This update is posted
after the original post which follows: I wanted to list the key elements right up front.
Key
points and background leading to the Doha Agreement (Washington Post): Trump
took a swing at something his predecessors hadn’t: A full-bore effort to strike
a deal with the Taliban. That took nine rounds of talks over 18 months. At one
point, Trump secretly invited the Taliban to the presidential retreat at Camp
David on the eve of the 9/11 anniversary.
But Trump shut that down on September 9, 2019 — and on Twitter he threatened to shut down all talks — after an American service member was killed and there was bipartisan backlash over the invitation.
Then talks continued in Doha, and in
February 2020, Trump announced that there was a deal.
The basics: (1) The
United States was to get out of Afghanistan in 14 months, (2) the Taliban
agreed not to let Afghanistan become a haven for terrorists, (3) the Taliban
also agreed to start peace talks with the Afghan government and (4) consider a cease-fire
with the government, and (5) the U.S. would release 5,000 Taliban prisoners; and,
(6) the Taliban would release 1,000 of its Afghan prisoners.
NOTE: The Taliban had been killing Afghan forces throughout all this
talk time, apparently attempting to use violence as leverage in negotiations
that is what U.S. intelligence officials believed.
U.S. explicit
timetable for withdrawal: The U.S. and NATO would pull out their forces in
the first 100 days or so. They would reduce troops from 14,000 to 8,600 and
leave all five military bases. Over the next nine months, they would vacate all
the rest.
According to the deal: “The United States, its allies, and the
Coalition will complete withdrawal of all remaining forces from Afghanistan
within the remaining nine and a half months. The United States, its allies, and
the Coalition will withdraw all their forces from remaining bases.”
Original Post Follows:
From the BBC
(February 29, 2020): Trump in remarks at the White House said the Taliban
had been trying to reach an agreement with the U.S. for a long time, adding: “It’s been a long and hard journey in
Afghanistan. It's time after all these years to bring our people back home. We
have been killing terrorists in Afghanistan by the thousands and now it was time
for someone else to do that work and it will be the Taliban and it could be
surrounding countries. I really believe the Taliban wants to do something to
show we're not all wasting time. If bad things happen, we'll go back with a
force like no-one's ever seen.”
Now more gaps filled in with this NPR
interview of a New Yorker Report on March 4, 2021 helps fill in some gaps
in this whole Afghanistan mess still ongoing vis-à-vis Trump’s “Taliban Doha Peace Agreement.”
My notes taken from the NPR interview with New Yorker writer Dexter Filkins
with this headline and highlights that follow (arranged to fit the blog):
“Trump's Deal to End War in Afghanistan Leaves Biden with
a Terrible Situation”
On the surface the deal seemed simple, but it sets off with
a cascade of other things which are not so simple, such as these six key parts
of the “deal:”
(1) The Taliban won't kill any Americans.
(2) The U.S. won’t attack the Taliban.
(3) The Taliban agrees not to support any kind of terrorism
against the United States
(4) The Taliban will not allow terrorists in the country.
(5) The Taliban will not have any kind of bases.
(6) The United States agrees to leave and reach a zero strength
by May 1, 2021.
At the time, the U.S. has about 2,500 troops in Afghanistan.
Also, there was about 5,000 NATO & European troops there
but they are waiting on the U.S. to make a decision on the final exit policy,
thus, in total there was about 7,500 allied troops in Afghanistan.
Did Trump defy norms and conventions when he negotiated this deal with the Taliban, a known terrorist organization?
This agreement between Trump and the Taliban does not include anyone from the Afghan government – they were totally left out.
Thus, Trump was negotiating with the
Taliban about whether, how, and when to remove U.S. troops, but not with the
Afghan government present – the country that was hosting those same troops.
And, right across the
table from Trump was the Taliban whom the U.S. had labeled a terrorist
organization who was aligned with Al-Qaeda.
1. The
same Taliban who gave sanctuary to Osama bin Laden before the 9/11 attacks.
2. The
same Taliban that wouldn’t even acknowledge those two facts.
3. We
didn't acknowledge the Taliban’s legitimacy, but we were actively trying to
kill them (how ironic is that).
4. Now
we were seated across the table from them in “peace talks.”
Also all that was a pretty unconventional way for the negotiation
as U.S. diplomats were trying to negotiate some kind of a schedule for a U.S. withdrawal.
There was a certain amount of bluffing involved – like: “If
we don't get the deal we want, we're not going to pull out.”
All the while over the course of 2019 and early 2020, Trump
was unilaterally announcing troop withdrawals saying: “I'm going to pull
everybody out, or I'm going to - we're going to go down to 7,000 troops
starting now.”
BTW: He basically didn't consult anybody and didn't even
necessarily tell his negotiators that he was doing that and thus he was like
literally kind of taking their sticks away from them at the table as they were
doing this.
The whole thing and it was
a big deal, too was very unconventional leading to the agreement that was
signed on February 29, 2020 which says: The United States will pull out all of
its forces by May 1.
The bottom line:
It was a very narrow agreement between the Taliban and the U.S. without the
Afghan government involved or included.
The Taliban agreed not to kill Americans.
The Taliban stepped their killings of Afghans, however.
There has been more and more targeted murders of women, journalists,
and educated people – all who have spoken out against the Taliban in the past.
The Taliban did not acquiescence to or on anything except: “We're
not going to kill you Americans. We're just going to kill the Afghans.”
That was not part of the deal, thus it’s no wonder the
Afghan government was not involved.
Trump basically said we are just going to get out and leave the Afghan government and the Taliban to each other meaning violence and a civil war.
Then the Taliban encroached in all major cities and finally
took the Capital in Kabul (August 15, 2021).
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