I’ve been watching cable news for over an hour now and I haven’t seen any mention of the supposed peace agreement with the Taliban. I’m not sure what this means. We’ve been fighting the Taliban for almost nineteen years. You’d think that the prospect of this ending would warrant at least one second of coverage. But all anyone wants to talk about is the coronavirus, the stock market, the South Carolina primary, and a few moronic items of the day. Perhaps no one actually believes that anything will come of the agreement, but it did actually get announced:
After a week-long deal to reduce violence across Afghanistan, the U.S. and the Taliban are set to sign a historic agreement Saturday that would see U.S. troops start to withdraw, according to a statement issued Friday afternoon by President Donald Trump.
“Soon, at my direction, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo will witness the signing of an agreement with representatives of the Taliban, while Secretary of Defense Mark Esper will issue a joint declaration with the government of Afghanistan. If the Taliban and the government of Afghanistan live up to these commitments, we will have a powerful path forward to end the war in Afghanistan and bring our troops home,” Trump said.
I could critique this agreement, but I want to be clear that if there were any prospect of a happy outcome for America in Afghanistan, this conflict would have ended years ago. Staying there just puts off the day that our failure becomes impossible to deny. So, in the interest of not prolonging the inevitable, I’m okay with a deal that is objectively a joke with no realistic chance of success.
I’m not surprised to see Liz Cheney screaming that the Taliban cannot be trusted and this is a bad deal. That’s a “No shit, Sherlock!” observation on her part. But she and her bloodless father have no better ideas so she should pipe down.
No one is paying attention anyway.
It would be deliciously ironic if Trump’s one true policy achievement gets erased from the discourse by the collapse in the all mighty stock market that he has been pumping for three years.
The fall in the stock market may be, just maybe, the universe telling the Orange Cheeto this one you can’t just wave off. Lies won’t help like they did for impeachment. The pandemic has already affected world wide supply chains. Valuations are down since somebody seems to know or suspect this can’t be fixed by arm waving. Let’s all hope those naysayers are wrong. But if this develops as some predict we don’t have enough hospitals, respirators or personnel to handle it. And who among us can afford to take a month off if they close the schools for a month? So put your faith in Mike Pence and Larry Kudlow, since it is all a hoax.
So in the meantime, yeah, get the hell out of Afghanistan. Besides we may have to pull Turkeys bacon out of the fire with Russia, That should be easy since Russia is our friend they say.
That would be somewhat tasty.