Manipulation of Trump’s statement and portrayal of aggressive regimes as “innocent victims”

The post criticizes Trump’s statement that Russia, China, and North Korea were conspiring against the United States, but instead of arguing why Trump is wrong, it lists some sins that Western countries have committed around the world (in Afghanistan, Iraq, etc.), but that is no way to prove that Trump’s statement is unfounded. Moreover, Afghanistan was under the rule of the Taliban, and Iraq—under Saddam Hussein, so those aggressive regimes were not exactly “innocent victims” of the “rotten West” as the post portrays. It also accuses it of having a negative attitude towards Palestine, but several Western countries have recognized it or are on their way to doing so, so there is no such thing as a “collective West” where all members think alike

 

We analyze a post on the social network Facebook which says:

Trump: Russia, China, and North Korea (allegedly) plotted against the US?!

And what kind of “altruism” are the Westerners practicing against them, Macedonia, Palestine, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan…?!

This is a pro-Russian propaganda post, and some of the countries listed in it were not at all “innocent victims of Western imperialism”–as the post wants to portray.

Interestingly, the post does not raise its voice at all against the USSR’s invasion of Afghanistan (in which Russia was involved) in 1979 and the war it waged there until 1989, but rather focuses only on what the West was doing.

Indeed, the US and most of its allies invaded Afghanistan in 2001, but the reason was that it was under the rule of the Islamist Taliban movement and a haven for the terrorist organization Al-Qaeda and its leaders Osama Bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, who were carrying out attacks against the US.

The attack on the Twin Towers in New York on September 11, 2001, stands out, but there is also the attack on US embassies in Africa on August 7, 1998, and on a US warship in the port of Aden, Yemen, on October 12, 2000. In August 1998, Iranian diplomats and journalists were killed in Afghanistan, which almost led to war with that country.

The Taliban terrorized the Afghans themselves. Anyone who was unfit could be killed, which was especially true for the ethnic Hazaras, who are Shia in religious terms. All those who were not Pashtun in ethnic terms and Sunni in religious terms like the Taliban were discriminated against or killed. The Afghans themselves fought against the Taliban in the Northern Alliance movement.

The Taliban particularly oppressed women, who were forced to wear burqas, were denied education, and were publicly stoned to death for the smallest “sins.” The author of the post is a woman, but she shows no interest in this, and instead mourns the Taliban regime, which the US and its allies overthrew.

However, that new Afghanistan failed to prevent the Taliban from returning to power in 2021. The US and its allies then withdrew, and the author of the post seemed to rejoice over this, as evidenced by her posts at the time: here, here, here, and here.

A somewhat more secular-minded, but not peace-loving, was Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, who was overthrown militarily by the US and some of its allies in 2003. As we have already written, in 1980 Hussein started a war against Iran in order to seize the Khuzestan region, which lasted until 1988. Already in 1990 he attacked and annexed Kuwait, which caused a military intervention by the US and its allies (the Gulf War), using foreign civilians as human shields.

In that war, it captured the Saudi city of Khafji and rocketed Israel, threatening it with chemical weapons, which it used in the Anfal Campaign in 1988, a genocide against the Kurds in Iraq.

But Iran is no better. After the Islamic Revolution in 1979, the brutal regime of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was established there, who called the United States “the Great Satan” and whose slogan was “Death to America.” Iran has sponsored terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas, and Islamic Jihad in the Gaza Strip, the Houthis in Yemen, and Shiite militias in Iraq and Syria, where it has also directly participated in the war, and has launched missiles against Israel on several occasions.

The post also suggests that the West is treating Palestine badly, but Britain, France, Belgium, Canada, and Australia have expressed their willingness to recognize it, as have Norway, Spain, Slovenia, and Ireland not long ago. These are members of the EU and/or NATO, which tells us that there is no such thing as a “collective West” where everyone thinks alike, although the post creates that impression.

This is evidenced by the fact that not all Western countries supported the invasion of Iraq in 2003. France, Belgium, Germany, and other countries opposed it.

The post refers to the following statement by Donald Trump, made in connection with the military parade held in Beijing on September 3, 2025, at which Chinese leader Xi Jinping spoke and which was attended by his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un:

May President Xi and the wonderful people of China have a great and lasting day of celebration. Please give my warmest regards to Vladimir Putin, and Kim Jong Un, as you conspire against The United States of America.

The post criticizes Trump for claiming that Russia, China, and North Korea conspired against the United States, but instead of arguing why Trump is wrong, the post devolves into whataboutism (a technique or practice of responding to an accusation or difficult question by making a counter-accusation or raising a different question) and seems to say: “What about Afghanistan? What about Iraq?”.

The fact that the West has sins in international politics in no way proves that Russia, China, and North Korea do not have their own and that they do not have bad intentions towards the United States, that they are peace-loving and that Trump’s statement is unfounded. This is not the way to prove that it is unfounded, because that is done with arguments.

Here we would also like to recall that Russia (i.e. the USSR), China, and North Korea were allies during the Korean War (1950-53), which began with North Korean aggression against South Korea. The United States and other Western countries intervened with UN approval, providing a historical basis for their involvement

Russia and North Korea are now fighting together against Ukraine and have made nuclear threats against the United States (here, here, here, and here), and although China is not as harsh, it also knows how to threaten and demonstrate force, as it did at the parade, so Trump’s distrust of those countries is still well-founded.

Putin’s aide, Yuri Ushakov, denies that conspiracies were being hatched here, but adds that Trump’s statement may have been ironic, which, knowing his unusual style, cannot be ruled out and which creates a dilemma as to whether that statement should even be taken seriously.

And perhaps the message of the post is this: even if Russia, China, and North Korea are indeed conspiring against the United States, Trump has no right to complain about it and expect better treatment from them, given the evil that the West has inflicted on various countries around the world. But some of those countries were not innocent victims and were “no saints” as we have already explained.

We are also aware that a great many are outraged by the slow Euro-Atlantic integration, the change in the constitutional name, the feeling that the West prefers our neighbors over us, etc. and it is normal for our citizens to express their opinion about all of this, but what are we, as a country, doing on the same list as Afghanistan and Iraq in this post? ​​It is truly unclear and inappropriate.

However, there are some indisputable facts in the post. Trump indeed made the statement attributed to him in the post, and Western countries have undertaken interventions such as those in Afghanistan, Iraq, etc., so the general assessment would be that the post is partially untrue.

 

 

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