War H.R. McMaster rebukes Trump over Taliban talks

H.R. McMaster rebukes Trump over Taliban talks

The president’s former national security adviser says in a “60 Minutes” interview that withdrawing American forces from Afghanistan is an “unwise” policy.

www.politico.com

By MATTHEW CHOI
09/17/2020 07:31 PM EDT

Former national security adviser H.R. McMaster is criticizing President Donald Trump for his administration’s negotiations with the Taliban.
In an interview segment with CBS' “60 Minutes” published on Thursday, McMaster said that moving to withdraw American forces from Afghanistan was an "unwise" policy. The retired Army lieutenant general was discussing his new book, “Battlegrounds,” in which he says Trump “cheapened” the lives of the Americans who died in Afghanistan by making too many concessions to the Taliban, "60 Minutes" reported.

McMaster said during his interview that Trump was “partnering with the Taliban” ahead of peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban in Doha, Qatar. The Trump administration’s negotiations with the Taliban go “against, in many ways, the Afghan government,” McMaster said.


“What we require in Afghanistan is a sustained commitment to help the Afghan government,” he said on “60 Minutes.”
A spokesperson for the National Security Council did not immediately offer comment on Thursday evening.
The U.S. signed a peace agreement with the Taliban in February, hoping for the Afghan government to soon follow suit. Under the agreement, the U.S. would withdraw all its troops within 14 months of the signing if the Taliban honored its commitments.
Representatives of the Afghan government and the Taliban started meeting this month in Doha to discuss their own peace agreement. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo traveled to Doha this month for the opening of the talks.

McMaster served as Trump’s second national security adviser, from February 2017 to April 2018. Since then, he has voiced criticism of some of his former peers. He criticized the Trump administration in November for moving to withdraw U.S. troops from northern Syria, saying the move would destabilize the region and offer opportunities for Russia to gain greater control in the area.
In May 2019, McMaster said some of his former White House colleagues were a “danger to the Constitution” and were “there to try to manipulate the situation based on their own agenda, not the president’s agenda.”

 

[XYZpdq]

I lost track, which old loser unemployed warmonger is this dipshit?

 

[BlueSpark]

in which he says Trump “cheapened” the lives of the Americans who died in Afghanistan by making too many concessions to the Taliban, "60 Minutes" reported.

Really get your dead troop money's worth by sending more of them to die in a pointless conflict so this cunt can continue to not give a shit about them until the opportunity to wring some shekels out of liberals arises. And the only difference between the Afghan Government and the Taliban is that the puppet government pretends to be civilized (provided that they get enough suitcases full of dollars).

 

[Psychic Espeon]

For those curious about the Territorial Control in Afghanistan right now, here it is:

 

[Freya]

So can trump order Syria to be bombed multiple times yet not pull troops out from afghanistan?
almost like he actually doesnt want to

 

[SBG]

So can trump order Syria to be bombed multiple times yet not pull troops out from afghanistan?
almost like he actually doesnt want to

Bombing means helping fund defense contractors and giving generals an excuse to use their bloated budgets, pulling troops out means going against 90% of congress who are funded in part by those defense contractors and those generals who would suddenly have fewer employees/bases to manage.

 

[DragoonSierra]

fuck off and take your perpetual war machine with you

 

[Honka Honka Burning Love]

Well LETS SEE HERE.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H._R._McMaster#Dismissal

In July 2018, HarperCollins announced that it had signed a book deal with McMaster for a memoir, Battlegrounds: The Fight to Defend the Free World, to be published on April 28, 2020.[70][71][72] The release date was later pushed back to September 15, 2020.[73]

In September 2018, McMaster began work as a Bernard and Susan Liautaud Visiting Fellow at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.[74] He also holds the Fouad and Michelle Ajami Senior Fellowship at the Hoover Institution and serves as a lecturer in management at the University's Graduate School of Business.[75]

McMaster is a member of the Atlantic Council's[76] Board of Directors, and in 2019 became an Advisory Board Member of Spirit of America, a 501(c)(3) organization that supports deployed US personnel.[77]

On May 6, 2020, Zoom Video Communications announced McMaster's appointment to its board.[78]

Hmm..Spirit of American an "Organization that supports deployed US personnel.

What sort of support do they give?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_of_America_(charity)

Spirit of America is a US based non-profit company founded by Jim Hake that raises money for United States veterans. SoA has solicited money for Special Forces troops operating in Afghanistan and for the 1st Marine Division in Iraq. The organization claims its funds will help build schools for Iraqi children and support media outlets that advance counterpoint to news presented by local Arab-run outlets.

Spirit of America was launched under the auspices of Cyber Century Forum.

Working with the US Embassy in Kyiv Ukraine, in 2016 Spirit of America funded the establishment and optimization of ArmyFM, a Ukrainian Ministry of Defense radio station that provides information and entertainment to soldiers defending their country in eastern Ukraine, who are suffering from a barrage of Russian propaganda.[1]

In 2010, Mr. Hake worked to formalize the ties between commanders in Afghanistan and his organization as a "Commander Support Program" (CSP) with support from senior Marine officers "who had developed a good working relationship with the group in Iraq".[2]

This resulted in scrutiny from Pentagon lawyers, who ruled that sending goods to commanders violated ethics rules.[2] With help from John Bellinger, Jeh Johnson, General Joe Dunford and General Jim Mattis, the rules were changed to allow the CSP to operate.[2]

So they build Schools, and make media Propaganda in Iraq and Afghanistan, and apparently Violated Ethics rules that were then changed to allow this (((CHARITY))) to Operate, and most of their Funding is from Non-donation grants.

So He gets fired from his job..goes to work with a multi-million dollar charity which deals in Afghanistan..then says that we shouldn't leave Afghanistan. I WONDER IF THERE IS A CONFLICT OF INTEREST HERE.

 

[TowinKarz]

When the book-writing-circuit folks aren't happy, you know your foreign policy is going in the right direction.....

The Sunk Costs Fallacy is just that, a fallacy.

But when you make it with human lives, it's LUNACY.

Billy has to die on a rock on the other side of the world so that his eldest brother's pointless death on that rock can have meaning! Say what?

 

[Absolutego]

My favorite thing about Trump in office is watching the Uniparty Foreign Policy Consensus, that cabal of self-appointed "experts" on how the global order shall be run post-Cold War, get embarrassed over and over again. Deals that we were told repeatedly either weren't possible or would start wars are getting made, exposing those opposing them as assholes catastrophizing any deviance from the existing policy they've attached their legacy to. Yet, in the last 4 years, we've learned:
- We CAN effectively stop ISIS by supporting our allies and cutting off their funding networks, instead of another Endless War with American troops to depose a Russian proxy in Syria
- We CAN get the Sunni Arab world on board with the US-Israel alliance without running it past bomb-chucking eternal victims in Palestine

Both of which we were told were impossible by the entire DC establishment. I'm done listening to "experts" on what we should do in the Middle East. Leave the mountainous scrubland that is Afghanistan to its own devices.

 

[Alrakkan]

Anyone who thinks we should be involved in Afghanistan needs to define the mission.

BRITISH EMPIRE 2 : PERSIA WE'RE COMING FOR YOU (SOUTHERN IRELAND YOU'RE NEXT)

In all seriousness, you yanks could have performed something closely resembling the Japanese Occupation after WWII and no one would have cared in any way that mattered. Most people certainly still don't care in any way that matters about the Iraq War and Iraq's conspicuous lack of gamer girl bathwater bombs or Benghazi or that third tower that got knocked down on 9/11 or the fact that America trained Osama Bin Laden or Guantanamo Bay or the Coronavirus right up until the government told them they couldn't leave their house or Icarus or the Amazon Rainforest or Africa or really anything. Most people don't care about dusty shitholes in the middle east that haven't been able to form functioning governments for centuries and most certainly not in anyway that matters. At this point you should use that public impotence to pull as much shit as you like before China does the same with Belt and Road, or at least kneecap anything similar that China and corporations might do. From my own personal experience, I can tell you #MeToo has done fuck all for the common man and woman despite destroying the lives of innocent men and women only to act as a piece of virtue signalling for elite hollywood freaks who knew what was going on the whole time and save a handful of girls who will never work again. Some Fallout style annexation of Afghanistan with big fuck-off suits of power armour that scream 'Stop me, dickhead' on television will really wake some people up. And even if it didn't, even if all that would happen is yet more squabbling by small people, then complete the sentence and know the fear and regret:
'It's not a grave, it's ___________________.'

 

[TowinKarz]

My favorite thing about Trump in office is watching the Uniparty Foreign Policy Consensus, that cabal of self-appointed "experts" on how the global order shall be run post-Cold War, get embarrassed over and over again. Deals that we were told repeatedly either weren't possible or would start wars are getting made, exposing those opposing them as assholes catastrophizing any deviance from the existing policy they've attached their legacy to.

THAT is the real "military-industrial" complex, the forever-wars aren't just for making others wealthy though arms deals and political contributions (that's a fringe benefit) but for making YOU Kissinger-level famous as a foreign policy expert who can "retire" to the academic lecture circuit or sell books.... and failing that, at least you die knowing the world has been molded into YOUR vision for it (the only correct one) , even if a few million more died horrifically.....

Forever war isn't driven by profit... it's ego.... the "right side of history" determined to shake the ant colony of the 3rd world over and over and over again until it rebuilds itself the preordained "right" way.

I'd almost feel BETTER if the motive for it was money, you'd at least succeed there, instead of accepting eternal quagmire as "better" than NOT getting the borders drawn exaclty where you decreed.....

 

[ColtWalker1847]

the fact that America trained Osama Bin Laden

They didn't.

It's funny how people still repeat the Bush-era BDS lunacy shit.

 

[Alrakkan]

They didn't.

It's funny how people still repeat the Bush-era BDS lunacy shit.

I'm sure they didn't.

 

[ColtWalker1847]

I'm sure they didn't.

The CIA didn't do training of the Muj. The Pakistanis did.

Not to mention OBL didn't need money. His operation was self-funded and small potatoes.

 

[Return of the Freaker]

McMasterbater sits around jerking his dick while our brave soldiers continue to die in Afghanistan! SAD! It's time to bring our troops home

-Donald Trump (I wish)

 

[Pope Negro Joe the XIIIth]

All of the news for the last week or so in a nutshell:

 

[Secret Asshole]

There's a reason why Afghanistan is called the place where Empires go to die. Its a rocky, desert shithole defended by insane nutjobs and has no territory or resources worth taking besides massive amounts of drugs. It is impossible to prevent insurgencies and gurellia fighting with the terrain unless you fucking genocide the country with MOABs.

What does the US get out of it? What is the fucking point of constantly arming people who will eventually come and kill us? Leave the goatfuckers alone and let them get high off of opium. Afghanistan doesn't want to be part of the 21st century and never has been. Its a sunk-cost fallacy. We've accomplished fucking nothing there and are back where we were at square one, with a '''government''' that controls one city and the rest of the country full of the Taliban.

Its a pointless conflict. They don't want our help. They don't want us there. The soldiers we recruit are likely fucking Taliban spies anyway. Let them have that rocky, desert shithole that is a hemorrhoid upon this Earth.

 

[kcbbq]

There's a reason why Afghanistan is called the place where Empires go to die. Its a rocky, desert shithole defended by insane nutjobs and has no territory or resources worth taking besides massive amounts of drugs. It is impossible to prevent insurgencies and gurellia fighting with the terrain unless you fucking genocide the country with MOABs.

What does the US get out of it? What is the fucking point of constantly arming people who will eventually come and kill us? Leave the goatfuckers alone and let them get high off of opium. Afghanistan doesn't want to be part of the 21st century and never has been. Its a sunk-cost fallacy. We've accomplished fucking nothing there and are back where we were at square one, with a '''government''' that controls one city and the rest of the country full of the Taliban.

Its a pointless conflict. They don't want our help. They don't want us there. The soldiers we recruit are likely fucking Taliban spies anyway. Let them have that rocky, desert shithole that is a hemorrhoid upon this Earth.

Especially, when what is really needed is Pakistan to stop behaving like shitheads, Afghanistan can't really do much of anything outside their goat pastures, and neither can the Taliban. The Pakistanis were hiding bin Laden. The Pakistanis were backing up the Afghani Taliban so their own Taliban would stay on the reservation. All these things while insisting they were friends of the US and helping out. At some point you notice the knives in your back are only being put there when you're facing away from the borders with Pakistan.

 

[Kheapathic]

Especially, when what is really needed is Pakistan to stop behaving like shitheads, Afghanistan can't really do much of anything outside their goat pastures, and neither can the Taliban. The Pakistanis were hiding bin Laden. The Pakistanis were backing up the Afghani Taliban so their own Taliban would stay on the reservation. All these things while insisting they were friends of the US and helping out. At some point you notice the knives in your back are only being put there when you're facing away from the borders with Pakistan.

We went in there knowing we'd get knives in our back. Whether it's because of Islam, their culture, or whatever; the easiest way to describe that entire region is loyalty to those closest to you. You have the person, their family, their village, their religion, etc etc; so a bunch of retards with big weapons coming in that do not look like them, act like them, worship like them, don't even speak the same fucking language... and the public was led to believe we're going to be able to win hearts and minds by introducing democracy and giving their women an education. Sounds nice and progressive doesn't it? Too bad like most progressive ideas, it doesn't mesh up with reality.

 

[SBG]

My favorite thing about Trump in office is watching the Uniparty Foreign Policy Consensus, that cabal of self-appointed "experts" on how the global order shall be run post-Cold War, get embarrassed over and over again. Deals that we were told repeatedly either weren't possible or would start wars are getting made, exposing those opposing them as assholes catastrophizing any deviance from the existing policy they've attached their legacy to. Yet, in the last 4 years, we've learned:
- We CAN effectively stop ISIS by supporting our allies and cutting off their funding networks, instead of another Endless War with American troops to depose a Russian proxy in Syria
- We CAN get the Sunni Arab world on board with the US-Israel alliance without running it past bomb-chucking eternal victims in Palestine

Both of which we were told were impossible by the entire DC establishment. I'm done listening to "experts" on what we should do in the Middle East. Leave the mountainous scrubland that is Afghanistan to its own devices.

One of my favorite lessons from the Trump age is that we were capable of precision bombing a terrorist ringleader like Salamarama without a dozen civilian casualties, so all those random casualties in the Obama years were probably thanks to the upper ranks not giving a shit.