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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: gao seng who wrote (299879)	9/24/2002 4:29:11 PM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

As I said, money didn't flow until Reagan/Bush. Arms were not supplied until Reagan/Bush. US training was not supplied until Reagan/Bush. Buildup was enthusiastically under Reagan/Bush. Kind of reminds me of Cuban Bay of Pigs: Plans were drawn up by Joint Chiefs and the CIA (And United Fruit Co.?) under Eisenhower, presented to a very surprised Kennedy on the day he was sworn in. He then - over the succeeding months - had the option to go ahead with a full scale invasion, or modify the plans. For better or ill, he modified. Afghan support planning under Carter was not nearly as far along, by comparison. There were, as yet, no training camps established, no arms had been supplied to Islamic fighters, little was budgeted beyond CIA study. Reagan/Bush (Bush with his CIA experience) signed on to the nascent policy enthusiastically, and expanded it massively. They looked upon it as an opportunity to give the Soviets their own 'Vietnam'. They made the decision to recruit and pay Islamic fundimentalists from across the Islamic world to fight the Soviets - not Carter. It was the CIA under Reagan/Bush who trained and supplied OBL, and accepted and armed the most fundamentalist of Islamic fighters. Rambo movies were all the rage. Islamic fighters were likened to American fighters for independence like George Washington.... Then - after the Soviets were defeated - the US made it greatest mistake (and this is greatly on Bush): we turned our back on the region. Our sole goal of administering a bloody nose to the Soviets was accomplished... and we cared not what happened in the region in the aftermath. A disintergration into Warlord-led civil war was the result of 'benign neglect'... followed by the rise and victory of the Taliban (as the 'cat's paw' of Pakistan's ISI).