I was going through some reading archives and came across a recently published article by Robert Fisk. For those of us who are not aware of his work, the gentleman has built a career as a reporter over several decades with a special focus on the the Middle East.

... Here is a link to an article published only last month and it is disturbing to see the parallels between the Russian war on Terrorism and the American's Afghan war...

Kabul 30 years ago, and Kabul today

As the gentleman asks: "have we learned nothing?". All i can do is lament over the loss of civilian lives and also the loss of the brave men & women of the military who have been killed in the line of fire.

Seriously, does no one in politics refer to history these days???

Same thing happened in Iraq when the British "liberated" it from the Ottoman Empire.

At first it seemed so easy...everything was over quick and calm. Then the Insurgency started in towns like Falluja. It got so bad the Brits begged London for chemical weapons because they could not stop the insurgent fighters, so they were thinking maybe they should just wipe out whole towns.

Afghanistan was actually one of the most modern countries in the Middle East before the Russians got involved. Everyone with any education or money got out over the years, and the folks that were left were the poorest with the least opportunities.


Queen Soraya of Afghanistan Reigned From 1919 to 1929




[edit on 1-12-2008 by Sonya610]

I ask myself that same question. That is why I am reading a book by Steve Cole called: "Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan and Bin Laden, fromthe Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001." It origionallly came out in 2004. It details a lot of the things that went on in Afghanistan from the time of the Soviet invasion on up to 2001. The book details how it was the Pakistani Inter Service Intelligence (ISI) that had overall control of how the mujahiden was funded and armed and which groups within that coalition got the weapons and money that the CIA was funneling to them through the ISI. It also shows the double dealing that the Pakistani Government did while receiving extra funding from us for being the go between. One item mentioned in the book is that at one time, the Pakistani's had tried to sell us some wepons to ship to the mujahideen through them that they had origionally gotten from us to give to their own military. We caught on to it because they hadn't even took off the U.S. markings off the weapons yet. It also details how the ISI had thrown their support behind the Taliban and had even helped organize it and funded it with weapons and money.

reply to post by Wally Conley

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very true about ISI being involved - but again the underlying fact remains that the ISI was encouraged to be the proxy / third party who were supposedly aiding and funding the mujahadine. The reality was and will remain as you correctly pointed out that america was the one providing the weapons and the money which were supposed to be sent to the mujahadine.

why??? all because the russian's came close to defeating the extremists in afghanistan. Being the cold war and all, the usa did not want to be left behind and do a 'one up' by setting up the mujahadine who then fueled the taliban.

reminds me about the old adage 'digging one's own grave'.

i don't find that hard to believe at all. a little like iran of the old days which used to be a hive of modernism in the region with a bustling economy. I reckon if things were not hijacked by the whole fanatism, the it would have been similiar to present day turkey.

Hijacked by fanaticism?

It was a CIA/MI6 supported coup that toppled the democratic Government, installed a brutal dictator which was then overthrown by the only opposition left, the Religious men. All because the original democratic government wanted to nationalise the oil industry, which we in the west didn't like.