Team Trump struggles to defend former president's Taliban deal

[babylonsister]

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/team-trump-struggles-defend-former-president-s-taliban-deal-n1277418

Team Trump struggles to defend former president's Taliban deal
Asked about the Trump administration's 2020 deal with the Taliban, Nikki Haley tried to change the subject. That's understandable, but it's insufficient.
Aug. 23, 2021, 8:00 AM EDT
By Steve Benen


There was a curious moment on CBS's "Face the Nation" yesterday in which Major Garrett asked Nikki Haley whether the Trump administration's 2020 deal with the Taliban "set in motion what we're seeing now" in Afghanistan. The former ambassador to the United Nations apparently didn't like the question.

"You know, I think everybody's wanting to go back and talk about Trump," Haley said, quickly changing the subject in her next breath.

snip//

And yet, other leading voices on Team Trump have condemned the Biden administration for not hewing closely enough to the same deal some Trump administration officials have condemned. The former president, Pompeo, and former Vice President Mike Pence each insisted last week that Biden didn't do enough to follow the Republican administration's blueprint, which called for a precipitous U.S. exit three months ago.

But they're not just contradicting their former allies; these same voices from the Trump White House are also contradicting reality. Slate's William Saletan wrote a detailed, brutal piece documenting Pompeo's role, explaining that the former secretary of state "laid the groundwork for the Taliban takeover." The piece added, "[N]obody has lied more about the Afghan collapse than Pompeo. At every stage, he aided the Taliban and sabotaged the Kabul government. And now he dares to blame others."

Nikki Haley is annoyed that "everybody's wanting to go back and talk about Trump." With the benefit of hindsight, it seems everybody should talk about the extent to which the Trump administration created the conditions that Team Trump is so eager to complain about now.

[spanone]

1. Right Nikki, who would want any context of trump's fiasco to disrupt the media slamming Joe Biden?

fuck these wingnuts and the media that coddles them.

[Ohioboy]

2. It's not only Trump's deal, but his lack of planning

A major part of the chaos in Afghanistan is not because we can't get our people and military out safely, it's all the translators and other Afghans that helped us that are in peril.

Knowing that he had made a deal to get out by May 1st of 2021, Trump and his State Dept. should have been busy round the clock preparing visas etc. to facilitate the major operation of getting out of a 20 years war. Where is all that work that should have been done prior to the Trump withdrawal date?

[underpants]

3. Yes normally the planning for such an exit could take 14 months

but we can’t forget that Clustertrump never planned, took counsel, or followed through on anything.

[Midnight Writer]

6. And during the transition, Team Trump refused to share any information with the Biden camp.

They intentionally sabotaged the Biden Administration.

[2naSalit]

7. INstead of preparing as one would expect...

Tfg and company set up this current shitshow by retarding and eventually stopping altogether the SIV program meant to facilitate the evacuation of the interps and support people. You see, that was totally sabotaged by steven miller starting well over a year ago. so that was their planning, to fuck up any plans Biden would have had and that's not counting the fact that there was no transition for the Biden team since they were locked out of the finalizing of this nightmare which, again, was facilitated by pompeo's deal with the taliban.

Underlying details matter.

[Probatim]

4. Has anyone asked these nutters about how releasing 5,000 militants

helped to create this disaster?

TFG cut and ran from every military situation during his awful stint.

[underpants]

5. One point I have heard or read is that Biden wasn't going to negotiate with the Taliban

The idea of a US President negotiating directly with a terrorist organization is unthinkable. I do remember reports that the Pentagon brass and career diplomats were livid with Trump. Avoiding what could have been a terrible optic of having them at Camp David on the eve of a 9/11 anniversary was apparently all they could get Clustertrump to change.

Biden’s experience tells him that there was no way he was going to be seen elevating the Taliban to a position of negotiating with them. No way. Back channels and other means? Sure but even that couldn’t be known because it give relevance and position to these horrible people. Joe stuck with what they had.

[NewJeffCT]

8. Everybody is bringing it back to Trump

because Trump was such a colossal fuck up that we'll be cleaning up his messes at home and around the world for decades.

[SWBTATTReg]

9. Another foreign policy failure by rump, any attempts to blame Pres. Biden (as some are trying)

are falling on deaf ears, for the most part, as most reasonable people know that Pres. Biden came into office towards the end of Jan., 2021, thus not enough time has elapsed for any Biden policy changes to take effect. Like any other rump failure, rump tries to blame everybody else but him. It won't work this time either.

[Texaswitchy]

10. Who gave Trump the right to give the country away to begin with.

Not his country.