Afghanistan and Trump
Fact and Fantasy
Twenty years of bloody futility in Afghanistan is plenty of time for lots of bungling and at a time when President Biden is taking the heat for the hasty victory by the Taliban and the defeat of the U.S., it is important to set the record straight on how trump dealt with Afghanistan and the Taliban.
In a word, lousy, much like every other trump foreign policy initiative, like his ballyhooed summit meetings with North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un that ended up achieving nothing, like his bizarre “love” of Kim Jong-Un, coming shortly after trump threatened to unleash “fire and fury” against North Korea if it didn’t make nice.
This is not just more trump-bashing, well, yes it is, but it is critical that people understand how trump, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the rest made no progress in ending the bloody war in Afghanistan, despite all of their self-aggrandizement and bloviating.
The trump administration’s signature Afghanistan folly unfolded last year in Doha, the capital of Qatar, on the Arabian Gulf, which happens to be the richest country in the world, with each resident earning a very cool $127,600 a year and where else would bone spurs choose to show his great and wonderful deal-making abilities.
Last year, Feb. 29, 2020, to be specific, after much fanfare and chest thumping, the Trump administration guided an agreement to end the war, and by the way, to release 5,000 Taliban prisoners in an effort to trigger peace talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government in Doha, Qatar, and you can be quite sure that those 5,000 free Taliban fighters are not exactly having tea with the U.S. or the former Afghanistan regime.
The so-called Doha Agreement, known in government-speak as the Agreement for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan, was signed between the United States and the Taliban on Feb. 29, 2020, at the Sheraton Grand Doha in Doha, Qatar. The four-page agreement, with the close involvement of Pompeo, was published on the U.S. State Department’s website.
The great deal maker worked his wonders to prevent the Taliban from overthrowing the Afghan government, prevent the Taliban from re-imposing harsh Sharia law, and to have Taliban join in a power-sharing agreement with the Afghan government, with the net result of great peace in that troubled land because that’s what the trump peace plan said.
Not.
The prisoners were released and we know how the rest worked out by counting the number of women now wearing niqabs, a combination of a head covering and scarf that covers all of a woman’s face except for her eyes, as dictated by the Taliban.
Under the trump un-agreement, the Taliban also agreed not to allow al-Qaeda or any other extremist group to operate in the areas they control and they guaranteed, gave their sacred word of honor, crossed their hearts and hoped to die and they promised on a stack of Qurans.
It had been a “long and hard journey” in Afghanistan, trump said after the vacuous peace agreement was signed. “It’s time after all these years to bring our people back home.”
Trump talked about how hard the Taliban had been working to reach an agreement with the U.S. and that it was time for the Taliban to stop terrorists in Afghanistan.
“I really believe the Taliban wants to do something to show we’re not all wasting time,” trump said, displaying his all-knowing intuitive understanding of nothing and especially the Taliban.
Among the Taliban fighters released from jail in September 2020 , were six prisoners accused of involvement in the killings of American, French and Australian nationals. On the eve of talks in Doha, trump was in typical trumpian form, noting that the U.S. was “getting along very, very well with the Taliban and very well with Afghanistan.”
Under the “Agreement for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan,” (otherwise known as the trump pipedream or a lie concocted to come out ahead of the November presidential election) within the first 135 days after the agreement, the U.S. would cut forces in Afghanistan to 8,600 and allies also would draw down forces.
A key ingredient was the prisoner swap, about 5,000 Taliban prisoners to be freed and 1,000 Afghan force prisoners released and why the Taliban got so many more of its fighters out of jail is something you should ask Pompeo, who is considering running for president in 2024.
The U.S. also agreed to lift sanctions against the Taliban and work with the UN to lift its sanctions against the group thereby making all parties very happy, especially the Taliban because it has been economically and diplomatically isolated by much of the world.
Trusting the Taliban is like trusting that Hitler will provide ice cream sundaes for all Jews, trusting that Judas Iscariat will protect Jesus, trusting Richard Nixon to be absolutely truthful or trusting that hot dogs are all meat. The trumpers may have acting like they trusted the Taliban but activists in Kabul were not willing to play the trust game.
In the understatement of the century, activist, Zahra Husseini, said she feared the deal could worsen the situation for women in Afghanistan.
“Today is a dark day, and as I was watching the deal being signed, I had this bad feeling that it would result in their return to power rather than in peace,” Husseini said.