Afghanistan: The Tragic Cost Of Trump's 2020 Taliban Deal

US general: Afghan collapse rooted in 2020 deal with Taliban

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senior Pentagon officials said Wednesday the collapse of the Afghan government and its security forces in August could be traced to a 2020 U.S. agreement with the Taliban that promised a complete U.S. troop withdrawal.

Gen. Frank McKenzie, the head of Central Command, told the House Armed Services Committee that once the U.S. troop presence was pushed below 2,500 as part of President Joe Biden’s decision in April to complete a total withdrawal by September, the unraveling of the U.S.-backed Afghan government accelerated.

“The signing of the Doha agreement had a really pernicious effect on the government of Afghanistan and on its military — psychological more than anything else, but we set a date-certain for when we were going to leave and when they could expect all assistance to end,” McKenzie said. -snip

mmm

Originally posted by Klaw
mmm

Yeah, it's sad that Biden-supporters are now trying to shift the blame for Afghanistan onto Trump, though not at all surprising. 😉

Well at least you people didn't rant about "woke generals" again as a means to dismiss what General Frank McKenzie, the head of Central Command, said about Trump's Taliban deal blunder.

Originally posted by eThneoLgrRnae
Yeah, it's sad that Biden-supporters are now trying to shift the blame for Afghanistan onto Trump, though not at all surprising. 😉

Originally posted by roughrider
The withdrawal from Afghanistan looks ugly, but it would look ugly no matter who was President. This process was started by Trump, and Biden just followed through (and he extended the deadline to a few months later.)

It wasn't just the U.S. that left, it was the Western world. Trudeau up here in Canada got a lot of flak too, for how the withdrawal played out. I'm sure every nation that had a hand in Afghanistan, their leaders are facing criticism at home.

But this just distracts from the worst, tragic fact: The Afghan government wasn't ready for us to leave, and never would be.

We should have left the country several years ago; we've all heard several announcements over the past twenty years about full troop withdrawal. But it never happened because it was that fragile a situation. The government built there was faulty and corrupt.

The excellent Netflix series Turning Point covers this extensively - Afghanistan became a forgotten country by the U.S. Government after driving out the Taliban, as they switched their focus completely to invading Iraq. So proper nation building never did place there. We could have stayed there for another ten years and it seems the same outcome would have happened.

In truth it was probably doomed to be a disaster no matter what. It doesn't have to be either Trump or Biden's fault. It was just doomed to be a shit-show.

20 years occupying a country that is still largely tribal meant there would be no "perfect" exit.

But making a unilateral deal with the Taliban and excluding the Afghanistan government was a terrible first step, as was releasing 5,000+ Taliban fighters when the Taliban didn't meet their promises.

😂 🤣 🤣 😆 😆

Lmao!

Oh leftists... smh. ❌

It Trump fault! It all Trump fault!! Orange man baaaaaaaaddddd!!! 😆 🤣 😂

George Clooney ruined Batman.

True, but Christian Bale revitalized the role though.