Yes, it’s true. For a guy who spent years criticizing other Presidents for us being in Afghanistan (or any other country for that matter) this is quite the turnaround for Trump. Like Vietnam it was a mess of a war, and like Vietnam a final withdrawal of all U.S. Forces was a mess that predictably turned tragic. He had enough people around him who actually knew stuff that told him the very end would be ugly and probably showed him pictures and videos (short ones of course) of the final day in Vietnam. So after making a BIG deal about negotiating a complete withdrawal he punted. TACO. Delayed it knowing he was unlikely to win against Biden, and dumping all the ugly on Biden. Now Trump has decided the Doha agreement HE negotiated with the Taliban needs to be changed.
NOW Trump wants Bagram back. The Taliban government of Afghanistan says no freaking way. This could turn ugly in ways I don’t want to even imagine but we need to be prepared for the messy diplomatic (and possible military?) goings on about to ensue now that this is public. As such we need to look at how we got to where things stand today.
During the war Bush got us into over there Bagram Air Base was the central hub for us and our allies. It was a huge, sprawling complex and just like some spots in Vietnam we made it into a first rate military base. It sits roughly thirty miles north of Kabul, the capitol of that country and became a city unto itself during our time there. Much was made of our having abandoned it when the withdrawal finally happened. More so than the superb facilities we abandoned to Vietnam and their Russian backers fifty years ago. As a jarhead who aspired to be a Naval Aviator (they said I was too old by the time I tried) I’d like to note as an Admiral testified to a snotty Congress Critter in the 1970s we didn’t leave behind a single aircraft carrier!
Well, getting back to the here and now it seems Mr. Art of the Deal now thinks the ‘perfect’ (has he ever admitted to anything he’s been part of as being anything other than ‘perfect?’) deal he made to get us out of Afghanistan wasn’t so perfect after all. I’ll not go into all the shortcomings of Doha but concentrate on Bagram. As this Newsweek article explains Trump looks at where Bagram sits, and where much of China makes its nuclear weapons and has decided he wants the ability to be able to threaten China. Ok, the article doesn’t put it quite that way but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what’s going on in that jumbled, cross-firing bundle of neurons in Trump’s head.
Bagram, located 50 kilometers, around 30 miles, north of Kabul, was the largest U.S. military installation in Afghanistan and served as the main hub for operations against the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Control over the base carries both strategic and symbolic significance.
Trump’s push to regain the site highlights ongoing geopolitical tensions and the continuing influence of U.S. policy decisions on Afghanistan. The base’s location in northern Afghanistan gives it strategic significance, particularly in the context of regional security and proximity to China.
I shudder at the damage to our alliances Trump could do if he starts demanding support for this. Because they and their leaders will immediately jump to the same conclusion I did – Trump wants to be able to MILITARILY threaten China’s nuclear capability. Even if Trump hadn’t already done the damage he’s done to our alliances and position of leadership in the world this would have been a BAD idea because we’d be playing a dangerous game on China’s turf.
The time to establish Bagram as a permanent or long-term U.S. airbase would have been during the Doha negotiations. The Taliban might never have agreed, but with the right incentives might have grudgingly gone along with a ten year or longer agreement. It would have cost us some serious money, but IF we’d had enough people left at State who knew the region, the dynamics with Pakistan, the Paskistan/India struggle AND how China factors into that might have realized it was in their own best interest to allow us to keep Bagram.
Instead, Trump who has trouble concentrating on any ONE issue would never have been able to understand an agreement that involved so many complex (and moving) parts. He wanted to be able to bray about having gotten us out of Afghanistan and would (and did) give up anything to be able to make that claim. I’m willing to bet back then there were a few advisors who tried to warn him about certain things, including the strategic value of maintaining a presence at Bagram. That it would be useful to our own National Security and that of our allies and the free world at times.
Trump, the version of him back then might have even thought they had a good point but he’s Trump. He figured the U.S. could just go back and re-establish itself at Bagram if it ever felt the need to do so. Typical ‘I’ll deal with that later. If I have to’ thinking people too often have. It’s a bad way to think for any of us but an enormous problem to have a President that has such thinking ingrained in his DNA. However that’s what we’ve got. A President with no impulse control who lashes out whenever he doesn’t get instant gratification.
Now he’s decided those folks who tried to tell him not to do what he did in the Doha agreement had a point. Worse, he can’t accept that his attack on Iran’s nuclear production sites wasn’t nearly as successful as he claimed when it happened. Again I say HE thinks he can go threatening to China that he’ll do to them what he did to Iran. China of course knows Trump couldn’t actually do it even if he could launch a strike from Bagram. For one thing we used up most of the massive bombs designed to penetrate deep underground. For another, unlike Iran China has a viable Air Force of its own and ample other defense systems.
Then there’s the problem of Bagram itself. I’m sure the Taliban has been doing its best to maintain the place, or as much as they can. They got one hell of a gift with Trump agreeing to abandon it along with everything else in their country. They have no intention of giving it back:
On Sunday, Fasihuddin Fitrat, chief of staff at the Ministry of Defense told Afghan channel Tolo News, “We assure the people of Afghanistan that no agreement over even an inch of our soil is possible,” directly rebuffing Trump’s claim. Bagram has been under Taliban control since the U.S. and allied troops withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021.
Fitrat and the Taliban emphasized that Afghanistan’s independence and territorial integrity are non-negotiable. Afghanistan issued a statement reaffirming its commitment to a “balanced, economy-oriented foreign policy” grounded in Islamic principles and mutual interests, noting that the Islamic Emirate seeks constructive relations with all states.
The statement also cited the 2020 Doha Agreement, under which the U.S. pledged not to use or threaten force against Afghanistan or interfere in its internal affairs, adding that Washington must remain faithful to these commitments.
Trumpty-Dumpty can huff and puff and threaten to blow their house down all he wants. However the fact is Afghanistan holds all the cards. Could we retake Bagram? Sure. However it would mean going to war again. All Trump is doing with this posturing is making himself look like a dumbass buffoon right on the eve of the world’s leaders heading to the U.N. for an annual General Assembly. Our rapidly diminished standing in the world will be accelerated with everyone all together at once and leaders (and their top people) interact in continual ‘What the hell is wrong with the United States that they allowed THIS idiot to be President again? Oh well, how can WE take advantage of a weakened United States!’
That’s what we’ve sunk to. It will be a long and hard road to rebuild some of the credibility we’ve lost.
***************************************
We thank all of you who have donated. You’re keeping this blog on the internet, believe me. One of the battles we fight is the inconstancy of ad revenue because politics in this country is so polarized and a lot of advertisers just seek to avoid the political. They’d rather advertise on food blogs and be safe, doughnuts before democracy. All we’re trying to do is stay in business because we believe the work is important. Thank you if you can assist. If we didn’t need it, we wouldn’t be asking. Ursula
“The statement also cited the 2020 Doha Agreement, under which the U.S. pledged not to use or threaten force against Afghanistan or interfere in its internal affairs, adding that Washington must remain faithful to these commitments.”
But of course, everyone now knows that written agreements with America aren’t worth the ink they’re written with. Even before Trump they couldn’t be trusted to have any value if republicans were in power.
(See Budapest Agreement about Ukraine, NAFTA and subsequent agreements with Mexico and Canada, etc.)
If The USA’s closest allies can’t trust it’s word, who can?
Yeah, there’s all that but there’s a bigger logistical problem with Drumpf’s little play this time: No reason for allied support.
The ONLY reason we were able to attack the Taliban-controlled (and al-Qaeda-associated) government in 2001 was that Pakistan (which supported the Taliban government) ALLOWED us to fly over its airspace to attack Taliban territory. (I’ll leave aside the fact that the Taliban would’ve turned over bin Laden *IF* a deal could’ve been made that let the Taliban “save face” with the hardline Muslim world.)
We also launched that attack because of 9/11 and the “goodwill” we’d built up with the rest of the world. The UK, France, Germany, India, the Arab World, even China and Russia saw NO real reason to object to the attack (though, most, if not all, would’ve preferred a deal to have been made) so they supported the US position, even if it was made grudgingly.
Now, though? There’s not a country (except maybe Israel–and Russia, if only to claim a “moral superiority” stance) that will turn a blind eye to an UNPROVOKED US attack on Afghanistan. (Though I do have to wonder if they could “negotiate” better trade terms–such as no tariffs–in exchange for their “support?”)
The Taliban was never going to turn over Bin Laden. Here’s why. There’s an ancient saying over there that you can’t buy an Afghan’s loyalty but you can rent it. AND that once a deal is made it can’t be broken. It’s a Code and one no one dares break. The Taliban made a deal with Bin Laden and it became known. Had they broken their word to Bin Laden that they’d shelter him they’d have been destroyed by fellow Afghans. And by the time Bin Laden’s people did his favor they were already on the brink.
What happened was that in the long, bloody Civil War a charsimatic AND talented commander emerged in the north and his forces laid waste to the Taliban. He was in what was thought to be safe territory on home ground working out details for a final purging of the Taliban and their weird ways. While at one time the Taliban had been revered Afghans had learned about their dark side and all that was needed was a leader willing and able to wipe them out.
Bin Laden, who had enjoyed the Taliban’s protection for him and his small group of Arabs (perhaps twenty thousand or so) realized he was about to lose his protection so he offered to assassinate their foe in exchange for a guarantee he and his band would be allowed to stay. An ingenious plan was carried out to have a Bin Laden operative get infilttrated into a group of journalists who got an interview with the leader in question up in his HQ in the north. One suicide bomb later and the guy was dead. Bin Laden delivered on his promise to the Taliban.
That my friend is why the Taliban refused to hand him over. They couldn’t because they’d been largely decimated and regular Afghans no longer feared them. They’d have been toast.
We had a location and the ability to finish the job AND pretty quickly when we went in. There was a team eight hundred meters away ready and willing to take Bin Laden out with a single rifle shot. Baby Bush refused to greenlight it and instead, not knowing the country or it’s people decided the more judicious course was to let locals know where he was and have Afghans do the job.
Bin Laden however knew he was cornered and had cut a deal with some locals to sneak him away and into the tribal areas of the Afghanistan/Pakistan border where virtually everyone was if not friendly towards him HOSTILE to the U.S. and other western countries AND any country (including leaders of their own) who weren’t equally hostile to the west.
Bin Laden simply paid more money for safe passage for himself and a small group of his top advisors the hell out of Tora Bora than WE paid for a group to go to where we’d found him and kill him. Plus the time wasted finding a group to pay off to do that give Bin Laden the head start he needed.
The Taliban didn’t care about the hell that would rain down on their country. It has endured outsiders for thousands of years trying to take it over. Does the name Genghis Khan strike a bell? He’s but one of many who learned the hard way that pile of rocks isn’t worth all it takes to take it over.
Credibility is the thing that makes me the angriest about Trump and his inane, ridiculous, stupid actions that he has subjected the world to. I feel like we have jumped backward 100 years or more. And what if we get another Republican president? Is he going to do the same stupid sh*t? That’s a horrifying thought. And if he continues the work Trump has started? My hubby and I will move, probably to Canada, if they will take us. They might not want any Americans, and I wouldn’t blame them.
It’s already humiliating to admit I’m American. I try not to.
We have fallen so damn far in 8 months. Is there going to be any kind of country *left* when Trump is done?