A Brief History
On February 29, 2020, the American Trump administration and the Afghan Islamist group known as The Taliban, met in Doha, Qatar, and signed an agreement by which the US would pull out military forces and bring an end to the longest war in US history.
Digging Deeper
The Taliban agreed to cease hostilities to allow the US to safely pull out of Afghanistan in exchange for the US to stop offensive action. Unfortunately, both parties did not bother to include the Afghan government, an incredible oversight.
The US lived up to its promise of restricting military operations and proceeding with the withdrawal of forces, but the Taliban made the 2021 pullout of the US a debacle by applying pressure on the Americans and quickly overrunning the country, putting it back in Taliban hands just as before the 2001 US invasion.
Some other treaties not worth the paper they were written on include just about every treaty with Native Americans, the 1938 Munich Agreement, and the Germany-USSR Non-Aggression Pact of 1939.
Question for students (and subscribers): What is the worst treaty of all time? Please let us know in the comments section below this article.
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Historical Evidence
For more information, please see…
Lawrence, William. All Indian Treaty Land Titles Declared Worthless. Wentworth Press, 2016.
Ó Fianghusa (Fennessy), Séamus. The Pullout Sellout: The Betrayal of Afghanistan and America’s 9/11 Legacy. Im Úr Blasta, 2021.
The featured image in this article, a photograph of American diplomat Zalmay Khalilzad (left) and Taliban diplomat Abdul Ghani Baradar (right) signing the United States–Taliban deal in the presence of Qatari mediators at the Sheraton Grand Doha Resort, is a work of a United States Department of State employee, taken or made as part of that person’s official duties. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the image is in the public domain per 17 U.S.C. § 101 and § 105 and the Department Copyright Information.
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