Readers Write: Trump’s art of the deal with the Taliban

The Island Now

Responding to Gayle Palmer’s letter, “GOP fights for Blacks as Dems keep them down,” let me just say that most of her facts about Black people are either outdated or typical of a racist outlook. Further, it’s impossible to deal with Trump people like her since most of their argumentative positions are based upon fake facts that originally target an audience with brains that were previously empty, with a need to “fill ’em up” with any form of garbage. Enough! Back up the garbage truck and return the garbage to Mar Largo.

What currently needs to be looked at is the disaster that’s going on in Afghanistan. There is little doubt that President Biden made a horrible mistake when he agreed to accept and follow through on Trump’s fatally flawed deal with the Taliban instead of renegotiating it.  Although he is paying dearly for his decision in the polls, it is the people of Afghanistan who could be paying for it with their lives.

Let’s go back in time, first to Feb. 29, 2020, when Trump’s deal with the Taliban was completed. In it, Trump agreed to concrete concessions in exchange for unenforceable promises from an untrustworthy enemy. There was one part of that agreement that Biden could not renegotiate even if he wanted to. Trump agreed to release 5,000 Taliban prisoners in March and at the same time remove sanctions from members of the Taliban that include travel bans, asset freezes and an arms embargo. Perhaps Trump had forgotten that the World Trade Center is no longer there. Supposedly Trump’s deal was to finally allow us to get our troops out of Afghanistan, but Trump apparently didn’t know or didn’t care that once our troops were out of the country, our ability to enforce the Taliban promises without a military presence would be non-existent.

However, another question could come into the picture. What did Trump personally get out of the deal? We had thrown so much money into Afghanistan and recently the former president of Afghanistan fled the country with hundreds of millions of dollars, apparently packed in suitcases, so many that in his hurry to flee many suitcases were left behind. Could the Taliban have made another promise to Trump, one that would be financially rewarding to him? For Trump, isn’t money part of the art of the deal?

Let’s now go back to another time, say 1945. Can you imagine if Trump had been president back then, nearing the end of another war, and he made a similar deal with Adolf Hitler, allowing such Nazi leaders as Heinrich Himmler, Herman Goring, Joseph Goebbels and Martin Bormann to go free, with free access to the rest of the world? A deal between two autocrats is not so difficult to imagine.

Does that sound crazy? Thank God back then Harry Truman was president. At least he was sane.

Alvin Goldberg
Great Neck

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