I don’t even know what to say about this one. Fresh off the crazy game of chicken with the media over Alabama sharpie-gate, our President went on to tweet about a secret meeting with the TALIBAN.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1170469618177236992….an attack in Kabul that killed one of our great great soldiers, and 11 other people. I immediately cancelled the meeting and called off peace negotiations. What kind of people would kill so many in order to seemingly strengthen their bargaining position? They didn’t, they….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 7, 2019
….only made it worse! If they cannot agree to a ceasefire during these very important peace talks, and would even kill 12 innocent people, then they probably don’t have the power to negotiate a meaningful agreement anyway. How many more decades are they willing to fight?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 7, 2019
Uhm, yeah. Well.. that’s kinda what you should expect out of the Taliban? Right? No? OK.
Anyway, whether he was serious if this was some kind of ninja 56th level chess move, there were plenty of people who responded negatively.
Trump canceled a meeting with Denmark because he was upset at how they rebuffed his idea to sell Greenland to the USA, but actually invited the leaders of the Taliban to meet with him at Camp David just days before 9/11?
— The Wokest Numbersmuncher (@NumbersMuncher) September 8, 2019
Just think about how insane that is.
For the “art of the deal” president, Trump seems to constantly give away something for nothing. The extraordinary gift of a Taliban invite to Camp David was to be in return for what for the US?
— Michael McFaul (@McFaul) September 8, 2019
Trump was going to have the Taliban at Camp David just before 9/11.
— Adam Parkhomenko (@AdamParkhomenko) September 7, 2019
Trump refused to meet with Robert Mueller face to face but he invited the Taliban to spend time with him at Camp David.
— Adam Parkhomenko (@AdamParkhomenko) September 8, 2019
Thought experiment: imagine that it was September 7, 2015, and Obama had just leaked that he was about to have a secret meeting with the Taliban at Camp David. How would “conservatives” and “Republicans” have responded to the news? Or the 2015 version of Donald Trump?
— Ken Gardner (@KenGardner11) September 8, 2019
If Trump was this upset at Obama in 2012, he should talk to the current president who tried to invite the Taliban leaders to meet face to face at Camp David. https://t.co/sAhzipxzhs
— The Wokest Numbersmuncher (@NumbersMuncher) September 8, 2019
Bloomberg got some of the details:
The sudden demise of the talks may doom direct U.S. negotiations with the Taliban that held out the prospect of ending 18 years of combat in Afghanistan, making it America’s longest-running war. The planned meeting revealed by Trump on Saturday had been a closely-held secret.
The president had grown frustrated with the peace negotiations. His national security adviser, John Bolton, thought an agreement in principle that had been reached was inadequate and reminded Trump of the potential pitfalls, according to two people familiar with the matter. So Trump tried to hammer out an accord personally by inviting the Taliban and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani for talks with him.
While the Taliban delegation never made it to the U.S., Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, one of the most senior Taliban leaders, would have been among those at Camp David, according to a person briefed on the plans. That would have produced the extraordinary scene of a U.S. president sitting down with a commander of the militant force American troops have fought for years.
Well, he sure showed them. I would imagine that he’s pulling for a grand show of force right now to punish them for not negotiating in good faith. Or not, who knows.
In fairness, Trump cancelled the meeting with the Taliban the moment he found out they were the Taliban.
— Jonah Goldberg (@JonahDispatch) September 8, 2019
Hmmm. Good point.