Of course we were right: There was no meeting at Camp David w/ "Major Taliban leaders.

[hlthe2b]

Per WAPO:There was no meeting at Camp David w/ “Major Taliban leaders. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani canceled his trip to the United Staes on Friday. Prob due to Taliban attacks & being left out of Taliban/US negotiations that-surprise- also include Russia.

Link to tweet

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/taliban-attack-third-afghan-provincial-capital-in-a-week/2019/09/06/5b6acc06-d06a-11e9-a620-0a91656d7db6_story.html

Afghan president postpones US trip to discuss Taliban deal

KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghanistan’s president has postponed a planned visit to Washington early next week where he was to discuss the U.S.-Taliban talks on ending America’s longest war, a person familiar with the negotiations said Friday.

The development emerged after the U.S. envoy negotiating with the Taliban, Zalmay Khalilzad, abruptly returned to Qatar for unexpected talks with the insurgents on the deal that he had described as complete just days ago. The agreement “in principle” to begin a U.S. troop withdrawal only needed President Donald Trump’s approval, Khalilzad said Monday.

It was not immediately clear why President Ashraf Ghani’s visit was postponed. The person who spoke to The Associated Press was not authorized to talk to reporters and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Since Khalilzad’s announcement, two horrific Taliban car bombings in the Afghan capital, Kabul — one of which killed a U.S. service member — and objections to the deal from the Afghan government and several former U.S. ambassadors to Afghanistan have put pressure on Khalilzad as many wonder whether a deal will truly bring peace.

The Taliban have explained their surge in deadly attacks — including on the capitals of northern Kunduz and Baghlan provinces last weekend — as necessary to give them a stronger negotiating position in talks with the U.S., a stance that has appalled Afghans and others as scores of civilians are killed.

On Friday, Khalilzad met with Taliban lead negotiator Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar and the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, Gen. Scott Miller, with Qatar’s foreign minister present, Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen said in a tweet late in the evening. Both Thursday’s and Friday’s meetings were “positive,” he said.

The Afghan president has been shut out of the U.S.-Taliban negotiations, and during Khalilzad’s visit to Kabul this week Ghani was shown the agreement but not allowed to keep it. The Taliban have rejected negotiations with the Afghan government, seeing it as a puppet of the U.S., though it has expressed willingness to meet with Afghan officials in their personal capacity.

Ghani’s government this week raised objections to the deal, echoing the former U.S. ambassadors’ concerns that a full U.S. troop withdrawal that moves too quickly and without requiring the Taliban to meet certain conditions, such as reducing violence, could lead to “total civil war” such as the one that engulfed the country in the 1990s after a rapid Soviet pullout and before the Taliban swept into power.

--more--

[hlthe2b]

1. and more: (unsurprisingly) Russia's involvement

Link to tweet

#Russia's state media:
Draft peace agreement between the Taliban and the Trump admin said that U.S. forces will leave five bases in Afghanistan within 135 days of signing the document, the U.S. & the Taliban insist that Russia be present at the possible signing of the agreements.

[dalton99a]

9. +1

[HAB911]

2. AS IF

he's EVER heard the word "unbeknownst" much less how to spell it

[Zoonart]

3. Seriously.

What will it take America?

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

4. Did anybody believe it for a minute? Of course it was bullshit

and of course it would soon be revealed as bullshit.

The sad thing is that now nobody believes a goddamn word that comes out of Fat Nixon's mouth (or twitter). We should be able to believe our own fucking president.

[riversedge]

5. My first clue right off was that Trump would not know how to spell - unbeknownst--so I

wondered who wrote that bull shit--which I thought were indeed swamp crap. Yet, Trump is accountable for tweets that go out in his name.

[bullwinkle428]

6. "Unbeknownst" should have been everyone's first clue!! You know he's never

used that word in his life, let alone been able to spell it correctly in a Tweet!

ETA : I didn't even begin to look through the replies, but I now see that several others had the exact same initial impression!

[EleanorR]

7. Can't have people talking about the military using public funds to prop up trump's resort

He's done this many times. He tweets an outrageous lie to distract from a story highlighting yet another corrupt practice of his administration.

[Takket]

8. soooooooooooooooo if i have this right........

drumpf tweeted on the 7th that he cancelled the trip.........

but the Wapo article, written BEFORE that, on the 6th, said the Afghan leader cancelled the trip. (Meaning drumpf lied, shocking)

The Taliban was not even supposed to come here, but the Afghan leader was, presumably to ask why the US was going to pull out of his country leaving it to be conquered by the Taliban all over again........

am i missing anything?

[hlthe2b]

10. Well, that's the overview, that's for sure...

[malaise]

12. THIS

The Afghan president has been shut out of the U.S.-Taliban negotiations

[Kid Berwyn]

11. Gee. That's a lot different than what Trump said.

Why does Trump give so much respect to Russia?

Are they his boss or what?