US negotiator Zalmay Khalilzad has reported that the US and Taliban have a peace deal “in principle” now, and that it is just pending approval from President Trump. The Afghan government has confirmed being given a copy of the draft deal.
The specifics are not all public knowledge yet, but negotiators say that the deal would remove some 5,000 US ground troops from Afghanistan in the first five months, in return for the Taliban agreeing to keep ISIS and al-Qaeda out, and reduce violence.
All previous indications were that the deal was meant to see a full withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan. This raises questions since Trump promised last week that he would “always” have a presence in Afghanistan.
With only mentions of 5,000 leaving, it leaves questions of what will happen to the other 8,000 or so troops. It is unthinkable for the Taliban to have not covered this matter, but so far those facts are not known.
What is known is that some in the White House want to expand the number of CIA on the ground in Afghanistan even as troops leave. Both the CIA and military are expressing concerns about this, since the CIA has embedded with troops in the past. The in-administration debate is further adding to resistance to leaving Afghanistan at all.
Good job team trump, you just negotiated your way back to where levels were before you came in ! Hey, here’s a thought, maybe you could do the same with the Iran agreement, and Syria.
The negotiating approach does look like a circular firing squad.
I am one of those that approved the need for restructuring US-China trade deals.
But the process at present, like anything neocons touch, has turned into a geopolitical confrontation. So imperceptibly, and under the guise of “we mean well, just screw up”, the negotiations floated into the territory of past grievances, pointless as trade negotiation tools, but effective at stymieing constructive negotiations.
As a result, we screwed up, lost agricultural trade, and are mudding though on telecom — more concerned with fake pride of protecting technology we do not have, but loosing the large market for products we do have. This level of incompetence is amazing. We cannot win this one, as our market is only a small percentage of Chinese GDP.
But now, we have elevated the mess to geopolitics, we are talking military, Chinese global financing, Silk Road . We just recently expressed our irritation at Balkan states getting some Chinese infrastructure projects. We bit mire then we can chew — and endangered what we already had in hand.
Politicians are constantly treating public as children. For everyone who was in workforce back in the nineties and all the way up to financial crisis — will remember clearly the massive propaganda about the benefits of globalism. Everyone who questioned the wisdom of moving production to China and depraving US future generations of participating in the technological advances in manufacturing and educational opportunities in science and technology. Nobody wanted to talk about the gutting of education system, research and innovation that comes with manufacturing. Not to mention loss of jobs not just the low wage jobs, but engineers, manufacturing management, science.
Today , the same individuals are still pontificating what is best for us — now s piously blame China, as if China forced our manufacturers at gun point to go to China. We caused the mess, and should be adults enough to rectify the situation. China would not have “taken advantage” of us if we were not stupid and gave everything away on a silver platter.
Things need to change — but we should have approached this professionally. Set priorities, create incentive for businesses to come back, and restructure tariffs to deal with American corporations that in fact are not American but take advantage of American laws. We mix up all the time Chinese imports, conflating Chinese manufacturing with foreign corporations exporting from China.
But now, we have allowed the same mess makers who created he problem to be the solution makers.
And in a blink of an eye — we are slinging geopolitical mud at China — dealing with its “rise”. Instead of focusing on our rise.
Another 18 years would produce the same result.
See Dave, he made it great again just like it was back when Citibank owned the white house.
Now Goldman just has to pay back all Trumps loans for him so he can be an actual billionaire and the 1950’s will magically repeat themselves !
Hooraaayy !!
Oh god, the CIA wants to keep meddling. Are there any US-aligned contract mercenaries (Blackwater, etc) in Afghanistan?
Even so, 10,000 “coalition troops” plus who knows how many mercenary contractors will continue to squat, like poisonous rodents, on Afghan soil.
That’s what is known as a “developing market” in the world of finance(final stage) capitalism.
I get the feeling we could have come to this deal a trillion or so dollars ago.
ok, so the Taliban officially won the war ? They are the surviving foreign party negotiated with, and that means they won.
Does the “deal” address the thousands of US “contractors” inside Afghanistan?
This sounds not so much as a “peace deal” as a negotiation to scale back hostilities – which isn’t remotely the same thing. As an example, look at the “deal” made in Syria’s Idlib last year. How did that work out for everyone?
This is just Trump trying to make points for the upcoming election: “Hey, look, I won the war in Afghanistan!” Yeah, right, Orange Mophead… Only the “deplorables” are gonna buy that one.
Fake News!?
American War Lords through American Generals’ don’t want to get out off Afghanistan, just for lust of money these members of American Deep State will sacrifice poor citizens and President trump will have very difficult time to face them.