LF: Highly-Placed Leakers, Swamp Creatures Blast Trump-Taliban Deal

Title: Highly-Placed Leakers, Swamp Creatures Blast Trump-Taliban Deal
Source: The American Conservative
URL Source: https://www.theamericanconservative ... ures-blast-trump-taliban-deal/
Published: Sep 6, 2019
Author: Barbara Boland
Post Date: 2019-09-10 08:16:50 by Deckard
Keywords: None
Views: 1111
Comments: 4

Beltway interests of every stripe are rushing to their battle stations to make sure any agreement goes down in flames.

National Security Advisor John R. Bolton (L), acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney (C)
and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in the Oval Office on July 26, 2019.

The Trump administration may be nearing a deal with the Taliban that would enable the U.S. to withdraw 5,400 troops from Afghanistan. Immediately, the keyboard brigades from Washington’s chattering class snapped into action blasting Trump’s peace overtures, assisted by leaks from the highest levels of the Trump administration.

The consensus across Washington is that Trump’s ability to end the war in Afghanistan has been weakened because the Taliban knows Trump wants to get out.

According to Politico, “President Donald Trump’s efforts to end the U.S. war in Afghanistan keep hitting a major roadblock: his own proclamations that he wants to get out.” The Washington Post had the exact same take: “The administration has been negotiating with the Taliban for an orderly withdrawal of most U.S. troops. The problem for U.S. negotiators, however, is that Trump won’t shut up about what he wants.”

Trump’s desire to get out of Afghanistan was a campaign promise—not exactly a state secret. America’s longest war has dragged on for nearly two decades, and nearly 59 percent of American adults say it’s not worth fighting. It’s absurd to assume that the Taliban is not aware of American public sentiment, or that two presidents have run on the platform of getting the U.S. out of the Middle East.

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Never mind—the same voices that kept us in a war posture for nearly 18 years are still employing the same, tired battle tactics.

“Our nation is understandably weary of war, but that’s exactly when leaders should make the case for continued commitment… now is not the time to blink,” writes David French at the National Review. Fox News’ Brit Hume put it even more bluntly: “This is called losing. We completely—ultimately abandoned that situation over there…”

Joining in on the usual pro-war chorus on the Right, the Daily Beast ran a piece the day after President Trump met with Defense Secretary Mark Esper to discuss the possible deal titled, “The Taliban Are Laughing at Trump’s Afghan Peace Talks Bluff,” criticizing Trump’s ability to draw down the U.S. troop presence.

It’s pretty ironic to hear the wailing and lamentations coming from the establishment hive, but not necessarily surprising. When President Barack Obama withdrew U.S. troops from Iraq, the usual suspects presented this as a president fulfilling his campaign promises. When Trump attempts to do the same in Afghanistan, he’s excoriated for “dangerous” and “precipitous” withdrawal, “misuse” of the National Security Council, and single-minded focus “on getting out of Afghanistan, no matter the consequences.”

Pundits and politicos’ efforts to frustrate the president’s designs are greatly aided by highly placed leakers. A piece in Time titled “Exclusive: Secretary of State Pompeo Declines to Sign Risky Afghan Peace Deal” quotes people familiar with these secret negotiations. They lay out for the magazine, point by point, exactly why Pompeo won’t sign the agreement.

These sources told the magazine that “the deal doesn’t ensure several crucial things, those familiar with the discussions tell Time. It doesn’t guarantee the continued presence of U.S. counterterrorism forces to battle al Qaeda, the survival of the pro-U.S. government in Kabul, or even an end to the fighting in Afghanistan.”

Who would have been in the room during a confidential discussion such as this? And who would have authorized the leaking of such confidential information to the press, within hours of President Trump meeting with the Secretary of Defense?

This story is made all the more interesting because there have been several stories, again sourced by unnamed, again highly placed officials, that Bolton was cut out of National Security Council meetings on the future of Afghanistan because there was concern he would derail the peace talks. A senior White House official told the Washington Post that Bolton’s “team have a reputation for losing and leaking.” Bolton only got a seat after one of his aides told chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, and the meeting opened with Bolton and Trump disagreeing with each other on policy.

With all these leaks, it’s small wonder that the special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad re portedly refused to allow Bolton to leave the room with a copy of the nascent deal. Even that alleged action was leaked to the press.

You know things are dire when a CNN op-ed actually warns that Trump’s dismissal of Bolton will have dire consequences for national security because “shutting out Bolton because he has a different viewpoint could lead other officials to keep their complete analyses and opinions from the President for fear of being similarly sidelined… Externally, Bolton’s banishment signals to global counterparts that he may not be worth engaging with. This could lead US counterparts to go directly to Trump, rather than work through established channels that have built in vetting and discussion to determine viability….”

After so many highly placed sources leaking confidential information, here’s a few questions the media should be asking: Who stands to gain from all these leaks that Trump’s foreign policy is suffering because Bolton is out in the cold? Or the three-point leak on the specifics of Pompeo’s objections to the deal? Whose policy agenda is being served?

It’s shocking that the media has painted the problem as Trump’s advisors being ignored, instead of asking how negotiations could possibly flourish in an environment where everything that goes against one advisor’s (Bolton) opinion, is immediately leaked to the press.

Were the media to ask these questions, however, it might jeopardize the positions of their unnamed sources, as well as the agenda of a highly mobilized war establishment.

Barbara Boland is The American Conservative’s foreign policy and national security reporter. Follow her on Twitter @BBatDC.

You don't invite Pol Pot to Camp David. You don't invite Kim Jong Il to Camp David. So you shouldn't host the Taliban at Camp David.

I know Camp David has been considerably downgraded in recent decades but even so...

The Taliban are feudal tribal overlords engaged in narco-terrorism. They really have no singular leader with which Trump can negotiate fruitfully.

I was willing to tolerate Trump meeting with the Norks, even setting foot on the Nork side of the DMZ. But I don't support this move with the Taliban. It crosses too many red lines.

Unless Trump is certain he can clinch a deal, he should meet with no more than one Taliban leader and it should occur overseas unless Trump is signing a binding treaty to be ratified by the Senate.

But the Constitution does say Trump gets to conduct foreign policy virtually unilaterally. So that's my opinion and it's worth less than the work my fingers performed to type this post.

There is so much more potential for negative outcomes and perceptions from this than anything Trump might hope to gain. With the Taliban and Af-Pak in general, there is no there there. Nothing to gain in any way. Other than killing off al-Qaeda and Osama (assuming they actually did kill him), we should have got in and got out in a year, not embarked on Laura Bush's grand crusade for women's rights in Af-Pak. Let them marinate in the 7th century if that is their choice.

Bush Junior didn't go there much. Obama only went once or twice and then did film screenings and meetings at the WH, played basketball with his fake homies and "body man", and did fundraisers. So Camp David was almost abandoned for the Obama era. I'm not sure how much Trump has been there, probably just once and then declared "Whadda dump!" and hasn't gone back since.

So, yeah, Camp David was big when Carter concluded the Camp David Accords where we agreed to big aid to Israel and a smaller slice to pay off the Egyptians to keep peace with Israel and, as the biggest and most powerful and nearby Arab nation, to undermine the prospects for any other Arab alliance to attack Israel.

Camp David is an afterthought now, rarely mentioned and probably unknown to people under 40. I decided to look it up and found this article. Notice Melania and Barron, looking like they were being punished as they got dragged off to Camp David by Trump who was trying to put on a brave face at the shame of taking his family to such a low-class establishment.

TownAndCountry: The Controversy Behind Trump's Reluctance to Visit Camp David, the Historic Presidential Retreat, 9/7/17

In yet another break with the traditions of his immediate predecessors, Trump waited five months before heading to the rustic presidential retreat in Maryland for a quick getaway. And as the summer weekends wore on, the verdant, storied site was—other than a trip for a meeting in late August—generally devoid of first family members, as the Trumps opted for time at their own luxe properties.

To close observers of the president, whose tastes were forged in the ritzy world of Manhattan real estate, that’s hardly a surprise. “It’s a military base, not a five-star hotel,” says Ari Fleischer, who, as White House press secretary to President George W. Bush, spent significant time at Camp David. (The camp’s official name is Naval Support Facility Thurmont.)

“It’s a phenomenal, beautiful piece of greenery. It’s spacious, it’s open, it’s rural, but there are no marble cabinets or granite countertops. By government standards, it’s luxurious; by five-star-hotel standards, that’s not what it is. So I suppose President Trump’s tastes run more toward, obviously, Trump hotels, Trump properties, their more modern luxuries.”

Trump has reportedly snarked that the White House is a “dump” (a report he denies, calling it “fake news”). And prior to his June trip he was even more open about his skepticism of Camp David. “It’s nice. You’d like it,” he told a reporter before he was sworn in. “You know how long you’d like it? For about 30 minutes.”

The verdict after his initial excursion was that “Camp David is a very special place,” and that it was “an honor to have spent the weekend there.” But Trump spent many of his subsequent summer weekends—and what he termed his August “working vacation”—at his Bedminster golf club instead.

...

Located in Maryland’s Catoctin Mountain Park, the camp, which costs a reported $8 million annually to maintain, is a sprawling compound dotted with cabins for the first family and visitors. There is a chapel and a pool, a bowling alley and a skeet-shooting range, and the staff stationed at Camp David is responsible for ensuring that all those facilities are prepared for even unexpected presidential appearances.

When presidents go long stretches without making the journey to Camp David, Giorgione says, that can take a toll on morale. “There was a five-month stretch between visits,” he recalls of one period during his tenure on site. “That’s a lot of time for the crew to be ready but not execute their mission.”

But, he stresses, “I had morale issues when no one visited and morale issues when they visited all the time. It doesn’t depend on the president, it depends on the rhythm… I’m not telling the president how to use his Camp David, but…one to two times a month is a nice rhythm for everyone.”

The White House didn’t respond to questions about why the Trumps haven’t visited more often yet, whether they have plans to return, or if the staff would be permitted to use the retreat when the Trumps are not in attendance, as other presidents have allowed.

...

There is a driving range and a single golf hole at Camp David, should Trump decide to spend more time there. But for now his preference is clearly for the lush links at Trump National in Bedminster, where membership costs hundreds of thousands of dollars and nearby estates go for many millions.

...

C'mon, a driving range with one hole of golf? What is this, some sad-ass one-lane bowling alley built in the WH basement so Nixon could pretend he was a sports guy?

BTW, notice that Trump has conspicuously avoided any dog or cat in the White House, another break from tradition. No doubt he has been urged to pander to the doglovers and catlovers. He'd probably get a 1% approval rating boost permanently if he would just tolerate a dog and a cat. Hell, even 0bama did it and he was another animal-shy guy. But Trump's still a germophobe. I can only imagine how clean Melania has to make her lady bits to get a little sex from him. The only time I've seen Trump with an animal was that American bald eagle in his office, brought in for a quick photo op. Which wasn't exactly a happy time for Donald (hondo should like this one). Very revealing about Trump and animals.

Trump is Trump. And men over seventy almost never change personal habits and tastes (barring major illness).

Trump doesn't need a retreat. He loves attention, thrives on it. It's the country that needs a retreat to get away from him at times. At least the WH could arrange some mysterious Twitter outages to let us all catch our breaths. LOL

Trump did muster a bit of courage against that pissed-off eagle later in the photo-op. Just so you know.

Trump probably spent the next 2-3 days in the bathroom, scrubbing and disinfecting himself.