Yep. The equivalent here is funding the crips so they kill the bloods. Until the crips start shooting at cops - then we fund the bloods to kill the crips. Hoping that eventually if they have enough guns peace will come to them. Yet oddly some people want to try to "fix" those ills by giving money and weapons to warlords, installing dictators, toppling unruly governments etc. Doing the same thing in the future that has resulted in today's unrest in the past is a poor strategy IMO. And yet our solution is usually more guns. Agreed 100%. We cannot impose democracy/human rights on them no matter how much we pay them.
Joe, I get that you are somewhat patriotic and don't like to read criticisms of the US and especially of the current Government's policies. But really, this is a tad obscene. The US funding the Mujahideen in Afghanistan had a specific intent. It was to goad the Soviets into invading. By mid-1979, the United States had started a covert program to finance the mujahideen,[5] whose aim was later described by Carter's National Security Adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, as to "induce a Soviet military intervention." And you think this was good for Afghanistan? The US was so concerned about the spread of communism that they funded the Mujahideen to try and force the Soviets to invade to defend the Communist Government in Afghanistan, which led the US to then fund Al Qaeda to help fight the Soviets and the result is what we see today. And this is good in your opinion? It would have been better than to push for a Soviet invasion and funding Islamist militants, helping them set up training camps which ultimately helped them and allowed them to have the facilities to train terrorists which attacked the US and her interests overseas a few years later. Hindsight.. The CIA, concerned about the factionalism of Afghanistan … found that Arab zealots who flocked to aid the Afghans were easier to “read” than the rivalry-ridden natives. While the Arab volunteers might well prove troublesome later, the agency reasoned, they at least were one-dimensionally anti-Soviet for now. So bin Laden, along with a small group of Islamic militants from Egypt, Pakistan, Lebanon, Syria and Palestinian refugee camps all over the Middle East, became the “reliable” partners of the CIA in its war against Moscow. *** To this day, those involved in the decision to give the Afghan rebels access to a fortune in covert funding and top-level combat weaponry continue to defend that move in the context of the Cold War. Sen. Orrin Hatch, a senior Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee making those decisions, told my colleague Robert Windrem that he would make the same call again today even knowing what bin Laden would do subsequently. “It was worth it,” he said. “Those were very important, pivotal matters that played an important role in the downfall of the Soviet Union,” he said. Wow.. Unfortunately the facts do not support you Joe. Unfortunately, the US became directly involved in Afghanistan prior to the Soviet invasion, in the hope that the Soviets would invade. As for Al Qaeda.. Dude.. Really? Look at the images of Afghanistan from the 60's and read about their culture and look at the 'culture' of Afghanistan today and you tell me whether the culture is even remotely similar? When you push for a foreign invasion and then fund and encourage other foreigners to flood into the country to fight against the other invaders and when those you are funding are radical Islamists, then yes, it will alter and kill the current culture. Hmm.. It worked so well in the past, didn't it? This was addressed already. If change does not come through the barrel of a gun, perhaps the US should stop providing guns to force change.
This has nothing to do with being a patriot; it has everything to do with the truth and charting a rational and effective going forward strategy in Afghanistan. Wow, that is a big anti-American dump. First, you presented no evidence that the US “goaded” the Soviets into invading Afghanistan – an unsubstantiated claim is not proof. It is a fact that the US supported the mujahedeen fight the Soviet imposed regime with weapons. And the strategy worked, and that is what is under discussion. What is not under discussion is the Cold War. We are not going to refight the Cold War in a few posts. The topic of discussion is not the Cold War; it is US going forward strategy in Afghanistan. You are incorrectly conflating the two very different issues. The US going forward strategy in Afghanistan is to work with local warlords to effect US interests in the region (i.e. prevent it from becoming a base for international terrorism). Unfortunately for you Bells, the facts do support me. Citing as your source something that has been described as the “left-wing equivalent to WingNutDaily” is hardly a credible source. http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Globalresearch.ca Additionally, even if the US at one time supported al-Qaeda it really isn’t relevant. Things change. Just because you had a friendly relationship with an individual or group of individuals it doesn’t follow that you will always have friendly relationship with that same individual or group of individuals. And conversely, just because you were enemies with an individual or group of individuals, it doesn’t follow that you must always be enemies. Yes it did. The Soviet’s lost. The Soviet Union in fact is no more. Yes, I’d say the strategy worked and it worked well. I think you missed the point. If Afghani’s want change, it is up to them, and not the US. And if they choose to change, then US policy in the region should change to accommodate those changes.
Then why don't you have a rational response to Bells? All I see is some failed quotation marks. Which will be just another transient point in the same damn cycle. Then we have this fallback by you: Oh? I thought they hadn't, period. Guess what - if they did, then they helped create them. And we have the cycle again. Except for that damn blowback. Gah. Nah. She got it, dead-centre.
Oh? "Wow, that is a big anti-American dump." I'm not the one disregarding the truth because it is "anti-American", nor am I the one supporting re-arming different factions in Afghanistan after it has been shown time and again, that doing so leads to even more issues down the track. Direct quotes from President Carter's National Security Adviser at the time, who was directly involved in trying to influence the Soviets into invading Afghanistan is not enough? Operation Cyclone has escaped your notice? God knows there have been enough books written on the subject.. In fact, here is one (Page 57 - paragraph 2).. The US, under Carter, were funding the Mujahideen before the Soviets even invaded Afghanistan - refer to Operation Cyclone. This is not an unsubstantiated claim, but well known fact in US foreign policy and its history. And trying to dismiss the Cold War in the context of this discussion is dishonest. It is because of the Cold War that the US first started 'funding the warlords' in Afghanistan. Such policies have paved the way to what we have today in Afghanistan. A dangerous and idiotic strategy considering the last time they did it in Afghanistan, the result was the Taliban and Al Qaeda and subsequently what we now have today. What a shame you refuse to acknowledge the senior analysts under Carter being written about and the interviews they have given detailing what they did in Afghanistan. And had you looked at the source, you would have seen that they linked directly to sources such as the BBC, MSNBC, etc. But hey, it is easy to dismiss reality as detailed everywhere, including in books on US foreign policy - one of which I linked and you somehow missed or refused to read or acknowledge - because it does not fit in with what you believe of your own country. As resistance spread, a series of separate Mujahiddin groups were established, with base camps centered around Peshawar, Pakistan. These received massive external support from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, as well as from a variety of U.S. allies. The CIA tended to favor the most extreme of the Mujahiddin commanders, ensuring that the most fanatical groups were also the best trained and armed. The group that received the most U.S. aid was Hisb-i-Islami, headed by Gulbadin Hekmatyar. In retrospect, there is little doubt that Hekmatyar had an appalling human rights record, every bit as bad as that of the communist forces he opposed. As a young political activist in Kabul, Hekmatyar directed his radical friends to throw acid at the faces of unveiled women. This ruthlessly violent approach characterized Hekmatyar’s later guerrilla operation against the Soviets. The generally anti-female character of the Mujahiddin groups has been thoroughly documented by feminist researcher Valentine Moghadam (World Development 6/94). By 1985, foreign medical aid workers found their activities impeded in Mujahiddin controlled areas "because the rebels have banned women doctors--this is in a society where no male doctors are allowed to examine female patients" (Fred Haliday, London Guardian, 4/3/86). [HR][/HR] British researcher Fred Halliday noted (London Guardian, 4/3/86): "The policies of the guerrillas are, despite some whitewashing by their friends abroad, those of Islamic fundamentalism." As early as 1980 (Nation, 1/26/80), Halliday wrote that some of the Mujahiddin "make Khomeini look like a graduate student at MIT." The Mujahiddin increasingly turned to drug trafficking as a means to finance their guerrilla operations, turning Afghanistan into a major world source of opium. Long a producer of opium poppies for local and regional consumption, Afghanistan began shipping large quantities to Pakistan for the production of heroin, which was then shipped throughout the world. As the Mujahiddin were the principal traffickers, the CIA sought to block investigations into this "Afghan connection" (Alfred W. McCoy, The Politics of Heroin). The Mujahiddin used violence not only against their Communist adversaries, but also against other Mujahiddin fighters who opposed their leadership. One friendly account of the Mujahiddin (Gérard Chaliand, Report from Afghanistan) mentioned in passing: "The method’s of [Hekmatyar’s party] are severe indeed; torture and execution are commonly used to deal with those who oppose the party line." "Not very nice people" In short, there is nothing terribly new about the Taliban’s brutality, their ideological intolerance, their involvement in drug trafficking or their repressive attitudes toward women; all of these features were clearly present during the period of the Jihad against Communism. The Mujahiddin were allies of convenience for the United States, which was bent on winning the Cold War. In an effort to augment the Mujahiddin forces, the U.S. encouraged the influx into Afghanistan of thousands of idealistic Muslims, eager to participate in the struggle, from countries throughout the Middle East. One of the first of these expatriate Arabs was Osama bin Laden, who was "recruited by the CIA" in 1979, according to Le Monde (9/15/01). Bin Laden operated along the Pakistani border, where he used his vast family connections to raise money for the Mujahiddin; in doing so, he "worked in close association with U.S. agents," according to Jane’s Intelligence Review (10/1/98). Despite CIA denials of any direct Agency support for Bin Laden’s activities, a considerable body of circumstantial evidence suggests the contrary. During the 1980s, Bin Laden’s activities in Afghanistan closely paralleled those of the CIA. Bin Laden held accounts in the Bank for Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), the bank the CIA used to finance its own covert actions (London Daily Telegraph, 9/27/01). Bin Laden worked especially closely with Hekmatyar--the CIA’s favored Mujahiddin commander (The Economist, 9/15/01). In 1989, the U.S. shipped high-powered sniper rifles to a Mujahiddin faction that included bin Laden, according to a former bin Laden aide (AP, 10/16/01). Worked out well last time, didn't it? For whom? In light of the terrorist attacks on US soil and against US interests overseas, as well as US allies.. And you think it worked out well? Oh I don't think so.. Alas, it is the US that is demanding change and putting their own puppets in power, funding different factions, arming different factions - we've been through this cycle how many times now? And here we are again, full circle. US interference has resulted in Afghanistan being the hellhole it is today. The US did it in Iran, Iraq and elsewhere. We'll see you in another few years when the "Warlords" they are arming turn on the US once again. And it will begin all over again. Then again, perhaps the US wants them to remain in the hellhole they are in currently. It makes manipulating their politics that much easier, doesn't it?
I don’t know how you can rationally interpret that as a bias. Taking note of your obvious anti-American stance does not or should not make one a “patriot”. It is a simple observation of fact. Oh yes you are. And two, you have not shown that re-arming different factions leads to more “issues” down the line. And three, you are ignoring the fact that we are talking about more than just re-arming. The factions are already armed. What we are talking about it working with local warlords. That is more than just re-arming factions that are already armed. I think you missed the point again. Anyone can write anything in a book. Just because someone wrote something in a book or anywhere else, it doesn’t make it true. And when you use highly partisan left wing sources, just as if you used right wing partisan sources, it calls in to question your credibility and the veracity of your material. That should not be difficult to understand. Additionally, as previously discussed this really isn’t relevant. I have seen this tactic before in other threads used by American right wing nut cases. American right wingers like to portray economic data as dire because it suits their political ideology. In particular, they like to attack the unemployment rate by claiming it understates unemployment. They do that by arguing in order to get the “true” unemployment rate we need to throw a bunch of other data into the number – start counting employed people as unemployed. So, like the case you are trying to make, it makes for a partisan rant. But in the end it is meaningless because you are no longer talking about the underlying issue (i.e. the unemployment rate) which is in this case is ongoing US policy in Afghanistan. Instead, you would much rather discuss US Cold War policies and draw inferences and conclusions that are not warranted by evidence and play heavily on cognitive biases – just as my right wing ideologue friends like to do with economic data (e.g. the unemployment rate). And finally, you are ignoring the fact that the strategy worked. Are you ignoring the fact that there is no longer a Soviet Union? It is true that the US funded the Mujahedeen before the Soviets invaded. The part you left out is why. And the why is because a Soviet backed coup replaced the existing government with a Soviet puppet government. You are trying to litter up the discussion with irrelevant material. Let me remind you the issue is ongoing US policy in Afghanistan. And the policy, the tactic of working with local warlords, was successful. It achieved its goals. And that is why the US will result to that tactic going forward. The Cold War has nothing to do with Afghanistan going forward. The Cold War was won by the US decades ago and it is no longer relevant to Afghanistan. US cooperation and working with local Afghani warlords did not create the indigenous animosity toward the Soviets; it just leveraged it in order to accomplish a mutually desired result. Well that is your belief. But it is not a belief that is rooted in fact or reason. US arming of Afghani warlords did not create their animosity towards the Soviets nor did it create Bin Ladin’s hatred of the US. If I believe your story, I would have to believe that Bin Ladin hated the US because the US supplied him with weapons. And that just doesn’t make sense. Arming or not arming Bin Ladin would not have prevented the creation of al-Qaeda nor would it have prevented terrorism, nor was it necessary. Bin Ladin was self-financed. That was his big stick, he brought his own weapons. The foreigners who flocked to Afghanistan to fight the Soviets did so not because of US arms, but because they hated the Soviet infidels. You are conflating the Cold War and a religious war with a tactic…a tactic of working with local warlords - people who the Afghanis look up to and who rule and control the land and the people. Working with local warlords in Afghanistan didn’t create the Cold War, it didn’t create the religious war, and it didn’t create animosity towards the Soviets. No, it easy to dismiss ideological nonsense. A couple of things, it sounds like you are more perturbed about US goals in the region rather than the tactic – working with local warlords. As previously discussed, the merit of the Cold War is a whole other discussion. The tactic worked, working with local warlords achieved the goal. That is simply a matter of historical fact. Two, your heavy reliance on hearsay rather than documented historical fact continues. There are good reasons why hearsay is not evidence in a court of law. As previously noted, the tactic resulted in the achievement of the stated goal, the withdrawal of Soviet forces from the region and ultimate defeat of the Soviet Union. And that is a matter of historical record. Two, and as previously noted, you cannot rationally create a linkage between arming local warlords in Afghanistan with terrorist attacks on US soil or its allies. You can however make a case that abandoning the strategy after the Soviets withdrew left an opportunity for Bin Ladin to use the country as a base for terrorism which he probably would have done even if the US had not funded the Mujahidin. The US didn’t bring Bin Ladin to Afghanistan. The Soviets did. Well I think that paragraph really crystalizes your anti-American biases. The US is to blame for everything wrong with the world. Not really, but it makes for a hell of a tirade. Again, please show me how Afghanistan is worse for US involvement. The Karzai government is corrupt. The Taliban before it was corrupt. The warlord collation before it was corrupt. The Soviet government that preceded it was corrupt, and the government which preceded the Soviet coup was corrupt. And the Afghani standard of living has been low both before and during US involvement. Corrupt government existed before US involvement, during US involvement and will likely exist into the foreseeable future. And unless and until the region achieves political stability, it will always be an economic laggard…a subsistence economy. And yes we have seen how well US interference has worked in other parts of the world. Just look at Western Europe and Japan, Mexico, Korea, the Philippines and Taiwan. Those poor countries have suffered more than a half century of US interference. And the Cold War is over. So again, I ask you are you arguing for isolationism? History will be the final judge of whatever actions or inactions the US might take with regard to Afghanistan going forward. But the Afghanis will also need to be accountable for their future. The US didn’t create the social traditions that treat women like chattel in Afghanistan. The US didn’t create the ubiquitous poverty in the country. You can legitimately blame the US government for incompetency under the George Junior administration for its policies in Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan. Had the US executed a competent foreign policy between 2000 and 2008, I think things could have been dramatically better for Afghanis. Unfortunately the George Junior administration was anything but competent and that window of opportunity for Afghanistan and The United States has closed. It is unfortunate not only for the Afghanis but for Americans as well. Americans are fighting our own corruption issues. And finally, I find it perplexing why you think the US would want Afghanistan to remain a hell hole or why you think Afghanistan is of any value to the United States or why you would think that political chaos in the region advantages the US. The US has been spending hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of lives trying to bring political stability to the region for the last 13 years. Common sense would dictate that one point of influence is better and more efficient than a dozen or more points of influence. But when a single point of influence is not available, you have to use what you have.
The US strategy in arming the Islamic factions rebelling against their Soviet satellite and thereby inducing Soviet provision of aid and support - in an attempt to force the Soviets to further drain their economy and erode their military power projection elsewhere, and also with an eye toward a beachhead in the crossroads of Pipelineistan - is not really up for discussion, Everybody knows we did that, it dovetails perfectly with any number of tactical moves the US made in that "Cold" War, and it has been not only described by analysts at the time and since but admitted and detailed by several of the principals involved. It's "sky is blue" stuff, and denying it is silly. The region was stable. Problem is, it was stable under the Soviets and various local governments unfriendly to Chevron and Exxon and Shell. The US does not want Afghanistan to be a hellhole, it's just that making it so and keeping it so has been at each juncture preferable to the alternatives facing the interested parties - the best they could do for themselves. The traditional advantage of chaos is that it opens the door to simple wealth and raw power, and that favors Exxon etc with their pet military - unfortunately Afghanistan (Graveyard of Empires) has circumstances that cast doubt on that tradition informing tactics. But we got our guys set up in Uzbekistan, Kazahkstan, Turkmenistan, etc, so there's still hope if we can keep the lid on Pakistan.
Indeed. Zbigniew Brzezinski admitted this during an interview - "We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war." We wanted to create a quagmire for Russia where armed and violent Islamic extremists would wage a campaign of terror against their non-Islamic enemies. And for some reason we were surprised when those armed and violent Islamic extremists continued to wage a campaign of terror against their non-Islamic enemies.
The US policy in Afghanistan failed miserably....US forgot that they created these taliban to fight a soviet russia...they funded them,gave them miltary training and arsennel and once the war with russia finished they just dumped them to their misery....These negotiations should have started years ago and the fact that thousands of innocents are being killed in these drone attacks along with a few militants may as well be termed as a victory on the short term but is definately Americas loss on the long term....killing these innocents is synonymous to giving birth to hundreds of Osamas and unfortunately with the justified motivation of revenge
Serendipity. Heh. Yes, the US has already paid $1B for 63 choppers that won't get used. But at least they won't be paying an additional $360M for helicopters that won't get used. Or rather won't get used much except by the Taliban.
Well, it seems those money-fueled negotiations on the future socio-economic state of Afghanistan are not going the way they're supposed to... unless one were some kind of Islamic religious reactionary. What a pack of Islamophobes! Still, maybe it's just an opening position. Maybe.
Yeah, all politics aside, I can honesty say that with a straight face. Can you? Obama hasn't invaded any country. Therefore he didn't need to lie about or deceive people into believing invasions of other countries was a good thing. Under Obama, US combat troops were withdrawn from Iraq. Iraq now has a functional government. Next year most of the troops in Afghanistan will be gone. Obama didn't waste trillions and lose 100 million dollars in Iraq as his predecessor George Junior did. http://www.nbcnews.com/id/7737306/ns/world_news/t/us-probes-million-missing-iraq/#.UvLXb8KYbmI President Obama has mostly used diplomacy over bombs thus avoiding any new prolonged military adventures. And Obama did take the war on terror to the terrorists. He didn't pussyfoot around for 8 years. Obama actually took out Bin Laden in about 2 years, something George II couldn't do in 8 years even when he had Bin Laden cornered and on the ropes in Tora Bora. The only reason Bin Laden walked out of Tora Bora a free many was because George Junior bungled it. And I haven't even touched the economic issues.
As usual you give Obama too much credit. The war he has 'taken to the terrorists' has failed: Al Qaeda has resurged once more and is a greater threat than in many years, partially from the organisation per se but also largely as I predicted some time ago: as individual, scattered groups with the same overall goal. Iran has been largely let off the leash. Bush was worse - but Obama is in his own way, remorselessly stupid. I warned you before not to put too much faith in any given politician. They are cut of the same cloth, and their missteps and miracles are a function of external events more than anything they might do.
Referring to Obama as "savvier and way more competent" than W is a low enough bar that it cannot be said to give Obama too much credit. Meanwhile, AQ has not "resurged" - after W bombed a path for it into Iraq and set up its financing in the political no fire zone around Iran it never went away, and cutting off the bribe money keeping it out of the media in Iraq had to be done sometime. What was the alternative in Falluja - bulldozing the city and sowing the rubble with salt? Removing the ballyhooed "democratic" government of Iraq? Splitting the Kurds off? As far as letting Iran "off the leash", his mode of acquiescence to inevitability there may be the smartest or luckiest thing Obama has done - at least, so far so good, which is better news than the money was expecting from Syria's incoming garbage barrage five years ago. Israel has even been allowed to keep the Golan Heights and continue ghettoing the Palestinians - a triumph, of a kind. Obama deserves much criticism, but the miserable situations in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and anywhere AQ has set up shop, cannot be laid at his step. He was dealt one of the lousiest foreign policy hands imaginable short of declared war by an actually dangerous enemy, and simply staving off blatant ruin while rehabbing the US setup is sufficient accomplishment for at least faint praise.
