Oswald in the doorway: the blog of the Oswald Innocence Campaign, by Ralph Cinque

Trump did an interview with Tucker Carlson recently in which he said that he expects to leave a "strong intelligence force, and more than the few people you're thinking of" in Afghanistan permanently since it's a hotbed for terrorists. That's forever.  

But, the Taliban, in 7 negotiations has made it crystal clear that they will not accept or tolerate any U.S. presence in Afghanistan, that it is non-negotiable that we have to get the hell out of there.  

And throughout the media, it has been reported, over and over and over and over again, that that's what the Taliban wants, that we get completely out, and what we want in return are assurances that they won't let Afghanistan be used as a haven for terrorists.

But now, in one full swoop, Trump has made it clear that we have no intention of doing that, of ever leaving.  

And get this: now, after 7 negotiations in Qatar,  all on the U.S. taxpayer's dime (and I hear that those Taliban guys really go in for the Macadamia nuts at the hotel, and you know what that does to the bill)  they are moving the whole thing to Norway for the next round of talks. (I hope those Taliban guys like smoked fish.)

But, what is the point of it all if Trump thinks he is going to leave an intelligence force in Afghanistan forever? 

And why say it on national television?   Don't you think it could get back to the Taliban? Somebody just might tweet it to them. They have a Twitter page. And if you listen to the interview, you hear Trump saying over and over, "we've been there for 19 years, we've been there for 19 years." Actually, we have been there for 17 years and 7 months. It will be 18 years on October 7 of this year.  '

So, Trump can't count. But then again, Mathematics is overrated, and we all know that. 

Then, the other thing the Taliban wants is the complete dissolution of the current Afghan government. But, there may be some daylight there because recently, in calling for an intra-Afghan conference to discuss the future of the country, they said that some government officials could attend but not in any official capacity. They could just come as individuals, although I don't think that includes the current President Ghani. 

But, what's certain is that whatever the Taliban does, they are going to do it on their terms, and the current government of Afghanistan will have to dissolve. They are NOT going to budge on that. They say it is a puppet government. Sometimes they call them "stooges".  They are never going to relent on their demand that it has to go away. 

So, what progress is there? We have told the Taliban that we agree to get out, but we don't really mean it, and they may already be aware of Trump's statement.  And they have told us that they promise not to let terrorists operate in Afghanistan, but we apparently don't believe them, since we think we need to leave a force there. 

So, what is the real purpose of these negotiations? And remember: we pushed for it,  not them. We had to offer to pay them, and we have. We had to agree to exclude the Afghan government. NEGOTIATE THE FUTURE OF AFGHANISTAN WITHOUT INCLUDING THE AFGHAN GOVERNMENT. That's what we've been doing.  Consider the hypocrisy:

"They are NOT a puppet government. But, we told them they couldn't come." 

But, we also had to press Pakistan to release a Taliban leader who was in prison as a precondition for them to negotiate. 

Why are we doing all this for an organization that was deemed  terrorist by three previous Presidents? Why are we bending over backwards to get the Taliban to talk to us? 

I think I know why. It is to quell the critics who denounce us for being there by being able to say  that we're trying to get out. 

And it even happened to me in relation to my movie. One critic wrote the following:

"Director Erich Kemp wants filmviewers to know more about the aims and methods of jihadists. In a fictional account, Abdul Latif Hassan (played by Junes Zahdi) is recruited from Tunis by jihadists to assassinate Texas Senator Cruthers (Mike Gassaway) for a mere $10,000. The jihadists believe that the United States has killed far too many innocent children and women in Afghanistan, so revenge is a sharia imperative. Senator Cruthers is to be the victim because he is a strong proponent of the American intervention in Afghanistan. Whereas President Donald Trump wants to reduce the American footprint in Afghanistan, Cruthers is the chief sponsor of a bill to increase funding for the intervention by 15 percent."

Actually, $10,000 was just the first installment to get Hassan here.  They were speaking in Arabic, and apparently this reviewer didn't read all the subtitles. But notice that the guy spoke favorably of Trump wanting to reduce the American footprint in Afghanistan, as if he deserves credit for something, and as if the bare facts don't matter, that we crossed an ocean and two seas to attack Afghanistan, a third world country, where we have bombed them back to the Stone Age and killed hundreds of thousands of Afghans. But now, Trump is talking about wanting, in principle, to get out, so that settles it: he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize.