Rep. Rashida Tlaib claims that the US supported the Taliban before it existed

"That’s what this is: the horrible consequences of endless war and failed US policy going back to the 1980s when we backed the Taliban against the Soviets. Innocent people suffer the horrors of war while political leaders and arms-dealing corporations sit back and make billions," the far-left Squad member wrote in a plea for the US to open its borders to refugees from Afghanistan amid the deteriorating situation there.

Tlaib appeared to confuse the Taliban with the Mujahideen, which was made up of multiple Islamic groups, united against the Soviets. The Mujahideen was supported by the US and other western allies in a proxy war against the Soviets.

In 1989, when the Soviets withdrew from the country at the end of the Soviet-Afghan War, the groups in the Mujahideen splintered during a period of civil war. In 1994, the Taliban became a major faction in the conflict three years after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Reaction came swiftly on social media as pundits on both sides of the political aisle slammed the historically ignorant comments.

Even liberal journalists such as New York Times writer Matthew Rosenberg slammed the ignorant statement, saying "The Taliban did not exist in the 1980s, it did not fight the Soviet Union and it was not backed by the United States. You could fill a library with books about American screw ups in Afghanistan. No need to rely on fictions."