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

To: skinowski who wrote (90374)	4/5/2003 5:57:30 PM
From: Sun Tzu	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Well...I have 3 things to say: First, we cannot claim the moral grounds against the soviets when we supported proxies that did the very same things that the soviets did. No matter how you look at it, we have some responsibility there. Secondly, our support of the Afghan people is not in the same league as meddling in the internal affairs of other countries. Here you could argue that we were on the side of the people. You can't say this when we supported brutal dictators like the Baath party. I fully support our support of the Afghan people against the soviets. Thirdly, the blowback we got in Afghanistan was very predictable, but the extent of it was unforeseeable. Take it from me. I was there for part of the time. Our involvement was not in the ethical fashion. If it was, it would have been much less likely for it turn around and bite us in the rear. Here is what we did not do which very much contributed to that tragedy: (1) We did not put the emphasis on restoring Afghanistan to the people and protecting them. We did very much what Osama does; we used religion to ignite hatred of our enemies with the goal of killing as many of them as we can. (2) We did not provide much in the way of humanitarian aids and infrastructure. What little we provided had big strings and political edge to it. An example of that is math books that taught arithmetic by way of counting dead Russians. But fortunately there was very little of that since for the most parts we only gave money and arms to the factions we liked. This allowed people like bin Laden to fill a void. (3) We played favorites with the various warlords. We supported the most ruthless of them and left the best of them empty handed even if they were good warriors. The most pronounced case of this was our treatment of Ahmed Shah Masood through out the conflict. This gave the message that each warlord was fighting for his own gain and it was ok for him to do whatever he wanted in his territory or to other Afghan groups. (4) When the soviets wanted to leave Afghanistan, the only party that was not party to the negotiations were the Afghans! As a result an orderly system was never conceived. (5) We did not stick around afterwards to take care of the people whose blood had been used to bring our enemies to their knees. In short we acted as selfishly and as ruthlessly as we could have to hurt the soviets without any regards for the Afghans. To come back now and say gee, how were we suppose to know such inhumane behavior could backfire is unacceptable. For the record, I am a strong proponent of ethical and compassionate policies. This is not something that I only favor out of the goodness of my heart. It is what I believe is in the best long term interest of us and the rest of the world. Sun Tzu