Timing, location of peace talks doomed them from start

This week was the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on America, a dark day that adults in this country remember all too well. This week was also when the president of the United States planned to hold secret meetings with Taliban leaders — a fact the public learned when he tweeted they were now cancelled because a U.S. soldier had been killed in an attack carried out by the Taliban.

What exactly was Donald Trump and his administration thinking when they planned this? To say this is a slap in the face to all who lost friends and loved ones on 9/11 or because of it would be a gross understatement. When I think that the perpetrators of the deaths of thousands of U.S. soldiers and citizens over the years would be allowed to waltz on our own home turf so near the anniversary of when all this senselessness began, I truly wonder who was crazy enough to propose this.

I’m not against the idea of peace, not at all. I just think that doing it around the 9/11 anniversary is pouring salt into a wound that has not been able to heal, and bringing any Taliban representatives into America’s borders is akin to letting an abusive spouse move back in with you.

Sgt. Elis Angel Barreto Ortiz, 34, a paratrooper from Puerto Rico, was the soldier killed last week, the 16th service member killed in combat in Afghanistan in 2019. A dozen people were killed in the attack, which came about days after the Taliban had announced that a peace deal had been reached “in principle.”

The attack seems to indicate their principles need some work, especially when you consider that, according to a BBC report, Taliban representatives said our country would “lose the most” for canceling. The Taliban had promised in early rounds of negotiations to reduce the violence in Afghanistan, but that promise was definitely broken. Who can say if the group would not use this summit as an attempt to perpetrate violence against Americans right here at home?

The president should be praised for stopping this ill-timed action in its tracks, although it shouldn’t have taken a soldier’s death to pull the trigger. However, the cancellation should not let the administration off the hook for that action. It was an action for which a president from either party would be raked across the coals had it happened 10 or 15 years ago.

We lost almost 3,000 people on that dark day in 2001; twice that many were injured in the terrorist attacks. Countless rescuers who helped to find people at the World Trade Center have died from illnesses as a result of breathing in dangerous contaminants at the site, and others are close to death’s door. What does it say to the memory of those who died that we’re inviting the leaders of the Taliban for dinner and a chat just days before 9/11?

Peace needs to come. The constant reports of Americans dying overseas at the hands of the Taliban show that we can’t ask our men and women in uniform to sacrifice themselves indefinitely. However, any path to peace has required careful planning, including the site for talks. The same base where plans to respond to al Qaeda’s vicious assault took place 18 years earlier should be the last place where enemy agents should tread.

Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Illinois, pointed out that the Taliban has never renounced the 9/11 attacks perpetrated by al Qaeda. Any peace plan should require a distancing from al Qaeda and all its stands for. Anything less would be meaningless.

Of course, it’s also curious why such peace talks are being done without Afghanistan government officials at the table. Yes, you need to have the Taliban’s input, and you need the United States’ input, but you need the officials with new government to chime in, as well. They will be responsible for maintaining the peace because, eventually, we’re going to want our troops back home.

The key to peace, though, is ending the violence. Until the Taliban ceases its attacks completely, there’s no way that Afghanistan will be able to flourish. We should not have peace talks on our home soil, where the initial steps to war began, until the guns are silent, the bombs are defused and dismantled and everyone is ready to coexist.

Developing a peace deal with the Taliban would definitely be a feather in Trump’s cap if it were to come to pass. However, it’s clear from the Taliban’s continued violence that peace is not high on the list of priorities. Bringing the Taliban to America for talks was a rock-bottom idea in the first place, and doing it near the day of infamy was throwing the idea a shovel.

Lee Pulaski is the city editor for the Shawano Leader. Readers can contact him at lpulaski@newmedia-wi.com.