Here’s
why his revisionism is dangerous.
In the middle of a
90-minute cabinet meeting, the third U.S. president to oversee the Afghan war
went on a startling rant that put his apparent lack of interest in and
disregard for the United States’ longest-ever foreign incursion on full
display.
Speaking of his decision
to withdraw 2,000 U.S. troops from Syria, Trump turned
to talk of the former Soviet Union’s
decade-long occupation of Afghanistan.
“Russia used to be the Soviet Union … Afghanistan made it Russia, because they went bankrupt fighting in Afghanistan … The reason Russia was in Afghanistan was because terrorists were going into Russia. They were right to be there. The problem is, it was a tough fight. And literally they went bankrupt; they went into being called Russia again, as opposed to the Soviet Union. You know, a lot of these places you’re reading about now are no longer part of Russia, because of Afghanistan.”
Trump’s odd amalgamation
of some historical facts, with modern day talking points from the global war on
terror, and what could only be musings from his own imagination, shocked not
only Afghans – who were aghast at the U.S. president’s seeming misunderstanding
of their history – but also Western pundits, who saw his defense of Soviet
occupation as an anachronism.
Challenging alliances
Gary Kasparov, Russian
chess champion and human rights activist, took to Trump’s favorite medium,
Twitter, to shed light on the confusion caused by the president’s strange
backing of Washington’s long-time rival: “The USSR was right to be in
Afghanistan?! Not even Russia says this anymore! Has Trump forgotten which
country he sold out to?”
In Kabul, Trump’s
bizarre distortion of Afghan history — the Soviet occupation actually
began as a way to protect the communist governments from internal strife
and the increasing people-led uprisings against their brutality — even earned the criticism of the
national unity government, which for so long had stood by Trump and his
Afghanistan strategy.
Afghan government
officials, including President Ashraf Ghani, rebuked his rewriting of a history
they knew intimately.
In a statement issued
shortly after reports of Trump’s comments reached Afghanistan, Ghani said,
“After the invasion by the Soviet Union, all presidents of America not only
denounced this invasion but remained supporters of this holy jihad of the
Afghans.”
In 1980, Jimmy Carter,
with the the help of Muhammad Ali, convinced dozens of
nations to join the United States in boycotting the Summer Olympics in Moscow due
to the occupation of Afghanistan.
Acting Foreign Minister Salahuddin Rabbani, son of the high-profile anti-Soviet commander, Burhanuddin Rabbani, was far more direct, tweeting, “Soviet occupation was a grave violation of Afghanistan’s territorial integrity.”
Rabbani’s description of
the Soviet occupation seems to echo the 1982 words of then President Ronald
Reagan, who said, “The Soviet Union bears a grave
responsibility for the continued suffering of the Afghan people, the massive
violations of human right, and the international tension which has resulted
from its unprovoked attack … The Afghan people will ultimately prevail.”
Rahmatullah Nabil, the
former director of the Afghan spy agency, offered up his own history lesson, complete with a caveat
that the U.S. should not “abandon” Afghanistan, as it did after the Cold
War.
“Mr Pres
@realDonaldTrump let me make a point in a manner that appeals to you. The
Soviet Union lost in AFG & US won the Cold War because of the many
sacrifices that AFGs made, several million AFGs were killed or injured. The US
reaped tremendous economic benefits from winning….” Nabil tweeted.
To Afghans, Trump’s
apparent defense of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan is dangerous because
it showed that the man who should be their nation’s most staunch ally was
discounting the massive toll the decade-long Soviet occupation took on the
Afghan people.
During the reign of the
communist regime backed by the Soviet Union, thousands of Afghan families were
torn apart as the Marxist governments of the time imprisoned and tortured tens of thousands of
Afghan men and women they accused of being Islamists or dissenting against the
government.
At the time, the Pol-e Charkhi prison, just outside of Kabul, had become the site of rampant torture — including electrocution and beating prisoners with cables — and mass graves for prisoners who were executed without trial.
By 1987, it was estimated that at least one million Afghans had been killed in the conflict. Millions more became refugees in Pakistan, Iran, Europe, Australia, and the United States.
Seeing the abuses of the
Soviet-backed communist governments, hundreds of thousands of Afghans joined in
the resistance, first against communism and later against Soviet occupation.
Everyone from farmers in Herat, to university students in Kabul and resistance fighters in Khost province.
Soon after the
uprisings, Washington, still embroiled in the Cold War, embracedthe resistance movement, providing them
with arms and training in what was then the largest-ever covert CIA operation.
In fact, at a 1985 White House meeting with top-level resistance commanders, Ronald Reagan, for whom Trump claims to have an affinity, likened the Mujahideen — the very men Trump claimed were terrorists — to “the founding fathers.”
In fact, at a 1985 White House meeting with top-level resistance commanders, Ronald Reagan, for whom Trump claims to have an affinity, likened the Mujahideen — the very men Trump claimed were terrorists — to “the founding fathers.”
Abandoned again
Trump’s rewriting of
Afghan history is indicative of his larger goal: that it is time for the U.S.
to give up on a war that has cost Washington upwards of $45 billion a year. An American withdrawal
has long been debated in both the U.S. and Afghanistan, but rarely ever
addressed as an actual, practical possibility.
Former Afghan ambassador
to Pakistan, Janan Mosazai, made this point when reports first began to emerge of
Trump’s alleged calls for a U.S. troop withdrawal.
“Even if US ends up
departing in 5 or 10 years from now rather than in next 6, 12 or 24 months, we
must plan and make our arrangements as if it were going to occur tomorrow. In
other words, we need real urgency on this right away,” tweeted last month.
Trump’s defense of the
Soviet occupation comes after nearly two years of him largely ignoring a war he
has referred to as “a total disaster,” “a complete waste” and a “terrible mistake.”
Even after Trump did
commit to stay in Afghanistan as part of his South Asia strategy, it seemed as
if he continued to pay little attention to the country. It was mentioned only once during his 2018 State of
the Union address.
For months, Afghan
officials released statements about phone calls with Vice President Mike Pence,
who has no military responsibility whatsoever. There were few, if any, reports
of direct talks with Trump.
In fact, it was Pence,
not Trump, who visited leaders in Kabul in 2017. When Trump did
make his first trip to visit U.S. soldiers abroad last
month, it was to Iraq, not Afghanistan.
Western pundits,
meanwhile, saw traces of rhetoric being espoused by Russian President Vladimir
Putin all over Trump’s words. In 2005, during an address to the parliament, the
Russian President said, “Above all, we should acknowledge that the
collapse of the Soviet Union was a major geopolitical disaster of the century.”
Last month, Russian
lawmakers approved a draft resolution defending the
Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.
Glenn Kessler, a
columnist for the Washington Post, put it bluntly: “Is it possible that Trump’s remarks on
Afghanistan –and that the Soviets invaded because of “terrorists” — reflect a
conversation he had with Putin?”