As usual, with most complex events, the mainstream media failed to tell the whole story about the Afghanistan Withdrawal.
Sept 7, 2020: Trump Invited Taliban Terrorist Leaders to Camp David For a Secret Meeting, 4 days before America's 911 September 11th Anniversary
The idea of a secret summit with enemy combatants astonished even those close to the process. The timing—just four days before the anniversary of the 9/11 bombings—magnified the drama. So did the venue, igniting fury from fellow-Republicans. “Camp David is where America’s leaders met to plan our response after al Qaeda, supported by the Taliban, killed 3000 Americans on 9/11,” the Wyoming congresswoman Liz Cheney, a Republican and a daughter of former Vice-President Dick Cheney, tweeted. “No member of the Taliban should set foot there. Ever,” the Illinois Representative Adam Kinzinger, who served in Afghanistan, tweeted. “Never should leaders of a terrorist organization that hasn’t renounced 9/11 and continues in evil be allowed in our great country. NEVER. Full stop.”
Trump had hoped to broker an Afghan peace before the Presidential campaign heats up—to convince voters that he knows the art of diplomatic deals. Instead, it could become an election issue. “The whole thing doesn’t quite make sense. It’s just another example of the President treating foreign policy like it’s some kind of game show,” the Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Democratic Presidential candidate, said on CNN. “This isn’t a game show—these are terrorists.”
But a senior official, who worked on Afghanistan in both the George W. Bush and Obama Administrations, told me that the Administration has now bestowed credibility on the Taliban. “Inviting an armed insurgent group to Camp David when Afghanistan has an elected government that we’ve supported for eighteen years, that’s a big deal,” the official said. “We’re basically legitimizing an armed insurgent group, which may be unprecedented.”
On the eve of a scheduled Presidential election in Afghanistan, on September 28th, U.S. policy has also weakened the Kabul government, which was not included in U.S. diplomacy with the Taliban. “We basically turned on the government,” Crocker, the former U.S. Ambassador, told me. “We’ve said, ‘It’s your fucking fault that we’re losing.’ ” He said that the optics of shaking hands with people still killing every American soldier they can are “mind-boggling” for the U.S. military, too. “The Pentagon would be in a fury: you kill our soldiers and get invited to Camp David.”
US general says Afghanistan collapse rooted in Trump-Taliban deal. Head of US Central Command says collapse of the Afghan government can be traced to US troop withdrawal deal.
Trump Excluded The Afghan Government From Negotiations
The U.S. virtually excluded a divided Afghan central government from the negotiating process. It set no clear conditions for a broad ceasefire or for reaching an actual peace settlement. It did not define how the negotiations would take place, and it seemed far more focused on establishing a clear date for U.S. withdrawal.
The Transparency International and World Bank assessments of the Afghan central government show that corruption is the rule, not the exception. The agreement to hold peace negotiations took place when the leadership of the Afghan government was so divided that the U.S. virtually had to largely exclude most leaders in the government from the initial negotiating process.
*Trump excluded the Afghan Government because he was rushing to get a deal signed to help his reelection.
Excerpts from the official report:
Second, the exclusion of the Afghan government from U.S.-Taliban talks weakened and undermined it. Before the Afghan government’s collapse in August 2021, the primary U.S. goal in Afghanistan was achieving a sustainable political settlement that would bring lasting peace and stability.
At the same time, political instability had increased after the highly contested September 2019 presidential election, which was marred by allegations of fraud. Exclusion from U.S.-Taliban talks and the subsequent signing of the February 2020 agreement were further blows to the credibility of the Afghan government.
Second, the exclusion of the Afghan government from U.S.-Taliban talks weakened and undermined it, encouraging an emboldened Taliban to seek a military victory.
The Exclusion of the Afghan Government from U.S.-Taliban Talks Weakened and
Undermined It
Before the collapse of the Afghan government in August 2021, the primary U.S. goal in Afghanistan was to achieve a sustainable political settlement that would bring lasting peace and stability. The Taliban’s refusal to talk to the Afghan government without first negotiating with the United States was an obstacle to that goal. The
United States sought to circumvent this by first dealing with the Taliban in the hopes of setting the stage for an intra-Afghan peace process, and possibly an Afghan political settlement. However, the U.S.-Taliban talks excluded the Afghan government, making it appear weak and abandoned by its primary ally, while bolstering the legitimacy of the Taliban.
In October 2018, the United States Began Direct Talks with the Taliban, Excluding the Afghan Government
*Trumps Taliban negotiations weakened and caused the total collapse of the Afghan Government
However, the U.S. direct negotiations with the Taliban excluded the Afghan government, weakening the negotiating position of the Ghani government and strengthening the Taliban. Mohib said, “A lot changed toward the end of 2018 when the United States appointed a peace envoy and began negotiating their own agreement with the Taliban. It completely changed the dynamics.” Mohib’s assessment was echoed by a former Afghan member of parliament who blamed the U.S. negotiations with the Taliban for bringing about the collapse of the Afghan republic’s governing institutions. In December 2018, Reuters reported that a member of the Taliban’s leadership council had rejected an Afghan government proposal for talks in Saudi Arabia in January 2019. The unnamed Taliban official said they would meet with U.S. officials, but not representatives of the Afghan government. As Hugo Llorens, former U.S. special chargé d’affaires for Afghanistan, summarized, “Just talking to the Taliban alone and excluding our allies proved the Taliban’s point: The Afghan government were our puppets, you didn’t need to talk to them. You only need to talk to the Americans.”
The U.S.-Taliban Agreement Created the Perception of a Weak Afghan Government Abandoned by Its Main Ally
The exclusion of the Afghan government from direct talks between the United States and Taliban undercut the government’s credibility. As we reported in our May 2022 interim evaluation report on the causes of the ANDSF’s collapse, the Afghan government bore the greatest costs of the U.S.-Taliban agreement, which served to legitimate the Taliban. Lt. Gen. David Barno, former senior American commander of U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan, told SIGAR that some observers characterized the U.S.-Taliban deal as a “surrender agreement.” In his view, the agreement had only one objective: facilitating a U.S. withdrawal. “The public started to see the Taliban as a kind of ‘government-in-waiting’ and the Republic as abandoned by its main ally,” said Mohib, who added that this perception made it seem that the “U.S. was ushering in a Taliban regime,” and took away “a fighting chance for the Republic’s survival.” At the same time, according to Mohib, Taliban propaganda campaigns sought to portray the Taliban as a new and improved version of its former self, and the Afghan government as “irreparably corrupt and weak.” Afghan leaders observed the United States making a deal with the Taliban, he stated, and rushed to secure their own arrangements.
The sense that the United States had sold out the Afghan government caused some Afghan leaders to also abandon their support for the ANDSF. Some even acted as mediators between Taliban and ANDSF commanders seeking an agreement to avoid more fighting. Former Afghan corps commander General Sami Sadat told us that the agreement’s psychological impact was so great that the average Afghan soldier switched to survival mode and became susceptible to accepting other offers and deals. As Curtis told SIGAR, “The Doha agreement … did not demand enough of the Taliban, undermined the confidence of the Afghan government,” and “undermined the morale of the Afghan security forces.”
*Trump signed the deal with the Taliban
In hindsight, several U.S. officials now agree that this exclusion was a mistake: the Taliban, though militarily defeated and removed from power, maintained
politically significant popular support in some regions of the country. Former deputy national security advisor for Iraq and Afghanistan Douglas Lute told SIGAR that this exclusion “set the fuse … that essentially slowly burned towards the fall of Kabul in August 2021.
Former Afghan President Speaks Out Against Trump
Trump Conspired With the Taliban (He Lobbied for the Release Their Leaders & Helped Build Their Army) Trump ordered the release of 5,400 (in total) Taliban Fighters
FACT CHECK: Did the Trump Admin Agree to Free 5,000 Taliban Prisoners?
FACT CHECK TRUE: The Trump administration worked to free 5,000 Taliban prisoners
Trump Strikes a Deal
Feb. 29, 2020 — U.S. and Taliban sign an agreement that sets the terms for a U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan by May 1, 2021, but do not release two classified annexes that set the conditions for U.S. withdrawal. At the time of the agreement, the U.S. had about 13,000 troops in Afghanistan, according to a Department of Defense inspector general report.
The withdrawal of U.S. troops is contingent on the “Taliban’s action against al-Qaeda and other terrorists who could threaten us,” Trump says in a speech at the Conservative Political Active Conference. (U.S. withdrawals, however, occurred despite the fact that the Defense Department inspector general’s office repeatedly reported that the Taliban worked with al-Qaeda.)
The pact includes the release of 5,000 Taliban fighters who have been held prisoners by the Afghanistan government, which is not a party to the agreement.
March 1, 2020 — 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.”
FACT SHEET: Donald Trump Made the Afghanistan Withdrawal Deal, Released 5,000 Taliban Prisoners
The Trump Administration Agreed to Withdraw All Forces and Release 5,000 Taliban Prisoners In February 2020.
“The deal laid out an explicit timetable for the United States and NATO to pull out their forces: In the first 100 days or so, they would reduce troops from 14,000 to 8,600 and leave five military bases. Over the next nine months, they would vacate all the rest. ‘The United States, its allies, and the Coalition will complete withdrawal of all remaining forces from Afghanistan within the remaining nine and a half (9.5) months,’ the deal reads. ‘The United States, its allies, and the Coalition will withdraw all their forces from remaining bases.’ The United States would release 5,000 Taliban prisoners; the Taliban would release 1,000 of its prisoners. The Taliban’s end of the deal asked a lot from the group — too much to be realistic, critics said. In addition to making sure nowhere in the country harbored a terrorist cell, the Taliban agreed to be responsible for any individual who might want to attack the United States from Afghanistan, including new immigrants to the country.” [Washington Post, 8/20/21]
Afghan President: Trump Prison Release Poses a ‘Danger’ To the World.
“Hundreds of Taliban inmates that are set to be released as a precondition to peace talks with Kabul pose a danger ‘to the world’, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said on Thursday. Ghani’s government is due to meet with the Taliban in Doha in the coming days for the two sides’ direct talks aimed at ending nearly 19 years of war. They are set to meet once Kabul has released 400 Taliban prisoners in a move that has drawn widespread condemnation after it emerged many of the inmates were involved in attacks that killed scores of Afghans and foreigners. ‘Until this issue, there was a consensus on the desirability of peace but not on the cost of it,’ Ghani said in a video conference organized by a US think tank. ‘We have now paid the major installment on cost and that means peace will have consequences,’ he added, noting that the release of ‘hardened criminals’ and drug dealers was ‘likely to pose a danger both to us and to (America) and to the world’. The freeing of the 400 prisoners comes after Kabul already released about 5,000 lower-risk Taliban inmates.” [DAWN, 8/14/20]
A U.S. Peace Envoy Denounced Trump’s Prisoner Deal with the Taliban.
“The US envoy for peace in Afghanistan has told the BBC he was ‘not happy about’ a controversial deal to release 5,000 Taliban prisoners in order to secure historic peace talks. The release of 5,000 prisoners was a condition, agreed between the US and the Taliban after their peace talks last year, to begin these negotiations. […] The Afghan government was not involved in making the agreement, and had concerns about releasing thousands of militants. Last month, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani warned that the prisoners’ release was a ‘danger’ to the world, AFP news agency reported at the time. ‘Until this issue, there was a consensus on the desirability of peace but not on the cost of it,’ Mr Ghani said. But Mr Khalilzad denied that agreeing to release so many prisoners – some of whom are considered highly dangerous – was ‘a mistake.’” [BBC, 9/14/20]
TRUMP SAID HE THOUGHT HIS DEAL WITH THE TALIBAN WOULD “WORK OUT VERY WELL.”
Yes, the Trump administration in 2020 agreed to the release of 5,000 Taliban prisoners
In Reversal, Afghan Leader Agrees To Release Taliban Prisoners - MARCH 11, 2020
Two days after being sworn in for a second five-year term at a ceremony attended by senior U.S. officials, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has reversed his initial refusal to release Taliban prisoners prior to peace talks with the insurgents.
"President Ghani issued a decree tonight to release up to 5,000 Taliban prisoners starting Saturday from a list provided by the Taliban," U.S. special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad wrote early Wednesday on Twitter. "The Taliban had already agreed to release up to 1,000 prisoners from the Afghan government side."
A peace plan signed in Doha on Feb. 29 by the U.S. and the Taliban — but not by the Afghan government — calls for up to 5,000 Taliban prisoners to be set free by the first day of intra-Afghan negotiations, which did not start on the appointed date on March 10 as specified in the peace accord.
In a decree touted as a good faith gesture to get talks started, Ghani has committed to releasing the first 1,500 Taliban prisoners in batches of 100 a day beginning March 14. The remaining 3,500 war prisoners would be freed at a rate of 500 every two weeks once direct talks begin with the Taliban, but only if there has been a major reduction in violent attacks.
Sun 9 Aug 2020: Trump Ordered Another 400 Taliban Fighters Released
Afghanistan agrees to free 400 'hardcore' Taliban prisoners
Under election-year pressure from the US president, Donald Trump, for a deal allowing him to bring American troops home, the war-torn country’s grand assembly, or Loya Jirga, on Sunday approved the release, a controversial condition raised by the Taliban militants for joining peace talks.
Sept. 3, 2020 — Afghanistan releases the final 400 Taliban prisoners, as required under the U.S.-Taliban agreement, clearing the way for intra-Afghan peace talks to begin.
Taliban Fighters Freed By Trump Return to Battlefield to overthrow the U.S.-backed Afghan government
Defying Peace Deal, Freed Taliban Return to Battlefield. A new confidential report concludes that a majority of fighters are resuming their “jihad” to overthrow the U.S.-backed Afghan government.
WSJ: Taliban Commander Who Led Attack on Afghan City Was Released From Prison Last Year, Officials Say. U.S. pressed Kabul government to free thousands of Taliban fighters in bid to encourage peace talks and many have returned to the battlefield
• The U.S. envoy chosen by President Donald Trump, Zalmay Khalilzad, has publicly confirmed that he requested and secured the release of senior Taliban official Abdul Ghani Baradar from prison in Pakistan ahead of negotiations to end the war in Afghanistan.
• Trump’s secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, was among the U.S. officials who met with Baradar during negotiating sessions.
• It’s too early to call Baradar the "president" of Afghanistan, since no such leadership decision has been publicly announced.
Trump Denies Everything
All of Trump's Prisoner Releases Were Public and Widely Reported for over a year, but on Sep 13, 2021, Trump Suddenly Started Denying his Releasing of all the Taliban Prisoners
Trump lashed out against the former Afghan government and ex-president Ashraf Ghani for the prisoner releases in a statement issued.
Trump Gutted and Sabotaged The American Military in Afghanistan
13,000 down to 8,600, and then down to 2,500, 5 days before Joe Biden took office.
May 19, 2020 — In releasing its quarterly report on Afghanistan, the DOD inspector general’s office says the U.S. cut troop levels in Afghanistan by more than 4,000, even though “the Taliban escalated violence further after signing the agreement.”
“U.S. officials stated the Taliban must reduce violence as a necessary condition for continued U.S. reduction in forces and that remaining high levels of violence could jeopardize the U.S.-Taliban agreement,” according to the report, which covered activity from Jan. 1, 2020, to March 31, 2020. “Even still, the United States began to reduce its forces in Afghanistan from roughly 13,000 to 8,600.”
Trump ordered rapid withdrawal from Afghanistan after election loss
Nov. 17, 2020 — Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller formally announces that the U.S. will reduce U.S. forces in Afghanistan to 2,500 by Jan. 15, 2021.
5 Days Before Joe Biden Takes Office!
“It is odd. It is nonstandard,” General Milley said in his recorded testimony. “It is potentially dangerous. I personally thought it was militarily not feasible nor wise.”
Kellogg, a retired Army lieutenant general, said after seeing the order he told senior staff the idea was “a tremendous disservice to the nation” and implementing it would be “catastrophic.”
At the time, around 8,000 troops were still stationed in Afghanistan, helping train government security forces and conduct counter-terrorism operations.
Journalists Bob Woodward and Robert Costa referenced the surprise memo in their book “Peril” on the Trump presidency, released last month. They wrote that the idea did not go through any of the traditional chain of command protocols, and ultimately senior staff believed it did not have legal standing requiring them to follow through with the plan.
Trump had no Exit Plan but announced that all U.S. troops will be out of Afghanistan by the end of 2020
Trump has ‘no plan’ to exit Afghanistan by Christmas, key lawmaker says
WASHINGTON ― Weeks after the U.S. military was blindsided by President Donald Trump’s assertion that all U.S. troops will be out of Afghanistan by the end of the year, a top lawmaker on defense says there was no actual plan to withdraw troops by Christmas.
*Trump never told the Military
House Armed Services Committee Chairman Adam Smith on Thursday echoed U.S. officials who have reportedly said there were not aware of the plan and received no actual order to accelerate the gradual pullout they’ve been executing. The military will continue a gradual pullout, Smith said.
Trump’s Pledge to Exit Afghanistan Was a Ruse, His Final SecDef Says
President Donald Trump’s top national security officials never intended to pull all U.S. troops out of Afghanistan, according to new statements by Chris Miller, Trump’s last acting defense secretary.
Miller said the president’s public promise to finish withdrawing U.S. forces by May 1, as negotiated with the Taliban, was actually a “play” that masked the Trump administration’s true intentions: to convince Afghan President Ashraf Ghani to quit or accept a bitter power-sharing agreement with the Taliban, and to keep some U.S. troops in Afghanistan for counterrorism missions.
November 27, 2020 Trump Directly Sabotaged the Withdrawal by closing all of America's Military Bases, only leaving 2,500 troops and only leaving one single airport for Joe Biden to evacuate over 120,000 people
Even the bases that were once the largest in the country, like Kandahar Air Field and Jalalabad Air Base, now only house a handful of U.S. troops, according to Afghan officials… The only U.S. troops left in Nangahar, a province that has been a focus of U.S. counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan, occupy a small corner of Jalalabad airport, according to an Afghan defense official stationed there. The official said he still speaks to U.S. advisers on a daily basis, but that his counterparts are now at Bagram air base more than 100 miles away and they communicate via WhatsApp or FaceTime.
At a minimum, this means a serious drop in both the capability and the U.S. awareness of what is happening in the field, ability to protect civilian aid workers and State Department employees, and a loss of critical human relationships between U.S. and Afghan forces. It makes any ability to react to the failure of the peace process far more difficult, and it makes any official reassurances about the ability to react to violations of any actual peace by using airpower or returning troops even more dubious.
Joe Biden
Trump Threatened American National Security, Sabotaging the peaceful transition of power and incoming Biden transition team
President Donald Trump hasn’t called President-elect Joe Biden. The Trump campaign hasn’t reached out to the Biden campaign. The White House and federal agencies haven’t briefed the Biden transition team. First lady Melania Trump hasn’t invited Jill Biden to the White House for tea.
There are no briefings being given about coronavirus, troop drawdowns in Afghanistan and Iraq, or aggression by China and Iran. No background checks being done for job applicants. No security clearances being conducted for potential Biden staffers.
It’s a situation without parallel since at least 1963, when a federal law implemented modern presidential transition procedures, mandating the sharing of office space and the spending of money for the process.
The posture threatens to leave Biden’s team unprepared in January when it takes over a millions-strong federal workforce, according to officials who worked for Republican and Democratic presidents and lawmakers of both parties. And, they added, it sends a message to the world that the United States, generally a model across the globe, is vulnerable and unable to administer a seamless transition of power.
November 18, 2020 Trump digs in at White House, denying Biden transition help on pandemic, national security. An increasing chorus has called for him to allow intelligence briefings.
More than two weeks since the election, President Donald Trump remains dug in at the White House, refusing to concede and to help his successor deal with critical and urgent issues: the pandemic and national security.
Since becoming a lame-duck president, Trump has not only blocked cooperation with the incoming Biden administration, he has remained largely silent as the COVID-19 pandemic dramatically worsens nationwide; an average of 1,000 Americans have been reported dead each day since the election and the total now has topped the 250,000 milestone.
And when his acting secretary of defense announced Tuesday that the United States would withdraw thousands of troops from Afghanistan and Iraq, Trump was nowhere to be seen -- or heard, even on his usually active Twitter feed. He has not uttered or written one word publicly about five American soldiers who died in Egypt last week.
December 28, 2020 Biden accuses Trump appointees of obstructing transition on national security issues
President-elect Joe Biden on Monday accused President Trump and his political appointees of obstructing the transition of power to his incoming administration, particularly in the national security sphere, an escalation in tone after reports of isolated difficulties in the transition process last week.
Biden specifically called out the Office of Management and Budget and the Defense Department as agencies where his transition team had encountered “roadblocks” from political leadership.
“Right now, we just aren’t getting all the information that we need from the outgoing administration in key national security areas. It’s nothing short, in my view, of irresponsibility,” Biden said of the resistance his team was facing. He warned that such delays could allow enemies of the United States to take advantage of vulnerabilities, citing a recent massive cybersecurity breach that compromised several U.S. agencies.
January 20, 2021 ‘Really quite shocking’: Inside the ugly transition at the Pentagon. The effort to obstruct the Biden team is unprecedented in modern presidential transitions and will hobble the new administration on key national security matters
The Pentagon blocked members of President Joe Biden’s incoming administration from gaining access to critical information about current operations, including the troop drawdown in Afghanistan, upcoming special operations missions in Africa and the Covid-19 vaccine distribution program, according to new details provided by transition and defense officials.
The effort to obstruct the Biden team, led by senior White House appointees at the Pentagon, is unprecedented in modern presidential transitions and will hobble the new administration on key national security matters as it takes over positions in the Defense Department on Wednesday, the officials said.
Joe Biden comments:
“When I came to office, I inherited a deal cut by my predecessor—which he invited the Taliban to discuss at Camp David on the eve of 9/11 of 2019—that left the Taliban in the strongest position militarily since 2001 and imposed a May 1, 2021 deadline on US forces. Shortly before he left office, he also drew US forces down to a bare minimum of 2,500,” Biden stated.
Biden said Trump’s policies gave him no choice but to either send more troops “to fight once again in another country’s civil conflict” or get the troops and allies out of the country.
The second- and third-largest cities in Afghanistan were taken over by the Taliban on Friday, and Mazar-i-Sharif, the Afghan government’s northern stronghold, was taken over on Saturday.
Biden had to send 5,000 extra troops to help get U.S. personnel out of the country, warning the Taliban of strong military action should they harm or endanger U.S. citizens.
The Pentagon activated a little-used program to compel airlines to provide aircraft to help fly Afghanistan evacuees.
The order is for 18 aircraft: three each from American Airlines, Atlas Air, Delta Air Lines, and Omni Air; two from Hawaiian Airlines; and four from United Airlines.
The commercial planes would not fly into Kabul but instead would be used to transport those who have already been flown out of the country to military bases.
Last night in Kabul, the United States ended 20 years of war in Afghanistan — the longest war in American history.
We completed one of the biggest airlifts in history, with more than 120,000 people evacuated to safety. That number is more than double what most experts thought were possible. No nation — no nation has ever done anything like it in all of history. Only the United States had the capacity and the will and the ability to do it, and we did it today.
H.R. McMaster
A retired United States Army lieutenant general who served as the 25th United States National Security Advisor from 2017 to 2018.
Trump Takes Credit for Withdrawal and Also Uses it as a Political Weapon
The former president has also called on Joe Biden to resign describing the current situation as a “disgrace” and calling it “one of the greatest defeats in American history”.
However, Mr Trump has been criticized himself for his administration’s role in withdrawing the troops and speaking at a rally on 26 June, even stated that
he “started the process” and claimed Biden “couldn’t stop it” if he “wanted to”.
Trump's Abdul Tales
Who Is ‘Abdul’? Trump’s Bizarre Debate Story About Taliban Negotiations Explained
Former President Donald Trump had debate viewers scratching their heads with a bizarre statement about negotiating with a top Taliban official he identified as 'Abdul' and a threat to take out his home.
Trump didn't give his full name, but called him the 'head' of the Taliban, which only caused more questions because the Taliban leader does not have that name.
It began after ABC's David Muir quizzed Vice President Kamala Harris on the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. That prompted her to argue that the U.S. pullout came under the terms of an agreement negotiated by the Trump Administration
'He bypassed the Afghan government. He negotiated directly with a terrorist organization called the Taliban,' said Harris, in reference to the talks Trump Secretary of State Mike Pompeo held in Doha.
He was most likely referring to Taliban policy leader Abdul Ghani Baradar, who negotiated with Pompeo. But he is not actually the head of the organization, although he is in the top tier. He serves currently as first deputy prime minister.
'I got involved. And Abdul is the head of the Taliban. He is still the head of the Taliban,' Trump said during the debate, which drew nearly 60 million viewers.
Then Trump referenced delivering a threat, that he suggests ensured the peace. 'And I told Abdul, "Don't do it anymore. You do it anymore, you're going to have problems." And he said, "Why do you send me a picture of my house?" I said, "You're going to have to figure that out, Abdul." And for 18 months we had nobody killed.'
Trump has told the story in the past, including to Sean Hannity on Fox News in 2022, when he said he told the Afghan, ‘Don’t do it.'
'It was strong. And he understood it,' Trump added.
The Taliban is headed by Hibatullah Akhundzada, who has held the post since 2016.
Trump then said he would have gotten out of Afghanistan 'faster' than President Joe Biden's administration, although there were still 2,500 U.S. troops in place when Biden took over.
Republicans release a fake Report to blame the 13 dead troops on Joe Biden and rewrite history of the Afghanistan withdrawal, removing Trump's role, to help his campaign
Harris, Trump trade barbs over Afghanistan and Ukraine during debate
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