{"id":32411,"date":"2019-01-02T19:53:38","date_gmt":"2019-01-03T03:53:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=32411"},"modified":"2019-01-02T19:53:38","modified_gmt":"2019-01-03T03:53:38","slug":"trump-says-something-smart-about-ending-the-afghan-war-media-pounce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2019\/01\/02\/trump-says-something-smart-about-ending-the-afghan-war-media-pounce\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump Says Something Smart About Ending the Afghan War, Media Pounce"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Okay, so <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Fools-Errand-Time-End-Afghanistan\/dp\/1548650218\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?_encoding=UTF8&amp;qid=&amp;sr=&amp;linkCode=ll1&amp;tag=scotthortonshow-20&amp;linkId=d2169ad8d94969b079aa239ca90eb1e8&amp;language=en_US\">it wasn&#8217;t the most articulate statement<\/a>, but the president of the United States correctly said that the USSR lost their empire fighting in Afghanistan in the 1980s &#8212; which is true, as well has been the Reaganites&#8217; 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&#8217;s purpose in attacking us in the first place.)<\/p>\n<p>Media attacks: God, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/politics\/2019\/01\/02\/trumps-bizarre-history-lesson-soviet-union-russia-afghanistan\/?noredirect=on&amp;utm_term=.de0319e95ced\">what an idiot he is<\/a> for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.latimes.com\/politics\/la-na-pol-trump-meeting-grievances-20190102-story.html\">getting this right<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/trump-endorses-1979-soviet-invasion-of-afghanistan-in-cabinet-meeting-2019-1\">they agree<\/a>, mostly <a href=\"https:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/news\/world\/2019\/01\/02\/president-trump-former-soviet-union-right-invade-afghanistan\/2466897002\/\">deliberately missing the point<\/a> and spinning it as an endorsement of the Soviet invasion of 1979, rather than a lesson for Americans from the Russians&#8217; folly. They wonder why we all hate them so much.<\/p>\n<p>More importantly, Trump today took exactly the right approach in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.realclearpolitics.com\/video\/2019\/01\/02\/trump_i_essentially_fired_mattis_over_lack_of_results_in_afghanistan.html\">blaming Mattis<\/a> for a lack of results a year and a half after giving in to the secretary&#8217;s demand for the doubling of troops there. Bush, Obama and failed generals like <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2019\/01\/01\/politics\/trump-tweet-mcchrystal\/index.html\">McChrystal<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.weeklystandard.com\/jeryl-bier\/mattis-taliban-cant-be-part-of-a-political-solution-in-afghanistan\">Mattis<\/a> are in fact to blame. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Fools-Errand-Time-End-Afghanistan\/dp\/1548650218\/ref=as_li_ss_tl?_encoding=UTF8&amp;qid=&amp;sr=&amp;linkCode=ll1&amp;tag=scotthortonshow-20&amp;linkId=d2169ad8d94969b079aa239ca90eb1e8&amp;language=en_US\">The president should get U.S. forces out of Afghanistan immediately<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.realclearpolitics.com\/video\/2019\/01\/02\/trump_i_essentially_fired_mattis_over_lack_of_results_in_afghanistan.html\">Video here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>By the way, <a href=\"https:\/\/libertarianinstitute.org\/blog\/robert-kaplan-throws-in-the-towel-on-afghanistan\/\">here&#8217;s Robert Kaplan in the Post <em>yesterday<\/em><\/a>, complaining that the U.S. is fighting the Russians&#8217; war for them there now. What a kook, right?<\/p>\n<p><i>Originally posted at <a href=\"https:\/\/libertarianinstitute.org\">The Libertarian Institute<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Okay, so it wasn&#8217;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 &#8212; which is true, as well has been the Reaganites&#8217; narrative since 1991. Trump then warns that the USA is making the same mistake. (In my [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-32411","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32411","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/39"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32411"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32411\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32413,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32411\/revisions\/32413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32411"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32411"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32411"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=32411"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}