Trump drops Saturday bombshell: calling-off planned secret Camp David negotiations with Taliban and Afghan president
By Thomas Lifson
The Left is already going crazy, as they always do no matter what steps President Trump takes or announces. In a series of three tweets, the president revealed that “unbeknownst to almost everyone” leaders of the Taliban were coming to Washington, DC, and along with the President of Afghanistan and were going to meet separately with him at Camp David. However, in response to an unprovoked attack that “killed one of our great great soldiers,” he was abruptly canceling the negotiations.
Here are the tweets:
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
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In my opinion, it was always fruitless to negotiate with the Taliban. They would violate any agreement whenever they saw advantage in doing so. Their goal is to drive out the Americans the same way they drove out the Soviets, and before them, the British and the Persians. Their time horizon is unlimited, while ours is tied to the four-year presidential election cycle. Any agreement with the Taliban would be worthless.
My guess is that President Trump knows this. And as his critics now point out, he criticized President Obama in 2012 for negotiating with the Taliban … after “slashing the military.”
Today, the US military has been strengthened by a massive buildup, so the conditions are not the same. But President Trump also has promised to withdraw troops in response to conservative (and some leftist) criticism of the endless war there at the cost of American blood and treasure. Consider these two facts together with President Trump’s threat very explicit threat in July:
As U.S. officials continue talks with the Taliban to negotiate a peace deal and withdraw American troops from the country, President Donald Trump told reporters at the White House on Tuesday that he’s seen a plan that would end the Afghanistan war in a week and a half.
American service members have been acting like policemen, he added, and the administration is leaning on Pakistan to help it leave behind a more stable Afghanistan.
“If we wanted to fight a war in Afghanistan and win it, I would win that war in a week,” he said before heading into a closed-door meeting with Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan. “I just don’t want to kill 10 million people. Does that make sense to you?”
Warfare from the air via drones need not kill ten million, but it can inflict serious damage with less American bloodshed, but at the cost of innocent Afghan lives. I think that this is the threat to the Taliban, and the notice to Trump’s critics that he may be about to unleash tactics that they will scream about as war crimes and genocide.
It appears to me that he recognizes that a complete pullout of troops risks handing a huge territory over to terrorists who will use it as a base from which to launch future 9-11-style attacks. My guess is that he will keep a smaller number of troops there, but will limit the planned withdrawal so as to be able to protect important American facilities there in Kabul and elsewhere.
The timing of the talks just days before the 9-11 anniversary suggests that Trump had at least some hope that his negotiation skills could have potentially yielded an announcement of an agreement for “peace” just before or on the anniversary. But that was always a faint hope at best, in my opinion. The fallback (and much more probable) outcome of planning the negotiations was to justify harsher military action against the Taliban, taken to warn them that if their territory becomes a base for terror attacks against us, the “10 million casualties” may become a reality.
By Thomas Lifson
The Left is already going crazy, as they always do no matter what steps President Trump takes or announces. In a series of three tweets, the president revealed that “unbeknownst to almost everyone” leaders of the Taliban were coming to Washington, DC, and along with the President of Afghanistan and were going to meet separately with him at Camp David. However, in response to an unprovoked attack that “killed one of our great great soldiers,” he was abruptly canceling the negotiations.
Here are the tweets:
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
< >
In my opinion, it was always fruitless to negotiate with the Taliban. They would violate any agreement whenever they saw advantage in doing so. Their goal is to drive out the Americans the same way they drove out the Soviets, and before them, the British and the Persians. Their time horizon is unlimited, while ours is tied to the four-year presidential election cycle. Any agreement with the Taliban would be worthless.
My guess is that President Trump knows this. And as his critics now point out, he criticized President Obama in 2012 for negotiating with the Taliban … after “slashing the military.”
Today, the US military has been strengthened by a massive buildup, so the conditions are not the same. But President Trump also has promised to withdraw troops in response to conservative (and some leftist) criticism of the endless war there at the cost of American blood and treasure. Consider these two facts together with President Trump’s threat very explicit threat in July:
As U.S. officials continue talks with the Taliban to negotiate a peace deal and withdraw American troops from the country, President Donald Trump told reporters at the White House on Tuesday that he’s seen a plan that would end the Afghanistan war in a week and a half.
American service members have been acting like policemen, he added, and the administration is leaning on Pakistan to help it leave behind a more stable Afghanistan.
“If we wanted to fight a war in Afghanistan and win it, I would win that war in a week,” he said before heading into a closed-door meeting with Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan. “I just don’t want to kill 10 million people. Does that make sense to you?”
Warfare from the air via drones need not kill ten million, but it can inflict serious damage with less American bloodshed, but at the cost of innocent Afghan lives. I think that this is the threat to the Taliban, and the notice to Trump’s critics that he may be about to unleash tactics that they will scream about as war crimes and genocide.
It appears to me that he recognizes that a complete pullout of troops risks handing a huge territory over to terrorists who will use it as a base from which to launch future 9-11-style attacks. My guess is that he will keep a smaller number of troops there, but will limit the planned withdrawal so as to be able to protect important American facilities there in Kabul and elsewhere.
The timing of the talks just days before the 9-11 anniversary suggests that Trump had at least some hope that his negotiation skills could have potentially yielded an announcement of an agreement for “peace” just before or on the anniversary. But that was always a faint hope at best, in my opinion. The fallback (and much more probable) outcome of planning the negotiations was to justify harsher military action against the Taliban, taken to warn them that if their territory becomes a base for terror attacks against us, the “10 million casualties” may become a reality.
