yankee Is A Self Righteous, Ignorant, Holler Than Thou, Spawn of Baby Raping, Mass Murdering Terrorist’
http://www.johnccarleton.org/BLOGGER/2019/09/08/the-yankee-is-a-self-righteous-ignorant-holler-than-thou-spawn-of-baby-raping-mass-murdering-terrorist/
https://ericmargolis.com/2019/08/time-to-liberate-afghanistan/
“Contrary to US claims, Taliban was never a terrorist group. I was in Afghanistan and Pakistan when Taliban was created. Civil war in Afghanistan after the Soviets pulled out led to wide scale banditry, rapine and anarchy. A preacher named Mullah Omar, a veteran of the anti-Soviet war, cobbled together a force of ethnic Pashtun (Pathan) fighters and students to attack the bandits, rapists, and opium-producing Communist forces causing mayhem. This rag-tag movement came to be known as ‘talibs,’ or religious students. Thus was born Taliban.”
“Mullah Omar and his Pashtun fighters went on to drive the Communists from Kabul and take most of the country. According to the UN, Taliban eliminated 90% of Afghanistan’s opium production and brought a rough justice to the nation.”