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The United States is committed to withdraw from Afghanistan all military forces of the United States, its allies...within fourteen (14) months following announcement of this agreement
14 months after the agreement on February 29, 2020 would be essentially May 1st, 2021.
This timetable was not followed
Second, the agreement obligates the US to work on a plan to release prisoners as "a confidence building measure" with coordination and approval of all relevant sides."
The United States is committed to start immediately to work with all relevant sides on a plan
to expeditiously release combat and political prisoners as a confidence building measure with
the coordination and approval of all relevant sides. Up to five thousand (5,000) prisoners of
the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan which is not recognized by the United States as a state and
is known as the Taliban and up to one thousand (1,000) prisoners of the other side will be
released by March 10, 2020, the first day of intra-Afghan negotiations, which corresponds to
Rajab 15, 1441 on the Hijri Lunar calendar and Hoot 20, 1398 on the Hijri Solar calendar.
The relevant sides have the goal of releasing all the remaining prisoners over the course of the
subsequent three months. The United States commits to completing this goal. The Islamic
Emirate of Afghanistan which is not recognized by the United States as a state and is known
as the Taliban commits that its released prisoners will be committed to the responsibilities
mentioned in this agreement so that they will not pose a threat to the security of the United
States and its allies.
The day following agreement, the Afghan President Ashraf Ghani objects to a provision in the agreement that would require his country to release 5,000 Taliban prisoners. “Freeing Taliban prisoners is not [under] the authority of America but the authority of the Afghan government,” Ghani says. “There has been no commitment for the release of 5,000 prisoners.”
(https://www.factcheck.org/2021/08/ti...m-afghanistan/)
However, President Ghani eventually relents and orders the release of 1,500 prisoners and a timeline for the other 3,500 clearly establishing that the Afghan government is the one releasing prisoners, not the US.
(https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-...soner-release/)
However, this group of prisoners being released by the Afghan government consistent with the agreement between the Afghan government, Taliban, and US government is often conflated with a later group of prisoners that were set free as a result of the U.S.'s abrupt removal of their military from the country. This exodus left the Bagram Air Base in the hands of the Taliban, giving them a ridiculous amount of weaponry but also access to 5-7,000 prisoners including "some of the Taliban's most hardened fighters and could pose a threat not only to Afghan citizens but to American security interests."
(https://www.axios.com/taliban-bagram...a252dcf7d.html)
This release of prisoners was done by the Afghan President (the first group) and then by the Taliban itself (second group) after the reckless departure of the US Military at the direction of the current President. Regardless of the terms of the peace accord negotiated by the previous president, the prisoner release wasn't effected in any sense by the Trump regime but rather by the Afghanis (directly) and the Biden administration (indirectly)
Lastly, the agreement specifies that the Taliban must agree to non-aggression with respect to the US, its allies, and coalition forces as well as guarantee that those groups weren't to be threatened by any group within Afghan borders including Al-Queda:
...the Taliban will not allow any of its members, other individuals or groups, including al-Qa’ida, to use the soil of Afghanistan to threaten the security of the United States and its allies.
This also, wasn't done as the Taliban had overrun the majority of the country in the last couple months clearly threatening the US and its allies, to the extent that it may have motivated the hasty exit by the US. Furthermore, the bombing that killed the 13 marines, among others, was a direct abdication of the non-aggression agreement as even if it wasn't the Taliban that did the bombing, they were responsible for non-aggression from all parties in the country towards the US and its allies.
Again, this part of the agreement was not followed
As a final thought, the efforts of the Biden administration and its media partners the attempt has been made to pin all these happenings on Trump owing to his part in the peace agreement. However the peace agreement wasn't followed by multiple participants, including the Biden administration which should have voided its power. Furthermore, nowhere in the agreement does it mandate that the American Military will be pulled out abruptly leaving American civilians, our allies, as well as SIV's behind in eminent danger. A situation that laughably required the Military to simply come back to provide cover for their evacuation...something that so clearly should have been done FIRST, and a situation that allowed a perfect target for terrorist attack.
I'm not sure why you are raising the release of the 5,000 Taliban prisoners by the Afghan Government. So are you claiming that since we didn't perform the actual release we are not responsible even though we negotiated the agreement, the Afghan government did not agree to the peace deal, we did.
Also the agreement requires us to withdraw within 14 months, so why wasn't the withdrawal initiated in 2020, they didn't need to wait until 2021.
The Taliban was already taking over large parts of the country immediately after the agreement was signed.
2001- US invaded Afghanistan to crush the Taliban.
2016- Trump campaigned on the promise to withdraw all troops from Afghanistan.
2019- Trump tweets about having cancelled secret meeting with the Taliban at Camp David on 9/11/2019. Taliban blew something or another up and it was not a good optic.
2/29/2020- Pompeo and Taliban leader sign the agreement and set a deadline for troop withdrawal of 5/1/2021. In doing so, the Trump Admin legitimized the Taliban.
12/31/2020- All but 2500 troops withdrawn and 5000 Taliban fighters released from prison. What could go wrong?
1/ 2021- Biden inherits a no- win situation, that likely was intentional for political purposes.
5/1/2021- Target date is missed and Biden sets a new deadline.
Taliban begins the take over, just as planned. Afghan military is no match.
8/ 2021- Puppet Afghan president and parliament exit Afghanistan for parts unknown.
8/2021- Pompeo hits the Sunday news shows and says we need to go in and crush the Taliban, as if someone just handed him the 2001 script.
Quitting Afghanistan, like Vietnam, was never going to be a walk in the park, no matter who sat the oval.
2001- US invaded Afghanistan to crush the Taliban.
2016- Trump campaigned on the promise to withdraw all troops from Afghanistan.
2019- Trump tweets about having cancelled secret meeting with the Taliban at Camp David on 9/11/2019. Taliban blew something or another up and it was not a good optic.
2/29/2020- Pompeo and Taliban leader sign the agreement and set a deadline for troop withdrawal of 5/1/2021. In doing so, the Trump Admin legitimized the Taliban.
12/31/2020- All but 2500 troops withdrawn and 5000 Taliban fighters released from prison. What could go wrong?
1/ 2021- Biden inherits a no- win situation, that likely was intentional for political purposes.
5/1/2021- Target date is missed and Biden sets a new deadline.
Taliban begins the take over, just as planned. Afghan military is no match.
8/ 2021- Puppet Afghan president and parliament exit Afghanistan for parts unknown.
8/2021- Pompeo hits the Sunday news shows and says we need to go in and crush the Taliban, as if someone just handed him the 2001 script.
Quitting Afghanistan, like Vietnam, was never going to be a walk in the park, no matter who sat the oval.
You forgot March 4, 2020 the deal was null and void.
2001- US invaded Afghanistan to crush the Taliban.
2016- Trump campaigned on the promise to withdraw all troops from Afghanistan.
2019- Trump tweets about having cancelled secret meeting with the Taliban at Camp David on 9/11/2019. Taliban blew something or another up and it was not a good optic.
2/29/2020- Pompeo and Taliban leader sign the agreement and set a deadline for troop withdrawal of 5/1/2021. In doing so, the Trump Admin legitimized the Taliban.
12/31/2020- All but 2500 troops withdrawn and 5000 Taliban fighters released from prison. What could go wrong?
1/ 2021- Biden inherits a no- win situation, that likely was intentional for political purposes.
5/1/2021- Target date is missed and Biden sets a new deadline.
Taliban begins the take over, just as planned. Afghan military is no match.
8/ 2021- Puppet Afghan president and parliament exit Afghanistan for parts unknown.
8/2021- Pompeo hits the Sunday news shows and says we need to go in and crush the Taliban, as if someone just handed him the 2001 script.
Quitting Afghanistan, like Vietnam, was never going to be a walk in the park, no matter who sat the oval.
Biden didn't simply miss the deadline, he terminated the deal a month earlier, by saying he had arbitrarily moved the date to Sept 11. The Taliban warned him not to break the agreement, Biden broke it, the Taliban took over the country. Biden didn't even attempt to withdraw special visa holders or US citizens. He did the opposite, convinced everyone that the Taliban would not take over.
Biden waited until the Taliban took over complete control, and then started an ad hoc emergency evacuation, and deferred to the Taliban's wishes on everything.
I'm not sure why you are raising the release of the 5,000 Taliban prisoners by the Afghan Government. So are you claiming that since we didn't perform the actual release we are not responsible even though we negotiated the agreement, the Afghan government did not agree to the peace deal, we did.
You typically don't get something for nothing. In return for the agreement to work on a plan with the Afghans for their release we got 18 months free of American casualties...something that had been a problem.
Add to that calculus that politicians and military people, regardless of political alignment were consistent in their belief that without the US Military in Afghanistan that the government at the time would crumble.
Combine those ideas and the trade was essentially 18 months of peace to coordinate a safe and peaceful withdrawal of American civilians and military in exchange for Taliban prisoners that would be released anyway when the government fell.
So in a sense we did get something for nothing.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Goodnight
Also the agreement requires us to withdraw within 14 months, so why wasn't the withdrawal initiated in 2020, they didn't need to wait until 2021.
The withdrawal WAS started in 2020 as described here:
The Taliban was already taking over large parts of the country immediately after the agreement was signed.
There were always pockets of Taliban in the country. The geography makes it impossible to address every small village. But they weren't taking over large swaths of the country until they overtook their first province on August 6th, 2021 [See same link]
Biden started withdrawing troops without evacuating American civilians or notifying our aliies first, because of that we lost 13 young marines that didn’t have to happen. That is the issue that has our allies and everyone upset and showed how incompetent he is. This isn’t on Trump, this is Biden’s call.
The Biden Administration screwing this up has nothing to do with Trump. They could have nixed anything they wanted - just like they did with Keystone. They contradicted their own statement from the past.
Biden generals made and executed all of the American actions that took place.
Trump sold out. That is all there is to it. He made no effort to negotiate the free passage of American civilians much less the people who worked for and with our forces. It was nothing short of unconditional surrender. Biden had to clean it up. He did an admirable job given what he was handed.
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