We have a peace deal……or should we more correctly call it a cessation of violence for a couple of weeks that could lead to a broader deal…..
Some have asked….a peace deal but at what price?
Bitter experience shows that a “rotten compromise” will carry within it the seeds of future war.
Albert Einstein warned humanity to beware of rotten compromises. Philosopher Avishai Margalit sought to explain this warning in an entire book. With the U.S. and the Taliban poised to sign a peace agreement, now more than ever is the time to be wary of a “rotten compromise” on Afghanistan.
Rotten compromises, in the words of Margalit, are agreements that establish or maintain an inhuman regime, a regime associated with cruelty and humiliation, a regime that does not treat humans as humans. But a rotten compromise involves two sides – an active perpetrator committing the brutality, and the passive participant who supports and signs an agreement that maintains an inhuman regime.
Could this, if successful, be the road to a peace deal that would bring the US troops home…..and the same question could be asked……at what price?
This week: recent developments in the original 9/11 conflict, the war in Afghanistan. News reports suggest that the Trump administration is close to signing some kind of deal with the Taliban. But it’s not a peace accord. The emerging details of the deal—and the preemptive concessions the U.S. is apparently willing to make for the Taliban to agree to it—suggest that the deal is less about securing a lasting peace and more about political and diplomatic cover in anticipation of an exit decided on long ago. First, some background.
https://vitalinterests.thedispatch.com/p/are-we-headed-toward-an-ignoble-end
On a bummer side of this deal……
Arguments about the Afghanistan peace deal that the US is about to sign with the Taliban continue, with substantial concerns that secret annexes exist to the peace language which would threaten the deal’s sustainability.
Recent reports claimed that among a series of secret annexes, the US included language saying they’re not actually going to leave Afghanistan militarily, and that this seeming deal-breaker was accepted on the grounds it would be a secret.
Pressed on the matter, top Pentagon figures claimed complete ignorance on it. Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Gen. Mark Milley both claimed to have no idea if there were ultimately any secret annexes.
Esper said he knew there were/are annexes to the final deal, but that he doesn’t know if any of them are formally secret or not, saying he would ask the Secretary of State at some point.
The chance of our troops coming home is appealing and I personally do not care about the consequences of our leaving……our troops have been there long enough…..long enough so that if progress could have been made it would have….it was not….time for us to depart.
I Read, I Write, You Know
“lego ergo scribo”
I see all this as a publicity stunt to allow the US to pull out. As you say, at least the troops will come home.
Then Afghanistan will be dominated by the fundamentalists again, and God help anyone suspected of helping the foreign troops before that pull-out.
Best wishes, Pete.
Sounds like Vietnam in 1975…..Trump needs this….end war his markets are not too healthy right now. chuq
It is reminiscent of the fall of Saigon, that’s for sure.
That proves my point that the US has learned nothing from Vietnam. chuq