Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: Seagoon on June 07, 2005, 02:09:21 AM
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Because Iraq has been seizing the headlines of late, few people know exactly how difficult the job that US, UN, and the Afghan security forces have been tasked with is.
The military situation in Afghanistan is particularly frustrating because the Taliban are operating almost exclusively out of Pakistan these days. The vast majority of their new recruits come from the Madrassas (schools of Islamic instruction - their school day is split into two parts - morning, study the Koran, afternoon, guerilla training) in the refugee camps in Pakistan. Most of the Taliban recruits, while ethnically Afghan, grew up in the camps, and have never lived in Afghanistan, in fact, many no longer have families in Afghanistan, and the majority of boys have never even been in the company of women - it seems hard to believe but all they know is the Muslim Brotherhood, the Madrassa, and the Jihad.
They sneak over the border, plant mines and IEDs, set up time delayed rockets, or destroy any American or UN assistance projects in villages (they bomb new school buildings, water pumps, anything "the infidels" do to help the Afghans) and then hightail it back to Pakistan. Pashtun tradition is never to give away a man running from his enemies, so the village elders in Afghanistan give them defacto protection, even though they are making their lives hellish. Additionally, the Taliban are still feared by most Afghans, as they are incredibly brutal and singleminded - even by Afghan standards.
The only way to stop the cycle would be to close down the Madrassas and stop the Wahabbis from sending in funds to buy new weapons, both of which will never happen for obvious reasons. Imagine if you will trying to fight the Second World war while simultaneously being required to say nice things about National Socialism and allow Nazi indoctrination centers in allied countries. Imagine Winston Churchill declaring in 1940, "Our problem is Adolf Hitler and the SS who have hijacked the peaceful Nazi political system."
- SEAGOON
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Simple solution: ask CIA to stop funding Pakistan fundamentalists. :rolleyes:
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the only way to stop the cycle is to not have a vested interest in the middle-east and its resources. in regards to afganistan, bring the capitalist in and legalize opium production, the place would look like disney land in a decade.
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I say "nuke them from orbit, it's the ony way to be sure!"
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Originally posted by Seagoon
Additionally, the Taliban are still feared by most Afghans, as they are incredibly brutal and singleminded - even by Afghan standards.
Even by Afgan stantards? before the russians it was rather westernized middle eastern country - by the stantards of the day.
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Originally posted by Fishu
Even by Afgan stantards? before the russians it was rather westernized middle eastern country - by the stantards of the day.
In Kaboul perhaps but nowhere else.
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*yawn* It's late.. so this'll have to do.
(http://www.almostaproverb.com/animated/osama_cartman.gif)
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Originally posted by Fishu
Even by Afgan stantards? before the russians it was rather westernized middle eastern country - by the stantards of the day.
And then our all mighty freedom spreaders started their Ego war and gave $1 bil. to Taliban guys + some stingers. later on, in 2000 they invited talibans to USA to make sure, that they are still friends :D
Every lill children know, that US in ME= low standarts of living.
You look at so called allies, who are rulled by kings or dictators.
yet there is another proof, that power in hand of people in middle east = no US in the middle east
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4610655.stm
offtopic... just spoted nice site about Iraq.... if it has disappeared from your news... actualy it did over here.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/middle_east/2005/day_in_iraq/default.stm
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Originally posted by Fishu
Even by Afgan stantards? before the russians it was rather westernized middle eastern country - by the stantards of the day.
May be some pictures ?
I guess it could be something like northof Pakistan ?
hint... i may go from China to Kashmir and Pakistan in 2 months ;)
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I thought US is giving military and monetary aid to Pakistan; are you saying they're willingly accepting your donations but aren't giving anything back but a finger?
Sounds familiar :D
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Originally posted by Russian
Simple solution: ask CIA to stop funding Pakistan fundamentalists. :rolleyes:
or we could ask US to stop supporting pakistanian dictator ?
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Alot of good news from Afghanistan.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110006782
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Originally posted by Torque
the only way to stop the cycle is to not have a vested interest in the middle-east and its resources. in regards to afganistan, bring the capitalist in and legalize opium production, the place would look like disney land in a decade.
Legalize opium?
Well, didn't they do it already?
Drug traffic from Afghanistan through Central Asian ex-USSR countries raised at least 10 times since 2002.
Isn't it why US insists on removing Russian (commonwealth) border-guards from Tajikistan?... :confused:
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Originally posted by lada
or we could ask US to stop supporting pakistanian dictator ?
It’s the same thing: pakistanian dictator = Pakistan fundamentalists.
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Originally posted by Russian
It’s the same thing: pakistanian dictator = Pakistan fundamentalists.
Respectfully Russian,
No it most surely is not. Musharraf is a military dictator who seized power specifically to keep militant Islamists out of power and to maintain ties with the West. He is desperately unpopular with the Pakistani umma (the congregation of the faithful, i.e. faithful Muslims) and Mullahs and has already survived two separate assasination attempts by Al-Qaeda affiliated groups.
More on that from the Guardian... (http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1314202,00.html)
- SEAGOON
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The Frustrating Situation in Afghanistan
That sentence could have been written at various times in the last several hundred years.
In the 19th century. Both the Russians and the British.
In the early 20th century. The British.
In the late 20th century the Soviets.
In the early 21st century the Americans and the British and everyone else as well.
The Frustrating Situation in Afghanistan is going to change. A hundred years from someone else will write that line for much the same reasons.
The more things change the more they stay the same.
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Seagoon has it right.
Musharraf basically took the military and told the country that they'd join the modern world, one way or another, by easing away from the strict decentralized religious rule that had stagnated them in a second or third world situation and moving toward a more "western" stance of modernization, governance, and rule of law.
The majority in the country will never forgive them because it moves power from the regional religious leaders to a largely faceless government. The local leaders can inspire great popular support but variations in religious interpretations and a lack of coordinated goals has kept them from regaining the power they once had. It's ironic that the situation they're fighting to overcome is perpetuated by the organizational structure they want to return to. It's tough as hell for a movement based on local religious rule loosely coordinated by sectarian religious leaders, all of whom are rivals, to push out a government that has arguably done little harm other than allying with the US.
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Inflammatory/Troll/Annoying
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Originally posted by genozaur
Guys, all that play with Pkistan is the repetition
of the "great" opera show with the King of Iran.
I wonder why the proud America has to be taught the same "through-the-arse" lesson once again ?
I would strongly recommend to bring to justice those US officials who orchestrated that spectacle of stinger support for Muslim terrorists in Afganistan.
Can the people of the United States at least hold a Senate hearing on the unamerican activities of the jerks who made the decision to
supply filthy terrorists with Stinger missiles ?
Gena, I'd rather support a UN resolution against occupation of Iraq. I wonder when some "progressive countries" will start supporting Iraqi partisans directly, boasting about it on TV, then boycotte an Olympic games in US and start screaming on every corner about Americans givin bomb-toys to Iraqi kids and using poison gases.
Can anyone tell me why US complains about Russian military presence in Tajikistan (according to Commonwealth Collective Security treaty), when Russian 201st Motor-Infantry division supplied Northern Alliance with all nessesary armour, ammunition and other weapons they asked through 2 pontoon bridges, and Russian border guards are the only force that opposes drug-traffic to former USSR?
Look at the places of American activity, they are either oil or drug regions... Even Kosovo terrorists switched from slave-trade to drugs after 1999...
The stories about "allied" forces "controlling" Afghanistan are quite funny. They can't feel secure even in Kabul, while my friends who served there in the 80s said that they went on "unallowed absence" ("samovolka") without any problems.
Still happy about "destroying the Evil Communist Regime" (tm)? Still think that Soviet Army was on wrong side in Afghanistan?...
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Hey the US gave weapons to the Afgans to protect themselves.
Just as the USSR supported any country in the past 50 years (up to the fall of the USSR) who wanted to overthrow a pro western government.
You made a big enemy and got your butt kicked. Get over it.
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Originally posted by Habu
Hey the US gave weapons to the Afgans to protect themselves.
So, I suppose noone in the US will be against official weapons support to Iraqi partisans now?
At least Soviet presence in Afghanistan was not an open act of intervention, we were invited there by legitimate government. We also didn't "bomb them to stone age" as Americans did to Iraq.
Maybe it's time to rethink American assistance to terrorists? Oh, sorry, then you have to fire Chechen terrorists from DoS jobs and deport them to Russia, and it will be a "violation of human rights" :D
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Oookk I get it - this si obvious one of those "alternative realities" that everyone down at the physics club keeps going on about.
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Originally posted by Boroda
So, I suppose noone in the US will be against official weapons support to Iraqi partisans now?
Well if that happens I am sure the US will quite happily arm whoever is fighting the people who arm thier enemys.
Maybe give them some nice helicopter killing stingers.
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Originally posted by Boroda
At least Soviet presence in Afghanistan was not an open act of intervention, we were invited there by legitimate government.
The Soviets were 'invited' to prop up a government which came to power in 1978 in a bloody coup which overthrew the government which came to power in 1973 in a military coup, which overthrew the Monarchy.
What was the foundation of 'legitimacy' of the government who did the inviting?
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Originally posted by Seagoon
No it most surely is not. Musharraf is a military dictator who seized power specifically to keep militant Islamists out of power and to maintain ties with the West. He is desperately unpopular with the Pakistani umma (the congregation of the faithful, i.e. faithful Muslims) and Mullahs and has already survived two separate assasination attempts by Al-Qaeda affiliated groups.
This isn't quite correct. Musharraf siezed power after the prime minister of Pakistan (Nawaz Sharif) tried to have him replaced as Pakistani chief of staff. Sharif was the leader of the Pakistani Muslim League which despite the name was by current standards a relatively moderate group of the political centre-right that had operated for years in conjunction with the military dictatorship, Sharif being a minister under a previous dictator, General Zia. The background to the dispute between Sharif and the military was connected to the so called Kargil Conflict, where militants backed by the pakistani army tried to destablilize Kashmir at a time when Sharif was engaged in peace talks with India.
There was actually a long association between the Pakistani military and the region's islamic extremists. Largely at the urging of the British and the US, Musharraf's predecessors made common cause with the pakistani deobandis from the 1970's all the way into the post cold-war period. The rationale for this was partly to limit the influence of left-wing populist movements that might have followed a more pro-USSR or non-aligned foreign policy that was anathema to the western powers at the time. Another reason was that the pakistani military and especially the ISI were a very useful proxy force to use for the post 1979 intervention in afghanistan. The natural result of this alliance was the Taliban, who were very much an ISI creation.
Part of the ongoing problem in Pakistan is the fact that the military and in particular the ISI (military intelligence) is still very heavily penetrated by the islamists, hence the ongoing problems with securing the afghan border and reigning in the ISI-backed militants in Kashmir.
The South Asia Analysis Group (http://www.saag.org/) has a wealth of information on the background to this written mainly from an Indian perspective. From a secular Pakistani perpective, a book called The Clash of Fundamentalisms: Crusades, Jihads and Modernity by Tariq Ali has some excellent first hand accounts and supporting information.
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Originally posted by Holden McGroin
The Soviets were 'invited' to prop up a government which came to power in 1978 in a bloody coup which overthrew the government which came to power in 1973 in a military coup, which overthrew the Monarchy.
What was the foundation of 'legitimacy' of the government who did the inviting?
All governments were recognised by United Nations and were supported by RSFSR/USSR since 1920. In fact - Soviet Russia was the first state that recognised Afghanistan in 1920.
So - we had a nice, 50+ years old tradition.
As history showed - it could be much better if a bloody, prehistoric and mass-murdering regime of the King could remain in power :(
OTOH - US violated all possible international agreements and laws invading into a souverign country, who's government simply couldn't be found "illegal", especially by the US that co-operated with Saddam, not only in weapon-supplies but in interesting things like murdering all Iraqi Communists in mid-70s.
So - I think that international sanctions agaisnt US are an obvious decision, especially when we remember their actions against legitimate Afghani government. Who'll be the first to start openly supplying arms to Iraqi partisans and open training-camps for them?
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its always interesting reading boroada thoughts. kind of scary, but interesting. I sometimes wonder if the US wasted 50 trillion smaks fighting the coldwar, I guess the jury will never truly come out of deliberations but reading borodas thoughts gives me comfort the money was well spent.
I wonder if china will step up to the plate as the next global superpower and contain russian strangeness since the us is obviously on the way out as the worlds only superpower.
Someone had better step up to the plate or the world will get squeezed from two nasty directions. russian strangeness being one and islamic fanaticism being the other.
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boroda, USSR lost, USA won, give it up, time to move on.
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Originally posted by john9001
boroda, USSR lost, USA won, give it up, time to move on.
You mean - to start shipping weapons to Iraqi partisans?
Please, notice: it's your suggestion, not mine.
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Originally posted by Yeager
its always interesting reading boroada thoughts. kind of scary, but interesting. I sometimes wonder if the US wasted 50 trillion smaks fighting the coldwar, I guess the jury will never truly come out of deliberations but reading borodas thoughts gives me comfort the money was well spent.
Yeager, I started to "troll" in this thread because the thread about some loonies in DC teaching Russia what to mention in school history classes got closed, after Toad as usual showed complete absence of common sence :(
I'm just too pissed off by the "brave new world" (if you understand what I mean and read not only Orwell but Huksley too), where coca-cola is a measure of democracy, and it's delivered by cruise missiles and bayonets. Looks like we surrendered too fast.
Originally posted by Yeager
I wonder if china will step up to the plate as the next global superpower and contain russian strangeness since the us is obviously on the way out as the worlds only superpower.
Chinese "strangeness" will be much "stranger" for you then Russian. They are much more different from us then you are, and Russia is a "bridge" between East and West for 1000 years now...
Originally posted by Yeager
Someone had better step up to the plate or the world will get squeezed from two nasty directions. russian strangeness being one and islamic fanaticism being the other.
So far the world gets squeesed in one direction, and it's what frightens me.
I seriously think that if not US but USSR had won the Cold War it couldn't do any good to the world and (especially) my country. What we got now has IMHO the same influence on the world and the US.
Did I succeed in my attempt to show obvious hypocricy of Western attitude to affairs in Afghanistan and Iraq?...
Edit: I studied logics and discussion only in ordinary Soviet high school (there was no special course), so I tried good old "ad absurdum" method. I wonder if it was my lame English that prevented some people from understanding my intentions?...
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There is an interesting dicotomy in you response to my legitamacy question...
Originally posted by Boroda
As history showed - it could be much better if a bloody, prehistoric and mass-murdering regime of the King could remain in power :(
And in the very same post...
Originally posted by Boroda
Soviet Russia was the first state that recognised Afghanistan in 1920.
So the Soviet Union was one of the first to recognize the bloody prehistoric mass murdering regime of a King, and then the bloody over throw of the Monarchy, and then the bloody overthrow of that junta.
Once again, what is foundation for legitimacy?
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Heck, lets just have Russia and US team up and take over the world. Split it 50/50! ;)
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Originally posted by Slurpee
Heck, lets just have Russia and US team up and take over the world. Split it 50/50! ;)
I am not splitting anything with those vodka lovers. Whiskey is much better :)
Too much vodka makes you say things such as this:
So - I think that international sanctions agaisnt US are an obvious decision, especially when we remember their actions against legitimate Afghani government. Who'll be the first to start openly supplying arms to Iraqi partisans and open training-camps for them?
-Boroda
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"At least Soviet presence in Afghanistan was not an open act of intervention, we were invited there by legitimate government. We also didn't "bomb them to stone age" as Americans did to Iraq."
No, you just gassed them, much better. Were you invited to do that too?
"I studied logics and discussion only in ordinary Soviet high school"
Gee, its not like it shows or anything...
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lol, the USSR history sure seems to be funny.
As far as I know, Afganistan was quite far back in the stone age after the russians.
Some Czechnyan towns looks to be also in pretty bad shape, but I guess in few years the history rewrites the situation; it wasnt the russians, it was the mighty army of the terrorists.
It's already just a small skirmish by the history of USSR.
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Patton was right.
We blew it bigtime.
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Originally posted by Boroda
So far the world gets squeesed in one direction, and it's what frightens me.
[/B]
After reading your opinions in this board I gotta say I'm happy the world is going opposite direction than where you'd like it to go.
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Originally posted by Boroda
At least Soviet presence in Afghanistan was not an open act of intervention, we were invited there by legitimate government.
I have to ask...
Were you invited there like in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Czechoslovakia?
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Finnish government invited the russians in the winter war.
...the puppet government at Terijoki, legitimate by the stantards of USSR.
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Originally posted by eagl
Seagoon has it right.
Musharraf basically took the military and told the country that they'd join the modern world, one way or another, by easing away from the strict decentralized religious rule that had stagnated them in a second or third world situation and moving toward a more "western" stance of modernization, governance, and rule of law.
Ahh so he is basicaly like a Sadam.. he were also more-less secular.
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Originally posted by john9001
boroda, USSR lost, USA won, give it up, time to move on.
If you consider bonbing of 5 ZSU a win, while whole coutnry is in chaos and people are feared to walk on the streets...
yes .. US won.
And yes there has been made great progress in Iraq also.... they dont have 2-4 bomb attacks within one week.... now they have within one day.
Yay US is winning all around.
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Of the three, the USA seems to be the best option for Afganistan.
The two others being communist Russia and Taliban.
Taliban didn't gain popularity in about anywhere and the people of Afganistan didn't seem too fond of the communists either.
They don't seem to be too fond of the Taliban regime either.
But theres a whole different kind of mess in Iraq...
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Originally posted by Deertick
I am not splitting anything with those vodka lovers. Whiskey is much better :)
Hm. Mix Vodka and Whiskie. 50/50. Drink it. And stay alive. We'll call this drink "Deertick". :-)
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Originally posted by john9001
boroda, USSR lost, USA won, give it up, time to move on.
Really? Tell me one, if US won in Aphganistan, why your soldiers still carry weapons there, and why they become victims of guerillas blasts? US won in Kabul? Yes. Sometimes you can walk from RF embassy to US HQ and can not to be killed. But only sometimes.
You don't take in mind one thing. USSR not only used military power in Afgan. USSR had built an infrastructure and whole industry of the whole country. Plants, power stations, raised medicine and schools from zero level. All afganian high-educated specialists learned in USSR. And learned for free.
Where are these intel people? Were are these plants? Where are schools and institutes? I can tell you where. A little part of them live now in Russia. All others died in Afgan. Taliban killed them. Taliban destroyed all of infrastructure and industry. Fully reoriented USSR built agriculture from food onto drugs.
Now let me ask the question. Where from come the Taliban?
From USA taxpayers money. I guess you can not deny it. All of that stingers and m16 were sent to mudzhaheddins via Pakistan. Pakistanian training camps with CIA trainers and islamic teachers. USA built another structure. They built the plants of death.
After the conclusion of USSR army from Afgan the haoth become in the country. And the country has got under authority of professional murderers. Teached for USA taxpayers money. By the way, you know one of them. His name is Usama Bin Laden.
You lost the war.
You lost the war, because now, 17 years after the Afganian war it was nececcary to you to destroy that death structure wich was built with your own hands.
The history is showing that there is no country wich can win Afganian war. You are next in this list: Great Britain, USSR, USA.
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Originally posted by Estel
Really? Tell me one, if US won in Aphganistan, why your soldiers still carry weapons there, and why they become victims of guerillas blasts? US won in Kabul? Yes. Sometimes you can walk from RF embassy to US HQ and can not to be killed. But only sometimes.
You are obviously not very smart or you would know that most average Afghans love what the US is doing in their country.
If there were only 100 terrorists in the whole country elaborate security precautions would still have to be taken as it only takes one bomb to kill many Americans and it only takes on man to plant one bomb.
So your argument about how the US has lost the war is all based on a false premise.
That being said I would like to point out that using your logic Columbia lost the war, Israel lost the war, just about every country in the middle east lost the war (what war I am not sure) and so did Russia because in each of those countries elaborate security has to be taken around government officials.
Russia created the Taliban. Russia destroyed Afghanistan. The US is fixing Russia's mess.
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Originally posted by lada
If you consider bonbing of 5 ZSU a win, while whole coutnry is in chaos and people are feared to walk on the streets...
yes .. US won.
And yes there has been made great progress in Iraq also.... they dont have 2-4 bomb attacks within one week.... now they have within one day.
Yay US is winning all around.
Yes you are correct, you smart donkey...... We are winning each and every week as long as those 2-4 bombings are not on US soil.
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Originally posted by Habu
Russia created the Taliban. Russia destroyed Afghanistan. The US is fixing Russia's mess.
Incorrect.
The Taliban was a creation of Pakistan using the infrastructure created by Saudi and American cash and expertise during the 1980s. The Pakistanis used the Taliban to fill the vacuum left when the Najibullah regime collapsed after the Soviets had withdrawn.
The USA abandoned Afghanistan after using it to give the Soviets a bloody nose. The Taliban regime was a direct result of this abandonment.
To blame the Russians for an extremist movement for which the US helped sow the seeds is an amazing leap of logic.
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i think lada comes here to simply learn english.
:lol
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Originally posted by Momus--
Incorrect.
The Taliban was a creation of Pakistan using the infrastructure created by Saudi and American cash and expertise during the 1980s. The Pakistanis used the Taliban to fill the vacuum left when the Najibullah regime collapsed after the Soviets had withdrawn.
The USA abandoned Afghanistan after using it to give the Soviets a bloody nose. The Taliban regime was a direct result of this abandonment.
To blame the Russians for an extremist movement for which the US helped sow the seeds is an amazing leap of logic.
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.
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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?
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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.
Government troops and SA had Afghanistan under control by 1987, regardless to US support to terrorists.
Please don't forget that Najibulla's government lasted for more then 3 years without any support from USSR/Russia.
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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.
Government troops and SA had Afghanistan under control by 1987, regardless to US support to terrorists.
Please don't forget that Najibulla's government lasted for more then 3 years without any support from USSR/Russia.