The long-awaited US peace deal in Afghanistan was signed with the Taliban on Saturday. On Wednesday, US warplanes carried out an airstrike on Taliban forces, the first attack since the peace.
US officials are presenting this as a “defensive” measure, even though the Taliban had made it a point not to attack foreign troops since the deal was signed, and rather were attacking Afghan government forces over an existing disagreement about prisoner exchanges.
The Taliban targeted in the US strike were in the process of attacking a government checkpoint, and a US spokesman said the Taliban were not abiding by a commitment to reduce attacks on the Afghans.
This is a problem because the US had committed to the Afghan government releasing 5,000 prisoners as part of this, and when the Ghani government reneged on that, the Taliban reneged on the violence reduction. The Taliban has offered talks, but only talks about the prisoner release.
When the Taliban announced this position on Monday, the US suggested they were going to stay in the peace deal so long as the Taliban wasn’t attacking them. Now, it seems the US has changed its mind, and will be attacking the Taliban, calling it defense, and pretending that the Taliban are the ones threatening the peace.
I can already hear the administration response….”it’s not our fault” ….brought to you by, the “it’s not my fault” generation.
Agreements, treaties, etc. mean squat to the US.
You are soo right
It’s ALWAYS presented as a defensive measure. The US military budget being way bigger than any other country’s, but of course invading other countries wasn’t the intent. The invasion of Afghanistan was defensive when the Taliban govt didn’t say ‘how high’ to our command to ‘jump’. Installing a puppet government was a defensive measure so that the war could be continued so long with fewer Americans dying. And now the US is defending that govt that is violating the peace deal the US finally begrudgingly signed.
The “Afghan govt” is SO independent it turns out that they are insisting on continuing to imprison those they would otherwise have to share power with. The Afghans should now sort it out among themselves WITHOUT ANY US INVOLVEMENT. As it should have been over the last 15 years, and the last 50 for that matter.
You can’t make deals with a snake like Pompeo. He will look you right in the face and lie his fat ass off. Remember “we lie, we cheat, we steal” from a while back? He bragged about it to a bunch of college kids.
The only way that we will ever leave Afghanistan is by helicopter from the top of the US embassy just like in Saigon. There will be hell to pay for all Afghan collaborators just like there was in Vietnam.
In Trumpspeak. Defend means Attack, Peace means War, Freedom means Slavery.
The usual pretense that US aggressive actions are “defense”.