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Raise your hand if you know who is REALLY to blame for Afghanistan (Original Post) Tommymac Aug 2021 OP
He went in to get Osama and Al Qaeda. Sneederbunk Aug 2021 #1
Let the captured Taliban escape lame54 Aug 2021 #3
Recall the nifty Tora Bora OBL lair we saw repeatedly on TV? PufPuf23 Aug 2021 #10
I dunno, credit must at least be shared with Reagan unblock Aug 2021 #2
I can see that. Tommymac Aug 2021 #5
Wow I never thought about it that way FakeNoose Aug 2021 #14
No shit. Scottie Mom Aug 2021 #4
Elections have consequences. roamer65 Aug 2021 #6
+1 moondust Aug 2021 #9
Ditto. eom sprinkleeninow Aug 2021 #13
fucking Bush gopiscrap Aug 2021 #7
Dubya/Dumbya gets the blame 99% at140 Aug 2021 #8
I would say everyone the last 20 years but more doc03 Aug 2021 #11
I would say everyone the last 20 years but more doc03 Aug 2021 #12
The men of Afghanistan Srkdqltr Aug 2021 #15
No, I blame the culture JI7 Aug 2021 #16
Carter and Brzezinski started the ball rolling downhill. Klaralven Aug 2021 #17
The botched evacuation of Afghan interpreters is the Biden administration's fault Fiendish Thingy Aug 2021 #18

Sneederbunk

(14,208 posts)
1. He went in to get Osama and Al Qaeda.
Sun Aug 15, 2021, 04:38 PM
Aug 2021

Dropped ball at Tora Bora. Put war on back burner for Iraq. Here we are.

PufPuf23

(8,689 posts)
10. Recall the nifty Tora Bora OBL lair we saw repeatedly on TV?
Sun Aug 15, 2021, 04:52 PM
Aug 2021

Talk about bull shit.

Never should have been US military feet on the ground in Afghanistan.

FakeNoose

(32,356 posts)
14. Wow I never thought about it that way
Sun Aug 15, 2021, 05:02 PM
Aug 2021

I think you're right though. It's one MORE thing to hold against Reagan.

gopiscrap

(23,674 posts)
7. fucking Bush
Sun Aug 15, 2021, 04:49 PM
Aug 2021

we never should of been there in the first place. Look what happened to Russia, that place has been unconquerable for centuries

doc03

(35,151 posts)
12. I would say everyone the last 20 years but more
Sun Aug 15, 2021, 04:55 PM
Aug 2021

Cheney than anyone. At least Russia was smart enough to get out in 9 years.

 

Klaralven

(7,510 posts)
17. Carter and Brzezinski started the ball rolling downhill.
Sun Aug 15, 2021, 05:32 PM
Aug 2021
The Brzezinski Interview with Le Nouvel Observateur (1998)

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 [emphasis added throughout].

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?

Q : “Some agitated Moslems”? But it has been said and repeated: Islamic fundamentalism represents a world menace today...

B: Nonsense! It is said that the West has a global policy in regard to Islam. That is stupid: There isn’t a global Islam. Look at Islam in a rational manner, without demagoguery or emotionalism. It is the leading religion of the world with 1.5 billion followers. But what is there in common among fundamentalist Saudi Arabia , moderate Morocco, militarist Pakistan, pro-Western Egypt, or secularist Central Asia? Nothing more than what unites the Christian countries...

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

Fiendish Thingy

(15,373 posts)
18. The botched evacuation of Afghan interpreters is the Biden administration's fault
Sun Aug 15, 2021, 05:58 PM
Aug 2021

Sec. Blinken must resign.

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