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 ...
Which reminds me: Why aren’t all the military leaders and Republican politicians howling like they did over Trump/Syria? Oh, that’s right. Orange Man Bad.
Paging the Cheneys . . .
Not sure of your overall point.
Trump could have screwed things up?
When the reality is biden has screwed EVERYTHING up from day one of his illegitimate Presidency.
Not to mention he has 50 years as a corrupt politician.
It would have been AMAZING if he got ANYTHING right.
He is the same guy.
I am not sure Devin would’ve been so succesful with Operation Medusa if not for Kash.
Kash had worked in the doj and Devin approached him for help.
Kash Patel is completely worthy of respect.
I could not agree with you more.
A modicum of research would dispel your bewilderment.
Re: 12 - I wonder if that is Miller doing a bit of “ass covering” when he says a force would be left behind in Afghanistan.
Lots of finger pointing to/from all sides.
What is a “known known” is the current situation is on Biden. If President Trump left a bad agreement in place, that’s Biden’s to remediate. He could exit per the agreement as signed or modify once there is buy-in by all sides.
For me, I think what was negotiated by President Trump, and acted on (in part) by Biden was a bad agreement. The military should have retained a military presence from which to provide counterterrorism operations, a contractor presence for aviation support and training, etc. Handing over OAI was a huge blunder.
The US will be flying blind in Afghanistan. Not a good place to be.
Re: 38;- Good post.
Well, that didn't happen - the Afghan government refused to join the negotiations. So much for "conditions based".
A modicum of research would dispel your bewilderment.
+++++
Case A: Trump actually leaves. The Taliban take over. What does Trump do?
Case B. It was just a “play” and Trump had no intention of leaving. (That’s in the article) He effectively cancels the agreement and we stay forever. Or what?
Trump’s withdrawl plan that was ignored - Worth reading.
FYI - the UN was monitoring adherence to Doha Agreement. The team doing the monitoring wrote a letter/report in April 28, 2021 reporting that the Taliban had violated the agreement because they allowed members of alQaida to stay in Afghanistan. And you know from reading the agreement, that was forbidden.
SO, Trump wouldn’t have been breaking the agreement, since the Taliban already did.
I think he was betting/assuming when they made the Doha agreement that the Taliban wouldn’t stick to it, and he could do what he wanted at that point. And he was right - they didn’t adhere to the agreement.
"the bombing begins in 10 minutes"
Kash Patel was a key member of Devin Nunes’ team uncovering SpyGate.
Guy is absolute money. He then went on to be a key person for President Trump.
Great American and we need more like him.
Violate the agreement he made with the Taliban? How was that going to get us out of Afghanistan?
Trump doesn’t need to explain anything. Nothing. He is not President due to fraud this current President and his team was wholly complicit in.
I can tell you two things Trump would not have done: He would’t have abandoned Bagram with all its equipment in the middle of the night since other than Kabul, it was the only other place to use to get flights in and out, and he wouldn’t have chosen a date like 9/11/2021 as his target goal for withdrawal.
The question isn’t whether Afghanistan would fall to the Taliban after US withdrawal. That is totally irrelevant if we are pulling out.
The question is the conduct and planning of the pullout.
Please read my post #50
The question is the conduct and planning of the pullout.
+++++
Of course Trump would have managed that better. But that is NOT the only question.
Trump was negotiating with the Taliban for a reorganization of the Afghan government, the exclusion of al Qaeda and a permanent resident Special Forces base.
That was his plan. I just think we need to hear what the contingency plans were if that deal fell through.
If anyone knows the answer to that question they should voice it. To me that plan looked hopeless. And I’m a big Trump fan.
Your scenario and question is purely hypothetical. It didn’t happen, so there is no way to know what would happen in that scenario. All we can do is offer our beliefs, and I believe Trump would order bombing of the Taliban long before they began taking over cities/villages. Also, none of our civilians and military equipment would have been left behind for the Taliban to leverage.
Dude..
Ya gotta read the article...
It says he would have left a small contingent of special forces there to deal with the Taliban or the Afghanistan forces if they got out of line..
Read the text of this article, then get back to me.
From the article:
“ Former Acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller claimed that the Trump administration never intended to completely pull of out Afghanistan.”
Is that true? Do we really know?
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