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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group
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To: Hawkmoon who wrote (130158)4/26/2004 11:01:19 PM
From: Sarmad Y. Hermiz  Read Replies (1) of 281500
 
>> while deliberately excluding the responsibility of the ISI and Arab intelligence agencies which sought to expand their Madrassas and Wahhabist religious beliefs, is just incredibly naive, if not historical revisionism at its worst.

No I don't exclude anyone from responsibility in Afghanistan. I actually think the socialist government that the soviets were propping up was much better than what came before and after it.

I think your point is that at the time Pakistan was doling out US funds and weapons to fighters (among whom were Osama bin Laden, and many Taliban) in Afghanistan they were not yet in control of that country. And it was the under the stewardship of Pakistan ISI that the Taliban achieved control.

You've convinced me. And I will never again say the US sponsored the Taliban directly. Only that the US gave money and weapons to Pakistan to distribute as they saw fit. And that money and weapons eventually reached the Taliban. And the US did not object or with-hold that support when they saw it reaching the mujahideen Freedom Fighters. We need a shorthand term to describe that kind of non-"sponsorship".

Please don't consider this question to be "flippant", as you put it in a post earlier. But really, I'm sincerely curious.

I'm wondering whether in the 80's you thought that the Islamic zealots were bad people when they were attacking the soviets (and destroying the country of Afghanistan), but hadn't yet turned their attention to the US ? Or do people become bad only when they harm US interests ?
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