One of our most pompous frauds is Mike Pompeo. He’d be laughed off the public stage if not for the historical ignorance that afflicts so many Americans.
It’s funny, in a twisted sort of way, to hear the MAGA secretary of state denounce President Biden as “weak” for “letting the Taliban run free and wild” when in truth he’s the guy who cut the Feb. 29, 2020 deal that let the Taliban run free and wild. Yes indeed, it’s right there in plain English: the Trump regime pledged “to withdraw from Afghanistan all military forces within 14 months,” and, as a bonus, 5,000 imprisoned Taliban members would be released to rejoin the fight.
As former Trump national security adviser Henry McMaster noted in a podcast the other day, “Our secretary of state signed a surrender document with the Taliban. This collapse (of the Afghan government) goes back to the capitulation agreement of 2020. The Taliban didn’t defeat us. We defeated ourselves.” As Lisa Curtis, another former national security official, told the Associated Press, Pompeo forged “a very weak agreement.”
Alas, the MAGA hordes don’t care about that wee little nuance – they’re too busy falling ill from the Delta variant, and regretting that they didn’t get vaccinated – and the odds that they even knew about the 2020 deal are roughly equivalent to the odds of a ’21 Phillies pennant. That history course would never have been taught at Trump University. But I’m highlighting it today for the sake of the historical record – and to remind us that many of the people hammering Biden right now (including the armchair hawks on TV, and the George W. Bush alum who helped craft the 20-year quagmire) have zero credibility to complain.
Granted, Biden has suffered failures of execution. He was clearly caught flatfooted about the speed of the Taliban takeover (the inevitable was supposed to take longer), the plans to withdraw civilian Americans and friendly Afghans were woefully inadequate, and it’s only right that he be scrutinized in congressional inquiries helmed by members of his own party. But that’s one big difference between the Democratic party and the MAGA cult: the former is willing to hold its own side accountable; the latter wants to whitewash everything.
But it’s tough to whitewash photographic evidence. The image of Pompeo posing with senior Taliban leader Abdul Ghani Baradar is a classic. The Trump team worked successfully to spring Baradar from prison, posed with him, and today he’s a key figure in the formation of the Taliban government. I shudder to think how Republicans would’ve responded if Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton had opened the prison gates for Baradar and 5,000 Taliban fighters. It would’ve sparked an even louder outcry than Obama’s tan summer suit.
It’s also tough to whitewash remarks that were widely broadcast. One month before the ’20 election, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told CBS News that the Taliban was endorsing Donald Trump for a second term: “We hope he will win the election and wind up the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan.” Such was the art of the deal, a little air kiss for all of Pompeo’s fine work.
Months earlier Pompeo had publicly declared, “We have come to an understanding with the Taliban on a significant reduction in violence.” Supposedly, the understanding was that the Taliban would stop collaborating with al-Qaeda terrorists. When Pompeo was asked whether he could trust its promise, he replied: “I looked them in the eye. They revalidated to that commitment.” When it became abundantly clear the Taliban was still tight with al-Qaeda and had played Pompeo for a sucker – and that indeed the Defense Department had incontrovertible evidence that this was so – Pompeo dove for cover: “I can’t talk about the things I have seen.”
Kudos to Fox News’ Chris Wallace for confronting Pompeo the other day: “Do you regret giving the Taliban that legitimacy? Do you regret pressing the Afghan government to release 5,000 prisoners, which they did, some of whom are now back on the battlefield fighting with the Taliban?” Pompeo’s response: “Chris, you make peace with your enemies.”
But if that’s the case, why is he beefing about Biden?
We should all stipulate that 20 years of bipartisan hubris and screwups have fueled the current crisis in Afghanistan. It would be nice if Pompeo and his old boss copped to their share instead of trying to shove it down the Orwellian memory hole. But they prefer to ensure that their “base” marinates in ignorance.