Trump trying to placate Pompeo, Bolton by warning to kill millions of Afghans: Analyst
US President Donald Trump is trying to ‘placate’ hawkish people in his administration like Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and national security adviser John Bolton by warning that American troops could win the Afghan war within days, says a political analyst.
Rodney Martin made remarks in an interview with Press TV on Saturday when asked about Trump who threatened a day earlier to kill millions of Afghans across the conflict-ridden country as he hailed the “progress” made in peace talks between his administration and the Taliban militant group.
Trump said Friday that US forces there “could win Afghanistan in two days or three days or four days, but I’m not looking to kill 10 million people.”
Trump’s statement is “very reminiscence of the attitude of the United States when it was bogged down in a quagmire in Vietnam,” Martin said.
“I also believe President Trump is trying to placate his neocon Zionists base specifically the likes of Mike Pompeo, John Bolton,” he added.
“Donald Trump has put himself in a very precarious situation with his demagogic statement, demagogic attitude with foreign policy where he ran and captured the base of the Republican Party by saying he would no longer engage in adventurist neocon globalist foreign wars, while at the same time attempting to reach out to those very neocons and zionists and evangelicals to do the bidding of Israel in the Middle East.”
In a similar comment in July, Trump spoke about 10 million casualties but this time he specified that no nuclear weapons would be involved, saying, “I’m talking conventional.”
The United States and its allies invaded Afghanistan in October 2001, shortly after the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington. While the invasion ended the Taliban’s rule in the country, it has failed to eliminate the militant group. The Daesh terrorist group has also emerged in the Asian country more recently.
The US has been attempting to negotiate an alleged peace deal with the Taliban militant group, which now controls or influences about half of Afghanistan's territory.
The Afghan government is left out of the talks between the Taliban and the US. The Taliban say they don’t recognize the Kabul government and that they will not hold talks with it unless all foreign forces exit the country.
About 20,000 foreign troops, mostly Americans, are based in Afghanistan.
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