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

To: Sun Tzu who wrote (166441)	7/18/2005 3:54:21 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

<<...If US had brokered a deal between the Afghan fighters and the Afghan government for orderly post soviet transition, or if CIA trained thugs had been kept on leash and not smashed the country into total chaos, then the Taliban would have never come to power...>> ST: Very good point...I think we would have saved a few lives and lots of American tax dollars if that had happened. -s2@ExpensiveLesson.com

To: Sun Tzu who wrote (166441)	7/18/2005 4:08:51 PM
From: one_less	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

I see that also. But it is a 2005 frame of reference. In 1989 we had good reasons for our policies that limited our political interventions. Our assumption at the time was that the fighters who helped to liberate Afghanistan including their Pakistan/Saudi allies would happily support an Afghanistan Democracy ... oops. I remember Afghanistan people telling me that we were neglecting them and that they wanted a democracy but would be over run by some internally grown totalitarian regime. I blew it off thinking of our aversion to getting involved with nation building. I figured, like most Americans then, that we had no authority or right. So, we could have done more but there were good reasons to show restraint at the time. Looking back it might have been better to get more involved; however, we will never know, since that intervention, may have fulled an Anti-American reaction in another equally or more volatile form.