Mike Pompeo and Mullah Barradar, leader of the Taliban who was released from jail in order to make an agreement with the Americans in 2020. (Patrick Semansky/Associated Press)
This is Part 3 in a series of articles looking at the Afghanistan "collapse" which is not really a collapse. It is a contract.
The former guy and secretary of state Mike Pompeo negotiated a deal with the Taliban in Doha, Qatar in 2020.
This was the deal: The Taliban would not kill Americans in Afghanistan and the Americans would withdraw from Afghanistan.
Unfortunately, very unfortunately, they famously excluded the Afghan Government (and its Security Forces) from their negotiations. Being Afghans, the ones who were excluded made their own deals with the Taliban as a result. The deals made by local officials of the Afghan Government, and local commanders of the army and the police, called for the Taliban not to kill them in exchange for withdrawing from power.
So, they made little deals that mirrored the big deal with the Taliban.
When the time came in early August of 2021, the little deals came due. The Afghan Government officials and the Afghan army and police gave the Taliban the keys to their office buildings, equipment, and bases, and then they left power to the Taliban. This came clear -- if it wasn't clear before -- with some remarkable reporting which is repeated here because it is so good: See Susannah George, Afghanistan's Military Collapse: Illicit Deals and Mass Desertions, Washington Post online Sunday, August 15, 2021.
That's the deal. That's why the sudden "collapse" of Afghanistan is not a collapse at all. It was planned last year. It is not a collapse, it is a contract.
The end of this Part 3 is once again the same as the end of Part 1 and the same as the end of Part 2: The truth is different from what we were actually told. Based on what we already know now, the difference determined the outcome. There is more to come.
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