IGNORANT U.S. PRESIDENT PRAISES SOVIET INVASION OF AFGHANISTAN

…This is a picture of soviet soldiers leaving Afghanistan in 1989.

Trump is called “stupid” for lauding the failed 1979 soviet invasion of Afghanistan

For a president that doesn’t read, ignores details and only watches the Fox Network, I guess it’s appropriate that he is also a revisionist of history.

It is also appropriate that senior Afghan officials have denounced President Trump’s praise of the 1979 Soviet invasion and occupation of their country.

Yes, during a recent Trump Cabinet Meeting, the president actually said:  “The reason Russia was in Afghanistan was because terrorists were going into Russia.” He added: “They were right to be there. The problem is, it was a tough fight.”  So, President Trump is describing the soviet invasion as their fight against terrorism.  This totally breaks with many decades of Republican’s anti-communist dogma.

A statement from the Afghan President, Ashraf Ghani’s office in Kabul described their battle against the Soviets in the 1980’s as a “national uprising for gaining freedom”.  They noted that the Soviet invasion at the time, was condemned by both the United Nations and United States.  (Just like Russia invasion of Crimea.) 

The American president’s comments marked a surprising split with US conservatives that dates back to President Ronald Reagan.  Reagan saw the invasion as an attempt to spread communism and he aided Afghan forces in fighting the Soviet troops.

Kabul has also continued to voice their frustration with Trump’s sudden announcement for withdrawing up to half of our US troops, as US peace talks with Taliban fighters continues.  And these US peace talks are without Afghan government involvement.

The president’s remarks also raised concern among senior officials in Afghanistan at a time when, “All presidents of America have not only denounced this 1979 invasion but remained supporters of the holy jihad of the Afghans.”  It was added that the Afghan government would be seeking clarity of the president's statement from the United States.

The Afghan Foreign Affairs Minister, Salahuddin Rabbani said the, “Soviet occupation totally violated Afghan sovereignty. Any other claim defies historical facts.” This was of course, said on Twitter.

Saleh Mohammad Saleh, a lawmaker representing Afghan’s Konar province, also noted that, “The United States funded the rebels fighting the Soviets. To now hear Trump justifying the invasion was “really strange,” he said.  “Our war against the Soviets was righteous. The international community stood by us. We gave more than enough sacrifices,” Saleh told this to The Washington Post. “This man [Trump] proves to be even more mad than people think.”  He also criticized the plan to pull out at least half of the 14,000 US troops in the country as being bad for Afghanistan’s stability, especially in the midst of US peace negotiations.

Sayed Ikramuddin Masoomi, a lawmaker representing the Afghan, Takhar province, who also personally fought the Soviets, he said the Soviet occupation “was crystal clear and was specifically for supporting Moscow’s puppet communists in Afghanistan.”

Trump’s invitation for Russia and India to join the fight against the Taliban, along with Pakistan, where the Taliban militants have enjoyed a safe haven, this was confusing and it further complicated all the matters, Masoomi told The Post.

Rahmatullah Nabil, a former head of the Afghan intelligence agency, blasted Trump in a long string of tweets.  “Even Russia no longer says that, or tries to justify the invasion,” he said about the invasion and the occupation. “Those that fail to learn from the lessons of history are doomed to repeat it; hopefully you [the US] are smart enough not to make the same mistake when it comes to abandoning Afghanistan.”

But of course, when one has a president like Trump, who knows what to expect…?

To make all of this even more confusing, it was Trump that had previously said that: “The soviet’s 1979 invasion and decade-long occupation, which ended in a Soviet withdrawal in 1989, was the reason the Soviet Union collapsed two years later.  It was not a costly and escalating arms race with the United States.” 

Once again, Trump just can’t stick with anything he has previously said. This time it is more in support of his issues of building a border wall and claiming that we are being “invaded by terrorists”, for him to revise history.  Yet to make totally false statements, this is only for Trump's personal benefit.  And he expects all Americans to go along with his historical revisions.

God help us all in getting through this Trump presidency.

Copyright G.Ater 2019