Any supply disruption will affect the global market. Investors will look for any excuse to bid up the price.
A popular narrative, but only part of the truth. The US spent hundreds of millions, sent intelligence and aid and training, for them to take back their country. We could have continued to purchase their good will with money - and then again, maybe not., as we've seen since. But the US had no moral obligation to. We certainly didn't cause the Soviet Union to attack them, and helped them immeasurably in throwing them out. The argument that it is then our fault for not continuing to pay their bills beggars the imagination. The US government gave them the tools to get their country back. That should have been enough to foster good will. Clearly it wasn't.
Yeah, the point I don't follow is that you are saying that after saying we should have spent MORE money on them. The point is that throwing additional time and energy on them wouldn't have guaranteed any other result. Hell, we gave them $43 million 5 months before AQ launched their attack.
We should have spent more money on them purely for self interest if nothing else. We took a bunch of cave dwelling warlords, trained the shit out of them, and armed them to the teeth. After it was all over, we left these highly trained and heavily armed warlords and their shattered country with no infrastructure to their own devices. Wow. Who could have seen The Taliban or Al Quaida coming? As you say, we already spent millions. Investing some more in building schools, roads, and whatnot would have been the smart move at that point IMHO. Morality and what should have happened in a perfect world has nothing to do with it.
The Taleban, actually. And it's worth noting that the Taleban only took over because the guys that the US armed and financed - and have now put back in power - were so ridiculously oppressive. The US should have been promoting the secular, progressive aspects of Afghan society, not any of the bickering Islamists.
And hindsight is perfect. In the meanwhile, which country should we be rebuilding now so they don't attack us in the future. Lots of candidates - Somali? Chad? Sudan? The Congos, either one? Krygzstan? Hell, Pakistan? You are also conflating the Taliban with Al Qaeda. AQ is not an internal Afghani organization. Remember, the attacks on the US were almost exclusively by Saudi Arabians. The rise of the Taliban was predicated on aid from Pakistan - the ISI turned them from a minor regional militia formed from the Madrassa into a powerful military force. They wanted a Islamic power in Afghanistan as a balance against India, and used them as terrorists in attacks on Kashmir. The warlords we funded and trained had relatively little to do with all of this. Indeed, the Northern Alliance was the most direct descendant of the Mujahadeen. They were the ones attacked by the Taliban, and they were the ones that did the ground fighting for us after 911. Doesn't make them good guys by any stretch, as alluded to earlier. And of course spending the billions it would have taken to rebuild Afghanistan wouldn't have guaranteed anything either. Indeed, a civil war broke out almost as soon as the Soviets were removed and to deal with that would have required a considerable US presence. Which in of itself would have destabilized the area, and back then it was right on the Soviet Unions doorstep as it fragmented, another precarious situation that could have caused far larger problems down the road. And of course, even OBL didn't announce any intention of conflict with the US until 1996 -7 years after the withdrawal of the Soviets and well into the Afghani civil war. That was predicated more by the Gulf War and his falling out with his family than anything else. Again, hindsight is 20/20, but there's little to think that the US 'turning our backs' - aka rebuilding Afghanistan would have been successful. Certainly there was absolutely no political will to do so. Just like there isn't to address the dozen failed states out there now.
The progressive, secular aspects of Afghan society was the People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan. They were the ones who along with the army led the Saur uprising, a violent military uprising that killed the President and all of his family. They imposed marxist-leninist policies on the populace, including the concept of atheism. When their minority rule couldn't continue to suppress the incredibly religious populace, they invited the Soviets in. They were at least as big a part of the problem as any of the warlords.
I'm unaware that we armed and trained Somalia, Chad, Sudan, The Congos or Krygzstan. Thanks. I made a correction shortly after I made the original post. So were a lot of the Mujahadine. See Rick's post. Seriously. Does it really take 20/20 hindsight to see that heavily arming a bunch of thugs (even if they were our thugs at the time) and then leaving them to their own devices is a bad idea?
Not if Robert Gates (who was at the CIA at the time) and Zbigniew Brzezinski (Carter's National Security Advisor) are to be believed: It's important to note that this interview was given in 1998. http://www.counterpunch.org/brzezinski.html ^Yeah, the link is highly questionable, but the are just hosting what was originally posted in Le Nouvel Observateur a legit paper.
Meh, not quite. Gen. Dostum 'leader' of the Northern Alliance (more accurately, most powerful warlord after the assassination of Massoud on 9/9) was actually trained by the Russians as were his forces. His Army unit and the Jowzjani militia (Uzbek) he controlled fought for the Republic of Afghanistan against the Mujahadeen.
Brezinski claims that this allegation is a complete fabrication and that he never said such in any interview. Here he is saying exactly that: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RGjAsQJh7OM&feature=channel So yes, I do believe Brzezinski. There's no question that financial aid for weapons came in before the official invasion - of course, the Communist Party was in power after an illegal coup with the military. The official memo from Carter that authorized indicated 'cash and non-military assistance.' Military assistance didn't happen until after the invasion, though Brzezinski certainly seized on that as an opportunity to inflict a military defeat on them. And of course Le Nouvel Observateur, while respectable, is also socialist (in the Western european manner, not communist), and quite likely to have a slant on this particular topic.
I hadn't seen that, however supposedly a copy is in the Library of Congress. However, Gates most definitely did write From the Shadows (I would have quoted it directly but my copy is back in the States), and Carter most definitely signed a directive to send the CIA in before the Soviet Invasion. And before the PDPA came to power Daoud seized power from his cousin the King. Such is the way in Afghanistan. Define 'military assistance.' Even after the Soviets invaded all we gave the Mujahadeen was cash and 'non-military assistance.' Unless of course the 82nd was snuck in there while no one was looking! So, since you are acknowledging that the US was involved in destabilizing the PDPA are you stepping back from your statement that the US had no responsibility for inducing the Soviets to invade Afghanistan?
And see mine. There wasn't a secular progressive faction with any power at that point in time. Indeed they were the ones that the majority of Afghanistan united to throw out. Seriously - those weren't the guys who attacked us. Without AQ, there was no reason to believe they'd have any reach outside their homeland, and while it might appear callous to say 'have at it, boys' there's also quite a bit to be said about not getting involved in pointless civil wars, which were unavoidable at that stage. Indeed, AQ almost never came to be, with the co-founder of the organization that evolved into AQ going so far as to issue a fatwah that it couldn't be used as a terrorist force. Hell, the guy that planned 911 was a Kuwaiti. And as far as US military training goes, literally half the world has it. That doesn't make us responsible for them. Again, you are conflating the Taliban and AQ. We didn't arm or train AQ. They were the ones that caused the conflict.
To my knowledge there is no evidence that Geronimo was directly trained, paid, or armed by the CIA, although he and his fellow 'Afghan Arabs' undoubtably benefited from the cash and arms the US supplied to the Mujahadeen.
Who knows? Brzezinski might be lying, the journalist might be through selective use of editing and spin. The only thing concrete is the memo authorizing aid to the Afghanis prior to the invasion - and that specifically states cash and non-military aid. Sure. They had gone Communist, the cold war was at its height at the time. And the Soviets were there in force covertly already, both politically and with military advisors. They were actively engaging with the Communist party there, indeed even going so far as arbitrating a split in their political base. I think you'd find that the CIA was active in most nations that had strong ties to the Soviets. Guess you are too young to remember the Cold War. Petty tyrants toppling each other is par for the course. Those tyrants being deposed by a coup by the official Communist Party was a far different thing, and categorized by many in the black hat and political communities as part of a 'ongoing attempt to take over the world.' It certainly wasn't that clear cut, but we didn't operate with perfect intelligence. Special forces in cadre work showing them how to fire stinger missiles they purchased from us through a third party (the ISI, go figure). Intelligence assets they wouldn't have otherwise had. You know, the good stuff. It certainly wasn't official policy. Hell, Mondale was beside himself when it happened. At the time every right wing writer was lambasting them for their weakness in foreign policy. In addition, the troubles with Afghanistan's neighbor Iran and the revolution against the Shah were evident then. The last thing the brains wanted was a Soviet presence on the border there. And destabilizing the PDPA does not directly lead to Soviet tanks rolling over in any moral equation. Any more than the US cutting off Japan's steel and oil supplies in 1941 has any moral culpability in justifying Pearl Harbor. It's my belief that the US government did not intend to cause an invasion. Carter and Mondale wouldn't have allowed that.
A lot of factors involved. For one thing, the further it recedes in time, the Bigger and Badder the Soviet threat is written. For another: this is studiously ignored whenever the arming of thugs took place between 1980-1988. Mustn't speak ill of the guy who knocked down the Berlin Wall all by his own self.
That they didn't have power is all the more reason to support them, is it not? And there were groups other than those backed by Moscow. I refer everyone again to RAWA, who continue to deserve western support, and who continue not to get it.
Wow. That is just amazingly ignorant. The exact opposite has happened - the Soviet threat has been diminished by the left as much as possible - it helps overlook the fact that so many on that side were taken in by them from the beginning. It's hard to overstate how big the threat was during the last half of the 20th century, and how amazed everyone in the West was when it collapsed. The communist scare of the 50s, Korea, the Cuban missile crisis, Sputnik and the space race, Vietnam, the anti-nuke movement as a reaction to the threat of nuclear annihilation. Folks my age sure as hell remember The Day After. It is literally the only time in recorded history the entire human race could have been destroyed. Nothing to do with it. Hell, Carter started the escalation there, not Reagan.
It's one example. There are others. And of course, "dealing with the warlords" isn't an all or nothing question. A positive influence on Afghan society so that it's at least going in the right direction, would be enough.
