GOP Quietly Scrubs Webpage Detailing Trump’s ‘Historic Peace Agreement With the Taliban’

In the wake of the Taliban’s recent capture of Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital, it seems just like the Republican Party is quietly scrubbing traces of the previous president’s offers with the militant Islamist group.

The GOP has pulled a webpage praising Donald Trump over his administration’s “historic peace agreement with the Taliban.” The web page, which has been archived here, was first instated within the midst of final yr’s presidential election.

“Trump has continued to take the lead in peace talks as he signed a historic peace agreement with the Taliban in Afghanistan, which would end America’s longest war,” the now-deleted web page learn. It additionally famous that whereas the now ex-president has “championed peace,” Joe Biden had pushed “endless wars.” Elsewhere on the web page, the GOP famous that Trump had “taken action to defeat ISIS and eliminate dangerous leaders.”

It’s value noting right here that Abdul Ghani Baradar, who co-founded the Taliban in Afghanistan and went on to develop into the group’s top-ranking political chief, was launched from Pakistani jail on the U.S.’s request whereas Trump was in workplace.

Despite Trump’s bombastic critiques of Biden’s withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, Trump’s administration was really the one which initiated talks to withdraw U.S. forces from the area—a transfer the majority of Americans supported. On the now-deleted webpage, the GOP notes that on February 2, 2020, the Trump administration sighed a “preliminary peace agreement” with the Taliban that “sets the stage” to finish the U.S.-Afghan conflict that had been raging for more than two decades.

The webpage notes that the Trump administration had negotiated a deal that might see “nearly 5,000″ U.S. troops withdrawn from the region in exchange for “a Taliban agreement to not allow Afghanistan to be used for transnational terrorism.”

As others have pointed out, these peace talks that had been brokered underneath Trump’s watch imposed comparatively few situations on the Taliban after they had been signed—and the navy group isn’t violating any of them proper now, regardless of the chaos being wrought in Kabul, the place numerous Afghans are trying to flee the country now managed by spiritual fundamentalist militants.

Biden, for his half, has defended his personal withdrawal techniques, saying he was left with little choice within the wake of the Trump administration’s earlier offers with the Taliban—although many are blaming the current president for the disastrous withdrawal of U.S. troops.

“When I came to office, I inherited a deal cut by my predecessor—which he invited the Taliban to discuss at Camp David on the eve of 9/11 of 2019—that left the Taliban in the strongest position militarily since 2001,” he stated in a statement on Saturday.

“When I became president, I faced a choice—follow through on the deal … or ramp up our presence and send more American troops to fight once again in another country’s civil conflict.”