What in God's Green Goodness Are We Up To In Afghanistan?

For the lack of anything positive about the Current Situation, here's a picture of a record store in Kabul in the 50s. Maybe some day...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/89/1950s_Afghanistan_-_Records_store.jpg

You still get records shops there...

http://gdb.voanews.com/FAEBBC66-0AAE-437E-9749-4F8AF6ADB452_w640_r1_s.jpg

... not very popular with certain of their compatriots though.

The fact that the US played a role/was involved in some conflict does not always mean that the US is the driving or sole force shaping the conflict. Geopolitics are messier than that.

holy shit there's a lot of denial going on here. in this case the islamic reactionaries were going to lose, and the u.s. armed and funded and trained and supported them and then they didn't lose.

i have no idea what "blame to go around" or "messy geopolitics" have to do with that. the cause and effect is obvious and immediate.

Should the US have known what these rebels were planning next and what their goals would be, beyond pushing out the Russians? Should the US have foreseen that Pakistan would serve as a base of operations for what became the Taliban?

It wasn't only US support either, it was also Saudi and Pakistani support.

we'll get this whole funding and arming of freedom fighters thing right one of these years

And the war was against a foreign invasion. It's not as if the US funded right wing reactionaries to take down a popularly elected leader (that time...)

i'm not an expert, but it has always seemed to me a very classic case of the US decision-makers genuinely not caring what particular kind of thugs they were supporting, or what their particular dreams for the future might be, because they were useful for the immediate cold-war goal. 'should the US have known?' - i think they probably did, at least some of it, and didn't think it was a big deal. i mean it's not like that would be some kind of crazy outlier case.

And the war was against a foreign invasion. It's not as if the US funded right wing reactionaries to take down a popularly elected leader (that time...)

― Frederik B, Thursday, June 16, 2016 10:11 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the reactionaries were fighting back before the soviets entered afghanistan to bolster the extant PDPA government.

It wasn't only US support either, it was also Saudi and Pakistani support.

― socka flocka-jones (man alive), Thursday, June 16, 2016 10:06 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i.e. it wasn't only direct US support, it was also support from the US as brokered by allies and client states

Should the US have known what these rebels were planning next and what their goals would be, beyond pushing out the Russians? Should the US have foreseen that Pakistan would serve as a base of operations for what became the Taliban?

― curmudgeon, Thursday, June 16, 2016 10:01 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

well it was obvious at the time what the rebels were doing then -- which was shooting people who taught girls how to read so idk maybe that was bad

Saudi Arabia had its own motivations, the "client state" explanation is reductive.

so the u.s. partnered with other bad actors to do a bad thing. good job "complicating" the story.

How is it a bad thing to defeat a soviet invasion?

Saudi Arabia definitely has its own regional ambitions. Since 1973 their relationship with the USA is one of mutual convenience, not one of client and patron.

How is it a bad thing to defeat a soviet invasion?

― Frederik B, Thursday, June 16, 2016 10:55 AM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

when it means bringing the Taliban to power?

It was US neglect after the Soviets left that assisted the Taliban coming to power, not any kind of active support. The active support came from Pakistan.

can someone summarize for me how the soviets supporting with resources and advisors, eventually getting into a drawn-out war in Afghanistan is any different than the US's intervention in Vietnam

is it just soviet troops in-country that are bad, or is any foreign army coming into a country bad, and if so, how does it differ morally from supporting dissident groups under the table

it's okay if the ends are good

<3 u NV

Lol i missed morbz totally ahistorical thread revive potshot at me. Sorry morbz! But u are wrong, the u.s. did not royally fuck up afghanistan in the 80s, our impact there was p minimal.

Many xp

:D

there is no continent u cannot misunderstand, PelosiFan

How is it a bad thing to defeat a soviet invasion?

― Frederik B, Thursday, June 16, 2016 1:55 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

how was the u.s. in vietnam any worse than the people the u.s. killed in vietnam good question makes u think real hard

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e3/Henry_Kissinger.jpg/220px-Henry_Kissinger.jpg

Saudi Arabia definitely has its own regional ambitions. Since 1973 their relationship with the USA is one of mutual convenience, not one of client and patron.

can someone summarize for me how the soviets supporting with resources and advisors, eventually getting into a drawn-out war in Afghanistan is any different than the US's intervention in Vietnam

Considering that the USSR actively supported the North Vietnamese government with weapons and training, the parallels are very obvious. The only clear difference is which national interests backed which side. But it is generally accepted that nations will pursue their perceived interests and most nations will always seek greater power when it appears possible to acquire it.

Morality is often invoked as a justification for power-seeking, but it is always a side-car that is easily attached to the main power train.

tbh the soviet influence hedged afghanistan against pakistan's influence and..

.. ok, I hang out with my indian coworkers a lot and the "wtf is the deal with pakistan" conversation comes up way too often so perhaps I am a little quick to point blame in that direction

But it is generally accepted that nations will pursue their perceived interests and most nations will always seek greater power when it appears possible to acquire it.

― a little too mature to be cute (Aimless), Thursday, June 16, 2016 3:01 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

wow pride and prejudice reads a lot more mercenary than i remember it

there is no continent u cannot misunderstand, PelosiFan

as usual yr political convictions have zero bearing on reality

shakey the idea that the u.s. had a minimal impact on Afghanistan in the 80s is very wrong.

I have no idea what s.clover is arguing about at this point... If anyone is in doubt, uhm, I agree that the US invasion of Vietnam was a bad thing...

impacts are relative - US wasn't shaping events so much as trying to exploit them. country was a wartorn mess prior to U.S. engagement, and it remained so afterward. the original point I was disputing (in some other thread) was the argument that the U.S.'s involvement in Afghanistan in the 80s was so ruinous for the country that it directly resulted in Muslims hating America, 9-11, etc. Which is just ridiculous. Yes OBL was personally bitter about the US abandoning his little "Abraham Lincoln brigade" (lol) but for the larger Muslim world America's participation in Aghanistan 80s shenanigans was not really a big recruiting tool for Islamic extremists.

xp

im being quite literal, as in the u.s. funding quite possibly swung the war for the mujahideen (this is not a particularly controversial view).

this party was garbage before I even got here! *shits on birthday cake*

I have no idea what s.clover is arguing about at this point... If anyone is in doubt, uhm, I agree that the US invasion of Vietnam was a bad thing...

― Frederik B, Thursday, June 16, 2016 3:22 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

How is it a bad thing to defeat a soviet invasion?

― Frederik B, Thursday, June 16, 2016 1:55 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

so uh in vietnam i guess the problem was they lost?

Wait, what? What on earth are you talking about?

im being quite literal, as in the u.s. funding quite possibly swung the war for the mujahideen (this is not a particularly controversial view).

right, but I don't think that constitutes the US "fucking Afghanistan", exactly. In a scenario where both potential victors were inherently bad actors, I'm not inclined to view one's victory over the other as anything but a wash.

yeah tbf the USSR and the Taliban have been equal forces for evil over the last 20 years

The U.S., solely interested in winning the battle against the Soviet Union, funded the Mujahideen to the tune of $3 billion; Saudi Arabia provided as much and likely more. Neither country appreciated the ramifications of such a decision—especially the effects it would have on women’s rights. When asked about support for Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a misogynist figure who became notoriously known for throwing acid on the faces of women who refused to wear the veil, and whose group, Hezb-e-Islami received as much as 50 percent of U.S. aid , a CIA official in Pakistan responded: “fanatics fight better.”

https://this.org/2012/02/17/how-the-west-uses-womens-rights-as-an-excuse-for-military-intervention/

ftr, we're viewing both wars purely through the lens of the cold war being fought by proxy. the locals undoubtedly have very different ideas about the course of their respective wars, their outcomes and their eventual meaning. Apart from their being occupied (or, in Afghanistan's case, semi-occupied) and manipulated by European colonial forces and used as proxy battlefields by the USA and USSR, it would be hard to think of two more different countries than Vietnam and Afghanistan.

most of the hostility toward the soviet-allied, urban, political base in afghanistan was from people who felt their modernizations were too much of a westernization/secularization of culture? the united states (well, the cia) pitched it as empowering anti-soviet fighters, but they were empowering groups that were angry people were being what they perceived as secular and anti-traditional culture

the vietnam analogy is relevant inasmuch as the u.s. deliberately tried to provoke the soviets into invading afghanistan in the hope of giving them "their own" vietnam war.

Question: The former director of the CIA, Robert Gates, stated in his memoirs that the American intelligence services began to aid the Mujahiddin in Afghanistan six months before the Soviet intervention. Is this period, you were the national securty advisor to President Carter. You therefore played a key role in this affair. Is this correct?

Brzezinski: Yes. According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahiddin began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan on December 24, 1979. But the reality, closely guarded until now, is completely otherwise: Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention...

Q: Despite this risk, you were an advocate of this covert action. But perhaps you yourself desired this Soviet entry into the war and looked for a way to provoke it?

B: It wasn’t quite like that. We didn’t push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.

Q: When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting that they intended to fight against secret US involvement in Afghanistan , nobody believed them. However, there was an element of truth in this. You don’t regret any of this today?

B: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter, essentially: “We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war." Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war that was unsustainable for the regime, a conflict that bought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.

Q: And neither do you regret having supported Islamic fundamentalism, which has given arms and advice to future terrorists?

B: What is more important in world history? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some agitated Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?

http://dgibbs.faculty.arizona.edu/brzezinski_interview

What is more important in world history? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some agitated Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?

can we reevaluate this one in another thirty years

no surprise that Brzezinski considered getting the soviets out of central Europe to be of the highest importance.

the original point I was disputing (in some other thread) was the argument that the U.S.'s involvement in Afghanistan in the 80s was so ruinous for the country that it directly resulted in Muslims hating America, 9-11, etc. Which is just ridiculous. Yes OBL was personally bitter about the US abandoning his little "Abraham Lincoln brigade" (lol) but for the larger Muslim world America's participation in Aghanistan 80s shenanigans was not really a big recruiting tool for Islamic extremists.

Wait, what? No-one in that thread, even the quoted GWB, said anything like "Muslims hate America". "The larger Muslim world" wasn't responsible for 9/11, the specific group lead by OBL was - hence the connection with Afghanistan that you seem happy to agree with, once you can claim that it wasn't what you were disagreeing with?

I mean, I get that's your thing, you're never wrong, but the tap-dancing there has taken you to a very odd abyss..

Of course not. We've been caught in a self-perpetuating cycle of revenge ever since we invaded Afghanistan. They believe we are waging a war on them because of their way of life and vice versa. Not that hard to understand.

― flappy bird, Monday, June 13, 2016 2:11 PM (3 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

that particular statement of Bush's* stands out because of its position at the start of what a lot of people know about the conflict - rather than provide any shading of hey maybe we shouldn't have fucked over Afghanistan quite so hard in the 80s, it sets out the whole thing in Manichean terms - not only are we the good guys, but they hate us for our goodness, nothing else we can do about that. It's of a piece with unironically declaring it a War on Terror.

*I'm assuming it's from Cheney / Rove / Rumsfeld, just because it's so good at what it does.

― Andrew Farrell, Monday, June 13, 2016 2:46 PM (3 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

context of these comments was the general framing of the "clash of civilization" POV and whether islam sees itself as at war with the west and vice versa, nowhere did you say you were referring specifically to OBL's little band of Egyptians and Saudis, who certainly had way more grievances with the US than the general state of Afghanistan as a country.

be better at making yr points

Even in terms of OBL and his mujahedeen, while they *personally* were fucked over by the withdrawal of US support, that doesn't really have a whole lot of bearing on the state of Afghanistan as a whole. Obviously Afghanistan under the Taliban worked out just fine as a base of operations for Al Qaeda, OBL wasn't exactly upset about them coming out on top.

also I'm wrong all the time about stuff - man alive and Alfred just turned my head on the gun control thread yesterday for ex.

(and fwiw yes I know flappy bird's initial post there doesn't even make any sense since obviously the cycle of revenge - at least as far as radical Islamists are concerned - started *before* we invaded Afghanistan)

Even in terms of OBL and his mujahedeen, while they *personally* were fucked over by the withdrawal of US support, that doesn't really have a whole lot of bearing on the state of Afghanistan as a whole. Obviously Afghanistan under the Taliban worked out just fine as a base of operations for Al Qaeda, OBL wasn't exactly upset about them coming out on top.

― Οὖτις, Thursday, June 16, 2016 7:24 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Right. what fucked over afghanistan as a whole wasn't the withdrawal of u.s. "support" (for fucks sake) but the provision of huge amounts of arms and aid to crazy woman-hating nutball reactionaries to depose a government in the first place.

(and there was no cycle of "revenge" between the u.s. and islam for the duration of the cold war -- that's the point. they supported religious forces and allied with them all over the place as part of their moves against the ussr. e.g. http://www.nybooks.com/daily/2011/02/05/washingtons-secret-history-muslim-brotherhood/ )