The UK's defense minister blamed Trump for the Afghanistan crisis, saying 'the die was cast' when

[highplainsdem]

Source: Business Insider

The UK's defense minister blamed Trump for the Afghanistan crisis, saying 'the die was cast' when Trump negotiated a peace deal with the Taliban

-snip-

But UK Defence Minister Ben Wallace has pointed the finger at Trump.

He told "BBC Breakfast" on Monday: "The die was cast when the deal was done by Donald Trump, if you want my observation."

"President Biden inherited a momentum, a momentum that had been given to the Taliban because they felt they had now won, he'd also inherited a momentum of troop withdrawal from the international community, the US."

"So I think in that sense, the seeds of what we're seeing today were before President Biden took office. The seeds were a peace deal that was [effectively] rushed, that wasn't done in collaboration properly with the international community and then a dividend taken out incredibly quickly."

-snip-

Read more: https://www.businessinsider.com/uk-defense-minister-blames-trump-afghanistan-taliban-crisis-2021-8

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That article links to an article from 3 days ago where the Defence Minister also criticized Trump's agreement with the Taliban:


https://www.businessinsider.com/uk-defense-secretary-world-will-pay-trump-deal-with-taliban-2021-8

The UK defense secretary said this week that the deal between the Trump administration and the Taliban setting in motion the withdrawal of US and NATO forces from Afghanistan was "rotten," telling Sky News in a rare criticism that the international community would likely "pay the consequences."

"At the time of the Trump deal with, obviously, the Taliban, I felt that that was a mistake to have done it that way," said Ben Wallace, the UK secretary of state for defense. "That, we'll all, as an international community, probably pay the consequences of that."

"I think that deal that was done in Doha was a rotten deal," the secretary said. "It told a Taliban that wasn't winning that they were winning, and it undermined the government of Afghanistan, and now we're in this position where the Taliban have clearly the momentum across the country."

-snip-

[Lithos]

1. Astute commentary

We stopped playing the long game at Doha, which guaranteed we lost.

[Tommymac]

2. TFG Punted.

Everything he touches dies.

[hamsterjill]

3. Good.

Now Democrats need to be doing the same thing!

[Lonestarblue]

4. Trump never made a real deal in his life. Everything he has he got through corruption.

[lonely bird]

5. The die was cast when the players in the so-called great game...

Including the UK decided they could just fuck around with people.

The world is littered with the corpses of failed states caused by ignoring history, sociology, psychology combined with arrogance.

[Lokilooney]

6. No

They were cast nearly 20 years ago when the excursion into Afghanistan became a nation building experiment.

[sakabatou]

7. No. It was cast almost 20 years ago with Shrub.

[peppertree]

8. +1

But my, how the money rolled in - for the contractors.

[DVDGuy]

9. The Art of the Deal

US troop withdrawal is the carrot you dangle in front of the Taliban to get them to come to a power-sharing agreement with the Afghan government. Trump gave the carrot away last year when he negotiated a deal with the Taliban separate from any deal with the AF government. He then sabotaged peace talks in October when he tweeted about getting the troops home before Christmas.

There is some validity to the argument that locals in danger should have been brought out over the last couple of months first, but doing that would signal a vote of no confidence in the Afghan government and could have destabilised them even if they were willing to put up a good fight (which, in hindsight, they weren't willing to do so).

It looks like all of this was not only a ploy to win the election, but also to sabotage the incoming administration. Trump played politics with people's lives because to them, they are all expendable pawns in a bid to get what he wants.

[tonekat]

10. Excellent summary

This is what should have been the core of every op-ed and "Guest Essay" that we have seen over the last 24 hours instead of the hand-wringing and piling on Biden.

[onetexan]

11. More like the art of a bad deal

No surprise thefe.