Originally posted by Habu
What Russia did to Afganistan lead to the power vacuum that allowed the lawlessness and caos the were the conditions that the caused the Taliban to flourish. It is cause and effect, not an amazing leap of logic.
You are completely wrong. When the Russians withdrew in 1989 the various groups of mujahideen started fighting amongst themselves after the US withdrew their previous support. It was the Taliban that ended the warlordism that resulted from the US exit after the soviet collapse.
You should understand that prior to 1978/79, the dominant form of Islam in Afghanistan was a very mild, tolerant form related to the
Sufi branch of the religion. It was in the training camps
established in the North West Frontier region of Pakistan during the 1980s with US and Saudi money and CIA/ISI expertise that the relatively moderate Afghan fighters became infused with many of the characteristics of the extremist Pakistani Deobandi and Arab Wahabi volunteers also trained in the camps.
That the US intervention and subsequent withdrawl led to the rise of the Taliban is widely acknowledged amongst commentators of all political stripes. Zbigniew Brzezinski, who as Carter's national security advisor was one of the principal architects of the policy of intervention even admitted as much, saying:
"What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Muslims or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War?
