Comment: On the one hand, this is just another news item about Trump again saying something 'outrageous', teeing up another round of apoplexy in Western intelligentsia and intelligence circles (while nothing changes on the ground - yet). On the other hand, Trump seems to have really 'gone for the jugular' in yesterday's post-cabinet meeting press conference, placing the very rationale for America's non-stop wars on very public trial...
The good old days of (explicitly-sanctioned-by-the-West) Islamic jihad
"Russia used to be the Soviet Union. Afghanistan made it Russia, because they went bankrupt fighting in Afghanistan," Trump told reporters on Wednesday, following a cabinet meeting at the White House.
Comment: That's certainly a plausible and popular narrative. Technically, it's not historically accurate; the USSR broke up for a number of reasons. (See the astute analysis in Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives by actual kremlinologist and Soviet historian Stephen Cohen for more on that.)
HOWEVER, Trump's point is there between the lines: "If we go with the premise that the USSR broke up as a result of being bogged down militarily in Afghanistan, isn't it highly risky for the US to remain there indefinitely?..."
Arguing that Russia, India and Pakistan were all in Afghanistan's neighborhood and should fight terrorism there rather than expecting the US to, Trump offered an impromptu history lesson.
"The reason Russia was in Afghanistan was because terrorists were going into Russia. They were right to be there," he said. "The problem is, it was a tough fight. And literally, they went bankrupt."
Comment: No, terrorists in or from Afghanistan were not going into 'Russia' (then the USSR) in the 1970s. Terrorism would only hit the USSR as soon as it began breaking up in 1989, then explode in 2000 when Putin became leader. The USSR went into Afghanistan to uphold a Moscow-aligned government. HOWEVER, the USSR was arguably fighting the first real 'fundamentalist Muslim terror network' in Afghanistan... the one armed and funded by the CIA and which developed into al-Qaeda/ISIS!
Be that as it may, the implication of Trump's logical deduction is sound: "If they went bankrupt and their empire broke up while 'fighting terrorists' in Afghanistan, then could we not too? Are we so full of hubris that we cannot see what fate may have in store for us?"
Comment: Of course not. What's a few billion agitated people when total world domination at a time of rapid development for the non-Western majority is your goal?
RT has, naturally, homed in Trump's statements about the USSR in Afghanistan, but there's a more significant point behind Trump's statements: He trailed off at that point, but what he implied was that these geographically-proximate countries should be left alone to deal with 'ISIS' and the Taliban and whatever other fundamentalist nut-jobs remain in Afghanistan and northern Pakistan.
Clearly, Trump is using the narrative of justifying US military presence in Afghanistan on the basis of terrorists being there to present the opposite policy to the deep state and permanent government: US military withdrawal.
Just the fact that he emphasizes that these other countries are physically, geographically there, and that the US - by obvious implication - is not, is anathema to the exceptionalists who HATE the man for doing his part to wake people from the spell of 'saving the world'.
Here's what Trump said at the same press conference about the US military presence in Syria. This time, he flips the narrative on the exceptionalists by claiming that the US 'killing ISIS' in Syria is helping Russia, Iran and Assad, sworn enemies of the deep state!
He's very smart. Maybe not Putin-smart in his execution, but his counter-manipulation of the manipulations the deep staters use through the terror narrative is the strongest indication yet that he's serious about ending this 'endless war', and by itself largely accounts for the elites' hatred of him.