Soviet invasion can be an atrocity and supplying a guerrilla insurgency can still be a horrible response especially if the insurgents are religious fanatics who want to murder girls for going to school. Sometimes if you can’t find someone reasonable to give a gun to, you might just not give the gun to anyone. But then, the welfare of Afghans was obviously not given much consideration.
War also polarized and radicalizes people. The Soviets would have lost eventually regardless of what the US did, and those same assholes would be just as bad.
Afgan hash was so nice too… 
Edit: Kashmir creme a particularly good strain. 
Yeah i had to use 1 mm of edge screen to scroll down
1 Like
Foreign powers funelling arms into countries is always one of the key drivers of local conflicts. That was true in the 80s and it’s true now. The US didn’t just arm whatever opponents of the Soviet backed faction that happened to raise their hands, and while Sunni extremists were hardly rare in Afghanistan, the idea that turning them into the key armed resistance of the last 40 years (and counting) hasn’t fundamentally altered their status and importance in the country and the region is silly.
I dont disagree with any of this but would add that the US military is well populated with people that think forever wars are just great, and given that assumption proxy wars in third world countries sure as heck are a better choice than duking it out on 5th Avenue with foreign invaders. So arming foreign rebels seems like a great idea.
Pakistan was already funneling arms to Islamic extremists in Afghanistan before widespread American involvement, and would have continued to do so if Charlie Wilson hadn’t made a fuss. The Soviets would have lost eventually, it just would have been longer and more one sided.
And China was a key ally to get them in there, and would probably have got involved anyway as well.
If your argument that it was “not wrong” is simply that someone else would have done it anyway, then I probably just misunderstood the kind of judgement you were making about it being “not wrong”.
It’s both. I don’t think it’s accurate to say that the US intervention created AQ, and I think morally giving weapons to rebels fighting a monstrously unjust occupation is generally OK, even if the people fighting are not great, admittedly. Not that the CIA cared all that much about the Afghans, they just wanted to kill Soviets.
The CIA abroad are clueless. People tell them all sorts of crap and they soak it up. In one West African country everyone knew the guy at the bar was a CIA agent, and behaved accordingly lol.
2 Likes
The people we supplied were considerably worse than the Soviets. And we’re doing the same thing now when we support Turkey and Free Syrian Army when there’s an alternative. Maybe Joe will turn that around. We’ll see.
1 Like
https://twitter.com/jonmladd/status/1379471657195220992
Got to wonder how the circle can be squared with “Fairness doctrine is illegal for broadcasters” but “online forums have to allow viewpoints they don’t want”
Worse than the Soviets? That’s fuckin bananas man, the Soviets killed like a million or two Afghans and displaced millions more. And the population of Afghanistan was like 13 million in 1979.
1 Like
Are you suggesting there were death camps or they died in war? This happening like 4 years after the US got done killing 5 million people in SE Asia. Are we worse than the Soviets and the Taliban put together?
This who is worse argument that happens every time is not worth having again. We don’t have to give arms to horrible groups and war almost never makes things better. It was horrible FP and had nothing to do with the best interests of the people living in Afghanistan.
4 Likes
As a one sentence gloss then I don’t think it’s accurate either, it implies an intentionality and continual influence that just isn’t there. But in any history of modern jihadism then Afghanistan is crucial to who shaped the movement. Not even really as a factor among many in that period of time, Bin Laden got his power as a money guy in the Afghan war, and the Afghan war was a US project and the only game in town for them in the 80s.
That principle can only really do work if you stick to the formulation “rebels”. In my opinion it’s a similar bad gloss to ‘the CIA created Al Qaeda’, so simple as to be misleading.
The US did not arm other secular groups opposed to the Soviet factions (for obvious ‘commie’ reasons), and they didn’t arm non Pashtun groups very much as they didn’t have or develop the contacts. That was an issue in the invasion in 2001, they needed help from Iran (and others) to liase with non Taliban factions as there were no links.
Once it’s clear the US helped a specific faction for reasons that have nothing to do with internal Afghani stability then justifying it because of a general support for ‘rebels’ is pretty weak, that is not why they did it and it is not what they did.
They were also active in the coups and counter coups that preceded the Soviet invasion, so to begin the story when they started to arm ‘rebels’ is also somewhat misleading.
PS My only objection is the moral justification. If you went with realpolitik then I don’t really agree, but I wouldn’t want to start the sprawling discussion.
Death camps? I’m suggesting that the Soviets bombed and attack helicoptered the shit out of the whole country, killing probably like a million people. That’s pretty bad, even if the people the Soviets are killing are religious zealots. I think people under that sort of horrific oppression are right to fight if they want to and are able.
You won’t hear me criticizing the Vietnamese who fought French and Americans, France and then America were obviously in the wrong. Same goes for the countries who were supplying arms to fight their just war. So I’m not sure how the Vietnam war is relevant here.
Are there supervillains who are poor? I mean you don’t hear Joker complaining about money. Hell, he lit it on fire in The Dark Knight.
Sure but Osama’s involvement in Afghanistan predated major US involvement and he would have been active there regardless. He was involved from the very start of the war.
Wasn’t the choice of who was armed and not armed mostly based on the fact that Pakistan was the player that was really in the driver seat? Most of the money and arms were channeled through the Pakistani intelligence service, who were supporting Islamist fanatics from the very beginning. And obviously the US didn’t gaf who got their weapons as long as they were being used, and who’s a better guerrilla fighter than a religious fanatic.
Anyway, I’m not saying that the US was giving arms to Mujaheddin out of some deep moral integrity or anything. Just that the Soviet occupation was hideously evil and I don’t view the US helping resist that occupation to be particularly morally objectionable. The morally objectionable thing is the invasion and occupation.
Although I do think that Charlie Wilson was motivated by a sympathy for the oppression of the Afghan people and really did want them to be able to fight. And he almost singlehandedly turned US policy around.
Okay this is awesome.
Don’t know if Peterson is pissed or amused.