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TALIBAN TRUMPS TRUMP
Taliban Trumps Trump

I told several people, copy editors, people who watch my videos, and the girlfriend, that I was taking today off. I’m way too far ahead with my cartoons. Visit my work on GoComics and you’ll see the cartons are at least seven days behind this website (but the comments there are great). But after telling Amanda, the girlfriend, that I had an idea I really wanted to draw, she told me that I had to do it or it’d bother me all day. I hadn’t even told her the idea yet. After it was roughed out and I showed it to her, the reaction was a gritted teeth grimace. That’s when I knew I had to finish it.

Ronald Reagan said the United States does not negotiate with terrorists. The truth is, yes we do. Reagan’s own administration made illegal deals with terrorists and their sponsors. His administration even provided arms to Iran which I’m sure were never used against Israel. Despite this, Republicans continue to worship at his altar and demand their candidates live up to Reagan’s ideals, or at least they used to.

Yesterday, Donald Trump tweeted that he was canceling planned peace talks at Camp David with the Taliban and the president of Afghanistan over a car bombing in Kabul that killed one American and 11 others. Trump was trying to give the impression he was standing tough and refusing to negotiate with terrorists who have refused to stop committing violence.

The truth is, the United States has been in a yearlong negotiation with the Taliban and was near an agreement that would see a beginning to U.S. troops being pulled out of Afghanistan, yet the terrorist organization has never promised to stop fighting during negotiations. Americans have been killed by the Taliban during these talks before the Kabul car bombing.

So, why the Trump cancelation? The truth is, the Taliban has been balking at how the deal would be finalized and announced. It didn’t seem that talks at Camp David were going to work out, so Trump was trying to get ahead. Also, it may not have played well hosting the Taliban on U.S. soil mere days before the anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attack by al Qaida. Remember, the Taliban was the government in charge that allowed al Qaida to operate on their soil and refused to give them up after their attack on the U.S.

Donald Trump, who loves photo ops that illustrate his supposed great negotiating skills would have been seen mugging for the camera with terrorists on 9/11.

Was it a negotiating strategy for Trump to cancel the talks and expose a secret through a tweet? Or, was it Trump being an idiot once again?

There does need to be a peace agreement with the Taliban. There is no need to accommodate them on U.S soil to do this. In fact, the Taliban wasn’t eager to come to the U.S. For some reason, they don’t trust Donald Trump.

Unfortunately, any deal made by Donald Trump will undoubtedly favor the Taliban.

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For 60 years after the end of World War II, democratic governance has flourished and expanded its reach. Now it appears this process has stalled and is even reversing in many of the established democracies of Europe and North America.

Momentum now appears to be with right wing populist alternatives to democratic governance. In attempting to make sense of these developments, I argue that they are not the result of fluctuating circumstances or a momentary retreat in the progress toward ever greater democratization.

Adopting a broadly political psychological perspective, I instead suggest they reflect a structural weakness inherent in democratic governance, one that makes democracies always susceptible to the siren call of right wing populism.

I will further argue that as practices in countries such as the United States become increasingly democratic, this structural weakness is more clearly exposed and consequential.

In the process, the vulnerability of democratic governance to right wing populist alternatives becomes greater. Hence the conclusion that democracy is likely to devour itself.
 
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Van Hiel, A., De keersmaecker, J., Onraet, E., Haesevoets, T., Roets, A., & Fontaine, J. R. J. (2019). The relationship between emotional abilities and right-wing and prejudiced attitudes. Emotion, 19(5), 917-922. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/emo0000497

Previous research revealed that cognitive abilities are negatively related to right-wing and prejudiced attitudes. No study has, however, investigated if emotional abilities also show such a relationship, although this can be expected based on both classic and recent literature.

The aim of the present study was 2-fold:
(a) to investigate the relationship between emotional abilities and right-wing and prejudiced attitudes, and
(b) to pit the effects of emotional and cognitive abilities on these attitudes against each other.

Results from 2 adult samples (n = 409 and 574) in which abilities scores were collected in individual testing sessions, revealed that emotional abilities are significantly and negatively related to social-cultural and economic-hierarchical right-wing attitudes, as well as to blatant ethnic prejudice.

These relationships were as strong as those found for cognitive abilities. For economic-hierarchical right-wing attitudes, emotional abilities were even the only significant correlate.

It is therefore concluded that the study of emotional abilities has the potential to significantly advance our understanding of right-wing and prejudiced attitudes.
 
So here's what seems to have happened w/r/t Taliban + Camp David as best I can tell

1) Zalmay Khalilzad was running a negotiating process. About Sept 1, he reached an interim agreement of some kind w Taliban representatives. This was not "peace," but it was a possibility

2) Trump over-optimistically convinced himself that the interim agreement meant "peace" was at hand in Afghanistan - and then became transfixed about gaining the credit, and thereby a Nobel Peace Prize, for himself.

3) Determined to insert himself into the middle of the historic moment - like Carter with Begin-Sadat but MUCH BIGGER! - Trump insisted on inviting Taliban reps to Camp David.

4) Trump national security staff though the idea of Taliban at Camp David on 9/11 quite crazy - so Trump cut them out of process, ran it himself with a coterie of especially abject inner aides. Only ...

5) The Taliban representatives insisted on signature first, visit to America only later. There was in fact no deal, Trump's Nobel fantasy began to drift out of reach ...

6) And at that moment, he decided: They would not refuse him - he would refuse them! He would show the Taliban who was boss! He found his excuse in the latest in an unceasing series of Taliban atrocities. He took to Twitter to announce "YOU'RE FIRED" - just like the old days

7) At which point, the cut-out national security staff were cornered by reporters - and constrained to confess that the Trump-Taliban Camp David summit concept was all typical Trump vaporware. He had cancelled a summit that had never been booked.

8) Which is probably just as well, because if Trump had negotiated with Taliban as he negotiated with Kim Jong Un, they would have walked away from Camp David with Trump's lunch money in their pocket and an empire stretching to Uzbekistan

END

Thread by @davidfrum: "So here's what seems to have happened w/r/t Taliban + Camp David as best I can tell 1) Zalmay Khalilzad was running a negotiating process. A […]"
 
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