Why wasn't the release of 5000 taliban prisoners last year a big story

[USAFRetired_Liberal]

I don’t remember hearing it or the media covering it. That’s why I can’t stand the media. This story should have been a big deal. The media is so up in arms on what happened this week, where were they last year when this happened?

[onecaliberal]

1. Licking the bottom of trumps shoes.

[Claustrum]

2. Well COVID was a bigger story last year.

And I truly think Trump and the GOP kept the story quiet.

[USAFRetired_Liberal]

3. And that's my problem with today's media

They can only cover one story at a time. Their attention span (just like most Americans) is so short.

[wnylib]

19. They are almost as juvenile as TFG.

The difference is in age level. He acts like a pouty, demanding toddler. The media act like middle school kids, hyped up on the latest gossip story, totally lacking in emotional and intellectual depth.

[JI7]

4. But they covered Trump's tweets and rallies and all the bs it was

repeatedly.

[NullTuples]

17. His "Art of the Deal" negotiations took place in early March, announced late March.

That would've been when we were all riveted to the news following the Plague Ship.

Excellent distraction; well played.

[RockRaven]

5. Their business is not informing the public about relevant and important facts, it is about

whatever draws more ratings, views, clicks to maximize ad revenue. That prisoner release was a boring detail, an esoteric in-the-weeds kind of thing for wonky policy nerds, or whatever they had to tell themselves to justify instead airing yet another story about Hunter Biden's laptop, or what the former guy was tweeting that day, etc.

[DURHAM D]

6. Good question

Did Richard Engel cover this? He seemed to be living in Afghanistan at the time.

[Budi]

7. No shit! Where was Engel's hard hitting 24/7 reporting then?

THAT was kind of a BFD.

[DanieRains]

8. TFG Surrendered Last Year

You won Taliban. Now don't make me look bad for a while and I'll let you have the women.

Something like that.

[moondust]

9. Did they know about it?

Or did TFG & Co. keep it hidden from them/us?

[tableturner]

10. Democrats didn't make it a big issue like GOP would've to force media coverage.

[Cha]

12. I'm not going to blame the Dems for this..

Link to tweet

[Cha]

11. Dann good question.. are they covering it up?

Link to tweet

First I've heard of it.. 'course I don't see everything.

Where was the "media" feeding frenzy outrage over This?!

[Uncle Joe]

13. This is what I believe

The Pentagon, Intelligence community have known Afghanistan is unwinnable for years.

So they worked out a withdrawal of U.S. forces deal with release of the Taliban prisoners in advance and I imagine some security deals or specifics of cooperation at the very least to which still haven't been disclosed as of yet.

My belief is that the airport will still be allowed to take people out for perhaps a couple of weeks or so even with the Taliban in control of Kabul as a show of good will.

[Escurumbele]

14. These invasions were money making adventures for these thugs

All the dead, afghans, Iraqis, USA soldiers were only collateral damage to them.

Halliburton made a killing. I have friends who worked in Iraq for Halliburton doing laundry, they had salaries close to $100,000.00, imagine how much Halliburton charged.

They were not interested in winning the invasions, there is a reason why SOB Donald Rumsfeld sent few soldiers, ill equipped, so to try to blame anything on the Democrats is ludicrous.

[ancianita]

16. The fluid, unstable negotiations by two volatile parties wouldn't glorify Trump enough, and

so he likely kept the bromance 'played down' -- until the Taliban blew up a car, killed an American, and blew up Trump's plans to bring Pres. Ashraf Ghani and his Taliban bros together.

This long report is a pretty good explanation of events during a covid year that preoccupied much of media.

A senior Taliban leader said on Sunday that Mr. Trump was fooling himself to think he could bring the Taliban and Mr. Ghani together at Camp David “because we do not recognize the stooge government” in Kabul.

The Americans were also rushing to finalize outstanding issues in the days before the last-minute proposed Camp David meeting. Among the most significant was a disagreement over the release of thousands of Taliban prisoners in Afghan prisons.

Afghan officials said the Americans had taken the liberty of negotiating on their behalf by agreeing to the release. Mr. Ghani’s government found that unacceptable, saying it would agree only if the Taliban reciprocated with an extensive cease-fire — something the insurgents are reluctant to do at this stage of the talks since violence is their main leverage.

The final negotiations occurred during a period of intensifying bloodshed. In response to Taliban attacks, American negotiators made clear they were prioritizing the agreement, not looking to boycott the talks. Their negotiations were undergirded by increasing battlefield pressure by the American military.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/08/world/asia/afghanistan-trump-camp-david-taliban.html

[IcyPeas]

18. I did a search here on DU...

There were 2 threads that I found by the same OP author.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100213037828

[orleans]

20. well, it might have not been a BIG story, but it was a story

i googled after reading this thread.
nytimes article in august 2020
i remember the covid aspect of the piece (near the end of article). the big picture? not so much.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/09/world/asia/afghanistan-taliban-prisoners-peace-talks.html

[Willto]

21. Because....

Why wasn't the release of 5000 taliban prisoners last year a big story

Because with a train wreck like Trump in office that story was just a slow Tuesday.

[tanyev]

23. Exactly.

That's how he's always gotten away with so much. He's a shitstorm of corruption and malice and by the time the proper authorities decide to launch an investigation of one misdeed, he's committed hundreds more.

[48656c6c6f20]

22. Because the outrages being committed by TFG

Were so numerous it became mind numbing.

[bullwinkle428]

24. The media knew the general public didn't care jack squat about Afghanistan.

[Hortensis]

25. The boob tube covers only a very few stories at any one time,

the same stories over and over and over and over, usually with the same general themes. Then they move to a new set.

Of course this was covered by news sources, MANY of them. And many millions of people who read and listen to them knew about this.

I think it's unfair to "can't stand" "the media." As if they were all the same. We're each in charge of which media we watch and which we don't consider worth our attention.