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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ilaine who wrote (27914)	5/1/2002 12:11:06 PM
From: Dennis O'Bell	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Afghanistan's war with the Soviet Union was an interval in a conflict which predated it, which has never been resolved. The Soviet Union was in fact behind the two coups d'état that brought down the Afghan government at the time of Zahir, and it's been hell there ever since. The country was actually on the way to modernization and was religiously comparatively moderate. Kabul University was a real university, and photos I've seen of the city at that time showed women in western dress. If the Soviet Union and the West had kept their noses out of the country, Afghanistan would not be in the situation it finds itself in today, though who knows if Pakistan may have wanted to annex it at some point. Pakistan in any case was behind the Taliban takeover.

To: Ilaine who wrote (27914)	5/1/2002 12:34:17 PM
From: JohnM	Respond to of 281500

I think to understand the differences between Afghanistan post war with Soviet Union and Viet Nam post war with France/US you'd have to look at the differences BEFORE the war. Nice point, CB, and one I should have made as well. However, that sort of an argument treats the outside invasions as incidental. But the invasions were, in certain respects, quite, similar and definitely not incidental. I don't have any doubt that the trajectory of each country was altered by them. Just, at my level of reading for the moment, hard to sort out.