Wall St. Journal's sharp rebuke of Trump's fake history comments on Afghanistan

The editorial board of the Wall Street Journal, which is now owned by Trump ally Rupert Murdoch and which has been historically conservative in its own right, has ripped into the president for comments he made in that rambling press opportunity during a recent cabinet meeting.

The comments focused on by the Journal were about the Soviet Union's prolonged war in Afghanistan -- and the WSJ editors blasted Trump for his "reprehensible" version of the conflict and his "slander" of U.S. allies.

As reported by Politico, Trump's comments "belittled the role of U.S. allies in the Middle Ease, accusing them of sending minimal resources to back up U.S. troops in comparison with the American presence there."

The editorial continued:  "This mockery is a slander against every ally that has supported the U.S. effort in Afghanistan with troops and often died."   And "just as reprehensible . . . was Mr. Trump's utterly false narrative of the Soviet Union's involvement in Afghanistan."

Trump had made the "bizarre claim" that Russia was in Afghanistan in 1979 "because terrorists were going into Russia," and he seemed to blame the collapse of the Soviet Union on it's involvement in Afghanistan.

But the Journal editorial says that "this retelling of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan has been strongly disputed by historians, who say the invasion was an attempt to prop up the communist regime and compete with the U.S. in the region."   Trump also disputed the long-held U.S. government view of the Soviet invasion by claiming that Russia was "right to be there."

The editorial board concluded its excoriation of Trump's comments with this:  

"We cannot recall a more absurd misstatement of history by an American President."

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When the conservative editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal criticize a conservative president with such scathing words, it's time for that president to be very worried -- and time for a round of consultations with his wise and experienced advisers toward re-examining his positions.

Which is exactly what Donald Trump is incapable of doing it, even if he had wise and experienced advisers.    So the slow march toward impeachment takes another step.

This hasn't been proved yet, but Rachel Maddow raises the question of where Trump got this idea about terrorists coming into Russia as their reason for Russia's was with
Afghanistan back then.    Rachel says that the only place in the world where this theory -- as well as three or four others floating around about geopolitical issues -- is being talked about is the Kremlin.  And then Trump just throws them into his public prattlings.     Is Putin feeding him these ideas?   Is Trump naive in repeating them?   Or is he a willing collaborator?

Ralph