Ronald Reagan

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Lawrence of Arabia

actually, thats to carters discredit. reagan ramped it up like no other, especially with a guy called Osama bin Laden, our main man in the mujaheddin, who ended up benefiting when we taught many of the guys around him how to be terrorists.

Boy that sure would be ironic if we trained the very people who later attacked us. Too bad it isn't true. OBL wasn't "our main man in the mujahedin". The CIA guy in charge of operations in Afghanistan at the time had never even heard of him. That's because OBL started late and was not an important figure in a war between many thousands of Afghans and Soviets and very few thousands of muslim volunteers, some of whom were brought into the conflict under OBL's auspices late in the war. But if you're bent on being emotional, by all means stick with your version. It's bullsh!t but it sure is sensational.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

thats true, but i misspoke. when i said main man, i meant the guy that all americans know about. thats my bad.

also dont forget that Pakistani intelligence (backed up by the US) trained and armed the taliban, who then took over afghanistan, radicalised everyone, and made it a failed state. it was the taliban, the radical fundamentalists who arnt even really all that Afghani, who won that war.

however, did we arm these guys and did they come back and bite us in the ass? you bet you we did. to say otherwise is to ignore the geopolitics and history of the region

[Imran Siddiqui]

again, on this report, there is no indication on the relative condition of torrijos 'human right abuses' to other 3rd world leaders

They said there were serious violation of human rights. This is the branch of the OAS that looks into human rights violations. They don't need to link to other Central and South American human rights abuses in a report dealing with Panama. Serious violations means one of the worst. I doubt they say it for everyone.

if cubans love castro so much why are they hitching rides on anything that can float to get to the US? being popular means you havnt committed massive 'human rights violations'

How many are 'hitching rides'? Most Cubans are cheering for Castro. Ask che about Casto's popularity.

As for Cuba's human rights violations, check out an Amnesty International report.

when you are among the least, its ok. thats right. its called a gray area. theres a different bar for 3rd world countries.

Hey, if everyone is a violater around you... its ok to be one as well. As long as you aren't Pinochet. Hey, if you are in the ghetto, it's ok to kill people if you are the least bad guy down there. There's a different bar in the ghetto.

go ahead, i dare you, gimee a rush limbaugh book

Anyone of them. Now are you going to go out and read it or accept what someone says from it as fact until you read the book? Thought so.

im not gonna do your work for me. you either disprove it, or you accept it.

I do neither. I don't accept the source. I don't accept conspiracy theorists. Hey man, that "Da Vinci Code", you have to accept it... because you sure as Hell can't disprove it. It's listed as "fiction", but the author says the underlying facts are real. Gotta accept it because no one can disprove it.

Get real and stop drinking the Kool Aid.

also dont forget that Pakistani intelligence (backed up by the US) trained and armed the taliban

Um... no. We armed the muhjaddin, you know, the Northern Alliance? There is a reason they became the government after the USSR was booted out. It took years after that until the Taliban kicked the Northern Alliance out of most of Afghanistan.

[Dinner]

Reagan had some very nasty friends in Africa, Asia, and Latin America who butched lots of innocent civilians. I realize that his goal was to defeat communists every where but just because someone was fighting comminism didn't necissarially make them our friend. A prime example is the Taliban and other Islamic fundimentalists in Afghanistan & Pakistan. Reagan pumped them up to fight the Soviets, gave them lots of weapons, gave them training, gave them cash, promoted them in every way he could and then the Taliban returned the favor by supporting Al Qaeda in the 9/11 attacks.

Much of the reason the Taliban was there to aid Al Qaeda and to provide a terrorist safe haven was because of Reagan. That's a major strike against Reagan.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

torrijos was killed by the CIA.

You keep telling yourself that because some flunky with no power wrote a book pumping himself up.

Actually, it's extremely likely the CIA was behind Torrijos' plane crash. IIRC, a bomb exploded on his plane after take off. Noreiga was on the CIA payroll for many years before he became the strongman, but, IIRC, so was Torrijos. Let me dig out Killing Hope by Blum and check.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Sikander
That's because OBL started late and was not an important figure in a war between many thousands of Afghans and Soviets and very few thousands of muslim volunteers, some of whom were brought into the conflict under OBL's auspices late in the war.

1984 was late in the war? I would be surprised if the CIA wasn't aware of a billionarie Saudi helping their efforts. I think the memory problem is a rather recent one and induced for political reasons.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Much of the reason the Taliban was there to aid Al Qaeda and to provide a terrorist safe haven was because of Reagan. That's a major strike against Reagan.

Too be fair, the Taliban didn't exist until after the fall of he Afgan government.

It should have been no surprise that Islamic reactionaries would come to dominate, though. After tall, the inital rebellion against the Afgan government (the government that asked the Soviets for help originally) was led by reactionaries who were enraged that the new commie government was freeing women from Afganistan's feudal laws.

These are the the evil bastards we decided to give money and arms to, and if there's a heaven and hell, both Carter and Brzezinksy will both be going to hell for aiding them. The only freedom the mujahedeen were fighting for was the freedom to enslave women.

[Dinner]

The National Geographic reporter who took the famous "Afghan Girl" photo and who documented the war in Afghanistan wrote an article about Arab Muhajadin in the mid 1980's. He tried to interview OBL but was rejected because OBL had a pathological hatred for Americans and didn't want to speak to nonbelievers. I remeber him questioning why we were giving money to people who hated the US so much.

If National Geographic knew about OBL and was writing about Arab fighters then surely the CIA knew. I'd have to agree with Che that people are now playing down the CIA's support for Islamic militants in Afghanistan for political reasons.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Lawrence of Arabia
thats true, but i misspoke. when i said main man, i meant the guy that all americans know about. thats my bad.

also dont forget that Pakistani intelligence (backed up by the US) trained and armed the taliban, who then took over afghanistan, radicalised everyone, and made it a failed state. it was the taliban, the radical fundamentalists who arnt even really all that Afghani, who won that war.

however, did we arm these guys and did they come back and bite us in the ass? you bet you we did. to say otherwise is to ignore the geopolitics and history of the region

The Taliban didn't even exist before the U.S. and the Soviets had both already quit Afghanistan. Pakistani ISI did create the Taliban, but it did so on its own. There were several years of civil war after the Soviets packed up, and then the Pakistanis unleashed the Taliban on an exhausted country. The prevailing attitude then was that while very few governments recognized the Taliban as a legitimate government (12 total iirc) most were simply relieved that the war was finally over. So most countries including the U.S. were willing to leave things alone and hope for the best in regards to the Taliban. This honeymoon lasted for about 2-3 years before the actions of the Taliban began to turn people off.

The U.S. arranged for some of the predecessors of the Taliban (ie the people who actually fought the Soviets, then one another and finally the Taliban) to receive arms. Did Pakistani ISI give the Taliban arms which were meant to go to groups fighting the Soviets? Very probably, as Pakistan was awash in weaponry by the end of the war against the Soviets. Realize that by this time the U.S. has already distanced itself from Pakistan and had started to improve relations with India as the cold war was over and India seemed to be a better fit with us if we had to choose sides. So U.S. influence over the situation by 1996 was minimal.

The Taliban did not make Afghanistan a failed state, the fact that Afghanistan was made a proxy battlefield in the cold war did, a policy for the U.S. which didn't begin with Reagan, though it did end with him. The Taliban simply filled the power vacuum created by the withdrawl of the Soviets years before. Their weakness was highlighted by the fact that they were routed by very small American forces in a very short period of time on very short notice in 2001. Wherever they got their weapons from, they availed them little against the U.S.

As for the blowback via the Afghan veteran Arabs, a few of whom later took up arms against anyone who didn't subscribe to their world view and in particular the U.S., sure Reagan didn't see that one coming. Of course I don't recall a lot of objections or worries about it from the people who are supposed to have been experts on these matters, including members of the Saudi Royal family who have much better information on the matter and a lot more at stake. Were we bit in the @ss? Maybe, it's hard to know what would have happened if we hadn't gotten involved in Afghanistan. Our opponent in the cold war had 20,000 nuclear weapons aimed at us, so even if it was remote the potential downside on the cold war was almost total. If I had the choice to follow the historical path or take a chance on a different outcome by not getting involved in Afghanistan I'd take the historical route without a doubt.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Sikander
Were we bit in the @ss?

Maybe putting the Saudi snake in our back pocket wasn't such a good idea. We knew what it was when we put it htere.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara

1984 was late in the war? I would be surprised if the CIA wasn't aware of a billionarie Saudi helping their efforts. I think the memory problem is a rather recent one and induced for political reasons.

He went over in 1979, but he didn't form Al Qaeda until later, which would have been the first time that he might have been noticed. The Soviets and U.S. withdrew in early 1989. From FAS article about Al Qaeda:

Established by Usama Bin Ladin in the late 1980s to bring together Arabs who fought in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union. Helped finance, recruit, transport, and train Sunni Islamic extremists for the Afghan resistance.

He wasn't a billionaire, he was worth 100 milion and some change.

[Sikander]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


Maybe putting the Saudi snake in our back pocket wasn't such a good idea. We knew what it was when we put it htere.

Bit in the asp?

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Sikander
He wasn't a billionaire, he was worth 100 milion and some change.

He's from a billionarie family.

[Pekka]

uhh, kind of hard to catch up now...

[Pekka]

I just think that every president has screwed up something and that's... something that always happens. Especially US presidents, because they have so much things to think about, so there's bound to be mistakes. Just unavoidable thing.

I'd rather look at the logic behind the decisions than intentions because they are always at least semi good. And we must take it into account what the atmosphere was then and the facts, and not what they look like now.