‘We defeated ourselves’: Trump’s national security adviser says Pompeo signed ‘surrender agreement’ with Taliban

HR McMaster, one of Donald Trump’s former national security advisers, has condemned the deal struck with the Taliban during the previous administration as a “surrender agreement”.

“Our secretary of state [Mike Pompeo] signed a surrender agreement with the Taliban,” Mr McMaster said on Bari Weiss’ podcast Honestly.

“This collapse goes back to the capitulation agreement of 2020. The Taliban didn’t defeat us. We defeated ourselves.”

Mr McMaster has hit out at both the Trump and Biden administrations for their handling of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, but he has long been critical of the agreement signed during his former boss’s term in office.

The retired US Army lieutenant general is one of many former senior Trump officials who have sought to distance themselves from the Taliban peace deal that was signed in February 2020, as chaos gripped the capital Kabul over the past week.

In light of the tumult on the ground in Afghanistan, new scrutiny is being applied to the terms agreed to in the deal as it laid out the US military withdrawal and the Taliban subsequently sweeping across the country and taking Kabul.

Originally, the Trump administration agreed to withdraw from the country by 1 May, if the Taliban negotiated a peace agreement with the Afghan government and promised to prevent terrorist groups like al-Qaeda and the Islamic State from using the country as a base.

When elected president, Joe Biden said he had to follow through with the agreement or risk new conflicts with the Taliban, which might have required an additional troop surge into Afghanistan.

However, by pushing back the withdrawal date to 31 August, the president showed there was some room for manoeuvre under the terms of the agreement.

Mr Biden blamed the Trump administration for the chaos that ensued this week saying that his predecessor had emboldened the Taliban and left the group “in the strongest position militarily since 2001”.

The president has said that he would ultimately have withdrawn all troops from Afghanistan even if no deal had already been struck with the Taliban. Mr Biden said that he saw no way to complete a withdrawal “without chaos ensuing”.

John Bolton, another of Mr Trump’s former National Security Advisers, told CNN: “Had Trump been re-elected, he’d be doing the same thing. On this question of withdrawal from Afghanistan, Trump and Biden are like Tweedledee and Tweedledum.”

Mr Pompeo, who met with Taliban officials in person at the signing ceremony of the agreement in Doha in September 2020 while secretary of state, told Fox News the administration never trusted the group and does not believe the negotiations legitimised them.

He insists that the agreement was conditions-based and that the US would have retaliated against the militant group if it did not follow through with its guarantees.

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Hahahaha

This is so stupid..

Tante, I'll underline the important parts for you. See if you can spot the prblem.

Originally, the Trump administration agreed to withdraw from the country by 1 May, if the Taliban negotiated a peace agreement with the Afghan government and promised to prevent terrorist groups like al-Qaeda and the Islamic State from using the country as a base.

When elected president, Joe Biden said he had to follow through with the agreement or risk new conflicts with the Taliban, which might have required an additional troop surge into Afghanistan.

Denny

With all due respect the article quoted by you is totally misleading and apparently an effort to mislead the  public about what happened.    I am not sure on what the Advisor think about what actually was involved in the agreement and whether he opposed the whole concept of withdrawing from Afghanistan.

The agreement signed - and there were two of them has punishment provisions as to breach of agreement - and what is mysterious is that the other partners  and allies knew exactly what was provided for in the agreements and the  UK  and other allies  supported the agreements as well.

The latter aspect is why they are now shitting all over Biden for affectively tearing up the agreement all by himself.      The US would take action in punishing the Taliban in the case of breaches of the agreements and Biden just ignore that.    What is pa thetic is that Biden just ignored the conditions and the whole process became chaotic.      If the case was otherwise the international condemnation would not have been Biden - but Trump.        

Exactly Mike but don't expect much sense from dense the red. He and his ilk should be sent packing to China!

I wonder what dense thought of the protests in Melbourne? Did he even know they happened given the globalist MSM crackdown on real news.

"left the group “in the strongest position militarily since 2001"

What a complete and utter joke.....

There was a very detailed plan put in place by Trump,  to try make this process a hell of a lot easier than what Biden ended up doing

As a sign of good faith, the USA would release many prisoners and the Taliban said that they would commit to put plans in place to ensure that the 5 000 released prisoners of war would in no way harm or target the USA....but that remains to be seen.

Trump also said that they would discuss with other members of the United Nations Security Council, to remove Afghanistan from the sanctions list with these members, if the removal of troops went ahead and the Taliban kept up their end of the bargain

The agreement was a very good tactic to specifically reduce or prevent future attacks directly against the USA and it's allies, provided these requirements were met and upheld 

Denny

I am very worried about the situation in  Australia and tried to phone some friends of mine and the system in Australia seems to be disconnected  or locked down - I could not get through to anyone in Sydney.   I even asked Denny whether there are protests and other problems in Sydney - but he has not responded as yet.     .  

Trump also insisted that there  would be severe reprisals if the agreement are not adhered to and despite  their only being 2,500  US troops left the Taliban  in essence kept to the agreement until the Germans withdrew  and then take a chance in occupying the city where they were stationed, seeing whether Biden would do anything about it.   He did zilch and they then started advancing to occupy Kabul.

The real tragedy was that  the US troops left the Bagram base in Kabul  in secret - they did not inform the Afghans they were leaving and  sneaked out in the middle of the night.   They left Afghanistan  without doing what the Germans did  before and when they were leaving - getting out the US citizens and Afghan allies plus all the weaponry out of  Afghanistan  and then the troops leaving last.   In the end the allies got their people in Kabul out by sending their specialists  army units to fetch them and get them  to the airport - the US tried to plead with the Taliban tpo let their citizens through to the airport and in many cases it was refused.     The whole story was an exercise in extreme idiocy and cowardice.  for which the blame rest with Biden and his Woke administration.

There was a umber of Trump appointees with links to the Armaments  Industry  that Trump fired bause hey were warmongers, anyway.