It was a war started by two men who avoided service in the Vietnam War, to show their own manhood by sending others to fight a war, while they beat their chests back home. The war’s other purpose was to attack people who looked similar to and who had the same religion as the perps of 9/11. To further enhance these goals they then stated a war with Iraq.
Why do we keep electing Republicans to rule every nook and cranny of this country?
How stupid are we?
1
I thought negotiating with terrorists was a no-no for conservative Republicans. Guess that rule has been abandoned.
1
More women will be murdered then people died on 9-11. I will be horrified by this and the whole world will see what trusting the US leaves one. This I blame not just on Trump but on us all.
2
Time for people who helped us and put their lives at risk saving Americans and other NATO forces to get the hades out.
The administration we have will call them all terrorists, refuse visas, and those that don't flee will be slaughtered with their families.
1
There should never, ever be a monument to this war and its veterans, for stupidity and ignorance should never be honored among people.
I am only certain that Republicans will try to take credit for ending this, without explaining why their ilk began it.
2
I don't care about the Taleban, just get our troops out and home.
I have a bridge for sale in New York.
1
Well no more kite flying, riding bicycles or tv watching... won't be seeing the women much either ;-p
As we depart, we'll be leaving a large wooden horse on wheels.
Trump is declaring victory and retreating.
Too bad for the Afghan suckers who worked with the U.S. expecting to be protected from the Taliban. Too bad for the Afghan females who are about to forced back into their burkas.
The U.S. has become the world's least reliable ally.
14
I think we can count on the racist, narcissistic incompetents in this administration to do things in a way that maximizes future pain and suffering in Afghanistan.
7
No matter how the Trtump Administratiion wants to spin things, thirty one years ago Russian troops left Afghanistan much like the coming departure of our troops under what the Trump Administration signed on to this past week.
Two great nations, hats in hand, trail dragging between their legs, proceed through the dusts of time kicking aside the devotion, deaths, and memories of their lost troops.
And giving Trump another chance to have a placard saying 'Promise Made, Promise Kept'; and one of his rallies. And the families of the dead soldiers get what?
8
The NY Times today
"Analysis: After 18 Years, Is This Peace, or Just a Way Out?
Afghanistan has gone from being a “good war” to a longstanding burden the U.S. now seeks to unload, much like the British and Soviets before it."
American exceptionalism "We do not have to learn from history" failed the reality test
https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/Britains-Retreat-From-Kabul-1842/
1
We're out. Who's in?
“Let’s just declare victory and leave.” US Senator George Aiken, 1966, referring to the war in Vietnam
Good advice then, good advice now.
US 1967 - 71
Vietnam 1968
Medevac
4
Usa once again unable to clean up their mess, it really surprises me that it is patriotic to commit atrocities against innocent people and never pay any consequence.
8
19 years and the results are worse than Vietnam. Way to go America!
5
22 years ago the Taliban was in control when we invaded with planes, guns, special forces, overwhelming fire power and 22 years later? We're signing a treaty with the Taliban that will leave them in control. Shades of Vietnam all over again.
Our brilliant military leaves with its tail between its legs. Next year we'll spend even more money to keep this fossilized approach to national defense going.
Meanwhile, our country remains unprotected from cyber attacks by Russia and China, our cities and States are continuing to be hammered by climate change and a virus is creeping throughout our population and we are totally unprepared to defend the nation. So much for national defense.
12
Does anyone realize just how bad this deal is? Seriously, this not just another Trump play of the hour, day or week, this is a surrender. the original engagement was against the Taliban, now trump is ignoring the elected government and is dealing with Afghanistan's biggest enemy.
8
The lede is buried in paragraph three. I have to admit, I accepted the invasion at the time, but I also knew Afghanistan was unconquerable and that all they would have to do is wait us out. That wait is over.
4
Obama and the generals kept the war going by changing the reporting to reflect a more optimistic picture of how the war is going on.Trump promised to get out of Afghanistan and delivered on his promise.
9
Whew! Get our troops out before the Taliban overthrow the government. Then DO NOT send them back. Maybe the Russians or the Brits would like another try @ “conquering” the Afghans.
4
Finally, US imperialism admits defeat and will leave Afghanistan. Imperial pride alone has kept this horrific war going year after year killing thousands. Imagine if $2 trillion had been spent on housing, clean water, hospitals, and sewage treatment, instead of the military boondoggle it was for profiteers. Let us never forget that it was the US, UK, etc. that created Islamism and the the Jihadi movement to first fight anti-colonial freedom fighters and then "communists." Every gun thug and warlord in Afghanistan were on the CIA payroll at one time or another. So the midieval nightmare that will remain in Afghanistan is also the US doing.
3
Considering this agreement apparently does not address the poppy cultivation and the opium trade, which funds the majority of Taliban operations, means that we'll have two problems - no monetary incentive for the Taliban to work toward peace, and the continued shipment of opium (and heroin) from Afghanistan, through Tajikistan, Moscow, and into Europe. Understandable, given that successive US Administrations have denied feasible strategies from being employed because they weren't consistent with DEA and USDA policies!
3
“ 'Everybody’s tired of war,' Mr. Trump told reporters in Washington. He also said he would be 'meeting personally with Taliban leaders in the not-too-distant future, and will be very much hoping that they will be doing what they say.' " Reduced to hoping. Such is the strength and resolve of the USA acting alone.
Our president, in his ill considered way, is making history. The consequences will probably take a hundred turbulent years to play out. The Taliban will feel their resolve is due reward. Their first reign was brutal. This time there is no one in the world that would try to stop them.
And what are they? Theocrats.
Think of all the movements and remnants inspired by identical medieval ideals of religious nationalism. No matter what the treaty says, what is going to stop them from enlisting IS, al Qaida and other new recruits or battle hardened fighters to their civil war against the citizens we have shielded for so long. They are likely to commit many atrocities in their continued fight against every village or region that opposes them. And they'll find sacred texts say jihad is righteous, their way to glory hallelujah
As events appear destine to unfold with new waves of refugees likely coming our way. As he himself said many times, this president is already tired of accepting those kind of people.
We are a civil, non-sectarian society, and we claim a modern culture with high morals. We need to consider carefully: What is the way to our glory hallelujah future.
3
When the U.S. removed the Taliban regime in 2001, Afghanistan had an economy, society, and regional conflicts that was impossible to support a peaceful outcome. The greatest amount of money that existed in the country was from foreign aid, and the second was from the opium trade. The country was not a modern state but a collection of traditional communities which regularly fought with one another. It was also a staging ground for the power struggle between Pakistan and India. In other words, it was a situation likely to become a protracted conflict. It required nation building and developing products to sell to the rest of the world and peace between India and Pakistan. The U.S. was determined to avoid nation building. Since then the strategy has been to destroy terrorists but to not address any of the forces that generate many more terrorists and armed conflicts in Afghanistan.
The U.S. may leave but nothing will have been accomplished to leave a peaceful Afghanistan.
1
So, finally time to declare 'victory' and turn the country back over to the Taliban.
I feel badly for our veterans, carrying wounds from this useless war, and I don't envy the female population of Afghanistan, who will lose whatever ground they gained in the past eighteen years.
Maybe we'll welcome a bunch of deserving refugees to our shores as we retreat? /sarcasm
2
Now, please answer this question:
What was the overall cost of this war for the USA (dollars not even the infinite pain) over the past 30 years.
Compare and contrast that with Medicare for all over the next 30 years.
I rest Bernie’s case and mine.
4
The war profiteers are working over time trying to figure out which country to bomb next. You think they are just going to sit at home doing nothing? Which country can we whip up the greatest hate against? Iran looks like target number 1, followed closely by N Korea, Venezuela.
4
Somehow it seems that Homeland is always a step ahead. Might indicate more brainpower than in the Trump administration...
4
We got run out of Vietnam, we got run out of Iraq and now we're getting run out of Afghanistan.
I don't know why I'm so much smarter than the generals, but I predicted it years ago. I predicted it when Obama was on the verge of pulling out and the generals talked him into sending more troops.
You would think they'd have nothing to justify themselves if they weren't making war...
9
It's hard to believe that Trump could ever do something this good. But if he did, it must be a mistake. I suggest cautious optimism.
6
I am right there with Joe from White Plains in seeing similarities between this treaty and the end of the war in Vietnam. Once again it is a Republican Administration pulling out, the difference being that this time it was a Republican Administration that got us into this mess.
Admittedly, George W. had lots of public opinion behind him, thanks to the horror engendered by 9/11. Still, somebody in Washington could have looked at the history of Afghanistan, and seen how neither the Soviet Union -- in the 20th century -- nor the British -- in the 19th -- had been able to subdue it. It has seemingly always been proudly independent.
Not everybody was in favor of trying to subdue the Taliban by invading Afghanistan, either. I can't remember who else disapproved, but I published an article entitled "The View from Virginia" in NY Arts for October 2001 which pointed out the futility of trying to fight terrorism by military means.
I argued that the Arab world was simply reacting to the end of Communism because that end deprived it of choice: as long as the Cold War was going on, the Arabs could play off the US against the Soviets, and see who'd give them a better deal.
I warned that everybody had to have choice, "be they Christian, Jew, Moslem, Hindu, Buddhist, animist, or like me, practice their own private religion. Choice allows us to hope, and humanity can't live without hope."
As I see it, the Taliban are only exercising their hard-won freedom of choice.
1
Just like the British and the Russians, we leave with no victory.
So many lives destroyed and ended because politicians knew better.
Are we ever going to learn?
Probably not.
2
Does Trump know who Malala is? Does he know or care that they are the real enemy of the Afghan people?. This is a deal between Trump and the Taliban, the Afghan government is not involved.
2
How can Trump's US make troop withdrawal treaty with Talibam WITHOUT an agreeement with the legal government of Afganistan? It is like leaving a hosts home by permission of a robber and not asking th host? Only in Trump's world can a crook give permission to police to leave!well, we Americans know that Trump is a criminal crook and does not care about the civilized process.
5
Not worth the paper it is written on. When the US leaves the Taliban will rules the country in 90 days and the blood bath will be in full swing. If you even talked to a foreigner you will be suspect.
1
Yes give credit that we are leaving , many many years late. This whole mess should have st r topped as soon as ben Laden killed. Wewent into this crazy mess with one objective,Ben Laden and Al Queda, We got bogged down on a mess that np one could give a reason for.
Trillions of dollars and many ruined lives we are actually back to where we started.
WE shouldhave a very very serious review and analyze how this all came about. All the guilty including all congress members for past 20 years need to be held accountable.They failed, they enabled this mess without question.
3
After this long, all I can say is, “ Thank you, President Trump.”
7
Well at least we can say that we outspent the Taliban by a billion to one ratio.
5
Finally, Trump does something decent.
5
We'll see. It could be a breakthrough. So far, as in N Korea, all we've really accomplished is giving away bargaining chips. What have we gained from the Great Adventure. Hopefully some skepticism of military adventurism. Also Al Jazeera, which I often disagree with, but depend on for day to day news. Does the new agreement have any mention of Universal Principals?
This sounds like Vietnam redux.
2
The United States of America surrendered. Period. Full Stop.
Withdrawal timed for the Republican convention?
Another fake deal by the reality tv construction.
1
This deal is not great but it could be the first step of many that the Afghans need to determine their future. It may create some level of momentum. The Taliban did not win. We did not win. The real loser is the Afghan government that after almost 19 years and trillions in aid were unable to govern effectively, reduce corruption, implement an Afghan version of rule of law and defend themselves.
I and many thousands of American and NATO soldiers did our best to not only assist but to also to seek out and close with the enemy. That cannot be our task forever. I gave a year. The United States does not need to give unlimited man years (and women years!).
The Afghans both Government and the Taliban need to sort this out. May the population speak up, organize and let their desires known. Remember the cease fire a year or so ago, low level troops and Taliban foot soldiers celebrated. They will come to a solution far better than we can imagine or negotiate.
God bless the people of Afghanistan that want just what we want: peace, to be left alone to pursue their life works and for their children to have it better. Those are universal desires.
4
As much as I detest Trump, I agree with this move to remove all US troops from Afganistan. Once America achieved its mission of removing Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda from Afganistan, American troops should have been withdrawn. We should not be there to try and create a democracy and guarantee equal rights for woman. That is up to the people of Afganistan to sort themselves out.
If we look at how Vietnam has turned out after US troops, then maybe there is hope for Afganistan.
5
Trump's Nixon moment. Deal made with one party to justify withdrawal by not consulting the other parties in the civil war.
What Talibán now needs to do is clap their hands for next 14 months and then wipe off the non-US supported Afgan army and take control over the country again. US won't be coming back after that.
Seems very similar to Vietnam deal with northern army and leaving the south to deal with the worth coming problems.
What has changed is the title war on terrorist instead of was on communist.
1
Great news for America. Now I figure I can set my watch by how fast Trump deranged Democrats claim Trump is too dumb to have anything to do with it; Adam Schiff will claim the deal was all done under Putin's orders; Pelosi and various media talking heads will demand impeachment because the deal was only to advance Trump's election chances; and Chuck Schumer will complain they could have used better paper stock to draw up the agreement.
5
Say what you want about Trump, and there is plenty to say, but he is a decision maker and when it comes to foreign policy he's been way out front of his predecessors (new NAFTA, ending idiotic Iran agreement, etc). This one is tricky, and may look like Vietnam, but if the ultimate goal is getting our men and women out of Afghanistan, then this could be a win.
5
So strange. I thought Trump didn't like losers. We should end the war. But, like the cut and run in Syria, is this the best way to do it?
Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, ...
When will we ever learn?
3
And what will happen to the women?
1
Do really think Donald Trump really cares?
Of course he doesn’t.
America: proud of losing unjust wars since 1945!
2
Typical Trump: surrender and declare victory.
We, Americans, have a hard time figuring out how to balance strength, morality, image and failure. All we can do is be highly selective in how and when we deploy military might to defend ourselves. We shame ourselves over the civilian bloodbath in Syria, but have no will to do anything about it. Our ally, Israel, continues to live on the brink of war and terror. We leave Afghanistan having defeated the perpetrators and harborers of 9/11, but short of tying everything in a bow. The country has a chance to do better and extend freedoms to women and diverse sects, but we can’t guarantee it. We are strong. And we want good outcomes. Our military makes us proud. And America’s presence and strength is a stabilizing factor in the world. But unlike the end of WWII, there are few victories and happy endings. And we have to live with that.
1
Another distraction by this corrupt, incompetent administration. There is no integrity from this group.
Yet another colossal waste of lives and money. When will we learn? Yet I fear for the Afghan people, especially the women and children. They’re heading back to the Middle Ages.
1
They were in the dark ages before we got there. We’ve given them a chance to do better, but we can’t get them all the way there. Don’t feel so shamed in your certainty that it must have been the USA that messed it all up again. I understand that is the left’s psyche, but we can’t fix them, and YOU couldn’t do any better if you were in charge.
3
First, our government gives up its power to the Russians, then we burn our allies in Syria (which has created a situation in which Turkey is now threatening and supporting refugees going to Europe) and now we give in to an organization that supported Bin Laden and is responsible for killing many of our soldiers. If our President had his way, he would have invited these terrorists to the United States to sign a "deal." The Taliban will never be our friends or allies, they are our enemy and the enemy of the people of Afghanistan. You are sticking your heads in the sand if you believe that this will end violence and make us safer. These are terrorists. We should do anything and everything we can to eliminate the Taliban.
2
A good move from Trump. Let it go.
4
This agreement does nothing for the rights of women in Afghanistan. It allows the Taliban to continue to suppress the rights of women, making sure Afghanistan will never become a prosperous, educated country.
What a shame!
2
Good news. Apparently, nothing short of physical extermination the Taliban would come across as undisputed victory for USA so this halfhearted and likely to fail at some point piece is a decent attempt to close this endless pit of pain and waste. What happens there is not our problem and should not have been for such tremendous length of time. Just watch our borders .
1
Absolutely no faith that this will work-out for the good.
Anything Trump and his toadies touch becomes toxic.
As Trump's personal lawyer Michael Cohen testified during the Mueller probe: "Trump is a con-man and a liar."
Cohen's in jail now and will likely never be pardoned. He chose truth over loyalty to Trump.
Trump values loyalty above everything else.
Expect nothing good from a con-man. So-called Christians have sold their soul to Trump.
1
Yeh right. Just a way out to duck the responsibility of blowing the invasion and subsequent half think occupation. Short memory people, think Korea, think Vietnam.
1
Here's the basic joke for years: "America is teaching Afghanis how to fight."
1
I thought trump was against withdrawal timetables??
3
Everyone knows where this "peace deal"is going . Americans leave, peace for a month, Taliban take over, Taliban get their revenge by killing loyalist Afghans, influx of rich and government Afghanis migrate to USA.
Another democracy where America fought is turned into a communist state or dictatorship.
End of Story - Sadly!
Why are we making a deal with the power structure that murders children for reading?
And how about the rest of the Middle East quagmire?
Charlie Brown, Lucy and the football. Please make a liar out of me but I won’t believe this deal until the suicide vests stop going off in Afghan girl’s schools & Kabul neighborhoods. Peace in Afghanistan is an oxymoron. Don’t believe a word SecState & POTUS utter, lies so heinous their key hires always quit. If Afghanistan sees a month of peace it’ll help. Maybe kites will fly again° What about poppies? Will anything ever be done about the heroin capital of the world?
1
Humiliating, but not as bad I suppose as having to dump hundreds of millions of dollars worth of taxpayer-owned helocopters off aircraft carrier decks to make room for more the last time we lost a major war.
What?
"the impoverished Central Asian country once unfamiliar to many Americans that now symbolizes endless conflict"
God Bless you, Donald Trump
The American people and the incredible men and women of the US Armed Forces will ALWAYS have your back...just like you have ours!
3
When was the last time America "won" a war and brought real peace and democracy somewhere?...ww2 maybe?
2
First Trump got Kim to get rid of his nukes and ICBMs, then he the fixed the situations in Ukraine, Syria, and Iran. Even as he increased confidence in his administrations handling of the corona virus, he makes peace in Afghanistan!
Trump critics and Trump acolytes, is there anything Trump can't do when he puts his mouth to it?
2
So much wrong in this article. The US has no business in trying to impose "democracy" on anyone; the Afghans see the Taliban as just another sect (albeit a very strict Islamic one); the suggestion that the Taliban played a large role in 9/11 is just wrong - they did play a role after 9/11 undoubtedly; the US, like Russia beforehand, played a long war against a small foe but, yes, like Vietnam they were not prepared to put the effort in to defeat it; and finally, maybe it is time for the Middle Eastern states to sort out their own mess starting with the Sunni-Shia divide (after all the Protestants and Catholics are now on 'speaking terms" despite the appalling behaviour in the 16th- 19th centuries and Sinn Fein in the 20th).
@Gary Since you write from Australia, where exactly does your nation fit into the equation? (Australians were in Vietnam until August of 1971.) Irrespective of your view, Southeast and Central Asia are within regional proximity. Australia and the US seem to be moving into different spheres of influence. (China, and later, joined by India and Indonesia, will most likely be the arbiters of your nation's future. Population size eventually is synonymous with economic power and regional dominance.) What is Australia's plan?
The best way out of Afghanistan? Planes. We should have never been there, to begin with. The problem with the military is that they're the proverbial carpenter with a hammer always looking for a nail to pound. This is not a problem that could be solved with war. Not by the Soviets (it led directly to the end of the Soviet Union). Not by the US in Vietnam (check your shoes - they were probably manufactured in Vietnam). And now, not by a 19-year war in Afghanistan. This country has been led by a succession of politicians with all the acumen, foresight, and competence of Mafia loan sharks... actually less, much less.
Two photos worth keeping. The great Ronald Reagan with two dozen Afghan militant leaders as White House guests after the great success of the US defeating the Soviet Union. Now one picture of Trump with two dozen similarly bearded Afghan militant leaders. One can suspect the link between the two pictures. A lesson in history.
How could this be a bad thing? It's good !
4
Is there really anything to discuss.
This is not similar to Viet Nam, it is exactly the same.
Peace with honour my hat. Anybody who is not deluded knows exactly how it will work out. The Taliban will at best behave until the period runs out and then take over or more likely get fed up with waiting and take over when they please and the US will accelerate its exit.
There is nothing wrong with getting out but please don't pretend it is a peace treaty. It is another lose for the US. Second out of two.
1
Can we airlift every woman and child out of there first? Because we know what will happen to them, especially women, if this happens.
Shall we have Christmas Truce? Through Tet?
"The war cost $2 trillion and took the lives of more than 3,500 American and coalition troops and tens of thousands of Afghans..."
The lost lives are reason enough for outrage, and then theres the money:
2 trillion is a 2 with 12 zeros to the right, thats a lot of zeros
in 20 years
100B per year for 20 years or,
8.3B per month for 240 months or
278M per day for 7200 days
I recall the Al Queda leaders back then saying, "we will bankrupt you"
Nice to keep in mind when you write your check to the IRS this April
4
Vietnam, all over again. I mourn for the senseless waste of human life both ventures cost us.
1
Huh. I hand’t known we had Kurds who we could sell out in Afghanistan.
If the US under George Bush had not squandered its original advantage in Afghanistan by invading Iraq, the women of Afghanistan would have a brighter future.
2
And yet, we still provide billions in weaponry to the Saudis, who actively arm and support Al Qaeda affiliates...
2
Hmmm, waggle two fingers, assure everyone they'll be just fine and run like a scalded cat. Think I've seen this before.
"Peace with Honor" 2020
Good luck to the women. This administration cares as much about them as they do all women. Not.
But, fear not. We'll be back within 10 years. Forget, repeat, forget again.
I am glad this Afganistan chapter seems to be over.
Of course, the Taliban will probably take over by overthrowing the elected government today.
And it will be deja vue all over again.
Hopefully, they have also learned that overplaying their own hand does not get them very far.
But after all these decades of fighting –we are pulling a Russian withdrawal –except the Russians were forced to withdraw.
While our withdrawal is more in our interests and we have spent enough capital –that hopefully, Afgans have learned that there are better ways to build their country.
But time will tell.
Goodbye Afghanistan! Too bad we failed..again.
But at least we were able to use some nifty military hardware..
Once again Afghanistan lives up to being the graveyard of empires.
1
The cognitive dissonance Republicans have between making peace with the Taliban, which they apparently support, and opening Cuba, which they reversed is beyond me.
1
Barbara Lee was right: the US should NEVER have invaded Afghanistan.
1
This is just North and South Vietnam all over again! After the troops are pulled out, expect to see mass arrests and murders. This is what defeat looks like!
Mr. Trump is making a politically beneficial choice so that he claim victory before the election. The placement of US troops in the middle east to guard Mr. Trump and MBS's personal interests is amoral and disgusting. It's just ludicrous that Saudi Arabia, with all it's money, can't afford their own mercenaries.
US Troops are not mercenaries and have sworn to defend the nation, not Mr. Trumps business interests. Mr. Trump needs to take his hands out of the pockets of the taxpayers and start serving the people, as he swore to do when he took office!
2
The Bush/Cheney administration, which now tends to be remembered more fondly than it should be since Trump has established such an unbelievable record of despicable, dishonest and incompetent behavior, is to thank for this disaster.
Trillions of dollars, thousands of American and hundreds of thousands of Afghan lives lost, and very little accomplished.
The endgame here was obvious years ago: pretend you won and get out.
The disheartening part is that the neocon nitwits who got us into this mess are still around - Bolton et al. It’s up to the rest of us to keep this from happening again, say in Iran, which would be much, much worse.
2
It’s too bad the Hamid Karzai lead Afghan Government that took power after the Taliban, proved to be so corrupt, existing only to sponge up as much American cash as it could, as to make the fight against the Taliban entirely meaningless. It just became a question of pick your poison.
I am glad this Afganistan chapter seems to be over.
Of course, the Taliban will probably take over by overthrowing the elected government today.
And it will be deja vue all over again.
Hopefully, they have also learned that overplaying their own hand does not get them very far.
But after all these decades of fighting –we are pulling a Russian withdrawal –except the Russians were forced to withdraw.
While our withdrawal is more in our interests and we have spent enough capital –that hopefully, Afgans have learned that there are better ways to build their country.
But time will tell.
I am glad this Afganistan chapter seems to be over.
Of course, the Taliban will probably take over by overthrowing the elected government today.
And it will be deja vue all over again.
Hopefully, they have also learned that overplaying their own hand does not get them very far.
But after all these decades of fighting –we are pulling a Russian withdrawal –except the Russians were forced to withdraw.
While our withdrawal is more in our interests and we have spent enough capital –that hopefully, Afgans have learned that there are better ways to build their country.
But time will tell.
Once again, Trump gets rolled by evil people who are way smarter than him. He’ll never learn. Will American voters?
1
We all want to bring our troops home, but let's not kid ourselves. The Taliban have no intention of honoring any peace agreement with the Americans.
When lslamic State was rampaging through Iraq and Syria to establish their caliphate, I read a few books about Islam to try and understand the ideology driving them, and it's complicated. I learned an Arabic term from the Qur'an: "Taqiyya," meaning it is permissible in Islam to lie and deceive your infidel enemies to achieve final victory.
Without an open-ended U.S. commitment, which nobody wants, the Taliban will bide their time and eventually re-take Afghanistan. When that happens, they will round up everyone they can find who collaborated with Americans and execute them, some horribly.
Before that happens we need to evacuate those most vulnerable. Some of us have been around long enough to remember the chaos when the U.S. pulled out of Vietnam, and don't care to see that scenario repeated.
3
Other ongoing long wars: Cuba, unsigned peace treaty with N. Korea. Latin America... America proceeds with her wars, announced and secret. Trade Tariff Wars. The word is comfortably accessible for indiscriminate daily use. Peace.
Count on it: Trump’ll accept a pack of lies about terrorist ties, sell out Afghan women as he sold out the Kurds, and try to ease it on down the road before the Taliban are obviously back in the saddle.
And a lot of Americans will shrug, because who cares? It’s a long way away, amirite? None of our beeswax anyway.
You’ll care when we get jumped next, I assure you.
@Robert : so we are in Afghanistan to protect every Afghani woman?
How's that worked out for 17 years?
Do they have equal rights now?
There are 17.5 MILLION women and girls in Afghanistan. Can we protect all them? give them western rights and laws?
COME ON! this is a country that never got out of the 11th century and Dark Ages and NEVER WILL. They like it like this.
It is NOT OUR JOB to change them, because we think OUR WAY OF LIFE is more moral or correct.
That said, I pity the women there. But I cannot save them.
2
This 'peace deal' looks very much like 'an agreement to agree' and pretty much worthless.
An unsatisfying ending, but at least an ending.
1
Really. Trump, today, in his press conference about the coronavirus spent more time on this "agreement" than on the virus and its potential consequences. And frankly, without the Afghan government involved and any clear and obvious guidelines for peace, this is the same garbage we've been hearing for the past three years: boy, America is great again, and I've done it. Everything in this report shows that this is political hype from an utterly incompetent Administration.
Bush should have ended this war 18 or so years ago. Obama should have ended it 12 years ago, although the backlash from Republicans, from people understandably worried about women’s rights, and from foreign-policy “experts” would have been fierce and might have prevented his creation of ObamaCare.
4
Is this like the "agreement" with Kim Jong Un to stop missile testing in North Korea? I am thinking of going into the business of selling bridges. This is about as credible as anything else this administration brags about. In other words, don't hold your breath.
Check your history, Korea is America's longest war. Still going after 70 years.
1
Pompeo says, "It's now up to the Taliban."
Amazing that Trump's gaslighting has been so thorough that they are expecting to use the Taliban as the scapegoat when this blows up like our retreat from Syria.
We misplaced our trust in Turkey and Russia in Syria.
Now we're expected to trust terrorists?
1
Trump and his GOP sycophants have made a so-called treaty with the religious terrorists Taliban. The Taliban terrorized women and girls, denying them civil rights, denying them education, all in the name of theocracy. This deal allows religious and sexual discrimination, and gives credibility to a religious-based terrorist group, no different than ISIS.
All women in the USA must look at how this terrorism is condoned by the GOP and the GOP'S leader, Trump. Women must lead the fight to vote out the GOP at all levels for their anti-women, anti-education, anti-civil rights stance.
@Rob : this is THEIR culture!
How would you change it? Maintain US troops there FOREVER to force the Afghans to educate girls and give them equal rights?
How's that worked out for the LAST 17 YEARS?
We have been there for almost 2 decades and nothing there has changed one iota.
We have no power to impose OUR society or OUR ideals on another nation.
I fear for the women and girls.
Let us remember next time our leaders order an invasion yet again. And let the world remember when, yet again, we promise to stand firm in the face of tyranny.
1
I despise this president. But we must face facts. This is a male dominated tribalistic culture that has not moved the needle one bit towards modernism in all the time we have been there. I feel sorry for the women and girls who pay the price every day because they were born into this ignorant culture. But our efforts are insufficient, especial for such an exorbitant cost in American lives and treasure. It is long past time to leave. Peace? Hardly. The Taliban cannot be trusted. But leave we must.
1
Even after 911 there was no good reason to have American troops permanently on the ground in Afghanistan. Maybe there was justification to have special forces wipe out the Al Qaeda terrorist training operations. And then leave. But a continual ground war fighting all the Islamic jihadists and whatever tribal terrorist groups spontaneously erupt in that benighted tribal land enveloped in an uneducated medieval ignorance was itself ignorance personified in the administration of George W. Bush.
The stupidity of maintaining American forces in Afghanistan was continued during Obama's 8 years in office. Finally Trump is backing us out of a military fiasco that his predecessors could not figure how to accomplish. While most of Trump's 3 years in office have been a disaster for Americans, we must give credit where credit is due. If all American troops are out of Afghanistan by the end of this summer, we must praise Trump for something his administration actually did correctly.
2
From this Vietnam War veteran to all Afghan War veterans: accept this Second Place finish and move on.
1
Funny to see all of these antiwar people now. I could not seem to find them in 2001 and 2003. This is the beginning of a decent interval. It plays well before the election. After Trump is reelected, the Taliban can reconquer Afghanistan and he can blame Bush and Obama. This is a political move that the Taliban knows exactly how to exploit.
Donald J Trump will be forever known as the President who lost the Afghan War. I’m OK with that.
@VIKTOR : is that how Gerald Ford is remembered?
Not really.
There is no shame in saving American lives. After Osama Bin Laden was terminated, I thought that would have been the perfect time to depart the region with a warning that we would be back if America was ever attacked again.
3
"...Afghan war was extraordinarily expensive — roughly $2 trillion over 18 years..."
I'd add a few more billion for all the off-the-books Ops.
I also wonder does that $2 trillion include the price of contractors? Hmm...
"The withdrawal of American troops — about 12,000 are still in Afghanistan — is dependent on the Taliban’s fulfillment of major commitments that have been obstacles for years, including its severance of ties with international terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda.
The agreement also hinges on more difficult negotiations to come between the Taliban and the Afghan government over the country’s future. Officials hope those talks will produce a power-sharing arrangement and lasting cease-fire, but both ideas have been anathema to the Taliban in the past."
In another report it will be leaving troops in the country for 14 months minimum if the agreement between the Taliban and the Afghanistan Government can't be reached or adhered to.
A first step but no withdrawal or guarantee of withdrawal in this deal. Is this for the Trump MAGA vote?
I was in The Canadian equivalent of Goodwill the other day and picked up a dusty 1930s book called 'Lives of a Bengal Lancer'
by Francis Yeats-Brown.A grunt eyed view of the quite messy end to the Afghan conflict upon which the Brits had wasted vast sums long before the Americans tumbled into the same pit.Of course they did this a century and more ago.If this current deal works out it could be the cheapest and most cost effective foreign policy initiative America has ever pulled off.
4
Headlines in all media seem to take this as a bona fide peace deal. Hmmmm .... why now? When Obama considered such a move he was excoriated by the right. I have huge doubts now. It is a peace designed to last at most 8 months.
3
Because 18 years is long enough. And enough is enough.
4
It’s ironic and hypocritical how the same far-left conspiracy theorists in the NYT comment section call Trump a war monger for sending troops to Afghanistan, but then say he’s a terrible person for negotiating with the Taliban to withdrawal US troops. You can’t have it both ways- this “peace deal” may not work out, but it’s better than continued fighting with thousands of civilian deaths per year.
7
After 18 Years, Is This Afghan Peace, or Just a Way Out?
In today's politics, it's all about the optics, it's about keeping your eye on the prize; it's about "Mens - Rea", using a crisis, not to better others, but to advantage me.
The challenge is finding the crisis with the greatest payoff.
It is overdue to bring our service men and women home! To me it matters little if it is a true peace or a way out (after reading the new analysis piece.) I will not be surprised to see that President Trump will get no praise for getting us out. To his haters, hating him is more important than any anti-war position they might have long held. To his haters, everything bad is his fault. That is hysteria. Credit where credit is due.
5
This is nothing but a "cut n run"
Fine by me, but be honest about what it is...
Most of us know trump is ignorant, incompetent, lies every time he opens his mouth, and only does what he perceives boosts his gigantic ego.
And we know the Taliban are an embedded group of combatants that will never quit in their efforts to enslave the country to their demented ideology.
So any "agreement" is largely meaningless except for getting our own soldiers out of there, which should have been done at least 15 years ago.
Most of us realize from life experience that the only people that can truly "fix" a nation, turn it into a democracy or some reasonably enlightened form of government is the people that live there.
For the people of the country themselves to wage a civil war that establishes what most of us feel are the freedoms and norms all should have.
Hope the Afghan's do that, but it's not likely unfortunately. But we can't fix it for them.
And we're becoming a dictatorship so we have huge problems here to try and fix.
Wish them the best. Regarding the US, who knows if we'll survive.
What's the difference between negotiating a peace plan with the Haqqani Network and/or Iran? Both have directly or in the case of Iran, supported terrorists like Hezbollah, to attack and kill American troops for decades. Roadside bombs, suicide bombings, etc.. The hypocrisy is on constant flow with this sad excuse for an administration.
1
I doubt the Taliban will do anything we hope they will do. My guess is they will keep quiet until American troops leave and then take over the country.
Give the devil his due: Trump made and kept a pledge to get out of Afghanistan.
If only Bush and Obama had done so 10 or 15 years ago we would not have squandered hundreds of billions of dollars and tens of thousands of lives.
6
A great day for peace in Afghanistan but at a great price.Now the time is for reflections on how the USA will this defeat and will STOP causing more wars in the world.The spoilers like terrorist Modi of Baharat must be stoped from carrying on a proxy war against Pakistan using Afghan soil at all.As it is a great set back for baharati ambitions against Pakistan.
I hate to abandon the women and girls of Afghanistan to the ignorant, depraved and sadistic rule of the taliban, but I guess it's no longer our problem.
Afghanistan is an excellent example of the futility of nation building. The "war" has been little more than a police action, which is not the real role of our military. If it had been a real war, supported by the participation of our supposed allies, it would have been over a long time ago.
1
Afghanistan claimed the British Empire. The Soviets, and now the USA. Thousands of Americans and tens of thousands of Afghans have died for nothing. We pumped more than A TRILLION DOLLARS into the effort there while our infrastructure crumbled at home. It’s a thorough failure, a thorough defeat, and the record shows that within months Rumsfeld and others knew there was no way out. Read Craig Whitlock’s incredible reporting from last December, and weep for the stupidity and hubris of our leaders.
1
Thank you Mr President
Mothers of U.S. Service Men & Women
5
I have always thought our response to the attack on 11 Sept 2001 was a mistake.
What is always left unsaid is that "The Taliban" is an international organization founded by Wahhabist Moslems and funded by the Saudi royal family. They seek to eliminate all forms of Islam that are not part of the Wahhabi sect and have the full backing of the Saudi Royals. Their long term goal is the elimination of all other religions on the planet.
The bottom line is that we have turned over the country to them and their Saudi backers.
This is not going to end well and it will contribute to even more refugees seeing asylum from persecution.
4
I isn't going to make a bit of difference whether we stay or leave. This is just another war that we lost. All the money; all the dead and ruined lives for what?
It just goes to show us that technology and money is just fluff, meaning nothing. We don't win wars; we start them, strut our stuff, enhance our businesses and their stock market buffoons and the billionaire cadre who then become casualties of our broken society. Our war within is also unwinnable and just as destructive as all other wars.
Any way you look at it, we're losers. America the beautiful fool. Humans are really, really dumb and our 300 years of piddling around has done nothing but destroy.
But that's life.
1
Afghanistan is not called the graveyard of empires for nothing... the British, the Soviet, now they can add America to their collection.
1
I understand that the Taliban came to the table to surrender immediately after American forces invaded Afghanistan. Cheney and W refused to accept the surrender. This “settlement” following our refusal to accept “yes” represents 20 years of abject waste. Only defense contractors got fat during the long slog to ultimately snag defeat from the jaws of victory.
1
What about the women? NYT, please keep us informed about the women and what happens to them as this policy change goes into effect.
And why is it our problem?
4
The deal will break as Taliban and Afghani government will never get along.
1
At least the stock market is not down today.
Great job, Donnie.
My fear is that it will be a cut and run....and the women will lose.
And literally no one with half a brain believes this is a good deal.
Please go read the recent NY Times Magazine photo essay: “They Killed Their Husbands. Now in Prison, They Feel Free” by Kiana HayeriText by May Jeong.
To quote the headline, “Violence against women is rampant in Afghanistan. For some, murdering their husbands was the only way they could escape their abusive marriages.”
This is what we’ve abandoned. This is what will begin spreading like wildfire with American withdrawal. This is yet another consequence of Trumpism.
This is not a peace plan, as some have referred to it, but an agreement by the US to withdraw. Yet Trump is acting like he now has a special relationship with the Taliban. He thinks he may meet with Taliban leaders at some unspecified time in the future. Well, I suggest that, if he does so, he leaves Ivanka at home. My mind is drawn to the recent photos (glamour shots) of Ivanka swanning around somewhere (a mosque?) pretending to be culturally sensitive but wearing a metallic silver dress, bearing her ankles with her hair strategically flowing around her head scarf. I could not bear such a repeat performance while women in Afghanistan have acid thrown in their faces by members of the Taliban for simple indiscretions such as inadvertently showing part of their earring. ‘Female vanity’ doesn’t sit well with the Taliban so Trump should leave Ivanka at home. For those commenters who are concerned that there will be an increase in violence against women by the Taliban after the US troop withdrawal, it will be upsetting to learn it never stopped.
Crazily optimistic headline! The Taliban will never obey the terms of an agreement. The Afghan government has not yet been involved. And, if a portion of the country is turned over to the Taliban, tens of thousands of young girls will be enslaved.
This is in no way an end to our forces being in harms way in the 'Stan.
this "...is not a final peace deal and could still unravel."
Maybe someone has written in to explain what was signed, but since I don't have time to survey 578 comments I guess I'll never know.
Reality Check wars arent won theres no winner in death.America must give people there own freedom to choose future for children.Only then will freedom prevail.
This long in and you let the Taliban win. The human cost is staggering and the country is no better off.
Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan prove all too glaringly how American foreign policy does not work when used with the stiff arm use of bombs, guns and bullets.
Hopefully I will be dead before the next one.
good. Long past time to get out.
1
All that death and destruction for nothing. All those American Services men and Services women killed and maimed for nothing. All to those Afghan civilians killed and maimed for nothing.
1
Like Vietnam, a complete failure, except for the military/industrial complex.
1
So Trump waited 3 1/2 years to end this war so that it would be good publicity just before the 2020 election. Talk about using American aid money to benefit himself politically.
Another casualty of "The Graveyard of Empires".
Trump just won re-election.
1
Well, that ended up being 8.5 billion AUD, 47 lives lost, over a thousand wounded and a huge uptick in ADF mental health trauma being for nought. Not to mention Iraq, Vietnam and Korea. Next time the US goes in all guns blazing I hope Australia decides to sit it out. With a population of fewer than 30 million souls we can not afford the human or economic costs
1
Wow!
The USSR accomplished the same thing in only nine years.
But I'm sure America was running up the score just to stick it to Russia.
And what was gained from this “war”?
Nothing.
1
The timing of this is ironic to say the least.
Good for Trump, like him or not he’s getting us out of that hellhole. I look at those handsome young American soldiers going down a hill in that forsaken place and I want to weep. It reminds me of my generations sacrifice in Vietnam, a place none of us could even find on a map when they began telling us we were to go there and die to stop the “ domino effect” of, gasp, Communism. Well 58,000 of our very best died there, they weren’t the ones commanding headlines today with their mega million dollar banker salaries, they were regular guys, mostly from small towns just like the young men and women dying in the Middle East wars for Israel and oil today that have been doing the fighting; there’s no recruiting center on the Stanford campus, nope, but they are all over rural Oregon, looking for a few good men and women to die for the rich ones controlling our elections and our foreign policy. Kudos too Trump for pulling out our guys, maybe he feels a little guilty for not showing up in our generations war, whatever the case, thank you Trump. Now it’s time to get a President who understands the futility of wars bought and paid for by special interests, it’s time for a President who will stand up for the forgotten Americans, these young folks may not be in Wall Street or Silicon Valley but if they are good enough to die so you folks can make your billions they deserve something besides platitudes and minimum wage jobs at Amazon or Uber. Time for change, time for Bernie.
2
I try to imagine the Republican hysteria that would have erupted if President Obama had made such a deal with the Taliban. I don't have to try very hard.
5
The idea the Taliban will follow this anymore than North Korea is the dreams of idiots.
If this is peace, why isn’t Trump signing it?
Oh he got burned with Kim.
Didn’t he promise he would have all troops out, and those coal miner jobs back, and Mexico pay for the wall?
1
Three pictures, with three different tales to tell. A picture speaks a thousand words...
Soldiers traveling down a rugged path in Paktia Province, indicating the dangers of the mission, where one misstep could lead to broken bones and death. A picture of a shop in Kabul where there isn't a woman to be seen anywhere. A picture of the president in front of our troops, who's facial expressions tell a better tale that words could describe.
"The war cost $2 trillion and took the lives of more than 3,500 American and coalition troops and tens of thousands of Afghans"...
How could we possibly have so little to show for that amount of expenditure and sacrifice. How could we say we did anything here, when in 1972 here is what Kabul looked like:
https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/10/20/how-the-muslim-world-lost-the-freedom-to-choose/
1
Another (small maybe large) victory for Trump. If Obama were there he would do an Apology tour. If "W" were there he would sign us up for another 200 years!
5
Another episode of US starts a war, gathers local allies, abandons local allies.
I don't remember us ever doing this in quick succession the way we just did with the Kurds and now the Afghanis.
Shame on us.
3
So the U.S. is leaving Afghanistan with its tail between its legs. To quote Yogi Berra: "It's Viet Nam deja-vu all over again". With the blood shed and treasury spent, what will the U.S. learn from this war? Not very much, I am afraid.
1
It is a Faustian deal. It is in the interest of Trump’s re-election yielding to the Taliban’s demands so that they can sign it. There is no compromise on the part of Taliban.
1
Everyone knows this is an election year and that the president sees government as an exercise in marketing and graft. There are no functional conditions, because any deal will be declared "on track" and successful no matter what the reality on the ground.
Sometimes liars are the most transparent.
3
Afghanistan! You mean the scrapheap for empires? Why am I not surprised that they reached an agreement for the US to cut losses and leave?
2
Although leaving Afghanistan is the right thing to do, it’s doubtful whether Trump has done it in a responsible way.
Ordinary Afghans will have to pay a price for this peace agreement if it turns out to be worthless.
Many fear the deal may serve Trump as a cover to leave Afghanistan and that he won’t care less if the Taliban won’t honour their commitments.
No other Afghans apart from the militants have been part of the peace talks so far. If non-Taliban Afghans have been excluded, their fear that they will be marginalised under future Taliban rule is legitimate.
Trump is desperate to win a second term in November, making concessions was the only means to get the Taliban on board, allowing him to boast about a foreign policy achievement, at the expense of the Afghans.
2
Those suffering from TDS are despicable in terms of not wanting Trump to have any success. It really is shameful and should be a time for those to reflect on their reasoning.
4
Silly me, here I thought that the USA didnt negotiate with terrorists...ever. But I come to find out, that like everything else we used to stand for, that was just another political bumper sticker.
Apparently the ideals and honor my grandfather's fought to save in WWII, are no longer in play. In 2020, under Trump the US no longer holds honor.... Make no mistake, this is no win.
1
Well, abject surrender is one way to end a war. Congratulations, Mr. President!
Will the US ever learn? Probably not; but I'd like to be able to criticize our foolish military interventions in my own country without being labeled as unpatriotic. I can honor those who served and without accepting the foreign policy that put them in harms way in the first place.
2
“This is the hotel that tomorrow will turn into a historic hotel,” the Taliban’s multimedia chief posted on Twitter on Friday with a picture of the Sheraton in Doha, site of the signing. “From here, the defeat of the arrogance of the White House in the face of the white turban will be announced.”
Wow, all the lost lives and lost treasure for the last 18 years for nothing. Once withdrawal starts, the US will not go back in no matter who lives up to the end of the "agreement". Who now pays for the war...the American taxpayer? I thought the thinking was that country's minerals, oil and gas wealth were going to be divvied up between the western powers to pay for everything. I guess not. Trump double crossed the allies and the American people again. The words "we will be winning so much we will be sick of winning" takes on a whole new meaning
1
To believe the Taliban will comply fully, will never happen! I would rather be better off believing in the Aladdin Magic Lamp!
On the other side, is time for Saudi Arabia to assume leadership to control extremism! As a world power all we can offer them is logistics and technology.
Historically I'd have said you can't trust the Taliban to honor their end of the agreement.
The same can be said of the United States now, in light of the Iran nuclear deal reversal.
This deal is like most, if not all, of tRump's "deals"- there is no deal until the ink has dried
There's no winner here. However, ideologies cannot be bombed into submission or extinction. Come home.
3
Like Colin Powell said "wars are much easier to get into than to get out of". Remember the famous photo two years after the U.S. signed a peace deal with North Vietnam when their tanks rolled into the U.S. Embasy in Saigon. I wonder how long it will take the Taliban to regain control in Afghanistan?
1
Unfortunately, Trump is going to try and spin this as a great accomplishment, that Obama couldn’t do and that he is a great peace president who should get the Nobel Prize.
1
HURRAY! Good grief! What took so long?
3
When we see the cost to innocents from the U.S. government's war -- this puts the lie to the Founding Fathers' trumpy claim that they were establishing "justice."
To apprehend why it's so evil and illegitimate, as in its Iraq War, with the military knowingly following the unethical orders of the democracy, evidenced by U.S. generals informing the president of the expected killings of civilians, then doing exactly that. https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/costs/human/civilians/afghan
With the killings of innocents, the American government has added to the rap sheet of government in general, creating the ethical responsibility on all of us, at a minimum, not to become part of these evil organizations, but also, to help achieve justice for all.
2
Better if U.S.A to incur expenses solacing their own women and children, as they direly need attention. Also, Americans shouldn't inculcate the so-called democracy on others.
3
Complaints that people have complained about this war for almost 20 years and will now complain about the peace - simply do not know their history!
On a personal note, I will be very glad when our troops leave that country. With that said, I will always believe that had our military and political leaders shown some backbone at Tora Bora, there was the possibility that Osama bin Laden may have been captured or killed.
Please note: I am not criticizing our troops. But I am placing the blame on the officers, Generals, Senate, House of Representatives and the President at that time period for this 18 plus year fiasco. (The media also shares in some of the blame as well!)
If the readers of this post were to go back and study what happened, then they might understand my post better.
So now a peace deal has been made with the Taliban!
Well, I have a strong belief that history has a way of repeating itself and my comment to the corrupt and inept Afghanistan Government can be expressed with one word:
RUN
1
With election day coming upon us we should never forget that a Republican President got us into the war. President Obama brought Bin Laden to Justice and a Republican President surrendered to a terrorist organization to end President Bush's failed war on terror.
To be fair, the Taliban brought us into the war. Of the two wars (Iraq and Afghanistan) Afghanistan held the largest responsibility for 9/11. Iraq and WMD were a total lie, google Hans Blix. Anyway, right or wrong, it was too long and too broad.
"The war cost $2 trillion and took the lives of more than 3,500 American and coalition troops.."
$2 trillion could have built hundreds of new schools, hospitals, libraries, roads, bridges, dams, green energy and water treatment plants throughout the United States.
Instead we lined the pockets of DOD contractors and other companies like Halliburton. They pilfered taxpayer dollars at the expense of American lives. And our Congress and Senate let them do it! Everyone is responsible. Shame Shame Shame!
4
Got to give Trump some credit. He was able to do what Obama couldn’t.
5
Obama did try, but it was labeled feckless by the GOP. But sure, no it’s a great win for Trump.
Graveyard of Empires. The British and the Soviet Union. All gone. Now us. No learning curve. Trump supporters back in 1933 without a clue.
So 18 years and the loss of thousands of lives later, we accomplished absolutely nothing. The Taliban will still treat women like dogs and they'll still support world wide terrorism. The only winners, as in every war, are the defense industry parasites, who continue their decades long coziness with congress. And the toddler-in-chief will call it a victory.
2
This is just to save face and a way for a quick exit. You can’t deal with the Taliban and anyone with a sense of history absolutely knows that as soon as the US pulls out things will go back to exactly the way they were and have been for thousands of years. Too bad W and our esteemed congress couldn’t figure it out. What a waste of lives and money.
1
...and no matter what happens in Afghanistan or how many violations of the agreement occur, short of another 9-11 style disaster, America will never return...is that correct?
1
And we accomplished NOTHING!!
Except more war and devastation and death..
Ad we take off, leaving the Taliban as much in charge as they were when we began this misguided mission.
“The war in Afghanistan in some ways echoes the American experience in Vietnam. In both, a superpower bet heavily on brute strength and the lives of its young, then walked away with seemingly little to show.”
Every word a lie but it passes for wisdom in many circles.
Three bloody facts.
The American War in Vietnam was not preceded by the Vietnamese communists assassinating the popular leader of resistance against the soviets. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmad_Shah_Massoud
On 9.9.01. But who can keep track of dates?
The American War in Vietnam was not preceded by communists sheltered by the Vietnamese flying airliners into buildings. For those who did not know.
The American War in Vietnam was not followed up by a bigger and needless war on false pretenses in the Middle East that strengthened an America hating gang that did not even exist as a state during the Vietnam War.
But who cares.
Just say whatever is popular in your circles. Truth is a drag.
The U.S. is going to leave Afghanistan with its tail between its legs, like it did wit the Viet Nam War. Wit so much blood shed and money spent on this war, what has the U.S. learned? Not very much, I am afraid
1
Let’s hope for the best. The North Vietnamese waited a decent interval before they took over.
Hopefully the Taliban are equally accommodating. After all they’ve waited 18 years. What’s another 18 months. Then again they owe us no favors.
@Yuri Pelham
They.
Us.
Out the work that nouns do.
This deal is the work of a stable genius. The great dealmaker will tell the Taliban to lay low until after the election. After that, they're free to do what they wish.
If he is reelected, he will say the American people want no part of Afghanistan. If we are lucky, and he loses, he'll blame the Taliban's rampage on the Democrats.
This is an agreement to end American participation in the endless Afghani wars. The future of Afghanistan is not a matter of national security for the USA.
he
Trump deserves praise -- he won't get it here! -- for his effort to wind-down an absolutely needless war based on American intervention.
Obama could have done this -- but opted, instead, to deepen American involvement (the Surge.)
But, even when he is a.peacemaker, the Left will attack the president.
3
Just another episode contributing to the broad view of the US as an empire in decline. Not saying if that's good or bad, just applying a detached historical point of view.
You see China expanding its sphere of influence by leaps and bounds the last decade, even declared an international body of water, the South China Sea, to be its sovereign territory. And we do... nothing. Because we can't do... anything. Meanwhile, we are retreating or being kicked out all over the globe. The armed forces are overstretched and we don't have the economic capacity to maintain it and our national physical and health care infrastructure at the same time. Not to mention maintaining a core of highly educated scientific and technical innovators. (Financial 'innovators', we have plenty. In fact too much for our own good.)
Well, we had a good century's run of being top dog. Better start talking to the Brits about how to adjust to post-empire life. And start getting used to getting pushed around a little more often than we're used to.
1
This agreement to be successful a diplomatic breakthrough between India and Pakistan is required.
Pakistan in its endless proxy war with India perceives control over Afghanistan as its ‘strategic depth’ requirement. Trump visit to India signals unprecedented non-equivocation.
Implication of this new policy is that geo-political fault line moves to Indo-Pak for resolution. There’s ground for optimism in this new line of thinking.
2
I spent two years in Afghanistan compelling the enemy to our will. I think we may have had greater positions of advantage in 2002 and again in 2010, but I think the message that the United States will fight over and over and over if we are attacked is pretty well understood our enemies in Afghanistan and other locales. I say time to come home.
Not gonna hold my breath for that ticker tape parade, though.
4
Total failure. Waste of human lives and potential . Of time. Of diplomacy. Of money.
Think of the Afghani children.
I am horrified that the Afghan government has no say in this. Can we imagine this happening in the U.S? Never.
(I have two siblings who have more than 9 combat tours in Afghanistan combined, over the course of these twenty years.)
This agreement thinks nothing of the Afghan people. This is only in the interest of the Americans . . . yet, again. Our political and diplomatic knowledge appear stalled, that we learn nothing despite the massive loss of life, destruction, budgeting, and writings of these conflicts over the course of 60+ years when we include Vietnam.
Afghanistan will continue to flounder, despite the interference of two of the world's major super powers and so much of their money.
AND the US will turn away Afghan refugees, women and children whose lives have been diminished, reduced, halted. As one commenter wrote, the Taliban are the ones who shot Malala in the head for wanting to attend school.
But, you cannot get sanctuary here.
5
“Though the Taliban get their primary wish granted by this agreement — the withdrawal of American troops — they have made no firm commitments to protect civil rights for people they brutally repressed when in power.”
If the US was to completely withdraw, how long do you think it would take for the Taliban, and it’s allies, to reinfect Afghan life to the point of hardline subjugation, especially for women. For the Taliban, it is, and will always be, “my way, or the highway”. Now they will have 5000 fewer US troops to deal with. Interjecting American ideology and power into Middle East theocracies is a losing proposition. Getting rid of Bin Laden was a necessary thing but setting up a huge permanent military presence has a high cost of blood and treasure. Positive advances in Afghan life, from our perspective, will only continue if we continue to occupy and patrol, but it won’t stop civilian bombings and attacks. “Death by a thousand cuts” can wear down even the largest enemies.
5
So, basically, we,the U.S.A., are leaving Afghanistan as it was back in 2001.
4
Finally - no delays - let's pull all troops out tomorrow - the US will be better off leaving as soon as we can.
We've lost thousands of US soldiers lives - US taxpayers have wasted $2 trillion dollars in the wasteland - it's unbelievable in a Country which is every bit as corrupt as it was 20 years ago - no, actually it's more corrupt. ,
Corrupt President Ashraf Ghani continues a legacy left by his predecessors, and the drug cartel Taliban terrorists have increased poppy production year over year - the entire country is a cesspool.
The Taliban had a record opium crop in 2019 - Afghanistan opium is responsible for 80% of the heroin in the world.
Afghanistan is the world’s leading supplier for illegal opiates, a trade which provides a considerable source of funding for insurgents and terrorists.
The illicit opiate economy prevents regional stability, undermines legitimate economic development and impedes governance.
The world would be a better place without Afghanistan.
We need to leave - now.
4
It’s not easy being an imperialist nation. The colonized resent and resist occupation. It’s human nature.
Like the British who ruled an unruly India with an iron fist, and then finally withdrew exhausted and ashamed, Americans are blinded by cultural arrogance in imposing our self-interest (oil) and racial (white Judeo Christian) “superiority” over others. Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan are hard lessons. Let’s hope we finally learn something from these failed imperialist fiascos.
2
Let's not forget that Trump SUPPORTED the invasion of Iraq.
2
Think Vietnam all the blood trillions wasted and guess what the end was what it should have been what was promised in 1945. Yes, the war had no meaning all these years, but once in it is always how do we get out. In Vietnam it became it is so easy for politicians overnight, but it takes years to go you out. In reality the Taliban have won in the same way when we left Vietnam with our tails between our legs and face facts there was no honor we left thousands behind that we had promised to take with us. The US when it suits it is always like the British good on promises never delivered. Left the Hmongs behind in Laos to fend. Yes, it is great this ends face facts they win. I am 74 years old and the US has been at war for all my 74 years with someone for reasons most don't even know and remember. Clever for him he takes the claim of ending it and the election will be over before it all falls apart and goes back the way it was before 9/11. For all those who think Trump does not like wars after all he did buy his way out (Vietnam vet who has no use for the King coward that he is), he puts more and more troops into Saudi Arabia and beats the war drum about Iran so don't hold your breath that he is in the peace business. Kim laughs at him and so do the Taliban. For America wars are so much fun with professional military now. Think in that 74 years the thousands of trillions could have done for the homeless, universal health, the list is endless. Jim Trautman
2
Don't fool yourselves, this is an unqualified defeat, a betrayal of thousands of lost American and allied lives, and a waste of trillions of dollars. This is the fault of the Bush administration, which shifted the effort from an obvious first priority conflict into their fantastical and misguided theory of remedying the middle east by removing Sadam Hussein. And yet, no one paid for this calamity. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz (at least) should be tried for misleading the nation and for their abuse of the country's resources. Justice must be done!
3
Shameful. I disagree with negotiating with Talibani terrorists. It's a very Trumpian "fortress America" style retreat. A truly strong Republican president like Ronald Reagan would never cave in to these radical Islamists. It's no surprise with Trump though since he also recently hit the hasty retreat button, abandoning our Kurdish allies, at the behest of his autocratic buddy Erdogan of Turkey. Trump has a lot more in common with European allies he despises, like France, than he's willing to admit. He's far better at retreating than winning.
2
The question I have been asking about the US troop presence in Afghanistan for well over a decade is: What can we accomplish in another year we couldn’t accomplish in past years? In other words, if 18 years were inadequate what difference will years 19, 20, or more make?
If a longer occupation will not produce a different result then it is entirely logical to ask why we continue to be there.
4
Will the nightmare of the Taliban 'religious police' now return to inflict their violence and oppression on Afghan women?
1
Not one more American or westerner should die for Kabul unless the nation becomes a terror hub again.
2
The next sound you hear will be that of our "president" throwing a tantrum when he learns that the Nobel committee has declined once again to honor him with its annual Peace Prize.
3
Surrender.
Pure and simple.
How long before infidel women and children are murdered again?
1
They must be letting Trump build a Hotel and Golf Course...
2
This is a victory for the taliban. We gained nothing
We didn't go into Af. because of Al Queda. We wen't there because we needed to build natural gas pipelines.
Now that the US in involved in fracking, Trump will simply reroute the troops to block China.
We aren't drawing down our military power, we're only shifting it elsewhere. Just watch.
1
In the late 60's I had to read Fredrik Barth's 'Political Leadership Among the Swat Pathan'.
I recall saying to our professor that it seemed these people woke each morning with one question - who am I obliged to kill today.
Recently I reread the book. What struck me was that every way we spoke about Afghanistan was wrong. Our social system was antithetical to theirs. Central government was an anathema and those who worked for it were suspect. The society was a delicately balanced system of shifting alliances. There were religious and civic leaders. People were land holders, not landowners, as properties systematically changed hands. And it worked, pushing back against empires and holding back Saudi attempts to introduce Islamic extremism. Until it didn't. Afghan society was torn apart and it land and people ravaged as proxy wars were waged across its territory.
Recently, I attended a seminar at the United States Institute of Peace. I heard Afghanis speak of the preservation of material cultural heritage as helping to reclaim and restore Afghanistan's national identity and rebuild its nation. Fewer foreign troops, more non military foreign aid could help. We owe these people support for their building up what we've helped tear down. We cannot just walk away.
2
Donald Trump:
The first president to lose a war to radical Islamic terrorists.
2
I've seen this play before. It ends with the barbarians over-running our former allies, the evacuation of a few collaborators from the roof of our embassy by helicopter, and the brutal murder and repression of everyone else that's left behind. Dress it up in as much hypocritical verbiage as you want, it's yet another defeat.
169
@Joe I think your perspective is fair and accurate, but I guess my question is simple: What is the alternative?
Should we have stayed in Vietnam another 20 years to defend our pride and allies or should we have left?
What should we do with the current never-ending quagmire in Afghanistan?
23
@Joe I agree. We should stay there FOREVER! As a matter of fact we need to get more involved in all those repressive countries, or not.
7
@Joe
It was unwinnable from the outset. It was a lost cause.
Call it defeat if you like. It is certainly not a win or a draw.
But there was only one possible outcome.....from the outset.
13
Can someone explain to me how an agreement between the US and the Taliban can require the Afghan government to release prisoners and to reach an agreement with the Taliban to restructure the government (by March 10 no less).
Is Afghanistan a sovereign state or a US puppet?
Many questions and no answers - that defines the current and ongoing state of affairs.
Did the congress authorize the negotiations or the treaty ?
Will US keep its side of the bargain ?
Will Kabul ’s Mayor known as president send someone to sabotage ? Will India sabotage the truce?
Will Iran China and Russia fully be on board and not start stirring the pot?
14 months give enough time for another reincarnation of Mc Cain to derail and decry the process and start war again for some financial and career related benefits over some nonsense like the last one when Trump was stalled by powerful forces from meeting Taliban because of some story and routine violence beyond possibly Talibna’s control.
We shouldn’t forget that 8000 number was the existing numbers of troops before Trump was advised to send more reinforcements .
Will Taliban be forced to help US project its power and interests in Russia China 5 Stans regions? Will that translate into the reappearance of the same fanaticism which not that long ago was embraced and practiced by Mujhaeddin ?
1
If the Obama Administration had done this the republicans would have smeared him with "cut and run'"
2
The Washington Post series on the disaster that the Afghanistan war was, should be required reading for every American. The people leading the charge had no idea what we were doing. Wasted lives and wasted money. Get out now.
1
So may commenters on the impending departure from Afghanistan have invoked the image of the last helicopter leaving the roof of the Embassy in Saigon after the US defeat in Vietnam.
Let me correct this image. The image is not the roof of the US Embassy. It is an apartment building at 22 Gia Long Street in Saigon.
The top two floors were used as living space for employees of the CIA Station.
The Station chief was trying to accommodate the departure of South Vietnamese officials who were cooperating with the agency (and their families). There were four pickup points for privileged Vietnamese cooperators and 22 Gia Long was one of them.
The people climbing aboard the chopper are Vietnamese not Americans and they are doing so from a commercial venue, not from the US Embassy.
I was in Saigon at the time.
3
This is the only Trump move I supported. Afghanistan turned into a useless quagmire without any legitimate purpose and our best servicemen and women paid with their lives. How demoralizing is it to have a squad member killed in a Blue on Green incident, the same people you are trying to help. Yes the Taliban will eventually take over but unless we completely colonize the country for a generation or two, it is inevitable.
3
Typically, the United States doesn't negotiate a withdrawal with the rebel leaders. Usually, we consult the legitimate government.
I’m wondering where and when will be the next business, sorry war...
Does anyone actually believe that the Taliban will adhere to the deal? I don’t!
2
This will be Vietnam all over again. American troops will be picked off until the end, or embassy will be burned, and any and everyone who worked with us will be--well this part will likely be different. The Viet Cong sent those who collaborated with the US to re-education camps. The Taliban will act differently, likely decapitating girls who have been in school, and anyone else they suspect of being unholy.
1
No foreign power has ever declared victory in Afghanistan all through the centuries of conflict there. The British left with tails between their legs, the Russians were so demoralized in defeat that they basically abandoned materiel including their lethal Stalin's Organs. Signing a cessation of conflict agreement does not constitute a plan for 'peace', especially when one of the parties aren't signatories. What happened in the air conditioned luxury confines in Doha is surrender pure and simple. I just hope that Amb. Khalizadad did not forget to take the flag home with him.
So may commenters on our impending Afghan departure are invoking the photo mage of the last helicopter leaving the roof of the Embassy in Saigon after the US defeat in Vietnam.
Let me correct this image. T
he image is not the roof of the US Embassy. It is an apartment building at 22 Gia Long Street in Saigon.
The top two floors were used as living space for employees of the CIA Station.
The Station chief was trying to accommodate the departure of South Vietnamese officials who were cooperating with the agency (and their families). There were four pickup points for privileged Vietnamese cooperators and 22 Gia Long was one of them.
The people climbing aboard the chopper are Vietnamese,not Americans, and they are doing so from a commercial venue, not from the US Embassy. It was not the "last chopper out".
I was in Saigon at the time.
3
It is most unlikely that a peace agreement the United States and the Taliban hope to enter into, first after a brief period of violence reduction, as opposed to cease-fire (that is also reducing the number of roadside bombs planted), will ultimately help achieve lasting peace in the extremely tribal land that is Afghanistan; such a state of affairs, as the jihadists, who are convinced to have undesirable genetic traits, as affirmed by their savaged practice, in epic, of the Prophet Muhammad’s disease, “Terrorism,” continue to unquestionably subscribe to the poisonous tales of the Quran; and such tales, as they resonate, with expanding chorus of voices, further reinforce the long-held notion that the Prophet Muhammad’s legacy is an indisputable source for destructive inspiration – until Judgment Day, when all of those deemed “Infidels” or are not convinced to be religiously pure, because they have not permitted their sphere of religious activities to be in Islam; more, are believed to have failed to contract the lethal virus of religious extremism to further affirm so, will be marched to the door-of-no-return or be subject to the indignities of a tragic death.
The Taliban, then in government, offered a much better deal in 2001.
They sent their foreign minister to negotiate with America just over the border in Quetta, Pakistan.
But the Bush government simply got the Pakistanis to arrest the foreign minister and deport him to a 'black site'.
America *wanted* war in Afghanistan as the first step in the neocon 'Project for a New American Century' that would slowly encircle the ultimate goal Iran, in pursuit of 'full spectrum dominance' of an emerging new multipolar global power system: the original MAGA.
The US could literally have *bought* the country outright, ten times over, with $2 tn.
But like nearly all of America's many failed wars since 1945, Afghanistan has been a *great business model* for Eisenhower's Military-Industrial Complex back home.
Unfortunately for the rest of the world, that translates into lousy foreign policy.
327
I believe Eisenhower fought back against the Military- Industrial complex as President.
14
@David Buchalter
Yes he did. Ike also said this "Never get involved in a land war in Asia." Man we should have taken that advise.
18
@David Buchalter
By 'Ike's MIC' (his original draft of the valedictory had 'Military-Industrial-Political Complex', but that was considered a step too far by politicians) I meant (I thought obviously) the MIC he *identified*, not created.
I guess I could have put it in quotes, but it's very real, and quotes might have read like a distancing from the concept - and the brutal reality.
7
Just imagine what $2 trillion can purchase domestically; perhaps a down payment on the costs for universal healthcare.
And...since the Defense Department doesn't mind being used as a lender for a Vanity Wall- it won't mind receiving less (that's my fantasy).
This is no peace deal, it is abject surrender. The Taliban must really be some awesome fighters who 100,000 US troops, B-52 bombers, and A-10 attack aircraft could not subdue. We have seen similar scenarios in Iraq and Syria. All those killed and maimed in vain.
98
@Tpagardener
The Ts seem "awesome" because they represent at significant slice of the Afghan people.
The Americans seem less "awesome" because we did not represent anybody or any authentic interest in Afghanistan.
This is a lesson we never seem to learn.
19
Remember Arc Light in Vietnam did little good a determined enemy who knows the terrain is a capable foe
5
@James mCowan
I remember it well
I was there!
A determined foe who knows the terrain and has the active or tacit support of most of the local people is an especially capable foe.
16
Outstanding move by President Trump. We should never have gone there in the first place.
This is long, long overdue. All those American troops killed for absolutely nothing.
We accomplished and gained nothing and we wasted billions of dollars with no clear objective in mind or in sight. Time to cut the losses and get out permanently.
46
@JSS Trump will only shift resources to fight China. No draw down of US military power, just shifting things around.
6
@JSS
I'm curious JSS, were the men and women who fought there gullible fools, or were they just betrayed? Because I don't see any other possibilities.
13
My husband USAF WAS NOT KILLED FOR NOTHING! The USAF were directed to be PEACE agents. My husband embraced the culture and lifestyle and then asked WHAT CAN WE DO TO HELP. That was the US MILITARY DIRECTIVE as of 2008. He was 32 years old Nov 25 2015.
19
Hundreds of thousands killed and maimed; hundreds of billions (if not several trillion) tax dollars spent; no evidence of any benefits for anybody other than military contractors and arms suppliers. This is what American foreign policy has become. Something drastic has to change if our nation is to return to the countries who strive for peace, justice, and civilized behavior.
5
this is a go home signing, surely not a real peace signature. what about the afghans? they were not even in the meetings. i understand why we want out, but i am confident that once we are gone the taliban will try to take over and the small benefits that the afghans got will be removed, especially the rights that the women started to at least sort of got.
this is a good example of why allowing the military the sole means of taking down a government without professional diplomats, not just politically appointed nobodies, not involved even before the take down is useless. the military is good for what they do, but the long haul has to have the diplomatic people to help the country in question move forward for that is the hard work and has never been in the mind set of the military.
1
Peace, prosperity (without selling national non-renewable fossil fuel), and democracy in any Muslim majority, and more importantly, Islamic countries is not much possible if they a significant section, preferably majority, of Muslims don't understand and openly accept that everything written in Quran is not right and must not be the basis of their day to day life and, more importantly, the basis for laws and governance. Believing every word of Quran and/or desire to bring Sharia as laws would only make things worse for them. No wonder Muslims are now the worst affected with both internal and external conflicts. It's also has the most refugees in the world now.
That understanding and practice would also enable other non-Muslims to accept Muslim people, mainly the immigrants with a more open heart and many of the issues of Islamophobia in many non-Muslim majority countries would surely decrease significantly.
Peace is not a one way traffic and the definition of truth and justice must not vary depending on whether your own tribe/clan/religion/race/gender etc is majority or not. At the end of the day, only open society with functional democracy where truth and justice is based on fact, logic and science, would prosper and maintain sustainable peace. Afghanistan or Pakistan or Syria or Iraq are no exceptions.
2
I am glad that our troops are coming home, however, I feel that the way we are withdrawinng sort of makes all the lives lost for nothing.
We have fought for almost 20 years in Afghanistan and for what?.... To ask the Taliban to be nice and we will leave?
As soon as we withdraw they will just go back to doing what the Taliban does. Nothing will have changed.
2
@CombatVet
Yes, American blood was spent in vain in Afghanistan.
Yes, American treasure was spent in vain in Afghanistan (lots of treasure).
But sunk cost in a lost cause is no reason to invest more blood or treasure.
So it is better to come home now.
It would have been better to come home two decades ago. But that is history.
2
@CombatVet
if indeed the Taliban wait for our complete removal of forces we can call that good if not a victory.
what is more likely to occur is as our election day grows nearer the Taliban will start exacting revenge on our remaining forces knowing Trump will have tied his own hands with relentless campaign bragging about achieving an honorable end to fighting—daring him if not forcing him to reengage militarily.
@CombatVet
Nothing will have changed?
au contraire....
in 2000 the Taliban had almost completely eradicated opium production in Afghanistan.
After 18 years of US military presence opium production is back near record levels - meeting the needs of U.S. opioid addicts no longer able to fill their Oxy prescriptions.
IF the "deal" actually holds up, and IF a final settlement is actually reached, I suppose I'll feel better about raising the hopes and aspirations of millions of Afghani women and girls and then abandoning them to the depradations of the Taliban again. I understand there are no good solutions for us here, but sacrificing all those civilian women and girls in our exit is a shameful way out.
1
"Deal with Taliban" to exit Afghanistan. Vietnam deja vu, all over again. Except, Ho Chi Minh was a Nationalist leader, whereas the Taliban are religious fanatics and terrorists, intent on taking over the country. A "Deal" or a "Peace Deal" with the Taliban are contradictions. This is one more of Trump's meaningless, losing deals and guided by his personal interests (re-election). Or, at least, I don't think he is looking for a Trump Tower in Kabul.
3
This big nothing Burger it will all fall apart December 1, 2020 with Taliban taking control of Afghanistan. Just like Viet Nam declare peace before capitulating. Only question will Taliban harbor terrorists?
1
There’s no such thing as the Taliban, just a bunch of independent tribal factions. But Trump just wants out — don’t we all?! — so he signed a “deal” with one of the factions. Really, we’re just pulling out. My heart goes out to the Afghan people.
1
How much did he cost the taxpayers? He certainly didn't pay for it out of his massive fortune
Declare victory and buy the annual opium crop.
Otherwise, a total waste of money and blood.
1
@jahnay
Why buy the annual opium crop? There will always be another crop behind it.
And not just in Aghanistan. Poppies thrive an many places.
Poppies from Kandahar can be replaced by poppies in Pakistan, Burma, Laos, South Chine, Peru and many more locales.
1
Bravo, Trump! Shumer, Obama, and Pelosi were in power for eight years and failed to sign a treaty with the Taliban. Why did the Democrats mindlessly support eight years of useless, budget-busting, and counter-productive war instead of getting us out of this mess sooner and leaving the exit to Trump? Answer: The Democratic establishment never saw a war they could not fund. This is why voters have to walk away from them.
31
@Ivan Light For the same reason Bush (a Republican) got us into the war: lobbying by the arms industry.
27
@Ivan Light, I’m not a trump supporter, nor was I a Nixon supporter, and if this prevents the lose of more Americans great! But, this is just the first step. Someone could be signing with a pen in one hand and a pinless grenade in the other. We'll see.
16
@Ivan Light
How on earth can the author of this comment go on a diatribe against Democrats when the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were started by George W Bush?
There was NO justification for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan offered to turn over binLaden to the US after 9/11 if the US provided proof of his involvement in 9/11. The US failed to do so - Bush wanting to invade instead.
Domestic politics has entered some bizzarroworld when someone is blaming the Democrats for not ending wars that Republican started and Republicans supported - blocking any efforts to cut back on our military involvement. The Republicans refused to close GITMO and have advocated FOR torture despite it being a violation of US and international law.
55
I always favor a diplomacy , but with Trump & Pompeo in-charge - I am worried.
Trump signed a deal for photo-op and to claim that he ended the war for his reelection; while selling out local people and American interest for nothing.
I am hopeful but knowing this do nothing GOP, worried as well.
13
I don’t understand what kind of deal is done with a terrorist organisation that too keeping Afghan Government out of this agreement after 18 long years of so called war.
Simply believing that Taliban will not enter into any deal with other terrorist organisations for not attacking America is simply outlandish.
Pakistan also made plenty of commitments to America on a number of occasions while enjoying huge economic and military aid but it always double crossed America. Where is the guarantee that Taliban won’t do it ?
Of course Afghanistan Government is in no stage to dictate terms but it doesn’t mean it will sign anything on a dotted paper.
How about the rights of women and minorities in Afghanistan if Taliban comes to power ? Who will guarantee these rights ?
Where is the guarantee that peace will surely return by this deal ? Only Taliban and Pakistan, the force behind Taliban will be happy and certainly not Afghan people.
69
@Sivaram Pochiraju
The only guarantee of this agreement is that it allows the American military to withdraw with some semblance of face saving.
1
@Sivaram Pochiraju
And in India the rights of a religious group are violated every day including death. Be quiet.
2
@Sivaram Pochiraju
"How about the rights of women and minorities in Afghanistan if Taliban comes to power ? Who will guarantee these rights ?"
Who has ever guaranteed these rights?
The brittle edges of Pashtun culture long predate the Americans.
We neither helped nor hindered these issues in any enduring way.
2
Let it be.
2
We all know how this is gonna end. Ask any Vietnam vet and he or she will tell you how this is gonna end. As soon as the American troops leave, in one or two years time, the Taliban and radical Islam will be back in charge. They all end the same way..
92
@JCA
The thing is, Vietnam is an ok place today. So while I'm no fan of Trump, I don't think US gunboat diplomacy has a place in the modern world.
3
What a waste of blood and treasure.
Mission Accomplished.
Thank you, Barack Obama.
Gosh. Where to next?
What group will take up where the Taliban left off. You know it's gonna to happen.
I disagree with those who are saying this is a calculated White House distraction, although that will be an unintended benefit for the Fox spin factory. To me this is obviously an opportunity for Trump to check the campaign promise box of getting the US out of "forever wars." In future debates with the eventual Dem candidate Trump will use this as a talking point for his accomplishments. Predictably, Obama's name will be invoked as the do nothing loser of the war in Afghanistan, despite Cheney/Rummy/Bush and their enablers who should be holding the bag.
That said, this "deal" has no face saving value for the US. It is a withdraw from a battlefield that has accomplished nothing. And yet, be prepared for Trump to declare a win. So much winning!
1
I fully supported our invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 since the Taliban provided safe harbor for Osama bin Laden. However, we quickly decided to force the Aghans to be more like us. The brutal fact is that Afghanistan is not like us. It is tribal, reactionary, and authoritarian. If Afghanistan is ever to become a modern, democratic nations it must happen from within by the Afghans themselves. Until that time, they will continue to live in the Dark Ages and Americans, both liberal and conservative, must accept this.
60
@Douglas Backes
I think your argument fails to recognize the influence of major world powers, as far back as the early 1970's.
It is convenient and simplistic to blame the Afghani people for this misery. You write them off as if they were not human.
Do you know what Afghan was like prior to the meddling of the Soviets and then the Americans? How women's participation and role in society functioned, prior?
11
@Douglas Backes
Because we've not bothered to learn anything about Afghanistan's history and culture, we do not even have the language to talk sensibly about it, let alone interact effectively.
"Tribal, reactionary, authoritarian" better describe the Republican party and Trump's America than traditional Afghani society.
The Saudi's introduced a weaponized Islamic extremism, which America supported in a proxy war with Russia. Countries under attack then often act on their worst impulses. Just as America has after the Saudi incited and supported attacks on 9/11 - with religious extremists and militaristic populists degrading civic society and destroying democratic government.
14
@Douglas Backes Tribal, reactionary, and authoritarian IS us, thanks to trump.
11
We've been at this point in terms of the Taliban's behavior dozens of times. No previous administration, not even this administration, has ever seen these circumstances as a legitimate time to end our debacle in Afghanistan. Trump is doing this for his campaign, not for America.
(I don't necessarily think that any American president's withdrawal wouldn't lead, eventually, to the same horrific outcome, but with Trump, it's guaranteed. It will be just like Syria. Within mere weeks of his "win", thousands will be dying and tens of thousands will be on the move. And the American people won't even bother noticing.)
I first visited Kabul in 1964. I worked in Afghanistan from 1973-75 (pre Soviet invasion). I ran cross border support to the Muj in the 80s and similar support to the emerging warlords in the 1990s. In later years I came in and out as an “advisor” to various would-be American viceroys.
I have seen Afghanistan in it natural state (under the dictator Mohammed Daoud and the nominal rule of the King), I have seen it under siege, and I have seen it in its current parlous condition.
It is not a country that wants to be made-over by anybody from the outside. Not by America, not by the Russians, not by the Persians or the Indians or the Pakistanis.
The only thing that unifies Afghans (a construct, not a real nationality) is external interference. And that unity is always ephemeral.
Well meaning Americans speak of saving Afghan women from a medieval patriarchy. Good luck!
Well meaning Americans speak of bringing democracy to Afghanistan. Again, good luck!
It is high time for Americans to depart and let the forces and factions within the borders of Afghanistan sort out what they may or may not wish to do with various parts of the “nation”.
6
Good for the man in office. His stance on the environment is horrible, but the foreign policy of his administration has been exemplary.
I give him credit where it is due. That is the difference between Republicans and Democrats, between conservatives and progressives.
I am a registered Republican, but I see the flaw in my Party. We can never concede ANYTHING EVER, to the other side. And we never admit we were wrong. Ever. Until we change this, we will never have unity in this country.
But haters of the Man in office should also concede him credit where due, and ending an 18 year war must surely be counted as one.
3
If this war had been about winning the battle to conquer illiteracy in Afghanistan, for many reasons the war would be ending on a higher plane with a long list of individual and community accomplishments.
@Marian
Marian, be realistic. No war is ever fought for "literacy", for "girls rights" or for someone else's quality of life.
America's 20 year war was never about any of this.
It was about the things that nations actually fight about: power, influence, control and geostrategic space.
3
@John B
Let's be realistic. Why were the Taliban harboring the terrorists? Ideology, based in ignorance, due to illiteracy. With access to the truth, everything changes. A different kind of "war" -- obviously not a literal war -- could have been waged to address the roots of tribal mentality, dysfunctional government, and what's behind terrorism. In 2003, Afghanistan had a 90% illiteracy rate. Let's be realistic. No question, most of us in the US understand a functional nation begins with literacy / education. Clearly, literate nations thrive where women have the right to a normal life: an education, have a bank account, own a home, drive, leave the home without an approved male escort. Womens' rights are nation-building blocks. "Girls rights" (your bias is revealing) are much more than 1/2 the answer for stability. It's women who have more invested in improving quality of life for all. Why do you think countries like Afghanistan are so uncivilized? They keep their women in virtual chains, have the right to beat and kill them, and the vast majority of the men don't understand the value of learning to read and think independently.
Anyone who lived through the Vietnam era saw this coming. In a short while the Taliban will tear up the agreement and do whatever they want: Afghanistan for the Afghans. Anyone who cooperated with the US should get out now. Reporters should find the best angles for the US embassy in Kabul to get their shot of the last copter out.
1
The age of deception is coming to a close it appears. The war on terror was started based on deception. And each step along the way was similarly filled with manipulation, lies and the worst impulses of humanity. While I personally would like to go on fighting, maybe it's best for peace. The question I have is: how sincere is the peace? Because there were times in the past when fighting ceased, and then it picked up again. As a participant in the war, I question whether the peace will last. However, I hope it is a true peace. If it's not, I will be at the front lines again.
1
One can credit Trump for this without excusing him overall — just as one can credit Castro for literacy programs without excusing him overall. Nuance is good.
1
We all want to believe that this "peace treaty" will be lasting, and that the region will find its way to peace. But because Trump and Pompeo have proven themselves to be dishonest and undeserving of America's trust (let alone the trust of the people of Afghanistan and the Taliban), most of us are skeptical.
As Trump is fond of saying, "We'll see what happens."
1
There's a reason the US military has not been welcomed as "liberators" in both Iraq and Afghanistan. And the reason is that we don't bring a major improvement in the standard of living, political freedoms, or any other well-being for the citizens of the places we invade.
As an example, a major reason the Taliban has the level of popularity it does is that the warlords backed by the US and Kabul government are responsible for the widespread kidnap, rape, and murder of Afghan children. Afghan civilians might not be huge fans of the Taliban, but they prefer them to losing their kids.
Trump doing what he campaigned on and that was to the USA out of useless wars that accomplish nothing.
Clinton if elected would have had the USA in even more war disasters like her Libya intervention.
3
We do have to re-evaluate our role in the world. Instead of imposing our will on weak local populations, maybe its time we push back on the real dangers, like Russia or China? We should step away from meddling in local cultures, but it would be foolish to do so unilaterally. If we redirect our interventionist efforts to compel (other) global bullies, these powerful autocracies, to decrease their meddling, we could ALL let local global cultures decide their own futures and increase the likelihood they will contribute positively. Yes, that means letting locals decide their fates even when we are dismayed by their choices.
17
I sincerely hope that future debate questions include those of foreign policy such as this 'deal'. Which candidates support it and which do not, and if not than what would thier policies be going forward.
1
The whole point of people in the US, Britain and Europeans was to make a country in Afghanistan - and most important rights of women, education and some semblance a system half liberal. What the US want now? What was the point of so much money - and US military and in British troops. I can understand voters - who like Trump or not - fare about the entire mess of Afghanistan. For this however there is no point there is a policy of human rights through the world. What do we think about the policies of Russia, China et al?
2
WHAT business do the ‘west’ have attacking a sovereign nation to get rights for a sub-group there? Would the France be OK if someone attacked in support of rights of non-whites; especially with the excuse that they have attacked them?
So basically, declare victory and leave.
That could well be the best of a lot of bad choices.
Good morning Viet Nam.
6
I fear that the word "deal" has somehow been etched into the public consciousness and especially that of reporters and pundits, reinforcing Trump's propaganda everywhere we look. Try something else.
5
I do not take side in politics. I debate ideas and not debate being part of a clan. Therefore, I can simply say that I’m strongly happy to see the US stopping a war.
I can just make the statement that this is the first presidency which is not starting a war and not being responsible for the killing of 100,000’s of people abroad including civilians.
13
That is a principle I try to adhere to. I'm not always successful. Trump is a challenge. If this deal is successful I would give Trump credit.
4
Another US military adventure coming to an end without any accomplishment worth the sacrifice of life and treasury. It was written on the wall so there is little to credit Trump for, the withdrawal just happened in his watch but it could have been in Hillary’s.
3
But I thought Trump heavily criticized Obama for announcing troop withdrawals before a firm deal was signed and therefore telegraphing to the enemy that they just need to patronize us until we leave.
3
@Stephen he did in this case the Taliban has to live up conditions over 14 months or there is no withdrawal.
1
This is a perfect example of mission creep -- we went to Afghanistan for a good reason, to prevent terrorist attacks on our shores, then remained long after Al Qaeda had been defeated as we attempted without success to turn the country into a liberal democracy.
When we are attacked, we must do what we need to and stay as long as we must.
But again and again -- in Vietnam, in Iraq, in Afghanistan -- we have made the mistake of becoming involved in internecine feuds and attempted to turn nations that weren't ready into democracies.
The consequences, inevitably, has been a stalemate until we finally tire and leave, tail between our legs.
Compare the success of George H. W. Bush's Desert Storm, in which we liberated Kuwait and then left, with the quagmire of George W. Bush's war in Iraq.
Our military should have clearly designed goals and be used for national defense, rather than tilting at windmills.
9
Memories are short. The US attacked the country to go after al Qaeda, they sent in a small SF team who joined up with the resistance and drove out the Taliban who went back to their safe haven in Pakistan to re-group. The resistance then formed a government which turned out to be corrupt.
The the rights groups got involved from the US. They decided that the conditions in the country were unacceptable, especially for women and demanded something be done. Other groups demanded better education and health, the list went on. A military operation turned into nation building and a forced cultural change operation.
The US poured money into the country and corruption took hold, much of that money is now in private bank accounts in Dubai where many Afghan government officials and well connected business men and their families now live.
As in Vietnam the Taliban did not have to win, all they had to do was hold on and not loose.
Then there was the issue of dealing with a culture that is very different than the West. How do deal with the heroin business and a middle ages culture of their treatment of women. If we had stayed there another 25 years the outcome would have been the same. If you had ever been there in the last 19 years, as I have, you would have seen all this. The Taliban will take back control of some of the country, maybe not all, and things will go back to how they were, at least for some years. Things change everywhere, maybe in Afghanistan,too.
4
"The war cost $2 trillion and took the lives of more than 3,500 American and coalition troops and tens of thousands of Afghans"
I can only imagine being the parents of one of the kids who died there...for what...nothing. Like Iraq, nothing. Like Syria, nothing. Like Vietnam, nothing. We armed the Mujahadeen, which morphed into the Taliban. Trillions spent, nothing gained. Imagine if we spent our tax dollars on us. I'm glad it's over, but we are still putting money into the military, while our infrastructure is crumbling and millions in this country have no healthcare....and I suspect that won't change. So nothing.
9
I happen to remember when Donald Rumsfield mocked the suggestion by Admiral Sir Michael Boyce that this war would last a lot longer than he was planning for. So much for Donald's judgement then...
I hope America doesn't forget all the service members from other countries that died or were injured in this war.
2
My understanding of the Taliban is that once the dust settles, they will quickly restore their social order on the common people of Afghanistan, which will not be pleasant for many of them. But the Taliban are largely Afghani, not invaders. Socially, and probably in other ways, it will be like going back to the stone age...but it will be their stone age. Who are we to point fingers, when there are tribes in our own country that want to do the same?
5
It depends upon who you mean by “their”. Many would rather not live by Taliban rules.
The USA went into Vietnam after the French had been there and failed! Lessons were not learned from that when the USA was beaten in that conflict despite its global power again, the USA failed to take on-board the problems of what went wrong!
So we now come to Afghanistan!
Same thing, the USA went into a county which the Russians left and again failed!
This time the USA have a president who can read between the lines and get his troops home.
WELL DONE!
3
Let’s not forget that a REPUBLICAN administration led us into these unending wars. Bush, Cheney, Powell, Rice et al proved incompetent leaders and managers, destroyed US International credibility and almost sank the economy at the same time.
Do not allow this current Republican administration to claim victory as we meekly surrender, hide our tears and bury our dead youth.
7
@Macbloom
A republican led us into this war right after our country was attacked on 9/11.
For 8 years, a democrat, who campaigned on getting us out of it, did nothing.
Now President Trump is getting us out, so, yes, this president gets to claim victory.
1
No matter what. We should withdraw completely. Let the Afghanis fight their own civil war. If the government cannot protect its people now after 19 years - they never will.
5
its about time. we could have never won there. the people we were trying to oust were and are Afghani, they were born there, they have lives there, we were invaders and the Taliban , the actual legitimate government was overthrown by us.
did we really expect to win? our nation is the biggest war mongers on this planet and eventually it will be our doom. we force nations to bend to our will with the threat of military action and regime change. we are the aggressor, we have not even declared war on these nations. we somehow as a nation decided we are always right, we have totally deceived ourselves. we are not the shining beacon on the hill, charged by god to defend right. we are very bad at it!
3
The Afghans have the most powerful of all weapons: persistence.
1
Trump declared on Friday ahead of the signing ceremony in Qatar:
"If the Taliban and the government of Afghanistan live up to these commitments, we will have a powerful path forward to end the war in Afghanistan and bring our troops home".
So the very stable genius is talking about the Taliban and the Afghani government about "living up to these commitments".
Was he not aware that the Afghan government did not sign the agreement in Qatar because they weren't invited in the first place?
Just as Trump's decision of reducing American troops in Syria, this endeavor of his will probably backfire as well.
Yes, it is high time to get American soldiers and other Nato troops out of Afghanistan, but how to do that without letting the Taliban run amok again in that country is a bit too complex for the Herr Trump and his sycophants in the administration.
3
"The war cost $2 trillion and took the lives of more than 3,500 American and coalition troops and tens of thousands of Afghans since the U.S. invasion in aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks..."
$2 trillion ($2,000,000,000,000) for 3,500 dead Americans and allies sounds absurd at first glance, but the military/industrial complex pocketed those dollars. My neighbor made a killing in the stock market betting on the military contractors over the past 20 years. Lockheed, Raytheon, etc. Look it up.
5
I often wonder what the world would have looked like if Clinton had been convicted during his impeachment and Gore had taken over.
As an incumbent he may have won the election and the Iraq war would never have happened and the US insertion in to all kinds of bad foreign involvements would never have happened.
1
@Areader
But there still would have been 9/11 and there's no way of knowing if more attacks would have occurred, right?
1
Come on.
Isn't this a typical Trump distraction from his failed response to the Coronavirus?
I think deep down I am on to this. We are teetering on the brink of constitutional and social chaos.
But.....Now think of Afghanistan...
Fully Orwellian.
The Taliban will do exactly what the North Vietnamese did after signing a peace deal with the US -- wait until we're gone and then take over the country. Invading Afghanistan was justified, but the Bush-Cheney decision to put the Afghan war on a back burner in order to pursue the disastrous and utterly unnecessary invasion of Iraq doomed us to failure in South Asia. Will policymakers ever learn from our own history?
1
For the love of mercy, the US must pay and pay some more to help protect and support those we abandon to be labeled as collaborators. We pay $trillions for bombs but refuse $millions for allies. Leave with honor.
1
It’s a shame that Donald Trump’s unpopularity is coloring so many people’s perceptions here. Of course it’s not perfect; it was never going to be. I am glad that we’re getting out of Afghanistan after nearly 20 years of war, and I won’t let my own dislike of the President change that.
7
Nobody really wins wars anymore. The 9/11 attacks were largely funded by Saudi’s who have long objected to US military presence in their country. A more effective response would have targeted that country with a withdrawal of American military support, especially the sales of sophisticated weapons and training that solidifies the power of Saudi royalty. Bin Laden was the messenger but the message came from people who are alive and well.
7
I’m not sure what to make of this. It’s painful to walk away after so much money, blood, etc. But what exactly is our goal there at this point? In Vietnam there was at least the argument that other countries would fall. What is the argument here?
3
With respect to US involvement, there was always going to be an imperfect resolution, regardless of which administration concluded it.
8
@DennisG - True. But that doesn't mean that this imperfection resolution was one of the wisest imperfect resolutions.
5
and the future will bring what? we continue with a climate crisis, a political crisis in the US, a medical crisis, and the divisiveness that has always been here in America. Perhaps we may know somewhat of how our military feel.
3
This 19-year bloodbath epitomizes the Deep State of the status quo. Why did it start, and why did it not stop? The status quo is so deeply entwined around our minds as the way things are that it must be ripped out even though it will cause damage.
There is no painless way to do this.
3
Looks like a sell out to me. How does a peace agreement made without the host government work? Will we monitor compliance with the agreement forever? The Taliban have shown their patience to wait for the withdrawal of forces in the past. This is simply putting a name to ending our engagement.
12
@Joe
It is a sell out , but maybe all sellouts are bad. Know when to fold as the song goes.
3
Same way the one ending the Vietnam War did.
2,400 American soldiers gave their lives to this horrific war.
The outcome is that the Taliban raised their status to that of an independent state-within-the-state that has to power to negotiate an agreement (the article calls it a "deal" using a Trumpian term) with the most powerful nation on earth, while the host nation, Afghanistan stands by and watches.
Of course there cannot be a "treaty" unless we acknowledge the Taliban as a nation-state.
The Taliban did not promise to give up its goal of Jihad against infidel nations, so far as I can tell.
But the key here is that this is neither a peace treaty nor even a cease-fire. It is mainly a "pause" in the violence until further steps are taken that may or may not happen.
It is a step in the right direction? Of course if the killing stops it is a step in the right direction.
It is time for celebration? Not yet by any means.
12
I find comparisons to Vietnam inaccurate. In Vietnam, the U.S. intervened in the aftermath of an anti-colonial struggle to try to dictate the form of government. In this war, the U.S. attacked a foreign power after that power's then military arm, al Qaeda, killed 3000 Americans on American soil.
Furthermore, this war was hardly in scale what Vietnam was. The number of Americans killed in Afghanistan in the whole "America's Longest War" is about equal to the number killed in Vietnam in one summer.
In Afghanistan, there was, and it was frequently articulated, a very reachable goal that only needed us to shift from using our military to genuinely helping with obvious problems, not in an effort to win loyalty, but because it was the right thing to do.
In Vietnam, there was no such option, the whole premise of why we were there was so far off, if FDR hadn't died in what was for Vietnam a very importune time, we would have been allies of Ho Chi Minh long before any Americans had heard of Tonkin Gulf.
3
I'm very much a dove, but this might as well be a surrender agreement. After 2 decades of war, we are negotiating with terrorists and giving the Taliban all they wanted and getting only vague promises of "we won't become terrorists again" in return. In the mean time, the Afghan government that we created and spent so much money propping up is not even at the negotiating table and is probably going to collapse soon after we leave. So this is what "victory" looks like.
12
The Taliban is going to try to complete their "victory" so the US will not totally leave at first. Its been said a million times the Taliban has benefitted from the USs presence in Afghanistan. It unifies the Afghani people. Despite the Taliban's medieval interpretation of the Islam. The foreign enemy, the US, is just incapable of sustaining the punishing expense of continuing the war. This is why Afghanistan is called the graveyard of empires. My guess is the US will wait a "decent interval" then just walk away.
6
Such a beautiful country. I hope we are able to go back there spending our money as tourists one day.
2
I wonder about the dynamics of this two-decade excursion. Russia, it was said at the time, had miscalculated in Afghanistan. The commentary was such that it appeared the U.S. would not follow the same path. Did it?
Was it simply old Cold War power brokers in politics, business and the military who were unable to see beyond the biases and egocentricities of their historical experience, or can we say, with clarity in the aftermath, “mission accomplished?”
1
So, this whole thing could be compared to a scenario where Putin and Xi Jinping come to Washington to negotiate the breakup the United States without homeland military or political intervention.
3
@HANK
no, its as if Putin and Xi negotiated a treaty with the President of the United States and then the Mayor of DC questioned why he wasn't involved in the negotiations.
Afghanistan has never been a "country". It is a lost place, where the population exists as a broth of families, extended families, tribes and peoples. Over the centuries, this unstable, uneducated broth has stewed and fought. Afghans kill each other - for land, for honor, for revenge, for religion, for fun. All Afghans are by nature corrupt. All the countries that surround the Afghan people want no part of them.
Over the centuries, the Afghans have fought and killed each other for countless reasons and grudges. The only time they band together is to fight invaders who come to bring "peace". The Russian czar lost an Army in Afghanistan. Britain lost two wars in Afghanistan. The USSR lost a prolonged war in Afghanistan, that contributed to the fall of the Soviet Union. Now, after 20 years, it is time for the USA to accept defeat at the hands of these barbaric people.
The only goods that Afghanistan produces are heroin and misery. The only thing the US accomplished in this wretched abyss, was to enrich the armament makers of the US military industrial complex for twenty years. Enough is enough. Let us come home, and spend the money on US infrastructure instead. It will be tax dollars far better spent.
17
Am I supposed to thank the Republicans for cleaning up the mess the Republicans made? Thanks a lot Republicans. Your past two presidents have been horrific.
12
What a tragic mistake in blood and dollars this war was....We should have been in and out. Hopefully we've learned our lesson.
5
Let's be clear about this. Like the Vietnam peace deal, this is a virtual surrender on America's part. We're bugging out. The Afghan government's days are numbered; the Taliban will overthrow the Afghan government as soon as all American troops fly out. And then the Taliban reprisals will begin with mass murder and putting girls and women back into chains. Oh, and if they break the "agreement" to keep terrorists out who may plot U.S. attacks, what will we do? Nothing.
2
You want an indefinite US military presence in Afghanistan? Because that is the alternative.
All the while we'll be reading about how we are supporting a "corrupt leadership" there. With these comments being made by many of those criticizing the current withdrawal plan.
I was in the US Army in South Vietnam. Would you encourage your children or grandchildren to join the military and fight in Afghanistan?
Props to you if you have already done so.
I want to congratulate Trump for this achievement, but we seen this movie before already a few times where it seems that Trump and co. have made gestures toward peace and bringing the troops home, only to reverse course and double down in an even more crass imperialistic manner than their predecessors (e.g “we need to stay for the oil” in Syria). Fingers crossed this one actually works out.
2
Another diplomatic accomplishment for Trump! Isn’t he amazing? Of course Democrats are now trying to figure out how to impeach him for ending the war.
6
Our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan has always been saddled by a neocon hidden agenda, i.e., military and political dominance of the Middle East and access to all of their mineral riches buried in the ground. What could have been more simple that hunting down Osama Bin Laden and his inner circle, killing them, calling it a victory, and heading home. After all the lost lives and money thrown into the region, would we have been any worse off today? Think about the wasted opportunity to invest in our own infrastructure for the last two decades.
6
@Dan
Because the target list is a bit broader than USB, there is a complexity to just hunting down the perps of 9/11. The Taliban were complicit, and USB’s next in chain were as well.
Trillion plus dollars. Lives lost. And all will return to how it was. The industrial military complex lives on - many got rich off this war and will be sad to see it end. Stop the madness
8
I have voted for over a decade for politicians who promised to get our decent, civilized servicepeople out of Afghanistan.
Still there. As a society, we've only become worse from contact with the Taliban (in effect, all of Afghanistan) -- bitter, drained, impoverished and injured. I suggest a George Bush monument with the names of all killed in this futile endeavor, along the lines of the Vietnam War Monument.
3
Let's call this what it is, a capitulation.
Trump is giving up the freedoms that were hard won for the Afghan women.
Considering that it was the sons and daughters of Trump voters who disproportionately died there for nothing now, perhaps that will have some of them reconsider?
3
@Captain Nemo We were there originally supposedly to rout terrorists after 9/11. We were or should never have been there or stayed there for 'nation building'. The cost to Americans in dollars and lives was never worth it.
3
@Captain Nemo
No, they will not.
Someday the United States can close its Department is Offense, and open a Department of Defense.
4
I’m a US Army veteran, 1 year Iraq, 1 year Afghanistan. This is a catastrophic tactical error. And I know the criticisms of the war in Afghanistan. I am no less critical. But, one series of compounding errors does not justify more compounding errors.
Maybe, MAYBE if a person was born yesterday, they’d believe the Taliban will uphold their end of any agreement reached. But, all that will happen is they will exact bloody vengeance on anyone who they know ever worked with NATO forces.
The US war in Afghanistan was always catastrophically mismanaged. And most of that is because no one knew what the mission was. Bush didn’t know what he was doing. Obama inherited a quagmire of an economy and Afghanistan was always an afterthought to domestic issues.
I know it’s not popular, but what we don’t need right now is a troop withdrawal. The thing that Afghanistan needs, and always needed, was an industrial scale dedication of diplomacy and soft power, backed up by a moderate military presence.
When I was there in Afghanistan, the people were sick of war. It’s all they’ve known for so long. They just want peace. They don’t like the Taliban. Heck, the Taliban is composed of just as many foreigners to them as NATO. Afghan Army troops had a massive reputation for running away during firefights. They’re not violent.
Bottom line is, every time the people of Afghanistan were offered the option for a peaceful life, they took it willingly. Giving the country back to the Taliban is a betrayal.
6
@Austin Ouellette
A compassionate and humane take on the civilian trauma of this conflict. Appreciate the perspective and experience that informs your comment. The injustice of what the Afghan people have endured is impossible to reconcile with the impetus to see moral good and peace prevail in their lives, an outcome that outside forces may be unequipped to assist in delivering, no matter our desire. Taking the longer view, it's inevitable that powers in the region have to reckon with the requisites of governance and a functioning social order. The necessity for peace in the lives of everyday people has it's own power and impetus that I hope and believe will eventually prevail.
1
@Austin Ouellette "Giving the country back to the Taliban is a betrayal."
The US is not "giving Afghanistan to the Taliban"
1) it is not ours to "give" to anyone
2) The Ts are just one element of a complex power tapestry. There are many secular and sectarian warlords with regional sway, Most are not Ts
3) It is certainly possible that some parts of the Pashtun South will fall under long term Taliban control. This may not be altogether unwelcome for the Pashtuns who live there.
4) Much of the Tajik/Persian north with come under the sway of the Norther Alliance warlords, who despise the Taliban.
5) As American departs the Indians and the Chinese will play an ever expanding role in the North and East.
6) Also, with our departure, the Pakistanis and the Iranians will play an ever expanding role in the South and West.
We were just another annoying visitor leaving small footprints in the sands of millennial times.
1
@Austin Ouellette thanks for your service but why is it our burden? Any society that can’t band together to protect itself from its internal threats is not worthy of survival. We saw that in VietNam where we had many draft dodgers and double agents which was an early signal that we were embarked on a fool’s errand. And we saw the same corruption and double dealing in Afghanistan. Many commenters seem to believe that American kids should risk their lives to defend the rights of women in an Islamic country. This illustrates just how far we have gone in the fatuous idea that it is America’s role to spread democracy around the world. It is not the job of the military to guarantee human rights. Their job is to defend the USA and that is all they should be doing,
Quite the positive spin on ‘deal’ that was ‘negotiated’ where we got nothing. When what you ‘gain’ is ‘leaving’, That’s not ‘negotiation’, it’s admission of having lost & going home. Sounds to me we gave up the withdrawal chip for.... exactly what interest of ours? It’s a farce to ‘ask’ have Taliban not associate with Al Queda....The Taliban are terrorists themselves, & there will be new groups for them to foster. We ( and the Russians before us) armed the Taliban to begin with, thinking they represented some of our interests. These negotiations excluded the American-backed Afghanistan government, and as such will allow further gains in Taliban governance. “Though the Taliban would get their primary wish granted by this agreement, the withdrawal of American troops, they have made no firm commitments to protect civil rights for people they brutally repressed when in power.” Exactly what was ‘negotiated’ by our ‘Dealmaker’ in chief? We gave up our bargaining chip of leaving... we reset the table for Taliban takeover of governance. We essentially negotiated a talking point for DT campaign. We should at least open the corridor for any Afghani women and their children who want leave , who remember what life was like under the Taliban for them.
2
Let this be the last time war fever takes over my country and propels it into a war without end.
5
@Mark Lebow
Response to the 9/11 attacks on the US aided by the Taliban cannot be dismissed as merely war fever.
What about the government of Afghanistan? What of those who voted and had a start at escaping religious tyranny? The very government of that land has been excluded from the negotiations and the plan! Trump negotiates only with terrorists, pleases them, and announces “peace”? Yes, when you open the door for the monsters to rule, they’ll agree to that. What kind of “achievement” is that? Enough for Trump to put before his base in the unending fantasy show he acts out for them. Never mind democracy, never mind the enslavement of women and deaths of allies (again). When has Trump ever cared for either?
2
History demonstrates that Afghanistan is ungovernable due to an ingrained tribal culture that has existed for a millennia.
Trump is only the latest western leader to see the writing on the wall, and the latest to wash his hands of the entire mess. The only difference is that Trump will puff out his chest and proclaim himself to be the greatest military and diplomatic leader in history.
1
Just another cynical move by The Chosen One to protect his political interests. 14 more months? The Afghan government was excluded? Women . . .
1
Trump is keeping his word. But anyone thinks this will bring peace is naive. The taliban will wait for us to leave and then resume the fight and will easily overrun the current weak and corrupt regime. More will die, see South Vietnam as a template for this.
2
@E If it turns out as well as South Vietnam, the Afs may be quite happy.
There percapita household income would increase fifteen fold. Literacy would skyrocket. Public health would improve greatly.
True, they might not have political freedoms. But then they never really had them before.
1
It's long overdue. Obama could have done this. He didn't. Trump did.
Trump is massively dangerous and must be removed. And it's also true that he did this. Obama didn't.
6
Great news but 19 years too late.
Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan
American needs to learn its lesson and steadfastly avoid getting involved in wars
4
The signatories devalued the paper the "agreement" is written on. It is worthless, except that it will save some American lives.
1
Bush took us in, Obama kept us there, Trump's getting us out.
Those are the facts. Make of them what you will.
14
Another US defeat.
So many wars and invasions since WW2, yet nothing to show for besides fattening the pockets of defense contractors.
7
In this agreement, the U.S. had representatives. So did the Taliban. But who represented the people of Afghanistan?
1
I am happy that we are pulling our troops out of Afghanistan. I also understand that any agreement reached with the Taliban, ISIS, etc. is totally useless. Ultimately, however, it's up to the people in these regions to decide who will govern them.
3
The war will officially end but the killing will not.
I question the longterm benefits as well what was accomplished with US involvement. There is still a society in which women are treated like chattel, young boys are sexually abused by men, and men and women are raped as a means of control.
1
I'll believe it when I see it and we don't go back in for at least two years. I do feel sorry for the people of Afghanistan who will be living under cruel Taliban rule but at the end of the day, it's not a US problem. We have enough problems here at home.
1
There can be nothing more threatening to peace and prosperity than Trump's and Pompeo's involvement in any dealmaking efforts. Look at their records!!
2
It’s not a peace deal
It’s a withdrawal deal
2
@Deirdre
Most wars are terminated by an "end to hostilities"
"Peace" is seldom achieved with an agreement or a treaty.
1
Invasion of Afghanistan was totally unnecessary at the time. Rooting out the terrorists was a special ops job. But, the best way to steal from Ft Knox is to start a war. And they did. And they do. And they will. And we all suffer as a result. And Trump and withdrawal does not mean less spending on the military. Crooks go where the money is. The Politics of it will continue to be a sleight of hand for the public to be distracted.
Probably perfectly timed to assure that the Taliban will not effectively control Afghanistan before next November.
Defeat without harmful political dishonor.
Poor Afghanistan, but we are not responsible for their destiny and have wasted every ounce of American blood and treasure we've squandered there.
3
Thank you President Trump and team. You have done something good. But you do NOT have my vote.
2
It's a disgrace. The whole purpose of the invasion was to unseat the Taliban and here Donald Trump is inviting them right back. They are unrepentant. Like the Viet Cong, they only see "peace" as "opportunity." And when they reassert their theocratic domination of the country, which they surely will, and again become home to paramilitary training camps, does anyone seriously believe we'll "be back"? Of course not.
Who would have ever guessed that the neoconservative moment would end up in a bonfire consuming the tattered remains of our nation's credibility and reputation? We've abandoned all of those groups, whether in Iraq, Afghanistan or Syria, who have ever fought along side us. Our nation's word means absolutely nothing; our promises a sick joke.
Biden wants to bring back pre-2016 America. Yet that's what has brought us to this sad juncture. I'd blame Trump, but he pretty much did what most of Obama's supporters wanted him to do, but couldn't. Fact is, the American people are as corrupt as Donald Trump and Joe Biden: and they deserve that kind of "leadership."
@Gary FS go fight there yourself then. But give up your citizenship first. No more American lives or taxpayer dollars to that sinkhole. Trump did something right - if we get out and never look back.
Well we're at the point of losing another war in the third world. Can we finally learn our lesson? Why in Hades wasn't Vietnam enough to teach us the folly of intervening with our troops in a third world civil war?
2
@Jack Toner
Your post aptly describes US involvement in Iraq. As to the Taliban, their fight with the rest of Afghanistan is not our concern (to a point; would you say that the final solution to the Jewish question was an internal affair?). However, they participated in an attack on the US, hardly the stuff of a third world civil war.
I’ll be thrilled when our last service member has been killed or maimed in this useless effort. Hope it has already happened!! But, like everything Trump, I will believe it only when I see it. Wonder if this deal includes the mercenaries that we like to call “contractors,” and who presently outnumber our soldiers and Marines in the fight.
2
This is not going to do anything but get troops out of the country. Then they will crack down on the people. Russia couldn't win in Afghanistan. The US can't either.
1
Imagine if a Democratic president secured this deal. We'd never hear the end of accusations of "negotiating with terrorists."
4
An ultimate peace treaty won’t be the end of the process.
The end of the process will come about a year later when the Taliban eliminates the Afghan government and security forces.
Women will again be oppressed. Homosexuals will be killed. Schools will be closed. Cultural artifacts will be destroyed.
Just like the old days before the U.S. got involved.
It’s an unfortunate, but inevitable reality that still doesn’t justify the U.S. being there.
It's time for U.S. forces to come home.
3
"“This agreement will mean nothing — and today’s good feelings will not last — if we don’t take concrete action on commitments stated and promises made,” said Secretary of State Mike Pompeo..."
Ask Iran, The Kurds, and members of the Paris Agreement about "commitments stated and promises made."
4
Since Sandy Hook, the US has had 2,387 mass shootings. If this country is really honest and serious about terrorism, then we should tend our garden. The Taliban are not shooting American dead in schools, movie theaters, and concerts; it's Americans.
3
@Casual Observer Absolutely but mass shootings are only a fraction of the problem (1-2% of total homicides). 2/3 of gun deaths are suicide. 1/3 homicides. Over half those victims were black. Cities like St. Louis and Baltimore have murder rates high than most war zones; higher than most Latin and Central American countries.
80-90% of those guns are handguns already held illegally.
That's where we need intervention.
Not half a world away in a country and culture that will never achieve peace imposed by outside western forces.
1
We were never going to win in any way. This is just another loss for the US and it’s global conquest. In the end, our kids were killed for the bloodlust of some old men. I wonder when the next battle cry will come?
3
bin Laden is going to be remembered as one of history’s greatest strategist along the line of Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar, Sun Tzu, and Zhuge Liang.
His adapted country was weak but through cunning and cold-blooded acts of terrorism he lured the solo superpower in the world to fight an endless war not only in his country but his enemies’. He convinced succeeding US governments to topple secular governments in Iraq, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Syria, Yemen and let his followers put down roots.
The cost of the wars bankrupt the US in material and spirit. American abandon liberty for total surveillance and censorship. High oil price benefits Russia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Venezuela. US as war monger facilitated the transfer of global leadership to China. The refugee crisis and continuing attacks by bin Laden followers is breaking up EU and NATO.
September 11th is going to be referenced in the future as the end of Pax Americana and bin Laden‘s name remembered long after Washington, Lincoln, Obama are forgotten.
2
The document containing the "deal" will be arcing toward the trash bin the day the last American aircraft lifts off the runway in Afghanistan as far as the Taliban are concerned. They know once we're gone, we won't be coming back.
I've been watching the Ken Burns Vietnam documentary. (I couldn't watch it the first time around; I was too angry.) I guess the 50,000+ soldiers who died there died in vain because we made more or less the same mistakes in Afghanistan, with more or less the same results; nothing gained, only loss. I think it unlikely, given our present political situation, that we will have any kind of national discussion on mistakes made that we won't make in the future. We didn't after Vietnam either.
Too bad the NY Times story contained no comments from G,W. Bush, Dick Cheney, or Donald Rumsfeld. I would have been interested to read what they had to say.
2
We had no business being in Afghanistan for more than a month. The American public at the time was too ignorant to know that Afghanistan has a reputation for being the graveyard of empires. Afghans say we have the clocks, but they have the time. They will very likely be there in their present form, centuries after the American experiment has dwindled away.
2
I will give the Afghan puppet government one year, at the most. This should be time enough for the puppet government officials to collect their loot, buy properties in UAE or Delhi and send their families in advance to settle there. The thieves and corrupt traitors to their own nation have no future in a free, independent, Taliban ruled Afghanistan. Additionally, the Indian Intelligence agencies and officials in Afghanistan should start saying good bye's. India made a bad bet when it sided against the Taliban and will pay a dear price for that.
Thanks to President Trump and God bless this wise decision in Afghanistan.
3
$2 Trillion, but we can’t afford healthcare, higher education, or modern infrastructure. Imagine the high speed rail network we could have built for $2 trillion!! Gross
6
America invaded and occupied Afghanistan and Iraq without debating and declaring and paying for war and peace.
Ceding to an increasingly imperial Article II President of the United States the duty and power that the Framers wisely based and centered in the Article I Congress.
America hasn't debated, declared and paid for war and peace since December 8, 1941.
When was the last time that America won a war and a peace?
5
I’m not sorry to see an end to fighting - if that’s what this deal represents - but please let’s continue to keep an eye out for the lives, liberty and safety of Afghan women and girls.
1
I remember images of people struggling to get aboard helicopters atop the US Embassy in Saigon in 1975 as the ARVN troops totally folded facing the North Vietnamese army and the regime in South Vietnam collapsed...after a similar "peace treaty" that won Henry Kissinger and Li Duc Tho a Nobel Peace Prize.
Afghanistan isn't just "the graveyard of empires"--it's the graveyard of incredibly stupid decisions. Remember: We were on the brink of DESTROYING the Taliban and creating a new popular government in Afghanistan. What happened? At THE most critical moment in that war, Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld drained the necessary resources for their quixotic, catastrophic, useless, illegal, and unnecessary attack on Iraq. The result of THAT attack was the creation of ISIS and the deaths of between 650,000 and 1 millions people.
At the SAME time, the Afghan war, in that moment was the classic "Snatching defeat from the jaws of Victory". Ever since then, the goal has been to prevent the total collapse and the recovery of the Taliban to full power in that nation.
I fear that the Taliban will say and even DO anything to get the US out, and then they will go back to warring on the government to take full authoritarian control again.
Both diplomacy and war cannot be successful without understanding the opponent, something the US and particularly the Trump admin is incapable of.
4
We should leave, but we should do everything we can to address how badly the Taliban will treat their own people when we leave.
According to the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University the war in Afghanistan has cost the U.S. government $5.9 trillion dollars to date.
5
When the Trump administration signs a piece of paper, the world can be forgiven for being a little cautious about putting faith in it.
1
Call me cynical, but this “peace deal” is this generation’s “peace with honor”.
It’s too bad that nobody thought to do it in 2002.
3
Well at least the President gets this right.
2
What lessons will the American people learn from the Afghanistan war, with its $2 trillion transfer of our tax dollars to military-industrial complex profiteers, and far more importantly, the incalculable cost of the loss of human life and the life-long suffering of those horribly wounded? I recommend preparing for learning these lessons by reading War is a Racket by Marine Corps General Smedley D. Butler, the only soldier in American history to win two congressional Medals of Honor. It is very easy to read and understand. By the way, it was published in 1935.
2
We need to get them out with coronavirus coming. We dont have ICU care there for them.
The Taliban won and the United States lost.
It’s their country. No matter how primitive they and their mentality are, our nation cannot dislodge them. The writing has been on the wall all along.
While no one can be pleased that their cruelty prevailed, we cannot lose more lives in vain. End bloodshed for futile endeavors.
1
Those of us old enough to remember April 1975 will expect to see an American helicopter taking off from the roof of the US embassy in Kabul before long, leaving behind the Afghan victims of this "deal". This is called "scuttle".
1
Maybe Trump will actually accomplish something good for a change.
1
Trump did something good?
Impossible, so this must be a trick. trap, delusion, diversion, campaign ploy, or...I'll think of something else soon.
3
And of course women were not involved in the deal. So we are back to the Talibans and burquas. 18 years for that?
1
Democrats and ‘progressives’ would prefer, as always, the indignity of a last helicopter leaving our embassy roof.
Look for the Democrats to deny support funding to the Afghan government when the Taliban assault it in a year or two.
1
@EGD
"...the indignity of a last helicopter leaving our embassy roof."
that was a GOP op from start to finish.
This smacks of Trump just wanting to say he got us out of Afghanistan. We have no idea yet what the repercussions will be for the Afghani people; consequences not being one of his overriding considerations.
1
So..... what exactly was the point of being in Afghanistan for 18 years?
What is different now?
and please... nothing about binLaden.... the Taliban were ready to turn him over to the U.S. in 2001 IF we provided proof of his involvement in 9/11
1
The article doesn’t discuss Rep. Liz Cheney’s letter to Pompeo signed by 20 other House Republicans expressing dismay with the treaty.
Apparently the hawks are unhappy since this is perhaps the first time a group of Republicons has dissented from Trump administration actions. That is news too.
War
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing...
1
I find this very confusining since we never went to war with the Taliban. We invaded Afghanistan because the Government wouldn't hand over Bin Laden. We went in to drive Al Queda out. In fact, in Woodward's book about the Obama White House, Obama is constantly reminding everyone that out mission was not the Taliban, but Al Queda and we were, in Obama's words as used by Woodward, suffering from "Mission Creep".
I suppose it's a good joke though: Trump ends war that never started.
1
and bec of CV this will barely be noticed. Unfortunate timing to say the least.
So happy that there is Peace now im Afghanistan.
Mission accomplished.
1
I hope the next president lets Afghan women into the country if requested. The Taliban brutalizes women and we are opening the door to the return to such violence. While I realize that we cannot carry on a military occupation indefinitely, I fear for the women of this country.
1
Only 18 years too late!
We should never have been there in the first place.
4
The Taliban is a terrorist group and the killing will go on but it will not be American troops. It's a terrible tragedy that the government of Afghanistan could not remove the Taliban from Afghanistan or Pakistan. The targeted killing of Alliance fighters, government forces and policemen will quickly ensue and Afghan society will be squashed by what was al Qaeda's less powerful twin. Our retreat on the world stage is an embarrassment.
What sort of emigration plans have been made for all the Afghans who assisted the US, Canadian and other allied Western troops that went there with the USA? Surely the translators and other locals who worked against theTaliban face certain death as soon as the last Western troops are gone. Are thy going to be brought out? Or will they be left to their fates like the Syrian Kurds?
3
I'm now waiting for Trump to include in his meandering addresses to supporters his successful ending of the war in Afghanistan and his being nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
2
Withdrawal will bring with it immigrants. The US should start planning housing for the thousands of Afghan immigrants (individuals and their family who served with the US forces).to be evacuated with the American troops.
President Trump will not be happy to see Moslem Afghani families coming in numbers to America, that is if he is in office 14 months from now!
Much as I detest how Donald Trump has disgraced and demeaned our presidency on so many matters, he is on the path to pulling us out of W's and Cheney's interminable wars of ambition.
Trump has been the antithesis of President Obama in his foreign policy. Arguably, he has been more effective.
President Obama offered the Islamic world and China a better world through a very different foreign policy than they had experienced before with the US. He offered them a path of peace and rising economic prosperity. He rightfully held Israel accountable for its role in Middle Eastern tensions. He optimistically enabled the expansion of economic ties with China while winking at China's IP theft. He offered both compromise.
Both the Islamists and the Chinese spurned President Obama's outreach. They treated him as weak and simply ignored his entreaties to live as neighbors with us.
It pained me to witness the Iranian humiliation of an American naval crew. In stark contrast, I was much more comfortable with the American assassination of the Iranian commander of their religious army, the Guard. Therein lies a major difference between Trump and President Obama.
Trump is a hard man, a bully, and a con. He is much more like the Islamist hardliners and Xi's hardliners. He understands that sometimes you follow Mike Tyson's advice and just punch your adversary square in the face and then kick him even harder when he's down.
The fact that he is getting us out is a good thing.
69
@TDurk but the agreement that does not include the government of Afghanistan - huge omission, but by design because that would be hard to do. Trump took the easy way out.
32
@jeffk,
It gives no joy to say this, but the government of Afghanistan is an American creation. If it can stand on its own, that would be wonderful. But after all theses years and all this blood and treasure if it cannot then so be it.
5
@TDurk - "Trump has been the antithesis of President Obama in his foreign policy. Arguably, he has been more effective."
I am afraid you are counting your chickens way before they hatch. Let's talk about Trump's effectiveness in foreign policy arena six months from now. In particular, let wait to see how effective his bromance with Kim Jong-un will turn out.
Trump is pulling out the US military out of Afghanistan because he thinks it will help his re-election. If sometime between now and November 2020 he is persuaded by his inner-circle that another war - most probably against Iran - will cement his re-election, he will not hesitate for a minute to start that.
The man needs to be re-elected to stay out of prison. And, rest assured, he will do anything, he will say anything, and he will go anywhere to achieve that. That is why he is so dangerous!
30
Is the flag we’re waving entirely white, or is it white with a “Trump” logo on it?
40
@Mike : so….much better to stay another 17 years and lose thousands more American lives and spend another $20 trillion on nothing?
When do we cut our losses?
If Obama did this, would say we were waving a white flag? or praise his wisdom to the skies?
5
@Concerned Citizen “If Obama did this, would say we were waving a white flag?”
When Obama has the gall to even slightly reduce troop numbers, Republicans across the board went absolutely ballistic. “Cut and run”, etc. etc.
3
@Mike
It's red with MAGA (Make Afghanistan Great Again) written on it. Hopefully this works out better than his previous attempt.
2
So an administration that lies and operates with full disregard for the welfare of its people just made a deal with another group who is lying and won't keep their word. Sure sounds like another great "deal".
23
As with everything this president does it’s all about a photo op and headline. Right now he needs it to stem his incompetence at addressing the “corona” virus. Let’s see what really happens. North Korea and Middle East ?
5
This is meant to be a distraction from coronavirus and the plummeting stock market, and the details were probably rushed and fudged accordingly. Up to this point, the administration has shown no skill or forethought at laying a diplomatic groundwork and establishing measures of success. We'll see what actually happens, because usually with Trump in international relations, the US thrashes around and gives up a lot without gaining anything in return.
512
@C Wolfe
The Taliban, according to the article, call this deal “the defeat of the arrogance of the White House”.
Another great “deal” made by The Donald.
I completely agree with your assessment of the situation.
106
@C Wolfe
Actually, the reverse is more likely true.
.
People are so concerned about the spread of sickness that this news, released late on a Friday night/early Saturday morning won't be on most people's radar.
.
Make no mistake, the US has just surrendered to the Taliban.
160
@C Wolfe
I’m opposed to nearly everything the trump administration has done and view all motives with suspicion, but there’s no way this is to distract from the virus or the market. This deal has been in the works for months, long before these issues emerged.
Now if you were to say the timetable for withdrawal fits neatly into the election cycle and is being done less for foreign policy objectives and more for trump to be able to have a talking point on campaign trail, that I could see. I absolutely think a bad deal would be rushed through just to have a MAGA rally talking point.
But either way: the un-winnable forever war needs to come to a close. The taliban will likely begin immediately attacking the government and attempting to reinstate sharia law. I hope I’m wrong and wish the afghans well. During my time in Afghanistan I found the overwhelming majority of people to be hospitable and kind and just wanting what was best for their families. But if we haven’t figured it out after 20 years, more time in country isn’t helping anyone.
45
Believe it when I see it. Diversionary tactic to insure Trump’s re-election. He’ll never get my vote based on this breaking news.
112
@Kathryn Cox
I am with you. This is a re-election tactic. The Taliban will never compromise with the present Afghan government. Thanks to Chaney/ Baby Bush Jr. for initiating this debacle.
@Kathryn Cox Be honest, he wasn’t going to get your vote anyway.
@Kathryn Cox
Pretty sure he could cure cancer and would still not get your vote. Am I right?
Sounds like another trump photo op to me. I can’t imagine there is any thought or substance behind this.
27
@Joe
The substance behind this is that the US just surrendered to the Taliban and betrayed another ally.
2
@Joe
Thought or substance in the Trump administration? That’s a riot.
I’m glad. I never knew why we were there in the first place. I thought the whole point of our escapade in Afghanistan was to capture Osama Bin Laden. It turned out it really was for the industrial military complex to make money. I’m just sorry that so many lost their lives for no good reason.
220
@Hothouse Flower
I’m not quite as cynical as you in some respects, and much more so in others. I don’t see the military industrial complex as the driver for the war in Afghanistan (Iraq is a different story, but even there it seemed more a personal issue with Bush, Saddam, and Bush’s daddy). On the other, more cynical hand, I did not understand the war in Afghanistan to be about capturing UBL. Rather, it was, or should have been, about making sure that the Taliban could not assist in future attacks on the US. Capturing UBL might have been part of that objective, but not all of it. Burn their poppy fields and cotton fields. Make travel and shipping into and out of Afghanistan impossible, for as long as it takes. Impress upon the wildly tribal Afghans that the “tribe” of the Taliban is all the other tribes’ worst enemy.
And (here’s the cynical part) nation building should never have been a part of it, at least not until the Taliban and their terrorist allies were run to ground. Nation building only works when nations want to be built.
But instead, we surrender to the Taliban, actors in the attacks on the US on 9/11. Ugh.
8
@Dan
So how many soldiers are in the cemeteries and who are never going to come home to their families
So how are we, who lost so much, many loved ones are suppose to feel.
Eighteen years this war has gone on and the lives of the people who fought just don't matter.
A peace agreement that signifies nothing from and administration who can not tell the truth about anything.
7
@Dan: Remember the "... if we don't fight them there, we will have to fight them here" trope? See how well that worked out? 18 years. Just. Shaking. My. Head.
4
Kudos to President Trump for making the effort and making a deal, any deal. I'm a Democrat. Who says Democrats never give him credit for doing something right and good for the American people?
Of course there are too many contingencies in it, commitments that the Taliban will probably not fulfill or will break. But in this case, that's OK. All that matters here and now is that America keep its commitment to get out and not let Taliban violations keep us there. (I will also note the felicitous political timing of this deal signing.)
4
It took the Francophone Norman’s 200 years to conquer Wales after the victory in Hastings in 1066.
Once Pres. Bush went in beyond the helping the Mujahideen overthrow the Taliban government, who had sheltered and supported Osama, and he decided to nation build with a new constitution and “Democrat-ish” (corrupt and it was) based government, the US and its Allies needed to buy-in to build some fortresses across the country in the manner of the Normans and stay for a few generations if they really wanted to defeat the Taliban.
Instead, we mostly followed the limited war blueprint from Vietnam wasting money and lives yearly through three administrations. Tragic that the lessons of Vietnam (and Soviets) were so quickly forgotten. Just watch the Ken Burns recent documentary.
For the Taliban to be defeated, they needed to know we were committed to be there at least 50 years or more, and, the truth is we weren’t. If we weren’t going to stay, we should never have gone and tried to set up a government. Talk about a slippery slope.
RIP Afghanistan political and social freedoms. That’s what our blood and treasure gained for a few years and will soon be lost.
1
Well, here we are again---reliving our history of failed colonists ventures. All these ventures end the same---the government(s) that we have been propping up are not even invited to the peace agreement. I wish I could say that maybe this time around we will not go full Dick Geney on perceived dangers to our democratic way of life---but I'm afraid that is just wishful thinking.
6
Long, long overdue.
During my government career, I worked in numerous U.S. Embassies around the world. We have a little problem with our concept of exporting freedom and democracy to other nations.
In some societies, you could give them democracy on a gold platter and they wouldn't want it or know what to do with it.
So it was in Vietnam and so it is in Afghanistan. Time to cut losses, declare a victory, go home, and don't do it any more.
13
Finally. Thank you President Trump for keeping your promise. You did what your predecessors could not. No more endless un-winable wars that don’t benefit American interests and end up with needless American deaths.
15
@XLER This will get Trump the Nobel Prize for sure. Won't it?
Just a warning to all those who see this as the end of our engagement in this country.
It is not. There is so much still to be done by everyone and so many ways it can file.
Don't forget the deal thetrump supposedly did with North Korea the resulted in nothing.
This could end the same way.
5
So what’s your suggested alternative? Stay an additional 20 years, lose additional American lives to impose our self proclaimed better way of life. Time to strategically retreat and focus on a foreign policy that will actually benefit us long term.
11
Awesome news. Good job to the President for getting this done. One more Forever War finished.
13
@Ismail So what exactly did he "get done"? After all those years, Afghanistan is still the same country it always was, the position of women in that society is the same as always, and the threat of terrorism remains the same. Bravo.
A deal hinging on taking militants' human rights terrorist's word that they will not ally with other militant human rights ignorers? That is hardly worth the paper it is written on or years of negotiation. If we want to get out, just get out. Any promise will be broken. And then what do we do when the deal is broken and they lie about it? Just get out, and figure out another way to make sure we have intelligence and influence in the country - that's what we do everywhere else.
5
We have learned nothing! Over 20 years of war and over two thousand dead Americans and we have achieved nothing. We view victory as the ability to cut and run. There is one bright side: at least we didn’t lose over 50,000 soldiers as we did in Vietnam.
9
@Lance Michaels Make that 60,000.
I thought we invaded Afghanistan to fight Islamic terrorism and to try to prevent another September 11th. If part of doing so was to try to have the country adopt some democratic ideals to help build a stable society, so be it. I don’t think that the US should invest the lives of our young people and billion of dollars in trying to get equality for women and minorities in another country. It’s their country, not ours, and frankly none of our business. We should have taken decisive, forceful action in the beginning to take a stance on Islamic terrorism killing American citizens, and then we should have walked away.
I don’t care how or why we get out, just that we get out so we don’t ruin the future and lives of our service people. The money we spent on this war could be put to much better use in the USA. If Trump is the President that gets us out, well good for him. The idea is “winning a war” needs to go away. No one wins a war, everyone involved loses.
86
@Ebrofin Though this war was a mistake, it is an even graver mistake to believe that the US should not invest its resources in trying to promote democracy and human rights. Promoting decency and humanity across the globe should be the goal of every citizen and every country. And the world consistently looks to us for support and assurance that humanity will prevail. It is more than our responsibility, it is our obligation.
Furthermore, promoting human rights and democracy helps the United States by maintaining its position as the world superpower, a reward which greatly benefits the US economy, financial system, and citizenry.
Yes we will make mistakes in trying to promote democracy and human rights and not every intervention will be successful. But, we must continue to improve the world and bend history away from cruelty, if even that arc is slight.
2
@Naveen There was no "we" in making these mistakes, its only Republicans.
5
@Ebrofin,
More broadly, while these past 17 years have been a violent and vicious conflict, they have not been "war" as is it historically held. Without diminishing in any way the sacrifice of our troops and their families, or those of our allies, it has been a long, harsh, and violent act of policing.
Policing doesn't have a victory celebration or end date. ALWAYS KEEP IN MIND, we have over 130,000 troops in Germany, Japan, and Korea some 75 years after the end of those conflicts. No, those troops have not died at the rate of troops in Afghanistan, but if any of those bubbles go up they will face annihilation.
1
I recall reading many years ago about the end of WWII and how some of the military forces on some of the Pacific islands (I seem to recall it was the French military, but were they on some of those islands? not sure) rather than shipping their now-useless military vehicles, including possibly tanks, back to their home countries at an exorbitant cost, chose to drive them off the cliffs and into the sea, so that they did not fall into the hands of their erstwhile adversaries.
I believe, similarly, the US also does not plan on shipping its military equipment in Afghanistan back to the US or to other hot-spots in the neighborhood where the US is still involved, e.g., Syria or Iraq, or store them in Kuwait for a possible engagement with Iran in the near future. And I don't think it will want to simply abandon all the high-tech military hardware in place in Afghanistan. Nor do I think it will simply blow it all up to keep it away from the Taliban, who possibly does not care for such sophisticated military hardware.
I believe that the best alternative is to donate it all to their great peace-loving ally in the neighborhood, namely Pakistan, who has for many years carrying on peaceful and non-terrorist activities on their border with India. That will be a wonderful win-win situation.
2
After more than 18 years, $2 trillion, the lives of more than 3,500 American and coalition troops and tens of thousands of Afghans the warmongers of past administrations and those still embedded in the current one have been forced to accept the inevitable. The fate of Afghans is now in the hands of Afghans. After wasting 18 years of American blood and treasure I don't care how that turns out. All I care do about is that is that we never go back.
3
Officials said attacks had dropped by as much as 80 percent during that period. What does that mean? Is it like there were no injuries due to the Iranian missile strikes on a US base in Iraq? Reduction of troop level to the level it was when Trump entered office as an end to the war? And no further reduction until long after the election and supposedly conditional on Taliban/Afghani negotiations etc? What could go wrong? Another sellout by Trump for a PR moment. (We do remember the Kurds).
2
It was lost war from beginning, with one hand USA army fighting Taliban and on other hand USA giving military aid and economic aid to Pakistan, who were protecting and supporting the same group that USA was fighting. The current government had at least stopped giving aid to Pakistan, but the seed of loss was sowed by previous governments, right from the time when USA created Taliban to fight soviets and protecting Pakistani AQ khan from being arrested when was stealing nuclear secrets in Netherlands.
3
The United States had military personnel in Vietnam during the Eisenhower administration. Peace for all in Afghanistan would be wonderful if it happens. At this time, the Vietnam war is still our longest war.
There were troops in many locations during the Eisenhower administration. It was Saint LBJ who increased troop strength from 40k to over 500k troops.
2
@Jp
And 38,000 combat deaths occurred while LBJ was president.
1
The lost blood and treasure in Afghanistan and Iraq are the direct results of US policy based on the concepts of the neoconservative's "Project for the New American Century" which advocated periodic massive demonstrations of American military might to ensure US world dominance.
Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq have all been failures and have diminished the American position in world affairs. But these failures, at huge cost of blood and treasure, have not silenced the hawks. It seems too many Americans are slow learners.
11
@Greg
I would also argue it is also a neo liberal cause, to bring human and women’s rights to Afghanistan, to re-shape it into another ‘open society’. America, with NATO assistance took down Ghaddafi in another neo liberal cause, aligned with neo conservatives. At least there was a U.S. national security objective when America first entered Afghanistan...there was none in Libya.
@Greg Slow learners? What an understatement. More like, Never Learners.
But we did not rely on "brute strength" in either Vietnam or Afghanistan. We obviously had the power to conquer and occupy both countries and impose an American peace. In Vietnam we thought gradual escalation would bring victory (this strategy was also meant to keep China from intervening), while in Afghanistan we fought an even more limited war.
Neither war should have been fought, period, although it was inevitable that we would attack Afghanistan after 9/11. We should've and could've caught Bin Laden, Zawahiri and Mullah Omar at Tora Bora, but Bush and Rumsfeld wouldn't send enough forces to catch or kill them at the border. Had they done so, we could've withdrawn in 2002.
1
So looking back at 72 I find it ironic that for years Rush and other right wingers criticized people like myself for getting us out of Vietnam, saying that we still could have won there militarily and that protesting etc. made us weaker and that we were traitors. So now it's ok to bug out of Syria and desert our allies, the Kerds, and walk away from Afghanistan. BUT, this all goes back to W using 911 as an excuse to invade Iraq. The mission in Afghanistan could have been completed with a real coalition but, as usual with Republicans, greed wrapped in the flag won out.
7
Congratulations to the admininstration in accomplishing this end. Well, that has to be said. More praise to all of the dedicated career personnel and servicepeople at the forefront in recent negotiations and in service over the many many years of this conflict.
7
This will be touted as “the greatest deal ever.”
Too bad we don’t just have to cross a bridge to go home like the Russians did. “When will we ever learn . . .” Goes the song, the French failed and we failed in Viet Nam, so after the Russians failed we felt superior that we would succeed because we are stronger.
Just at the time that the State Department is being gutted we need diplomacy more than ever.
4
Foreign policy is almost always a matter of choosing the least undesirable outcome. This certainly doesn't put Afghanistan on a path to peace and harmony, but having Americans continue to spend lives and hundreds of billions of dollars propping up a corrupt regime wasn't going to solve Afghanistan's problems either. Sometimes you can't declare victory but it's time to say you did your best and move on.
3
War in Afghanistan - if we did not engage, we would have been called out for lack of humanity and compassion. Since we engaged, we are called out for failing to win or failing to improve things. Before you criticize, think about what you would have done if it was your call, the attacks you would have had to bear, and the impact you would have had on the people involved. For me, I think the US did the best they could given a terrible situation with no options for a winning outcome.
2
And in the end all the lives lost, the tragic human suffering that will continue, and the treasure spent will have been for nothing, just like with Vietnam. Yes, I am so very glad our troops will be coming home, but I certainly do not believe the Taliban will uphold its end of the bargain once we have left the country.
We have been the purveyors of death and destruction for far too many years. The Bush administration plunged ahead with this ill conceived war, and would not listen to Middle East experts who warned we did not understand the culture in the area, the tribalism of those involved (just as with Vietnam), nor religious fervor ingrained for centuries.
We have broken faith with the Afghanistan government that we have been upholding, and will do what we did in Vietnam - we will walk away, leaving the government to fend for itself. Who can ever forget the pictures of people trying to hang onto the helicopters as we made our exit form Vietnam?
This was the end predicted all those years ago by those who understood the area when this whole tragedy began. All the years of sacrifices of our military, all the suffering of our military and the Afghans, and everything is back to square one.
I am feeling both relief that our troops will be brought home, and shame that we visited such death, destruction, and misery upon the Afghans.
3
This is a deal but not of peace. The other side in Afghanistan is not part of it so we can withdraw and they will fight amongst themselves again.
2
Domination of Afghanistan has defied two imperial powers, the British Empire, which lost two wars there at a terrible cost, and the Soviet Union. Russian defeat came sardonically at the hands of the most extreme Islamic militants armed by the US, which ultimately led to the horrific blowback of 9/11. The terrain and harsh climate, like Russia's winter, is the best ally of Afghan insurgents, next is their morale which derives from religious fanaticism that is not only a powerful enemy to all that enter but is also the enemy of rights for women and any Afghan who fails to subscribe to it. The future rests on an imponderable: will Afghan Islam undergo reformation and an enlightenment. A cynic might be inclined to borrow the words of Tacitus describing Rome's victory over Carthage: "They have made a desert and called it peace." But Afghanistan was desert when we arrived, reduced to rubble by previous wars, a broken place governed by savage "pious" warlords and venal governments, none providing basic needs to a poor, wretched people. American involvement -- in response to 9/11 and the larger threat of Islamic extremism - was justified, and our superb troops have fought hard and paid a heavy price to achieve as much as they have under near-impossible circumstances. To honor their valor and the countless lives lost, we need a Marshall Plan to give Afghanistan a chance; it's essential to maintaining peace and bringing hope. This is the first small step. Let's hope for the best.
1
The US has to work on learning to say, "This was a bad idea. We should stop doing this."
6
The graveyard of empires.
George Bush led the military into a war that was obviously problematic from the first:
It was not possible to tell the combatants from the civilians, and nobody could speak the language. So, another Vietnam from the first day.
I wonder how many days it will be before we see helicopter being pushed over cliffs.
1
What kind of deal is this? It is a document requesting permission from the Taliban to withdraw American troops. Any assurances made by the Taliban are just face-saving words for the administration. And once the withdrawal is complete, the promises are dead because no matter how matter how many Al-Qaeda or other bad people gather, American troops won't be going back. It will be politically impossible. The Taliban know that and the Afghan government knows it, which is why they object to the whole thing. 20 years, so many dollars, lives and pain, and it's September 10 all over again.
4
To use Trumps own words, “Complete and total capitulation’”. The US got nothing in return, we walk away and accomplished nothing. Many US lives lost - at great American cost. Fake republican patriotism kept us in Afghanistan 20 years longer than we should have been. Had Obama pulled out in the same way, Fox News would have berated him 24 by 7.
7
The Trump administration has modeled Afghanistan after the US. It leaves opportunities for women and minorities at risk, corruption rampant, and the country’s institutions feeble. Yep, that's Trump's way of making everything great again.
3
What a titanic waste of money and lives. The US has spent $2.4 trillion dollars on this tragedy of greed and power. Can you imagine what we could have done with that money? How many lives would have been rescued from relentless pain and sadness?
The story of Afghanistan is complicated but the forces that drove this war all have their roots in the devastating effects of colonialism in the Middle East.
3
A lot of neo-hawks on the board today...
Did you encourage your children or grandchildren to join the military and fight in Afghanistan? Northern Syria?
Props to you if you did. I was an active participant in Cold War V1.0.
Otherwise have fun kicking around this political football.
This is the way these sort of wars end. Or your children can be stationed in the Middle East or Western Asia indefinitely.
6
The Trump administration lost the war in Afghanistan. It was a Republican who got us into it (George W. Bush) for no good reason. It was a Republican who lost it. What happens now? We abandon the Afghans and the Taliban return to power.
5
Was it only to enable Trump win re-election and restore back the Taliban rule in Kabul that the US lives and treasure wete lost in the two decade long US Afghan war? What about the fate of the internationally supervised and legitimately installed Afghan government headed by Ghani? What is its role in the peace deal struck by the US and the Taliban in Qatar?
The US has a population of just over 300 million and is what, 8000 miles or so away from Afghanistan. Bin Laden is dead.
India has a population of 1.3 billion i
or so and is about 500 miles from Afghanistan. If you're so worried about Afghanistan, India is the right country for the job. Have at it.
2
The Afghan government isn't part of the agreement, so that leaves the US and Taliban as the leading contenders of authority in that nation.
Why aren't reporters asking Trump and Pompeo how long we intend to run the country?
Seems like we're exchanging endless war for an endless US backed Afghan shadow government.
What could go wrong?
1
It was pretty native to think we could set up a functioning government in Afghanistan, while our government at home continues to crumble.
5
Afghanistan cannot be conquered. At best it can be held for a short time at enormous cost.
Alexander the Great learned this. The Romans learned this. The persians learned this. Genghis Khan learned this. The British Empire learned this. The Soviets learned this. And now we learned this.
Let's learn history lest it force us to repeat it.
1
Thanks to the soldiers and civil servants who were involved. Sorry our leaders led you into an impossible war.
War is not the answer. Ever.
3
@Larry
war is not THE answer but unfortunately quite often it is the ONLY answer.
I hope that one year from now we can look back on Trump's one-term presidency and see this as somthing approaching an accomplishment.
1
This war should have ended a decade ago. As with Vietnam, when you engage in nation building, but your efforts do not succeed, you must leave. Like the Vietcong, the Taliban have the energy and persistence to rule despite their callous, religious authoritarianism. But, as with Vietnam, the Trump administration must open its doors to the political refugees who supported our efforts and whose lives are now in danger.
1
Another deal by Trump in which one major party of the conflict is absent; just like Palestinians in the Middle East proposal. Making major announcements (Mission Accomplished?) of no substance are the real fake news.
Eventually Pakistan and Taliban want to take over Afghanistan. So they will join hands to achieve that goal, and then, let's hope they don't plan another 9-11.
1
Soldiers' lives should never be sacrificed with no clear strategy for victory and no clear idea of what cause is being served; certainly never for profit. The mess in Afghanistan should have been declared finished and the troops brought home after the initial driving out of the Taliban and the killing of bin Laden. It’s great, on paper, to want to free people anywhere from various forms of bondage, cruelty and unequal treatment. It might arguably be worth dedicating a big, militarily powerful country like ours to the task of freeing the oppressed everywhere, but only with the agreement of the people and a singleminded dedication to the task, once undertaken. Half-stepping and milling around in confusion at the highest levels of government - not to mention profit taking by the legendarily greedy “military-industrial complex” - wastes precious lives and untold resources that would be better utilized elsewhere. In plain soldier speak, come big or go home. The US is unlikely to succeed in becoming a World Police Force to the degree necessary. Our people are too spoiled and indolent to make the sacrifices that would be required to make the mission affordable. Capitalism would guarantee vast fraud, waste & abuse. So, rather than continue to create an endless flow of dead and cruelly disabled veterans in an expensive, endless quest for who really knows what, let us put an end to it and, in the future, only punch in response to being punched; win, then get out. Bless the soldiers!
4
@Will
A thoughtful and moving comment. Thanks for sharing.
2
It's worth noting that military technology has advanced a great deal since 9/11. It's no longer necessary for the US to maintain bases in Afghanistan. If the Taliban dares to invite Al Qaida back in to set up terrorist training camps, the US will be able to locate them and destroy them much more easily with drones and satellite-guided bombs.
3
“These commitments represent an important step to a lasting peace in a new Afghanistan, free from Al Qaeda, ISIS, and any other terrorist group that would seek to bring us harm.” (DJTrump)
Grand fantasy!
Beyond Kabul the Taliban controls some 80% of the territory of Afghanistan and most of the vast opium trade.
The plan as presented is grossly over burdened with impossible preconditions.
2
Just asking:
How many of these commentators would be lauding this turn of events if the agreement was reached by anyone other than Trump? I believe many of us have lost all abilities to be fair.
4
I agree Ill give several thumbs up to this administration. Thank you to all the men and women who fought, wounded and died. Our debt to you will only be repaid if we solve the divide in this country.
1
And only 8 years, 9 months, 27 days after the stated purpose of the invasion of Afghanistan, which was to bring Osama bin Laden to justice. Too bad we got distracted by Iraq, and that he was ultimately in Pakistan.
1
Pentagon desperately trying figure out where to send those troops next. "The purpose of war is not victory; the purpose of war is continuation."
3
First, my hate Trump cynical analysis: timing offsets the losing war on coronovirus disaster; utterly amoral as Afghanistan will revert to hot bed of terrorism, opium production, religious intolerance, oppression of women; Trump urged Obama to leave Afghanistan but credited him with the rise of Isis when he did. In an election year, Trump can claim a promise fulfilled even though like his other greatest deals in history, it is only on paper and highly conditional.
Now, if we actually get out, you have to give credit to Trump’s amoral realism, right out of Kissinger’s playbook. If we get out, taking our men and women out of harm’s way is an laudable achievement. It will then be up to future leaders in America, other major powers and in the region to hopefully keep the peace through diplomacy as a first course of action.
If this plan works to end our military presence, the America First approach worked, as our interest is safety of our people. However, without intense diplomatic efforts and vigilance after our withdrawal history may repeat itself. Trump will leave those efforts and consequences to occur on some successor’s watch.
Lest we forget, Afghanistan was the host of al qaeda. It's where the training camps were. It's where they planned 9/11. It was a unlawful place that let evil aspire to the level it did. While things were moving slowly, let's not think that anything ever moves fast. I'm watching a road project nearby where they're replacing a freeway bridge and widening the road under the bridge. It began 15 years ago. Planned from 25 years ago.
Of the many things that have been voiced, written, and transmitted about "instill[ing] a democratic system" in a country, culture, place, lifestyle traditions, THERE and a complex THEN, in which there are powerful individual and systemic stakeholders in conflict, there is also some unexpressed existing irony in the HERE and NOW.
What would enable a more equitable eco-socio-political, less violating and violent " democratic system" to be instilled/installed, sustained and operated, in divided America with its many diversities as well as shared commonalities?
What is the meaning, singular as well as plural, of a "democratic system" in which policymaker personal unaccountability is a seeded, nurtured, rooted and harvested tradition, history and legacy?
What is the meaning of a "democratic system," of whatever variety, which enables, at times promotes, a toxic, infectious WE-THEY violating culture?
America and its allies will "instill" THERE what is less than rooted in each of their own HERE!
I have no problem with my barber being bald, as long as s/he knows how to cut hair. Stylishly?
I have no problem with my family doc being overweight. Obese?
I do have problems with enabled personally unaccountable policymakers, bringing the WORD, and perhaps even THE WAY, and not using some of OUR tax money to create sustainable, equitable wellbeing HERE! As well.
It's Not either/or. There always seems to BE money for war, Not so for peace. Wellbeing. Menschlichkeit.
If this agreement, I will believe it. The Taliban are waiting for US troops to leave, so they can restart their military activities without US interference and regain control of the country.
I believe we should have left the country years ago. If and when the Afghani people decide they are ready to fight for their independence from the Taliban religious fanatics, they might be able to get their country back.
The road from tribalism to nation-state is long and steep and, while I wish the Afghan people luck in making the journey, I have little confidence they can actually do it.
There is no point in continuing to invest US lives and treasure trying to keep this country "afloat."
When we pull out, Afghanistan is back to where it was prior to 2001. Hard fought freedoms for some women, for children (schooling, vaccinations, healthcare) - all wiped out. Afghanistan will become a Petri dish for all kinds of terrorist cells and operatives. We could not wipe out the Taliban for a simple reason, we did uproot the real problem (Pakistani military). We have spent 20 years dealing with symptoms, applying band aids, and paying really bad folks to not shoot at us.
Here is what will happen in the next five years. New alliances between Turkey, Emirates, Malaysia, Pakistani military, and central Asian republics will produce terrorist cells with the aim of producing a global Caliphate - all within the safety of Afghanistan's borders. I.e., we will have rooted a far bigger movement against the civilized world than AQ could have dreamed of producing.
Peace with "honor" redux. Except the people of Afghanistan, like the people of Vietnam, will not have peace.
3
I wonder what the Republican response what have been had Obama made the same agreement. Certainly our leaders knew even then that this 'war' was a losing proposition.
Hopefully, the United States government and American people have learned a lesson from this. Namely, that it is foolish to attempt to impose our style of government on another nation.
2
The US backed government in Afghanistan did not participate in this agreement with the Taliban who murdered people and burned down women's schools. Now we'll remove our troops so that there is no tangible means of enforcing the agreement and the Taliban will laugh all the way to the government takeover.
This smells just as bad as the agreements worked out between Washington and the Israelis while the Palestinians didn't participate.
This is the makings of Trump headlines marking yet another "great" agreement in foreign policy signed by our "great" negotiator.
Who cares about the outcome because negative consequences won't be obvious for years, maybe until Trump is well into his third term.
1
The Taliban provided what we would call material support to the terrorists who attacked the US. Perhaps our response should never have been about regime change, and focused solely on leaving no ground from which the Taliban and their terrorist allies could attack the US. But here we are, surrendering to them. That’s a breathtaking message to send to every other terrorist alliance that wants to take a shot at the US. Maybe our defeat was inevitable, or maybe not. But it sure seems fitting that President Bone Spurs is the one to turn tail and run. At least our troops will be coming home now, right?
As it turns out the Afghans did not bleed us white, it was all the corporations making money off the war who did.
Afghanistan will never change. Leave her alone and make sure nobody from that part of the world is allowed to get in here.
2
A clearer picture of the withdrawal and how the Afghani people feel about it- look up Al Jazeera online.
If we end the war in Afghanistan let's use the military savings on domestic programs.
1
we all know this "deal" is driven by Trump's political needs—it is a transaction that serves his immediate interest.
3
Afghanistan is barely a country. It has international borders but inside it is basically a collection of tribal and religious factions with the most powerful being the Taliban. The latter is strongly infected with the extreme form of Islam known as Wahhabism that has been exported by Saudi Arabia in recent decades.
So religious gangsters will go back to running most of the country, to the detriment of women’s rights, education, and religious pluralism. Meanwhile, Pakistan and India will continue trying to use it as a proxy in their own never ending conflict. And China and Russia will try to monetize Afghanistan’s tremendous natural resources, but with far less concern about human rights or the environment. Hopefully the pursuit of profit will help keep some measure of peace.
Meanwhile our legacy will be the waste of several trillion dollars, thousands of dead and maimed US soldiers, a hundred thousand dead Afghans, and hopefully another lesson learned about the apparent futility of nation building. Many of the locals who sided with us will also pay a price, and it’s highly unlikely the Trump administration will allow those most at risk of retaliation from gaining safety within our borders.
Today is more a somber day of reflection than a day for celebration.
1
Let's hope the Bush Tragedy can finally be put to rest.
I'm hoping the media can get behind this and not hope and pray for disaster.
2
@P&L
The Bush tragedy was in confusing The imperative to defeat an enemy that attacked the US with installing a government. The Trump tragedy is surrendering, and signaling to terrorists everywhere that the US is an easy target. I do not hope for that disaster, but it is hard to see Trump’s turning tail and running any other way. I do however weep for all of our sons and daughters taken by this poorly thought out war, and clumsily managed surrender.
1
We all know this "deal" is driven by Trump's political needs—it is a TRANSACTION that serves his immediate interest.
2
This is a great gift for Vladimir Putin. As part of the 2019-20 gift package that included Syria, the Kurds, Turkey, etc., this was the icing on the cake. The stable genius has come through again.
2
I have little doubt that most Americans want to end this Bush Disaster. But Trump has had over three years to negotiate and announce this "agreement". He didn't do it. Why? Oh, that's right, it's an election year.
There is only one question to ask yourself whenever Trump does or says ANYTHING: What does Trump get out of it?
2
This is a deal that won't last. The current government is doomed. The Taliban will rule afterward and break the agreement reached by allowing Al Qaeda and Isis to exist....but we escape from a never win situation. Afghans are figuring out how to leave the country too.
A truce is always good; however, when you leave a bruised evil alive--the truce is short-lived. The United States must either completely take off Afghanistan from its interest area or it must completely wipe out the Taliban from there. Taliban take over was not a difficult task in Afghanistan, for the simple reason, majority Talibanis were and are not Afghans to start with. Second, the United States never really committed itself fully to weed out the evil from Afghanistan, it got sidetracked in accommodating dissents, thinking too hard. That thinking too hard also was not flawless thinking, it again had to be modulated to accommodate. The war cliche--it is better to be commanded by a fool than hundred wise men in an action--holds so much truth, especially in Afghan settings.
Lower your expectations for Afghanistan. Once again, America is walking away from this complex and problematic country. After Jimmy Carter involved the US in a proxy war with Russia there in 1979, Reagan took over and when Russia left, so did the US. In came the Pakistan ISI controlled Taliban who were schooled in the Saudi Arabia financed madrasas in Pakistan and helped by friendly warlords. Annihilation of sacred sites arose, Shiite Muslims were mass murdered and opium production soared. No could figure out that the Taliban were bad, until they welcomed Osama Bin Ladin, who was on Clinton's hit list. The 9/11 came and we went back in, but Bush left to go to Iraq and we pulled out. Then we returned under Obama, because things went bad again due to the Taliban. The Taliban are bad people and are a source of terrorism. They we agree to terms, break them, return to severe mistreatment of women and children, and rely on opium production to finance their needs. And we probably will return to Afghanistan. Getting out because we lost our way in not an explanation to assure Americans that we are not making the same past mistakes by leaving this area. We lost our way and because we never understood this country. And here we go again.
1
I feel terrible for the women and girls who will have briefly experienced education and some level of freedom. They will experience brutality that will be unforgiving.
As for the Middle East, the US should leave the region entirely for 100 years. Break all Political, economic, and socially ties. America has done no good in the region except for miscalculations, oil dependency/greed and resentment. American and Middle Eastern values are incompatible.
1
Makes you wonder how much cash we dispensed, among the Taliban leadership. Along with a few citizenships. That's how we stopped the daily violence in Iraq, and it lasted a good while. Nothing like a few pallets of $100 bills, to persuade people in leadership roles.
Neither of the parties to the agreement are trustworthy.
Another failed "mission accomplished" for the US hawks. What an incredible waste of blood and treasure.
1
So, in fact, we are negotiating with terrorists. The difference is that what we're negotiating is a way to back out of Afghanistan with some semblance of saving face, as opposed to evacuating everybody from the embassy, dangling from helicopter rails. Once again, we have sacrificed American lives in an unwinnable war with no achievable goal and no exit strategy.
And even now there is no certainty that this --- cease fire? peace deal? withdrawal agreement? --- will hold. If the Taliban violates the terms, will we turn the planes around and send troops back in? I'm not encouraged by the Taliban immediately declaring "the defeat of the arrogance of the White House in the face of the white turban..." Pompeo's warning to moderate their celebration notwithstanding.
The ongoing incompetence of the Trump administration makes it very difficult to celebrate this. As with everything... wait and see where we are in 6 months.
2
There has been conflict in the Middle East for centuries before this country was a gleam in anyone's eye. Why on earth have we unnecessarily involved ourselves in so many long-standing conflicts there, squandering our treasure, our soldiers' lives and our credibility, audaciously thinking that we had the standing to change the region? I just hope this atricious administration manages to act honorably for a change both with us and with our adversaries, keeps its promises, and gets us out of there expeditiously.
I can't get past the long history of our wars that breeds mistrust and realization that nothing is what it seems.
Frankly, I look to Carrie Mathison and Saul Berenson for the truth and the solution. Crazy.
1
Little to gain from the war? Tally up the profits made from each bomb dropped, every drone launched, and every rifle fired and there we see the "success" of our war in Afghanistan.
3
I think everyone is ready to leave Afghanistan. It is it just me, or did the Republicans savage Obama on the issue of timetables?
2
@Andy Makar
It’s just you.
Obama planned unilateral withdrawals.
The US makes an agreement for the future of Afghanistan without the involvement of the Afghan government?
Just like it tried to make an agreement with North Korea without the participation of the South Korean government?
This is not diplomacy. This is an insult.
4
No matter what. The withdrawal should commence. 19 years is 19 years too many.
1
Hopefully the end to a tragic loss of human life and waste of money and effort. How many could have been educated, trained and lifted out of poverty had there been the will to do so? “Having said that”
and having not read any part of this historic agreement, I can guarantee that if such an agreement had been reached by President Obama, the Republicans would be accusing him of betraying the country and those who died during this ridiculous war. But...that’s just like my opinion, man.
1
This is no more a "peace agreement" than the Paris Peace Accords was. It will free the Taliban to return to power and reassert the fanatical Islamist authoritarian regimes power over the Afghan people. How is that a "good thing". One doesn't have to support the original war or its intent which contrary to common mythology wasn't about destroying Al-Qaeda as the Bush administration allowed both the group and its leadership to escape to Pakistan. Like Irag it was an opportunity to realign the political power structure of the region in favor of the Saudi's and western interests. This like our poorly executed "withdrawal" from Syria is more about Trumps showmanship and redirection than its about "peace". It like so much of what comes out of Trumps D.C. is likely to blow back in our faces and leave the "radical Islamist terrorists" that Trump & the republicans whine about constantly in a better place than they have been in for years. So yes end the "war" we've been losing it a long time, do what Obama promised and didn't deliver on but don't pat yourselves on the back for it. We will leave chaos and violence in our wake and the Taliban's Afghanistan like Irag & al-Assad's Syria will remain a killing ground and point of instability for decades to come. A lot of people died and a lot of wealth was squandered and we got what in return? That's a question Trumps republicans won't be talking about. It was their wars after all we just came on for the ride.
Simply said the Afghanistan experiment was a known disaster. Hannibal was much smarter than America.
The Taliban will continue with their disastrous behavior and destroy any sense of humanity in the country.
The real losers are the Americans spread around in
Military cemeteries, VA hospitals and grieving families.
The lesson learned here is buried in the mud and blood of war. That should never be forgotten.
1
The Taliban won’t agree to an actual cease fire, just a reduction in killing. Is that good enough for Trump? They pledge to block terrorist groups from what...entering Afghanistan, taking over the Afghan government? Building a militant army? The vast rocky landscape is incredibly porous. Are there any guarantees, anything solid in this agreement? Are there any good old Reagan era, "Trust But Verify," conditions? It feels more like a half-baked pinkie-swear than an real agreement. Once our troops leave, will Putin take over? Is that the plan?
1
Once again, Middle East terrorist organizations have been proven correct when it comes to American military involvement.
"You have the clock. We have the time. "
3
Trying to be fair here. How many Democrats ( and commenters condemning this) would be lauding this agreement if done by President Obama? Conversely, how many Republicans ( and Trumpers praising the agreement) would be condemning the agreement as a surrender if done by President Obama? Let’s be fair.
As Sen. Aiken said of Vietnam: let’s declare victory and go home.
3
I agree. In ideal world the idea would be debated not the person who proposed it.
@Demelza
As someone who can out-leftist Bernie, I would have been appalled by this surrender, even if Obama (I do like Obama, center right though he is) had executed it. It is shameful.
Obama listened to experts and made thoughtful, informed decisions. The current so-called president has proven to be a lying hypocrite. How about YOU be fair and acknowledge that?
Very disappointed. I taught violin to girls and boys in Kabul from 2010-2014 at Afghanistan National Institute of Music. Under the Taliban, no one could study music, and girls couldn’t study anything. The freedoms American blood and treasure helped Afghans secure are indeed important to them. This agreement does not appear to compel the Taliban to respect the tremendous gains over the last 18 years in education, culture, rights for girls and women, rights for non-Pashtuns, and religious liberty. I was proud to stand behind great Afghans leading the rebirth of their nation, people like Dr. Ahmad Sarmast, my boss and the music school’s founder. What will become of Afghans like them? Trump’s thinly veiled admission of defeat looks like our hastily made declaration of victory, followed by withdrawal, when we helped Afghans rout the Soviets just over 30 years ago. We must continue funding the army, infrastructure, education, and more. We must never abandon Afghanistan, a country where, if a girl can study violin, violent extremism can never completely triumph.
9
@William Harvey send all the charitable contributions you want. But the American people have paid more than enough in blood and treasure. Not one penny more to that place!
"A stopped clock is right twice a day." I'll give this one to an evident Trump team, anyway. Moreover, "the graveyard of empires" can be left again with some of our integrity and strength intact. To "declare victory and leave" would be the most appropriate move. Doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result is not to honor anybody, merely just to face a reality. It's the leaders who goof in situations like this one, not the "troops" who must follow orders. That place will have people fighting each other--tragically--likely until the end of time. Regarding whatever fossil fuel pipelines will still be an excuse for any support--the hope is that alternative energy sources to benefit everybody in the long run will prevail. I think it's a combination of realism and idealism.
3
A triumph for President Trump; he campaigned to end US involvement in endless foreign wars. Something that Obama could not do or did not want to do. A triumph for the Taliban. There is no way in the world that the Taliban will respect and tolerate the liberal reforms, especially those concerning women, that have taken place under US occupation. The war in Afghanistan demonstrates that the US has not learned one thing from the Vietnam era. Like Vietnam, in which the US inherited and continued a war that the Vietnamese had waged against France for independence, the US continued a war in Afghanistan, despite a period of relative calm during the Taliban interregnum, in it fought and repealed the Soviet Union in the 1980s and 1990s. In fact, the conflict in Afghanistan dates back to the early 1800s when Russia and Great Britain fought for control of the region. The main takeaway from Afgh wars is that no foreign power in the last 300 years has succeeded in subduing this nation.
I worked as a civilian in a military organization when this war began along with the war in Iraq. I remember the Pentagon being abuzz with excitement like it had finally found a raison d'être. Reservists went on active duty. Many went on TDY to Iraq to punch their ticket on their way to promotion. With US involvement in Afghanistan coming to an end, what will they do? Will NFL half-time shows still promote "support our troops" themes? Another war, believe me, will be coming around the corner soon. Cheers!
7
Big win for the Taliban: Donald Trump’s tail between his legs admission of defeat, on the heels of his historic stock market collapse. It reminds me of his public admission of fealty to Vladimir Putin two years ago in Helsinki. However, pulling out of foreign countries is big with the alt-right/white nationalist crowd, so it’s predictable Trump supporters are howling with delight.
When I send in my quarterly tax return, I write in the "memo" section: "Please do not use this for war."
We are complicit. We have been made complicit.
Vietnam, Nicaragua, Iraq, Afghanistan.
What have we learned?
I think. Sometimes, That the actual morality of WWII, and the actions of this country there, the affirmation of the free world, the triumph, the economic boom, the power and status that followed—created some mythology that war makes us right, makes us great, admired, popular, and wealthy.
Could we drop that in the face of climate change and this coming century of refugees and immigrants, poverty, overpopulation?
Could we stop canonizing militarism and endless corporate growth? The planet, after all, is finite.
It's environmentalists who deserve hagiography now.
The Even Greater Generation.
Thank them for their service.
6
When I send in my quarterly tax return, I write in the "memo" section: "Please do not use this for war."
We are complicit. We have been made complicit.
Vietnam, Nicaragua, Iraq, Afghanistan.
What have we learned?
I think. Sometimes, That the actual morality of WWII, and the actions of this country there, the affirmation of the free world, the triumph, the economic boom, the power and status that followed—created some mythology that war makes us right, makes us great, admired, popular, and wealthy.
Could we drop that in the face of climate change and this coming century of refugees and immigrants, poverty, overpopulation?
Could we stop canonizing militarism and endless corporate growth? The planet, after all, is finite.
It's environmentalists who deserve hagiography now.
The Even Greater Generation.
Thank them for their service.
9
The concept of "Reduction of violence" as opposed to a cease fire was brilliant and absolutely logical in an illogical sense of war. Thank you.
The generals and leaders of all concerned should not think of a failed victory, but of the idea that they all collectively saved many lives of their own, and others. Sometimes ending a fight is a remarkable victory.
Thank you to all.
3
Uuh ... okay!
US is retreating a defeated power after 19 years of war.
In all these years of war, US made little effort to understand the Afghan society, preferring to dismiss it as mired in the past. Hardly any US personnel bothered to learn the language, understand the complex society, look with sympathy at a nation that was minding its own business but became the Ground Zero in a Great Powers struggle.
Has the US been able to correct the deep hostility to Blacks in the Southern states since Reconstruction or even after the civil rights legislation was passed?
If the US has failed in this regard then how can the US expect a society that is still in the feudal stage to start respecting women's rights, rule of law irrespective of tribal affiliations, etc?
Afghanistan will have to chart its own road to modernity, at its own pace. The best we outsiders can do is to be available to advice and help when called for. Our diktats will not work.
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I hope our citizens have learned to not trust the military complex. We should seriously cut DoD budgets. Imagine all the good schools and infrastructure we could have? Imagine the good that would come of an effort to make america greater?
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@Vet.bizowner.father.american
Americans don't want infrastructure. They want their "freedom protected," which is code for "support the military at all and any cost."
I think it would have been better to salvage some honor by not abandoning our Afghan allies. We could have just left, and it would have been better yet to have done that a decade ago.
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As go the Kurds, so go the Afghanis.
this is the equivalent of Nixon's "secret plan" to end the war in Viet Nam.
and it has a good chance of turning into what Nixon's "secret plan" for peace turned into...seven more years of war and a doubling of the number of US service members dead in battle.
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@Mary Elizabeth Lease
58K dead in Vietnams and 38K of those while LBJ was in office.
Nixon was responsible for 1/3 of the 58K.
@EGD
Nixon's tab for war dead begins in 1967 when he and Kissinger launched their campaign to sabotage LBJ's peace negotiations with the North.
Nixon's has 49,786 KIA in Viet Nam on his tally from 1967 through April 30, 1975.
https://www.militaryfactory.com/vietnam/casualties.asp
A repeat of Vietnam, completely ignoring the lessons in the Pentagon papers. Nations are built by their citizens, and if their culture does not allow a peaceful society, then it can't be helped.
The U.S. deserves credit for wishing more for the Afghans, but we can't force the society we would ideally want to see in Afghanistan.
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the US empire has joined a long list of storied empires defeated in Afghanistan going back at least to Alexander the Great.
Pashtuns are not to be trifled with.
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Alexander pacified the area back in the day with a mixture of marriage alliances and genocide.
He didn’t have any problems with administration in the area
Look up Bactria
Obviously his methods are horrifying in our modern world, but your argument that the area can’t be conquered or was somehow resistant to foreign occupation was wrong.
Trump made a fools peace and surrendered the area back to the Taliban. Look for a huge exodus of western people, culture, economy, and a general regression to the state of the country to what it was in the late nineties, i.e. war torn and controlled by drug lords.
It didn’t have to end this way after nineteen years of fire, blood, sweat, toil, and sacrifice. The Taliban and the USA both fought hard and fought well. This surrender honors no one. What’s to come will destroy anything positive left in the country that’s been built in those nineteen years. People will die.
This is for a trump talking point for re-election and nothing else. He won’t care what happens after his “peace”. Thank comrade bonespurs for his service.
The Mongolian empire administered the region without problem as well btw...
Just sayin...
In the age of Trump this is how war ends: Bypass the government of the country we invade, go to the enemy and get permission to leave without too many additional losses. Nixons's model in Viet Nam. And to make things even sadder , this period of our history marks the end of the Boy Scouts and those Jamborees where young boy's could listen to their President tell off colored stories ,dream of becoming men , and what ever happened in Boy Scout camp stayed in Boy Scout camp.
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the best chance of long term success for US foreign policy is to vote against every Republican running for office in every election contest.
we all know this "deal" is driven by Trump's political needs—it is a transaction that serves his immediate interest.
we are all glad to see the hope for US forces finally being removed from endless and pointless combat.
time will tell as to what the "deal" will lead to and how Trump will respond.
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The deal is, we leave, and Trump is given LOTS of money, through back channels of course.
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If it is possible for you to be honest, ask yourself if you would criticize this deal if it had been negotiated by Obama.
So, the US has the" greatest" military in the world. If so, why haven't we defeated the Taliban-- who view this agreement as a victory.
Why are we currently spending almost $1 trillion /yr. on defense? Doesn't the Taliban realize that we have carriers, planes,weapon systems,highly trained troops and the largest military budget in the world?
Can't wait for Trump to request more money for defense to make the military even more powerful.
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I will always hold President Trump with higher regard than either of the war criminal Bushes for his anti-war stance and for driving a stake through the heart of neoconservative movement within the GOP. Bravo to him for ending this war. This is Nixon goes to China territory and will help ensure a win in 2020.
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@Iconoclast Texan You think this is ending the war? hmmm. Look at history, specifically Nixon’s great ending of the Vietnam War fiasco (right before the NVA overran us). Trump is all hot air, and no action. Oh and you’re going to be really impressed when he attacks Iran.
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@Iconoclast Texan ~
Well, yes, a surrender is a way to end a war.
I am indeed glad to get out of there, but it will be painful to watch from afar how millions of people, especially women, suffer and die.
@Iconoclast Texan
this is Nixon's "secret plan" to end the war in Viet Nam.
This is a great first step. I hope the Afghans on both sides straighten out their many differences and forge a lasting peace. I hope they end up like Vietnam - unified and at peace. But it's hard to see that outcome. Perhaps a loose federation of ethnic states (one for Pashtuns, one for Uzbeks, one for Tajiks, and one for the Hazaras) might be a compromise solution. The important thing is for the Afghans to work this out. The US needs to step back and leave it all to the Afghans to decide.
It looks like the US spent as lot of blood and treasure for nothing. It seems to be the same outcome as the Vietnam war. It seems we learned nothing from that experience. It's sad really...
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We fought the Taliban and the Taliban won.
Didn't we know all along that this was going to be the outcome? It was never a question of if the Taliban would defeat the U.S. military, just a question of when, and now we have the timetable for that defeat.
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@SparkyTheWonderPup
Movies can be a remarkable source for grasping context that goes to the heart and mind. Timbutu, the move, is one of those movies. The Taliban in action in Africa. Troubling but something that one outside nation can not resolve.
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@SparkyTheWonderPup
Nobody wins in a war. The fact that none of us realize this is the reason for all the carnage in the world.
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@Climate Change We "won" ww 2 against japan, because we were able to help them build a safe and peaceful society - and the people in that country who survived the carnage got something out of it. SK pulled themselves up to democracy, even though we seemed to be okay with dictatorships (after we fought the Korean war to standstill). Similar situation in Taiwan. Eastern Europe didn't win in the same way, because of more than 40 years of brutal dictatorship at the hands of the Russians.
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I joined the military in 2005 just a few weeks after grafting high school. Now I’m 14 yrs in. Despite so much blood and treasure the country is still a failed state. We could not change it, but boy did it change us.
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@RML Actually I'm afraid it hasn't - changed us, that is. We will emerge no smarter than we were when we went in.
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@RML thank you for your service- your commitment shall not go unrecognized. I sincerely hope in the end it changed us for the better.
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@Cornflower Rhys I interpreted the “changed us” part to mean that it changed the soldiers who fought in Afghanistan. And to that end, we must do a better job caring for our war vets’ mental health. We lose a war vet to suicide every day. If Trump really wanted to show his concern for the military, he’d implement better programs to help the vets rather than taking every opportunity to dishonor them.
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I'd love to believe the best, but since this administration has NEGATIVE credibility, there is a better than even chance that he gave away the store to achieve a deal, any deal.
Show of hands - who thinks we'll need to go back in?
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I doubt trump gave anything up for the deal. He’s not the type of guy to back down unless it’s to achieve a higher end goal. But your right that the Taliban can’t be trusted. I think it’s a good thing to pull out, but there is a good chance we will have to go back in.
At least there are supposed to be stages of commitments that the taliban has to make to prove they are taking the deal setiously
So twenty years of war for nothing. The taliban was in charge when we invaded and now they are again. What will happen to the Afghan government? To the people? Do we care? I hope this leads to a rethinking of our military and foreign policy, but I doubt it will since this war has followed our morally bankrupt playbook since Vietnam. We come in, cause chaos, kill and maim, then leave. The difference is that we are leaving afghans with a terrorist organization in charge. The taliban executed women in soccer fields among other horrors. This doesn’t feel like a “win” for anyone.
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What has the US achieved after nearly two decades of war? The "peace" agreement was signed without the signatory of the government in Kabul. History is rewritten all over again. The end results have been preordained. The Afghanistan military, built and trained by the US, will disintegrated soon after the American military begin its withdrawal. The Talibans will march into Kabul and takeover the whole country before the 14 months period is over.
The ugly truth is that the American politicians, especially the hawks, and generals knew that this day will come, but they were either in denial, running from the truth, clinging to a wishful outcome or just plain cowards. Will these lessons be learned? Surely not.
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Trump does things things without any thought of the outcome. A few weeks ago we heard how we were getting out of Syria. Well we're still there and the situation on the ground has deteriorated. Can we expect the same in Afghanistan?
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@Pecos Bill Did you forget the outrage from the Left when Trump tried to leave Syria? Please, if you are going to point fingers, point to all involved...
So, the US will leave Afghanistan to the Taliban once again.
Just as happened in the 1990s after the US abandoned Afghanistan following the withdrawal of Soviet troops.
The Taliban will retake the Afgan government and once again enact their brand of Sharia law:
-women will be banned from an education
-they will be purged from business and the professions
-they will be restricted to their homes.
We’ve seen all this before. We know what will come in the next 10 years.
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