Once Upon a Time in Afghanistan....

reply to post by Agent_USA_Supporter


Everyone is guilty for Afghan tragedy in past 30-40 years ...Soviets,Pakistan ISI,Talibans,mujahedins,US,Private contractors, UK, CIA etc etc

Originally posted by Havick007
oh yeah, i do agree that the CIA was a big help when the Taliban were fighting the Soviets.

For the eleventeenth time just this week, the Taliban NEVER fought the Soviets. NEVER. They did not even exist during the Soviet Afghan War.

If it hadnt been for the CIA helping with financing and weapons they would never have grown so rapidly. Although then enter Bin Laden, his family are very wealthy so that also helped in some ways... ( in more recent times )

The CIA did not help the Taliban with "financing and weapons". They skyed out to the south and beyond as soon as the Soviets skyed out to the north. Since the Taliban did not exist at that point, there is NO WAY that the CIA could have assisted them.

The Taliban was an ISI creation out of Pakistani madrasas around 1994, and did not exist at all before then. The Soviets (and the CIA) left during the winter months of 1988-1989.

What did the CIA want with Afganistan at the time... perhaps the poppy seeds??

They wanted to bleed the Soviets to death, and got 'er done, too. Of course SOME of them just wanted to kill Soviets, and couldn't find a hotter war going on anywhere else with that possibility.

Why the hell would anyone have to travel all the way to Afghanistan to get poppy seeds?

Originally posted by xavi1000
reply to post by Agent_USA_Supporter

 

Everyone is guilty for Afghan tragedy in past 30-40 years ...Soviets,Pakistan ISI,Talibans,mujahedins,US,Private contractors, UK, CIA etc etc

That I can agree with. It didn't have to come to what it has. If, after the Soviets pulled out, the CIA had stayed and helped repair infrastructure (through USAID) and assisted the Afghans to set up the form of country that THEY wanted, rather than bailing out as they did, it would likely have turned out much differently from what it has. There were those at that time that begged, PLEADED for the US to do so, but their pleas fell on deaf ears.

The consensus among the higher-ups was that we had done what we went in to do, and the job was finished. Ergo, we ran out, left a power vacuum for the likes of the Taliban to come along later and fill, and left them high and dry to fend for themselves - and we got what we had coming for that.

Dumbasses.

And to think people can't seem to fathom why I bear such animosity for the men in the gray flannel cammies! "Suits"... "Higher ups".... "brass"... ah, never mind. Dumbasses. I think when they put their ties on, it cuts off blood flow to their brains. Probably ought not to tie them so tight.

reply to post by nenothtu

The Taliban was an ISI creation out of Pakistani madrasas around 1994, and did not exist at all before then. The Soviets (and the CIA) left during the winter months of 1988-1989.

your only part right, the taliban was started by this man, mohammed omar.

Following the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989 and the collapse of Najibullah's Soviet-backed regime in 1992, the country fell into chaos as various mujahideen factions fought for control. Omar returned to Singesar and founded a madrassah.[20] According to one legend, in 1994 he had a dream in which a woman told him: "We need your help; you must rise. You must end the chaos. God will help you."[20] Mullah Omar started his movement with less than 50 armed madrassah students, known simply as the Taliban (Students). His recruits came from madrassahs in Afghanistan and from the Afghan refugee camps across the border in Pakistan. They fought against the rampant corruption that had emerged in the civil war period and were initially welcomed by Afghans weary of warlord rule. Reportedly, in early 1994, Omar led 30 men armed with 16 rifles to free youths who had been kidnapped and raped by a warlord, hanging the local commander from a tank gun barrel. The youths have been inconsistently identified as two young girls,[21][22] a single boy,[23] or two boys.[14] His movement gained momentum through the year, and he quickly gathered recruits from Islamic schools. By November 1994, Omar's movement managed to capture the whole of Kandahar Province and then captured Herat in September 1995.[24]

the above quote is from the wiki

this is backed up with this.


the above screen shot comes from document 16 from this web site, declassified nsa documents

the above is from the george washington university, this is by far the very best resource i have found regarding
the subject. there are 17 documents here plenty of reading. and did you catch that bin- laden is his father in law.
it's in the screen shot.
so with these two document we can clearly see he was mujahideen fighting with the hezeb-i-islami.
there were seven mujahideen groups fighting in ussr jihad, according to all sources hezeb-i-islami, was the worst of them all.

Hezb-i-Islami (Party of Islam). Led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who was affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood since the 1970s. As a student of engineering in Kabul University, he led most of the demonstrations in Kabul from 1967 to 1972. He himself was a Pushtun, and most of Hekmatyar's followers belonged to this ethnic group, the biggest in Afghanistan. Since he lacked aw classical Islamic education and opposed the traditional clergy, the ulama did not trust Hekmatyar. During the war, Hekmatyar's gang was responsible for the assassinations of a few Afghan nationalist figures in Peshawar. Hekmatyar was strongly backed by Pakistan and also heavily funded by Saudi Arabia. Some of his income came from the poppy-growing regions in the south of the country, parts of which were under his control. (Heroin was vitually unknown to the region until 1979, when modern western laboratories were introduced to the area and farmers were encouraged to grow the cash crop, instead of wheat.) Hekmatyar presently has a small army situated northwest of Kabul, but is no longer a major powerbroker, his operations having been superseded by the Taliban ("religious students"), a group which now controls two-thirds of the country.

the above qoute came from here

mohammed omar, started the taliban with thrity of his fellow mujahideen from hezeb-i-islami, students from his madrassah in sangesar, maiwand kandahar, and refugee camps in pakistan, and other mujahideen islami. they were known as the 30 original taliban

so far i have only been able to find only five of his mujahideen brothers from hezeb-i-islami. they are by last name,
rabbani, ghaus, rahmani, jalil, (note the fourth one is said only to have fought a couple battles with omar), akhund.
some of the nsa documents give origins of some of the members. i seem to recall there being more but i cant find all of the cd's i made with the info on it. my file system has neither rhyme nor reason.

here is one more link about the afghan taliban

this text is from above link

The Taliban are one of the mujahideen ("holy warriors" or "freedom fighters") groups that formed during the war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan (1979-89). After the withdrawal of Soviet forces, the Soviet-backed government lost ground to the mujahideen. In 1992, Kabul was captured and an alliance of mujahideen set up a new government with Burhanuddin Rabbani as interim president. However, the various factions were unable to cooperate and fell to fighting each other. Afghanistan was reduced to a collection of territories held by competing warlords.

from same link

Groups of taliban ("religious students") were loosely organized on a regional basis during the occupation and civil war. Although they represented a potentially huge force, they didn't emerge as a united entity until the taliban of Kandaharmade their move in 1994. In late 1994.

now this is where i think you got the isi started the taliban, this also from same link.

In late 1994, a group of well-trained taliban were chosen by Pakistan to protect a convoy trying to open a trade route from Pakistan to Central Asia. They proved an able force, fighting off rival mujahideen and warlords. The taliban then went on to take the city of Kandahar, beginning a surprising advance that ended with their capture of Kabul in September 1996.

here's another link that says the same

Within six months of Mullah Omar’s liberation of much of Kandahar province, the government of Pakistan, whose economic interests in Afghanistan revolved around securing trade routes to the newly independent Central Asian states, sought Taliban security for a military convoy of goods destined for Turkmenistan as it traversed through the Spin Boldak-Chaman border crossing in Kandahar province. As Mullah Omar and his vigilante militia began to spread their influence throughout Afghanistan, Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), the Pakistani military, and the Pashtun “trucking mafia” located in Quetta offered the Taliban logistical and financial aid to help secure the roadways following the success of the rescued Pakistani convoy at Kandahar’s airfield. The Taliban also began to incorporate some former communist regime elements, particularly those loyal to former Defense Minister Shahnawaz Tanai, who remained under ISI protection in Peshawar. Through the ISI’s help, Tanai allegedly mobilized his network of former military subordinates, whose technical and combat skills supported the Taliban’s thrust toward Kabul.6 Some government functionaries were kept in place at the local level while a Taliban representative oversaw and managed the day-to-day operations to ensure that the government acted within the boundaries of sharia.

i believe the above is what has caused the confusion about the taliban and the isi.

now this sourse is some what iffy for me. but sometimes they have good info

this does support your comment about pakistan, but also contradicts some of the rest of your post. it is from above link.

In 1994, a new group, the Taliban (Pashtun for "students"), emerged on the scene. Its members came from madrassas set up by the Pakistani government along the border and funded by the U.S., Britain, and the Saudis, where they had received theological indoctrination and military training. Thousands of young men-refugees and orphans from the war in Afghanistan-became the foot soldiers of this movement:

also from above link.

The U.S. government was well aware of the Taliban's reactionary program, yet it chose to back their rise to power in the mid-1990s. The creation of the Taliban was "actively encouraged by the ISI and the CIA," according to Selig Harrison, an expert on U.S. relations with Asia. "The United States encouraged Saudi Arabia and Pakistan to support the Taliban, certainly right up to their advance on Kabul," adds respected journalist Ahmed Rashid. When the Taliban took power, State Department spokesperson Glyn Davies said that he saw "nothing objectionable" in the Taliban's plans to impose strict Islamic law, and Senator Hank Brown, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on the Near East and South Asia, welcomed the new regime: "The good part of what has happened is that one of the factions at last seems capable of developing a new government in Afghanistan." "The Taliban will probably develop like the Saudis. There will be Aramco [the consortium of oil companies that controlled Saudi oil], pipelines, an emir, no parliament and lots of Sharia law. We can live with that," said another U.S. diplomat in 1997.

with this it seems that the U.S. knew whats going on along with the U.K. and saudi arabia. i'm sure there were others too. like i said i have more on cd some where, i will post it if requested and i can find it.

also on these cd's i have info about the pakistani taliban which are rumored to be fighting in afghanistan.
these are not afghans, but pakistani muslims.
check this last link and thats it for now.

do you remember me mentioning the hezeb-i-islami

Now you said that the first night everyone's looking at you, they're a little suspicious. At one point do you come to understand that these are not the Taliban or this is a mix of Taliban and another group? That's the next day that I found out that they're mostly Hezb-i-Islami because when they were talking, they mentioning [Hezb-i-Islami leader Gulbuddin] Hekmatyar's name a lot, and I heard they're supporting and getting orders from him. And then I asked the intermediary, because he was Pashto and he was talking with them and he said they're mostly Hezb-i-Islami, but some Taliban also were in this group. But there is no difference between Taliban and Hezb-i-Islami; they are together when they fight against government forces or NATO. They help each other, so there is not much difference. But mostly in that area -- in Kunduz and Baghlan -- they are Hezb-i-Islami. Did you know about Hezb-i-Islami? Were you familiar with them? Not before that. I had heard about Hezb-i-Islami. I knew who is the leader, Hekmatyar, but I was thinking that group is gone from Afghanistan. I didn't know they're still there with lots of armed people fighting in Afghanistan.

with all i have posted, i think i have shown that it was possible that the U.S. at the very least funded and back the taliban and al qaeda indirectly.

it is ture that pakistan ran madrassah's for afghan refugees during the ussr jihad. and it also rumored they trained some of the mujahideen this had the backing of several countries. including, saudi arabia ,pakistan U.S. U.K.
i 'am still tring to find my source cd for this

Originally posted by xavi1000
Nice pictures Slayer

Afcourse Soviets ruined the country in 10 years ....Iraq thread will be soon

I will try to be more open without certain narrow views or aspects of a situation

edit on 28-3-2011 by xavi1000 because: (no reason given)

Will you be able to post color pictures like slayer69 does?

The black and whites you posted look like they were taken in the 1940's ...

reply to post by hounddoghowlie


I didn't find anything in there to contradict my contention, nor did I find anything to argue against. It's true, as far as it goes. it might help to dig a little deeper, and notice some other connections.

Omar did indeed fight for Hekmatyar in the Hezb-i-Islami during the Soviet Afghan War. He actually fought a lot more than bin laden did. Notice that Hezb-i-Islami was heavily backed by... Pakistan (read "ISI"). Omar appears to have been somewhat more malleable than Hekmatyar, and after the war ISI seems to have concentrated on him more so than Hekmatyar, fostering his intentions and giving rise to the Taliban.

Hekmatyar is a queer bird. He changes sides as often as some folks change socks. He was a muj against the Soviets, a warlord trying to carve out an independent "kingdom", fought AGAINST the Taliban in the Northern Alliance, then switched sides and fought WITH the Taliban against the Americans. He seems a simple soul, with only one desire - to rule the entire country with absolute control, under himself, and will fight against whoever he perceives to be the greatest danger to that goal at any given instant.

In all fairness, Pak ISI assistance to the muj during the Soviet War came largely from the US and the CIA, mostly through a laundering operation involving Saudi Arabia and some of the other Gulf States.

Yes, we DID train some of the muj (and a tough job that was, too! They already "knew it all", and were resistant to "training" to make them more efficient), some of whom as individuals later went on to join the Taliban, others who as individuals later went on to join AQ, and most of whom either went home after the war or joined one or another of the various warlords fighting for dominance. We neither trained nor funded the Taliban or AQ as a unit, although some individuals benefitted and later went on to put that to use for their new masters.

AQ in particular is a strange case. Bin Laden refused any assistance, whether funding or training, that he even thought might have originated in America. He brought his own (family) money with him, and drummed up more money on his own from various islamic interests, but refused ours, feeling it was "tainted". That was during the Soviet war, before AQ even was. He spent most of his time and cash doing construction rather than fighting. Notably, he had a large hand in constructing the bunker complex at Tora Bora, just south of Jalalabad, and lived for a while in Jalalabad. I only know of one battle that he participated in, quite a way to the south of Tora Bora, near the border - in Paktia I believe, almost exactly half way between the main crossings into Afghanistan of the time (Spin Boldak in the south and the Khyber in the north). Even then, he did more talking and directing than actual fighting. After AQ was formed (before the Taliban) I think that distaste for all things American intensified, if that's even possible.

I have no doubt as to bin Laden's familial connection to Omar. It meshes well into the overall picture.

reply to post by nenothtu


They may not have been called the Taliban back then, regardless the CIA assistance helped them later on. Weapons, financing, explosives and most importantly training.

reply to post by Havick007


Negative.

Originally posted by centurion1211
Will you be able to post color pictures like slayer69 does?

The black and whites you posted look like they were taken in the 1940's ...

1940's? Nah, I'm thinking along the lines of 1960's!

S&F for the OP and a star for Slayer's first post as well.

What we see in AFG today (Before the US invasion actually, today is a different story - kinda) is what happens when radical Islam takes over and begins to enforce Shariah law. Seems like they are more than willing, anxious even, to live in the 12th century. By contrast, AFG under their last king was, as the OP pointed out, an emerging and prosperous nation. The fact that the indigenous population was Muslim to begin with proves beyond any doubt that Islam CAN be (please note the "can") be compatible with the modern world. Unfortunately, it seems that most mullahs in that part of the world only want to go backwards instead of forwards.

As has already been pointed out, the US supported and trained the mujaheddin with the sole intention of delivering to the Soviets their very own Vietnam - which is exactly what they accomplished. In fact, I've read that the monetary and political cost of the Soviet's invasion of AFG was one of the biggest reasons for the dissolution of the USSR: they simply couldn't keep it together after getting their asses handed to them.

However, IMO, abandoning AFG after the Soviets withdrew is one of the biggest mistakes of US foreign policy in the last 50 years. Had we stayed, with advisers and construction crews, to help rebuild the country THEN, we wouldn't be in the mess we are in NOW.

Not knowing the internal politics of AFG as well as I should, I can't say for certain how the US would have been greeted had we shown up with bulldozers and construction supplies - some folks would just rather be left alone - but history has shown us time and again, from Alexander the Great and the Mongol Horde to the Soviets, that AFG is nothing but a death trap for invading armies.

I am encouraged that we are getting set to leave AFG with our heads held high; but at the same time, I pray that once we are gone AFG doesn't devolve into yet another civil war: a scenario which is more likely than not. The Afghan people have had more than their share of war and suffering over the last 30+ years and I think they deserve a respite from the violence.