Okay, so it wasn’t the most articulate statement, but the president of the United States correctly said that the USSR lost their empire fighting in Afghanistan in the 1980s — which is true, as well has been the Reaganites’ narrative since 1991. Trump then warns that the USA is making the same mistake. (In my book I show that baiting the US into invading and occupying Afghanistan was bin Laden’s purpose in attacking us in the first place.)
Media attacks: God, what an idiot he is for getting this right, they agree, mostly deliberately missing the point and spinning it as an endorsement of the Soviet invasion of 1979, rather than a lesson for Americans from the Russians’ folly. They wonder why we all hate them so much.
More importantly, Trump today took exactly the right approach in blaming Mattis for a lack of results a year and a half after giving in to the secretary’s demand for the doubling of troops there. Bush, Obama and failed generals like McChrystal and Mattis are in fact to blame. The president should get U.S. forces out of Afghanistan immediately.
By the way, here’s Robert Kaplan in the Post yesterday, complaining that the U.S. is fighting the Russians’ war for them there now. What a kook, right?
Originally posted at The Libertarian Institute.
