President Donald Trump declared on Thanksgiving Day that U.S. peace negotiations with the Taliban have resumed after the talks collapsed in September.
Trump made the sudden announcement during a secret trip to Afghanistan, his first visit to the war-torn country, to meet with American troops and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani.
“The Taliban wants to make a deal, and we’re meeting with them,” Trump said, according to the New York Times. “We’re going to stay until such time as we have a deal, or we have total victory, and they want to make a deal very badly.”
The President gave few other details of the negotiations apparently underway.
White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham had told the Times Trump’s unannounced trip was “nothing about the peace process,” merely “Thanksgiving and supporting the troops.”
Several months ago, Trump shocked lawmakers on both sides of the aisle when he announced that he had secretly extended, then cancelled, an invitation to Taliban leaders to hammer out peace negotiations at Camp David.
Republicans, including House Republican leader Liz Cheney (R-WY), slammed Trump’s planned meeting.
“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,” Cheney tweeted. “No member of the Taliban should set foot there. Ever.”
Actually Steve Doocy decided to resume talks with the Taliban, Trump was just the messenger. The real fireworks start when Brian Kilmeade feels the time is right to nuke N. Korea.
Trump is doing everything he can to distract from his impending impeachment.
It’s not working, either.
The Taliban would do well to look to the Kurds for a lesson on what trump’s word is worth.
Yes, this won’t even be in the news on Monday. Or it will be “We’ll announce something very, very soon.” And the Taliban should be destroyed, not negotiated with. What would be acceptable to Trump… that the kids could go to school one day a week?
It bears repeating what the NYTimes said about Trump’s announcement 6 weeks ago of his fantastic China Trade deal:
(https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/15/business/economy/china-trade-deal.html)