Originally posted by Siaf__csf
So you agree that your government did aid and train forces down there, however indirect it was officially. Good. What was your point again?
My point(s) are these:
1. When 90% or more of the Warlords, along with their fighters that were trained and/or supplied by the U.S. (AND the U.K., AND Saudi Arabia, AND some other Nations as well - which kind of kills any point you thought you had about 'U.S.-trained chickens coming home to roost' before any discussion even starts) aided and/or fought on the side of the U.S. the first chance they got after 11SEP01, it shows your "I won't even get into CIA backing of the Muj" (paraphrase there, but close enough) to be the idiotic statement that it was.
We helped them.
They didn't forget.
They helped us when we needed it.
2. Your comment(s?) about Stinger missiles appear to be along the same lines. We supplied the Muj and Warlord groups with these MANPADS and this was somehow a bad decision and "would come back to haunt us". When was the last time a Stinger was used against us? Give me the incident, the date, etc. In case you don't know too much about MANPADS (I'm betting you don't), it is very unlikely that any of the Stingers supplied to the fighters in Afghanistan is in working order today.
3. Your comment about the CIA and the Muj was pointless to start with. They weren't recognized terrorists when we helped them, and only a very small % of them have 'gone down that road' some ~30 years later. If you're telling me that it was a bad decision because no one was able to predict that a very small % of the guys we aided and trained eventually 'turned to the dark side', then I'd say if you were ever making such calls nothing would ever be done. Because nothing is a surefire bet in matters such as these. And in the case of the Muj and the Afghani fighters (as compared to other similar cases) the blowback is effectively 'zero'. Usama hated the U.S. and if he didn't get a course in 'Insurgent comms and cell structure 101' from the CIA he would have gotten it from someone else (Fundamentalist Muslims working for the Paki ISI maybe? Where a lot of his lieutenants got there training?). His tactical trainers were Chechens who served in the Soviet military (some with fairly long light infantry and/or special operations backgrounds) and Arab special operations and intelligence types who were released to help him by sympathetic governments (just like every 'insurgent' crossing into Iraq from Syria probably gets a crash course in battlefield reconaissance from a Syrian 'advisor'). So the operators that took part in the 11SEP01 attacks got the vast majority of their tactical, operational, and fieldcraft-related training from sources that had no connection with the CIA.
There's no comparison that can be made between groups funding Hizb'Allah and the U.S. support of Afghani fighters (thru the Pakis) while they fought against Soviet invaders.
So - when you made your CIA and Muj comment - or said "You won't even get into it" - what was your point again?
Mike/wulfie
