Interesting article from AEI...

[TheAnvil 0]

Clicky

Thoughts anyone?

Vinny the Anvil
Post Traumatic Didn't Make The Lakers Syndrome is REAL
JACKASS POWER!!!!!!

[kallend 2,150]

Quote

Clicky

Thoughts anyone?

One sided and self-serving opinion from the right. The US itself was indifferent to and even supportive of some terrorists (aka freedom fighters) until 9/11. Suddenly, on that day, the US "got religion".

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The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[TheAnvil 0]

Hmmm....so you would have abandonded Afghanistan to the Soviet sphere of influence during the Cold War, eh? Allowed Najibullah's regime free reign with only Pakistani ISI funded by Saudi/Pakistani $$ to support any rebels there?

Perhaps a viable option, but not one I would have advocated at all. I think that containment as applied in Afghanistan was the right choice made at the right time in history. I think our mistake was not maintaining control of $$ we were funding to Afghan resistance at all and acquiescing to the Pakistani demand that we work through them. Both Saudi and ISI's preference for Hekmatyar over Massoud - who was by far and away a better choice tactically and politically - prolonged the anti-Soviet guerilla effort in many respects and aided in building the current jihadist movement in many ways.

I've never understood this inane point about our support of muhajadeen during the Cold War that you folks bring up Kallend. It's as if you've forgotten the reasons we had for doing so.

Vinny the Anvil
Post Traumatic Didn't Make The Lakers Syndrome is REAL
JACKASS POWER!!!!!!

[kallend 2,150]

Quote

Hmmm....so you would have abandonded Afghanistan to the Soviet sphere of influence during the Cold War, eh? Allowed Najibullah's regime free reign with only Pakistani ISI funded by Saudi/Pakistani $$ to support any rebels there?

Perhaps a viable option, but not one I would have advocated at all. I think that containment as applied in Afghanistan was the right choice made at the right time in history. I think our mistake was not maintaining control of $$ we were funding to Afghan resistance at all and acquiescing to the Pakistani demand that we work through them. Both Saudi and ISI's preference for Hekmatyar over Massoud - who was by far and away a better choice tactically and politically - prolonged the anti-Soviet guerilla effort in many respects and aided in building the current jihadist movement in many ways.

I've never understood this inane point about our support of muhajadeen during the Cold War that you folks bring up Kallend. It's as if you've forgotten the reasons we had for doing so.

"One man's terrorist is another's freedom fighter", Nelson Mandela

"Where you stand is where you sit", Anon

It is very easy to have a self-serving belief system. The writers of this article clearly have one.

Just a few years ago there was huge US financial support for IRA terrorists, and the US government (Reagan, Bush(41), Clinton) did nothing about it.

One might also reference the Contras.

It is very easy to have a self-serving belief system. The writers of this article clearly have one.

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The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[TheAnvil 0]

Financial support from certain scum-bag citizens in the U.S. - not from the U.S. itself.

With regards to the Contras, you have a rough parallel to the Afghan point I brought up earlier. I feel that containment was the right way to go there vice engagement. The brutality of the Sandinistas was quite well documented and their ties to Cuba and the USSR blatant. Allowing a Central American country to fall within the Soviet sphere of influence uncontested whilst committing such human rights atrocities as they were engaged in on a daily basis was simply not a viable option during the Cold War. I find it odd that you would think so.

Vinny the Anvil
Post Traumatic Didn't Make The Lakers Syndrome is REAL
JACKASS POWER!!!!!!