Posted on 08/20/2021 7:52:11 AM PDT by Hojczyk
Trump instructed me to arrange a conditions-based, methodical exit plan that would preserve the national interest. The plan ended up being fairly simple: The Afghan government and the Taliban were both told they would face the full force of the US military if they caused any harm to Americans or American interests in Afghanistan.
Next, both parties would negotiate to create an interim-joint government, and both sides had to repudiate al Qaeda. Lastly, a small special-operations force would be stationed in the country to take direct action against any terrorist threats that arose. When all those conditions were met — along with other cascading conditions — then a withdrawal could, and did, begin.
We successfully executed this plan until Jan. 20, 2021. During this interval — when there were no US casualties in Afghanistan — President Ashraf Ghani and the Taliban conducted multiple rounds of negotiations, and al Qaeda was sidelined. The result was a successful drawdown of US forces in Afghanistan to 2,500, the lowest count since the dawn of the War on Terror.
Former Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller claimed that the Trump administration never intended to completely pull of out Afghanistan. Ex-Trump official Chris Miller says Taliban deal was a ‘play’ never intended to pull troops We handed our entire plan to the incoming Biden administration during the lengthy transition. The new team simply wasn’t interested.
Everything changed when the new commander in chief declared that US forces would leave Afghanistan by Sept. 11, 2021, pushing back the Trump administration’s timetable by four months. Crucially, he didn’t condition the withdrawal on continued adherence to the agreed-upon stipulations. It would be an unconditional pullout with an arbitrary date based on pure symbolism — and set in stone.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Ping.
Excellent post.
Reading later.
Biden is the mean dementia patient.
OK so say Trump had won in January, the agreement worked as he described, and Trump had successfully withdrawn all U.S. forces on May 11th as promised. The Taliban then begins to take over the cities, the Afghan army folds like a cheap suit, and Kabul falls within weeks. What does the Trump administration do?
Nailed it!
They would have successfully “done” the withdrawal.
That’s what they would “do”.
If he didn’t leave 6 billion in armament and Americans behind..I’d say,wish them luck?
Very good article, to go along with a bunch of other articles supporting the same,
I don't think they all would have been gone for a while just like in Syria or Iraq and we certainly would not have abandoned the airbase so I don't think it would have played out like this or how you are assuming it would have been the same result.
*bump*
I’ll note that these lines aren’t in the actual article but seem to be a formatting glitch: “Former Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller claimed that the Trump administration never intended to completely pull of out Afghanistan. Ex-Trump official Chris Miller says Taliban deal was a ‘play’ never intended to pull troops”
“We are witnessing the utter collapse of a government — and not just in Afghanistan.”
Didn’t read the article? What President Trump would have done is right in there.
Say “we got our people out, we’re done with this crap hole” and be done with it.
And that's what Biden did. All the U.S. troops left Afghanistan weeks ago. A bit messier than might have happened under Trump but they were all gone around July 1st. So in that respect the withdrawal was 'successful'.
Nah, it's easier to parrot the Democrats on cable news.
The armaments were left to the Afghan Army. Would Trump have taken it all back before we left? And those American left after the withdrawal were there by choice. How to you force them all to leave as well?
This article lays out clearly and in great detail the Trump plan for withdrawal from Afghanistan and how Biden did not follow it. It was published by the NY Post on August 19. I wonder if any other media will even refer to it.
But the agreement Pompeo worked out with the Taliban last year set a May 11 date for all U.S. troops to be out. Absent the Taliban violating it before then I don't see how Trump could have left troops in country after May 11.
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