Sarah Kadous
By Staff Writer Ro’aa Al-Khawaja
Posted by EIC Sarah Kadous
On Saturday, September 7, President Trump announced via Twitter that he had canceled his secret meeting with the Taliban at Camp David. This was due to a bombing in Kabul near a US embassy that killed 12 people, including an American soldier.
“Unbeknownst to almost everyone, the major Taliban leaders and, separately, the President of Afghanistan, were going to secretly meet with me at Camp David on Sunday. Trump tweeted “They were coming to the United States tonight.”
The meeting was held to negotiate peace with the Taliban and Afghanistan. According to the US press secretary Mike Pompeo, as quoted by CBS news, the Trump Administration has “made a lot of progress in convincing the Taliban to make some commitments that, frankly, we’ve been trying to get out of them for almost two decades now.”
Just before the President canceled the meeting, the US and Taliban officials were allegedly on the verge of signing an agreement, to withdraw U.S. troops from Afghanistan, and in exchange, the Taliban would discontinue its use of Afghanistan as a weapon launchpad.
However, any hopes of peace were halted when the Taliban killed a US soldier, 1st Class Elis Angel Barreto Ortiz, in Kabul during a suicide bomb attack. Trump canceled the talks, and took to twitter to reveal the news to America.
“I immediately cancelled the meeting and called off peace negotiations. What kind of people would kill so many in order to seemingly strengthen their bargaining position?” Trump tweeted.
In response to the Taliban’s attempt to strengthen their bargaining position via their attack in Kabul, Trump tweeted that he plans to counter with attack methods they have never seen before.
“And if for any reason they come back to our country, we will go wherever they are and use power the likes of which the United States has never used before – and I’m not even talking about nuclear power. Trump tweeted. “They will never have seen anything like what will happen to them.”
Amidst all this commotion, it seems a compromise, from either side, is unlikely. With both parties requesting radical change in such a short amount of time, political analysts believe a solution seems improbable.
