Steve Jonas: How We Got Trumped in Afghanistan
Forces from British India camping at Kandahar (1841). And do recall that the Brits have been with us through this whole current attempt at nation-changing.) (Wikimedia)
September 5, 2021
By Steve Jonas, MD, MPH
Just last April, noting that I had not written on the subject in over ten years, in I column on OpEdNews entitled "Some Comments in the Light of the Afghanistan Withdrawal." Well, obviously some additional comments/observations are now in order. And mine are not on the unfolding humanitarian disaster, either describing its depths, casting blame, or proposing solutions. Plenty of other observers are doing that. From the title one can see that I am once again turning my attention in part to one of my favorite targets, History's Great Con Man, Donald J. Trump, while also going back a bit in history to look at where the current disaster really started.
This column is drawn in significant part from the one from April, with (of course) some additional points. At the beginning of that column, I noted in part that:
"In the light of President Biden's announced troop withdrawal, to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 Disaster, which led eventually to the direct Afghan invasion by G. W. Bush (as contrasted with the indirect invasion against the Soviets that began in 1979 under Carter/ Brzezinski), I thought that it would be the time to go back to a couple of items published back in 2009, just as Pres. Obama was taking office. But before that I thought that it would be useful to consider the events that began in in the 1970s that led directly to the Bush invasion which in turn led to the 20-year U.S. military involvement." This column is a continuation of that one.
The Role of Trump: Then and Now
But before doing that here, it is useful to note that the current withdrawal is resulting from a negotiation that was actually carried out under "the former guy" which concluded with an agreement/promise that the U.S. would indeed withdraw its troops form the country. As it turned out, the date for that withdrawal was set for some time this past Spring.
Using what Joe Scarborough likes to call the "Google Machine," I came up with a fascinating set of first notes appearing under the entry: "the Trump Doha Afghanistan withdrawal agreement summary." Here are two of them:
1. "Agreement for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan as a state and is ...
www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/...
A comprehensive peace agreement is made of four parts: 1. Guarantees and enforcement mechanisms that will prevent the use of the soil of Afghanistan by any group or individual against the security of the United States and its allies. 2. Guarantees, enforcement mechanisms, and announcement of a timeline for the withdrawal of . . . ."
2. "Doha Agreement (2020) - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doha Agreement_ (2020)
The Agreement for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan is a peace agreement signed between the United States and the Taliban on February 29, 2020, in Doha, Qatar. The provisions of the deal include the withdrawal of all American and NATO troops from Afghanistan, a Taliban pledge to prevent al-Qaeda from operating in areas under Taliban control, and talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government."
Just from the summaries (spelled out in much more detail in the essay to which they refer), it looks like Team Trump made a pretty good deal, considering the situation on the ground and the campaign promise that Trump had made about "getting out," in 2016. Except that a) the Afghani government had not been involved in the talks leading up to the agreement, b) following it there was intense squabbling about prisoner releases/exchanges between the Taliban and the Afghan government, and the whole "peace process seems to have broken down" with no indications that Team Trump was closely involved in trying to make sure that that didn't happen.
In that context, we can then note the next entries under the original Google Machine product:
3. "Trump's Deal To End War In Afghanistan Leaves Biden With 'A Terrible Situation"
Trump's Deal To End War In Afghanistan Leaves Biden With 'A Terrible Situation' The Trump White House agreed to a May 1 troop withdrawal. New Yorker writer Dexter Filkins says Biden must now decide whether to honor a deal that included the Taliban but not the Afghan government." Mr. Filkins goes on to discuss this reality at great length, and concludes by saying:
"Well, I think it's safe to say that the president of Afghanistan feels abandoned. He's not a happy camper right now. He has basically - more or less, he said to me, look; I'm the president of Afghanistan. And the Americans are making a deal with the Taliban. And we're not even at the table. They're talking about withdrawing their troops from Afghanistan, which it's their right to do. Why didn't they come and talk to me? They're talking to the Taliban. And so, what am I doing here? And so, I think - he feels like he's just totally been cut out of the equation. And in some ways, he has.
"And so, the - you know, the Trump administration made this deal with the Taliban to pull out their forces. And then, and only then, did we then turn to the Afghan government and say, OK, you know, sit down with the Taliban now and make a deal with them. And, of course, the Taliban are just emboldened. You know, they're - you know, as one of the Taliban negotiators said to me, we defeated the Americans. We defeated the Americans on the battlefield. And so, I think President Ghani feels like, you know, we're kind of being thrown to the lions here."
And then, guess what (from the Google Machine off the top):
4. "Trump releases 12 statements in five days attacking Biden while whitewashing his own role in Afghanistan withdrawal. money.yahoo.com/trump-releases-12-statements... Donald Trump fired off 12 statements in five days attacking President Joe Biden's handling of the withdrawal from Afghanistan. At the same time the former president has sought to minimize his own role in the withdrawal, and the Republican National Committee removed a webpage praising his 'historic peace agreement' with the Taliban that set the clock ticking on the US withdrawal.
Since the recently concluded Olympics were held in Tokyo, one can be excused for saying about the information, transliterated from the Japanese, a phrase widely used in that country: "Ah so, deska" which means in English, roughly translated, "Is that right?"
There of course has been a huge amount of criticism, and correctly so, about the unfolding humanitarian crisis that is accompanying the U.S. withdrawal, which has been anticipated for months, which it was hoped would go reasonably smooth, but which has descended into a monstrous humanitarian crisis which the Administration and various of its military and civilian arms are trying to deal with.
Now let's take a closer look at the role of Trump in all of this. The "Agreement," a) was quite open-ended, b) was concluded almost a year before Trump was scheduled to leave office if he lost, c) did not involve the Afghani government until it had been signed, and d) the Trumpsters seemed to step back from the process, once they got their big announcement. So, before going after the Biden Administration for incompetence one has to ask (and yes, as one who has been writing columns on Trump since 2011 and has a large collection of them coming out on Amazon one of these days, this is a question that I [and many others] will automatically ask when the word "Trump" is involved with something to do with foreign policy) is what is happening now at least in part the product of Trump incompetence, or is it intentional trap-setting, or both.
Consider what he has been (so helpfully, ho, ho, ho) saying (this text is taken from an article that appeared in "The Independent" on August 17, 2021):
"[As noted above] Donald Trump fired off 12 statements in five days attacking President Joe Biden's handling of the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
"At the same time the former president has sought to minimize his own role in the withdrawal, and the Republican National Committee removed a webpage praising his 'historic peace agreement' with the Taliban that set the clock ticking on the US withdrawal. The onslaught began on August 12, when Mr. Trump claimed the withdrawal would have been 'much more successful' if he were still president. 'I personally had discussions with top Taliban leaders whereby they understood what they are doing now would not have been acceptable,' he said.
"The next day he stepped up his criticism of the 'tragic mess' in Afghanistan, asking in all caps: 'DO YOU MISS ME YET?' On Saturday August 14, as Mr. Biden authorized the deployment of more troops, and Taliban fighters reached the outskirts of Kabul, Mr. Trump issued a 141-word statement, his longest yet. 'This is complete failure through weakness, incompetence, and total strategic incoherence,' he wrote. [And just think, if The Pillow Man had been right, and Trump had been re-installed as President on Friday the 13th, he might have fixed the Afghanistan situation just as well as, for example, he took care of the COVID-19 pandemic.]
"He went on to say: 'I established a credible deterrent.' The statements were peppered with false conspiracy theories that Mr. Biden had not been legitimately elected president, allowed the Covid surge, and thrown open the southern border. 'Resign in disgrace,' Mr. Trump advised President Biden. As thousands swarmed Hamid Karzai International Airport on Monday, Mr. Trump fired off the first of five statements that day. 'Who or what will Joe Biden surrender to next? Someone should ask him, if they can find him.'"
"That afternoon as President Biden addressed the nation in a defiant defence of his decision to withdraw, and blamed the Trump administration for setting the withdrawal timetable, the 45th President kept up the barrage of attacks." And so on and so forth. Typical Trump. But at least President Biden fired back, without pulling any punches, something the previous Democratic President never would have done.
When This All Started (and it wasn't "20 Years ago, Following '9/11' ")
In the summer of 2001, before 9/11, U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney was negotiating with the Taliban for the rights to create a pipe-line for natural gas coming from Turkmenistan (on Afghanistan's Northwest frontier, it has huge natural gas supplies) through Afghanistan and on to Pakistan and (even) India. That project flopped, although construction was finally re-started in 2015. However, the U.S., leaving as well, now will have no direct role in its construction or operation. The "Graveyard of Empires" indeed. (Except that there is talk of China, which borders on that very odd "Northeast finger" of Afghani territory, and Russia, [which in the days of the USSR bordered directly on the country, to the north] already trying hard to establish good ties with the new Talabani government, with their eyes on trade and the enormous supply of
The Afghan/"Mujahedeen"/Soviet Battle of the 1980s
The history of Afghanistan is quite complex, even beyond the attempts of various imperial powers to take it over. But the modern history begins in 1973 when its most recent king was overthrown in a popular rebellion. That history is marked by the overthrow of two more "attempts at empire" --- not in the literal/historical sense, but in the international/political sense --- of course those of the Soviet Union and the United States. The Soviet Union had been giving aid to Afghanistan off and on since the early 1920s. (Afghanistan borders on several of the Central Asian nations --- e.g., Turkmenistan, Tajikstan, that had been part of the Russian Empire and under the Soviet Union were "Constituent Republics.") With the full takeover of the nation in 1978 by the left-wing People's Democratic Party (PDP) through free elections, Soviet aid increased. So did the resistance to the leftists from various right-wing groupings, which were allowed to operate from sanctuaries in Pakistan by that government.
As an example of what was happening under PDP rule, consider the following: "Afghan Women under an Afghan Version of Socialism, 1978-92"
"Marilyn Bechtel writes in the Peoples Weekly World:
" 'When the People's Democratic party (PDP) assumed power in 1978, they started to work for a more equitable distribution of economic and social resources. Among their goals were the continuing emancipation of women and girls from the age-old tribal bondage (a process begun under Zahir Shah [the last Afghan King, deposed 1973]), equal rights for minority nationalities, including the country's most oppressed group, the Hazara, and increasing access for ordinary people to education, medical care, decent housing, and sanitation.' "
The anti-PDP/Soviet war, which got underway in earnest in the 1980s, was not from the outset "Charlie Wilson's War" (although it came to be called that later, under Reagan. And of course, the story was eventually made into a quite successful movie.) Wilson was a Congressman who in the early 80's pushed hard to provide weaponry (such as the Stinger missiles so useful against Soviet helicopters) to the right-wing rebels, the "mujahedeen."
"Charlie Wilson's War" was actually a made-up name, applied to it after the war had been well under way. As noted, after the final overthrow of the Afghan monarchy by the left-wing People's Democratic Party, the Soviet Union moved quickly to support the new government. But there was significant resistance to it in various parts of the country, especially along the border regions. By 1979, the Afghan government was requesting direct Soviet military aid, in progressively larger amounts.
It is very important to note that U.S. support for the anti-Soviet/Afghan Government resistance began during this time, before Reagan became President. It was recommended to President Carter by none other than Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski (yes indeed, that's Mika's Dad) that the US intervene on the side of the rebels. He correctly predicted that if the rebellion were maintained, Afghanistan would eventually become the "Soviet Union's Viet Nam." As noted, that it did was a major factor in the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union.
When the support for the right-wing rebels was expanded under Reagan, the "Charlie Wilson's War" label became a convenient way to try to make sure that there was no apparent link between the Reaganite policy and Carter's (which were actually the same). Yes, the Republican determination not to give any credit for anything to any Democrat if at all possible does extend back that far.
Postscript l:
The observation that with the Afghanistan withdrawal the U.S. will be more exposed to potential terrorist attacks is quite correct. Indeed, with the Republican propaganda that is being launched at the Biden Administration the U.S. Right-Wing Terrorist organizations associated with the Republo-fascists will be ever-more emboldened and motivated.
Postscript II:
As I was writing the above note at around 11:30 Am on 8-19-21, on Capitol Hill, unbeknownst to me at the time a self-professed "anti-government person" who advocated "revolt against the Federal government" (he was sitting in his truck --- filled with propane, he said) was talking with police, while threatening to set the whole thing off.
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