Editorial

Trump Botched Afghan Exit

When Donald Trump reached a withdrawal deal that enabled the Taliban to overrun the demoralized Afghan government, while US troops and diplomats were packing to leave, it made the chaotic scenes at the Kabul airport inevitable. Then the withdrawal was left for Joe Biden to carry out.

The media, eager to show they would hold Biden to account, jumped on those horrible images of desperate Afghan refugees rushing US planes. There was less accountability for past presidents: George W. Bush, who started the war but got distracted in Iraq, Barack Obama, who continued the war, even after Osama bin Laden was found — in Pakistan — and disposed in the Arabian Sea, and particularly Trump, who wanted to finish the war in the worst way, and may have sabotaged the situation for his successor.

For those who are keeping score, the Trump administration negotiated with Taliban leaders at a neutral site in Doha for 18 months in 2018 and 2019, without consulting Afghan President Ashraf Ghani or requiring the Taliban to cease fire on Afghan troops. While the talks progressed, Trump in December 2018 ordered the Pentagon to plan removal of half the troops in Afghanistan, at the same time Trump abruptly announced withdrawal of US military from Syria. Those moves prompted James Mattis to quit as defense secretary.

After the US negotiator announced the US had reached a deal “in principle” with the Taliban, Trump invited Taliban leaders to Camp David to meet with Ghani to settle the deal on Sept. 11, 2019. But that invitation was cancelled after a Taliban car bombing killed 12 people, including a US soldier, as part of a surge of violence in Kabul.

Talks continued between the US and the Taliban in Doha, and in February 2020, Trump announced there was a deal. Basically, the US would get out of Afghanistan in 14 months. In exchange, the Taliban agreed not to let Afghanistan become a haven for terrorists. The Taliban, whose forces were attacking Afghan government forces throughout the talks, agreed to start peace talks with the Afghan government and consider a cease-fire with the government. (That never happened.)

Trump said US troops had been killing terrorists in Afghanistan “by the thousands” and now it was “time for someone else to do that work and it will be the Taliban and it could be surrounding countries.” He added, “If bad things happen, we’ll go back with a force like no-one’s ever seen.”

The US agreed to reduce troops from 14,000 to 8,600 in the first 100 days and leave five military bases to the Afghan army. Over the next nine months, the US would vacate the rest.

The Taliban pledged to not harbor terrorists, but the deal did not require them to denounce al-Qaeda. It contained only a weak pledge by the Taliban “not to cooperate with or permit international terrorist groups or individuals to recruit, train, raise funds … transit Afghanistan,” or use Afghan passports.

“The peace deal was transparently an effort to paper over an American retreat,” wrote Paul Miller, a professor at Georgetown University. H.R. McMaster, Trump’s second national security adviser, recently called it “a surrender agreement with the Taliban.”

Months later, the UN judged that the Taliban retained ties to al-Qaeda after signing the peace deal, and US intelligence warned that al-Qaeda was “integrated” into the Taliban, but the Trump administration kept withdrawing US troops.

On Oct. 8, 2020, with the election a month away, Trump tweeted that all US troops would be out of Afghanistan by Christmas. His tweet surprised Defense Secretary Mark Esper, Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Afghan President Ghani.

After Joe Biden beat Trump in the election, the Great Misleader relaxed the pace of withdrawal, but he brought the level down to 2,500 at the end of his term. By that time, all the US bases were under Afghan government control.

While Trump was drawing down US troop presence in Afghanistan, his minions were undermining efforts to get Afghan interpreters and other allies out of the country. Trump adviser Stephen Miller spread “racist hysteria” about Iraq and Afghanistan in cabinet meetings, according to Olivia Troye, a former national security aide to Vice President MIke Pence. Miller and his allies were placed the departments of Justice and Homeland Security and other security agencies to stymie special immigrant visas (SIVs) for Afghans who worked with the US government or troops in Afghanistan, Troye said. “The number of SIVs dropped dramatically during the Trump administration,” she said. “We knew the offices were under-resourced and overwhelmed.”

“Trump had FOUR years—while putting this plan in place—to evacuate these Afghan allies who were the lifelines for many of us who spent time in Afghanistan,” Troye said, according to Business Insider. “The process slowed to a trickle for reviews/other ‘priorities’ — then came to a halt.” Biden’s folks had to re-start the process.

Miller was Trump’s point man for blocking brown refugees. On Fox News Aug. 17, Miller said “those advocating for mass Afghan resettlement are doing so for political and not humanitarian reasons,” adding that it would also be too expensive, Business Insider reported.

“The United States of America never, ever, made a promise, written or unwritten, to the people of Afghanistan that if after 20 years, they were unable to secure their own country, that we would take them to ours. That is nonsense. That has never been US government policy,” Miller said, rebutting the pledges made by American veterans of the Afghan war.

Also, with Trump’s refusal to transfer power, his administration refused to brief Biden’s incoming national security appointees during the transition, so Biden and his aides entered the White House playing catch-up.

When Biden took office on Jan. 20, after Trump supporters failed their Jan. 6 coup attempt, the Taliban was making gains against the Afghan government forces, al-Qaeda enjoyed safe haven in Pakistan, and commentators wondered how long the Afghan government would last before collapse. Biden faced the choice: repudiate Trump’s peace deal with the Taliban, escalate US troop presence in Afghanistan and put those US troops in the Taliban crosshairs — or complete the withdrawal and leave Afghanistan to the Afghans.

Biden pushed back the date of the withdrawal from May 1 to Sept. 11, the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. He later said he expected US troops to be out by Aug. 31, which should have given US forces plenty of time to evacuate refugees, since most of his advisers felt the 300,000 Afghan government forces could hold out at least until the end of August. But as the Taliban swept through the country, the Afghan troops dropped their guns and scattered. The Taliban entered Kabul virtually unchallenged, leaving US forces to hold onto the airport, Afghan President Ghani fled to the United Arab Emirates, reportedly with $169 million in cash. Meanwhile, US forces evacuated more than 120,000 people from the end of July to Aug. 30. That’s actually a remarkable showing, but Trump, in a last bid to undermine the evacuation, said Biden should “resign in disgrace for what he has allowed to happen to Afghanistan, along with the tremendous surge in COVID, the Border catastrophe, the destruction of energy independence, and our crippled economy.”

Irony may be dead. But a lot of Afghan refugees are still alive, outside the reach of the Taliban, no thanks to Donald J. Trump. — JMC

From The Progressive Populist, September 15, 2021

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