Our president is not a Russian asset.

Our president is not a Russian asset.

Our president is not a Russian asset.

Keep telling yourself that, over and over, until it settles in your mind. Perhaps you can ease that queasy feeling in your gut. Maybe you can convince yourself that we didn’t lose our nation to a pawn of Vladimir Putin in the 2016 election.

I’m sorry. I don’t think there’s any mantra we could adopt that would convince us that our nation is not currently being ran by the most corrupt, incompetent, ignorant individual to ever hold public office.

Literally, any public office.

At a Wednesday White House press conference, the man we now call “President Trump” spit on the legacy of Ronald Reagan and advocated a return to Cold War status, while giving the edge to the former Soviet Union and Communism.

Ok, to try and blunt the edge on this, I’m under no illusion that Donald Trump knows about the Cold War, what started it, what ended it, or why Russia/USSR was in Afghanistan. With that in mind, we can’t be too harsh when he bumbles through a press conference and says the really dumb things he says.

So what dumb thing did he say?

While speaking about the involvement of the United States in Afghanistan, he urged for others to step up and fill the void he hopes to create:

“India is there, Russia is there, Russia used to be the Soviet Union, Afghanistan made it Russia, because they went bankrupt fighting in Afghanistan,” Trump said in response to questions over whether he planned to scale down U.S. military presence in the war-torn country. “So you take a look at other countries, Pakistan is there, they should be fighting. But Russia should be fighting, 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,” he added.

Did all you history and military buffs catch that?

Russia was in Afghanistan to stop terrorists, but went bankrupt, so they started calling themselves Russia again.

Trump: "Russia used to be the Soviet Union. Afghanistan made it Russia because they went bankrupt fighting in Afghanistan. Russia." Trump then goes on to endorse the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Via Fox. pic.twitter.com/oE0fuDLXyz — Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) January 2, 2019

Is anyone else mentally screaming into the void?

Ok, I’m going to try and give a really basic, brief primer on what went on with the USSR and Afghanistan.

So Communism took hold of Kabul in the 1970s. It wasn’t a hit with the rural population. The military seemed A-OK with it, but the rest of the population found it to be incompatible with their beliefs.

The Soviet Union sent troops into Afghanistan in 1979, in order to build up their influence in Asia. They wanted to support the Communist government, and they wanted to protect the interests of the Communist state from Iran and Western nations.

Once they’d invaded and secured Kabul, they installed a puppet ruler, but met resistance in the rural regions from the mujahidin.

Money and weaponry was provided to the mujahidin, in order to help them in their guerilla warfare against the Soviets.

The local people, who supported the mujahidin, would house and feed the fighters and hide them from Soviet forces.

In response, the Soviets would bomb villages, destroying homes and crops. This left the people homeless, injured, and starving, if not dead.

They planted land mines that maimed and killed – especially the children, who would happen across the devices.

At that time, the United States was pouring money and food aid into the region.

Possibly the greatest contribution from the U.S. at that time was the training and the shoulder-launched antiaircraft missiles, around 1987.

The mujahidin would shoot down Soviet aircraft daily, costing a fortune in lost equipment and lost lives.

There were around 15,000 Soviet troops lost in the war, and billions of dollars spent in the effort to advance Communism in a region that was not receptive. In the early 1990s, the USSR fell apart.

Of course, this is where I expect some to point out that one of those who benefited from the money and arms sent from the United States to Afghanistan was the beast, Osama bin Laden.

It’s unfortunate, but I would point out several things.

First of all, there was no way of predicting the horrors OBL was capable of, or how he would catch the U.S. off guard.

Secondly, in the 80s, radical Islamic terrorism was not the focus, nor was it considered an impending threat. The rise of Communism was.

For President Trump to continually spout the Putin-approved line of Russian dominance and virtue should concern more people on the political right.

We should all be paying attention.