Gorby smarter than Obama: Soviet leader accepted defeat and brought his troops home from Afghanistan

[leftchick]

Published on The Smirking Chimp (http://smirkingchimp.com)
Gorby smarter than Obama: Soviet leader accepted defeat and brought his troops home from Afghanistan 20 years ago


By Eric Margolis
Created Feb 22 2009 - 10:27am

Twenty years ago this week, the last Soviet forces pulled out of Afghanistan. During the Soviet occupation (1979-1989), 1.5 million Afghans died at the hands of the Red Army and Afghan Communists.

The new Soviet chairman, Mikhail Gorbachev, proved a leader of great humanity, decency and intellect. I rank him with Nelson Mandela. Gorbachev determined the Afghan war, begun by his dim predecessor, Leonid Brezhnev, and a coterie of party and KGB hardliners, could not be won.

Gorbachev courageously accepted defeat and brought his soldiers home. Soon after, the Soviet Union, a bankrupt imperium held together by fear and repression, began to crumble. Gorbachev refused to employ force to hold the Soviet empire together.

The new president of the bankrupt American imperium should heed Gorbachev's wisdom. Barack Obama's inauguration offered a perfect opportunity to pause the U.S.-led Afghan war and open talks with Afghans resisting foreign occupation (both the Soviets and U.S. branded them "terrorists.")

Instead, Obama vowed to intensify the eight-year, $62-billion war. Ottawa's cost: $600-800 million in 2009 alone.

President Obama just declared he will send 17,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan on top of the 6,000 troops dispatched by George W. Bush.

Another 13,000 will follow. Reinforcements are supposed to come from the U.S. Iraq garrison. But the Pentagon is trying to delay or thwart the drawdown from Iraq.

[JVS]

1. I think the war should end but Gorby was a fucking dumbass of the first water.

What kind of shit for brains did he have to be listening to Ronnie Raygun and GHW Bush about "reforms" and their desire for peace. He got had, he got took, he got hoodwinked. The coup plotters were right.

[Captain Hilts]

3. No, he wasn't a "dumbass." The reforms had nothing to do with RR. WHY..

do you believe RR White House Public Relations crap?

[Crunchy Frog]

8. Gorby was ten times the man that you will ever be. n/t

[JVS]

9. The man totally fucked up his country. I don't see why you would bother try to insult me to...

stick up for him. Thatcher's a greater woman than you'll ever be. She still sucked.

[Captain Hilts]

10. Hello. I've LIVED in Russia. It was fucked up LONG before he was in charge. Ignorant. nt

[JVS]

13. Hey Ignored, you can stop trying to answer my posts.

[leftchick]

15. you can ignore your own posts???

:rofl:

[JVS]

19. The post above it is ignored, I can't respond to it, I can respond to my own though

[leftchick]

24. thank for clearing that up

Not! If you have one on ignore then why the fuck try to communicate via your own posts?

:crazy:

[JVS]

27. That would be contained in the content of the message.

bye

:hi:

[Crunchy Frog]

18. His country was already totally fucked up. All he did

was to put a stop to an elaborate charade. I'm sorry that you miss the charade, but that's all it was.

[JVS]

25. No. He attempted to revitalize the economy of his country using advice from his enemies

Unsurprisingly his reforms blew the country apart. Gorbachev with his reforms presided over the only GDP decline the Soviet economy had ever experience since the Germans invade. Even Brezhnev's period of stagnation was marked by low growth rather than decline.

[cherokeeprogressive]

47. Did he fuck up Russia, or the Soviet Union?

You seem to be using the two interchangeably.

Russia seems to be doing okay. Are you lamenting the breakup of the Soviet Union?

[truebrit71]

52. Wrong, and waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay wrong...Russia was messed up before....and Thatcher was NEVER...

..great at ANYTHING other than destroying my homeland...

[elleng]

Hi, Crunchy!

.

[Selatius]

29. The Russian economy was in shambles by the time Gorbachev got into office.

He was attempting reforms to implement market socialism, but the Soviet Union was ultimately held together by force. The very idea of more freedom for Soviet citizens reawakened nationalist/separatist attitudes in territories held by Russia. They wanted to be separate countries, not a member of the Russian federation.

Gorbachev wanted nothing of what Ronald Reagan was proposing to him as far as capitalism goes. If Gorbachev had been successful, Russia would be a market socialist country today, not the predatory economy it currently is with a small gang of billionaires running everything. It was Boris Yeltsin who privatized the infrastructure and allowed capitalists to siphon hundreds of billions out of the Russian economy.

[Crunchy Frog]

34. No, no. The Soviet Union was a strong, vibrant, healthy country.

That's why their main governing body was filled with moribund, senile old men, and why they had three leaders die in as many years before Gorby became leader.

[JVS]

35. "market socialism"?

:rofl:

Gorbachev allowed a "rights movement" to fester that served only the purpose of inflaming nationalist tendencies.

In 1989 there were two major uprisings in the communist world in Beijing and in several East German cities. The Chinese put theirs down harshly. Gorbachev had already informed Honecker that a similar action would not happen if East German situation were to get out of hand. This inaction was basically a declaration of death for the Warsaw Pact. Gorby should have reminded the East Germans, and all the other trouble making nationalists exactly who won WWII and put some boots in their asses. The progress of China in comparison to Russia over the last 20 years is a testimony to just how badly he fucked up.

[Selatius]

36. I'm sorry, but using force to put down people who want freedom is something I do not agree with

Despite the fact that the members of the Warsaw Pact were liberated by Stalin and the Red Army at the end of the last world war, that didn't give Russia the right to install pro-Moscow regimes in all the countries of the Eastern Bloc. That's no better than any other imperialist nation that came before.

If you want to put the blame on somebody who let Russia get ripped to pieces by capitalists from the west, you should probably be referring to Boris Yeltsin.

As far as market socialism goes, I'm astonished you haven't even heard of it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_socialism

[Odin2005]

39. I can't beleive there are still people like you that defend the USSR. Pathetic.

'Gorby should have reminded the East Germans, and all the other trouble making nationalists exactly who won WWII and put some boots in their asses.

:puke:

[Selatius]

41. When he said that particular sentence, I was reminded of this tragic picture from 1989:

Nevermind the untold number of student protesters who were mowed down by PLA troops and tanks during that fateful summer because they asked for a little freedom.

[Crunchy Frog]

51. Yes. Tragic that somebody got the paint job on his tank scratched.

[Crunchy Frog]

49. It's nice to see a progressive standing up for violent political repression.

For a minute I thought I was back in the I/P forum.

[Odin2005]

37. Stalinist Underground is on the other side of town.

Gorby euthanized a senile joke of a regime.

[Forkboy]

44. Insanity...it's not just for breakfast anymore.

[JVS]

63. So you're telling me that Gorbachev's Perestroika reforms worked?

[Forkboy]

65. No, I'm telling you that you calling Gorby a dumbass is some seriously stupid shit.

[Captain Hilts]

2. Not comparable. nt

[leftstreet]

4. Ouch. 'President of the bankrupt American imperium'

not very catchy, but sadly true

[tangent90]

5. Darn tough to argue with that.

...

[JVS]

6. This is what utter capitulation to the capitalists looks like

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9lvzzH0STw

Fuck Gorby!

[Prometheus Bound]

12. Similar to Tony Blair being paid half a mil by the Chinese capitalists to mouth a few cliches

Just to show they owned him.

[MarjorieG]

7. Russuans imperialist adventure like our Iraq. The world wide terrorist threat different.

Made a lot worse by Bush. We cannot leave now, with an urgent need to protect what we have, while we consider our objectives and plan.

[leftchick]

11. wtf?

what do 'we have to protect'?? Their Oil and our Bases? There is no legitimate reason to be occupying anywhere in the Mid East.

[Prometheus Bound]

14. It keeps the unemployed young busy shuffling them from war to war.

[MarjorieG]

20. Protecting troops there and bring down violence. We don't have same goals as Iraq or Russians.

Using wtf doesn't substitute for discussing real threat from Al Qaeda, while we try development, diplomacy, but in no way the investment of Iraq. I almost hesitate posting because of the reflexive anti-war, simple answers I get.

[elleng]

23. You're right, MarjorieG,

and right to 'hesitate,' too.

You're not in Boston/Cambridge, are you?

[MarjorieG]

30. Grew up in Boston (Brookline), but living in Brooklyn, NY. Visited Harvard Sq a lot as kid!

[leftchick]

31. wtf again

are you even aware who the US and NATO are actually 'fighting'? Does the native Afghan Taliban ring a bell? They had nothing to do with Sept. 11. Anyone with a modicum of intelligence knows you do not stop terrorism through military intervention. Traditionally using operatives on the ground and intelligence services have done remarkably well.

Sadly for we the people, they do not make massive profits, hence war. Read Smedley Butler's book for first hand experience of the 'war is a racket' machine.

Is that clear enough for you?

[MarjorieG]

38. Regardless of what we need to and will do to wind down, we can't exit tomorrow.

Insulting me, so snidely, doesn't change that. I do read a variety of opinion.

[leftchick]

43. and why not? There is a precedent with US interventions/occupations

and a great example is Vietnam. Only a few million more will be killed before we are forced out. I can not believe the kool aide drinkers here.


Oh, and we gave MILLIONS to the Taliban at one time, also The Taliban is not the same as Al-Q. :eyes:

http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,1865223,00.html

How the Taliban Hopes to Choke the US Afghanistan Mission
By Mark Thompson / Washington

Perhaps the Taliban are observing the old military axiom that amateurs study tactics, while professionals study logistics. In a pair of attacks over the weekend in northwest Pakistan, militants destroyed more than 150 Humvees and other vehicles bound for U.S. troops and allies fighting in Afghanistan — the third attack on NATO supply lines inside a month. Those attacks have highlighted an ongoing vulnerability along the overland routes through mountain passes along the Afghanistan-Pakistan frontier that are used to transport more than 75% of the supplies sent by the U.S. to its 32,000 troops in Afghanistan. So, as President-elect Barack Obama prepares to send more troops to join the fight in Afghanistan, Pentagon planners are scrambling to figure out how to keep those already there — and the anticipated reinforcements — supplied with food, fuel, bullets and everything else a modern army needs.

"Without adequate sustainment, the operational deployment cannot maintain constant pressure on the enemy," Lieutenant Christopher Manganaro, a young U.S. officer in Afghanistan, has written in the professional journal Army Logistics. And the Pentagon can't do it all with airplanes. "Few airfields in Afghanistan can support aircraft larger than a C-130," Manganaro added, "limiting the number of high-value items that U.S. Army units can transport by air." (See pictures of NATO troops in Afghanistan.)

There is no sharper contrast between the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan than their supply routes. In Iraq, the U.S. military basically owns the skies and roads that run from Kuwait into Iraq, through which nearly all supplies flow. But that's hardly the case in Pakistan, where most goods arrive at the Indian Ocean port of Karachi and then are shipped over land, often to Peshawar. Then they're funneled through the Khyber Pass into Afghanistan, 40 miles away. Pakistan is plagued with hit-and-run militancy even in some of its major cities, and everything west of Peshawar is pretty much enemy territory.

Militants hijacked a convoy of more than a dozen vehicles nearly a month ago, and last week 22 trucks were destroyed by fire at a truck stop. U.S. military officials downplay the impact of recent attacks, noting that about 350 supply vehicles travel the route every day. Still, they're nervous enough to have begun looking for alternatives.

[rockymountaindem]

64. So you're advocating that the CIA and NSA take a wider role in Afghanistan?

That seems like an interesting choice for you.

[stillcool]

48. I don't see how anything can be discussed...

regarding the Middle-east, without first acknowledging our goals and intentions towards the region, and the long history of our interventions since WWII.
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Middle_East/Blood_for_Oil.html
U.S. Intervention in the Middle East: Blood for Oil
by Paul D'Amato

[leftchick]

61. thank you

god I am so glad to read something not from a freakin zombie!

:)

That is a compliment.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

16. Obama is looking for the "light at the end of the tunnel" like one his predecessors.

With the same predictable, and disastrous, results.

[elleng]

17. I don't think much of this chimp at the moment;

NO ONE can draw conclusions about President Obama's Afghan policy yet.

[leftchick]

21. why not

I always thought one was supposed to learn from history in order not to repeat the same bloody, disastrous mistakes. At least an honest government would. But to those in power the last few hundred years, mistakes mean profits.

[elleng]

28. As I suggested,

its way too early for President Obama to have developed an Afghan policy, and consequently too soon for the public to judge.

[leftchick]

32. he is apparently listening to the neolibs

as usual.

[elleng]

53. I think its extremely foolish

to attribute President Obama's decisions on someones saying to whom he is 'apparently' listening. Haven't we noticed that he thinks for himself?

And what the hell is a 'neolib?'

[leftchick]

58. google is your friend

he has surrounded himself with clinton/dlc/neolib conservatives in addition to the wall street boys. And NO, he has given ZERO indication he thinks for himself. He is following the same Clinton era Globalization and Defense policies with, wtf?, the same recycled advisers. I have zero expectations but am very willing and able to eat crow.

[Beregond2]

22. Completely different situations with different goals.

The Soviets wanted to add Afghanistan to their empire, followed by Pakistan, so they would have an outlet onto the Indian Ocean. We want to kill Bin Laden and render it impossible for Al Qaeda to use Afghanistan as a safe harbor. Had we not gotten sidetracked by Iraq, we would have long since acheived those goals. We can no longer afford to pursue them, but they remain just as important, so we must.

[leftchick]

40. oh for god's sakes

do you really believe that shit? Have you ever heard that Afghanistan is where Empires go to Die? Good lord, I want what you are smokin. :eyes:

[tabasco]

54. You insult a person who politely disagrees with you

and counter his points with a bumper sticker slogan.

Try again.

[leftchick]

57. here you go hot sauce

I mistakenly believed most people here were aware of this. Silly me for assuming anything like uh, research....

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175030/Tomgram:%20%20The%20Empire%20v.%20The%20Graveyard

Whistling Past the Afghan Graveyard
Where Empires Go to Die
By Tom Engelhardt

It is now a commonplace -- as a lead article in the New York Times's Week in Review pointed out recently -- that Afghanistan is "the graveyard of empires." Given Barack Obama's call for a greater focus on the Afghan War ("we took our eye off the ball when we invaded Iraq..."), and given indications that a "surge" of U.S. troops is about to get underway there, Afghanistan's dangers have been much in the news lately. Some of the writing on this subject, including recent essays by Juan Cole at Salon.com, Robert Dreyfuss at the Nation, and John Robertson at the War in Context website, has been incisive on just how the new administration's policy initiatives might transform Afghanistan and the increasingly unhinged Pakistani tribal borderlands into "Obama's War."

In other words, "the graveyard" has been getting its due. Far less attention has been paid to the "empire" part of the equation. And there's a good reason for that -- at least in Washington. Despite escalating worries about the deteriorating situation, no one in our nation's capital is ready to believe that Afghanistan could actually be the "graveyard" for the American role as the dominant hegemon on this planet.

<snip>

Hand it to the Bush administration, in the last seven-plus years the U.S. has essentially inflicted a version of the Soviets' "Afghanistan" on itself. Now the Obama team is attempting to remedy this disaster, but what new thinking there is remains, as far as we can tell, essentially tactical. Whether the new team's plans are more or less "successful" in Afghanistan and on the Pakistani border may, in the end, prove somewhat beside the point. The term Pyrrhic victory, meaning a triumph more costly than a loss, was made for just such moments.

After all, more than a trillion dollars later, with essentially nothing to show except an unbroken record of destruction, corruption, and an inability to build anything of value, the U.S. is only slowly drawing down its 140,000-plus troops in Iraq to a "mere" 40,000 or so, while surging yet more troops into Afghanistan to fight a counterinsurgency war, possibly for years to come. At the same time, the U.S. continues to expand its armed forces and to garrison the globe, even as it attempts to bail out an economy and banking system evidently at the edge of collapse. This is a sure-fire formula for further disaster -- unless the new administration took the unlikely decision to downsize the U.S. global mission in a major way.

[4lbs]

26. Gorbachev is smarter than Obama because he brought the Russian troops home from Afghanistan?

Gorbachev became Soviet premier in 1985.

The Soviet troops didn't leave Afghanistan until 1989.

That's 4 freaking years he took to arrive at his decision!

[stillcool]

33. oh please..

you would think that our interest in Afghanistan, and the pipeline routes started with George Bush, and that Gorbachev actually had a choice.

[BlooInBloo]

42. Oooh. A creative new entry into the Stupidest Post Of 2009 contest!

[Forkboy]

45. Not really all that comparable.

There were many reasons for Russia leaving that may or not apply to America. Different system, different populace and expectations from said populace, etc.

[Occam Bandage]

46. Gorbachev is near the bottom of the "successful leaders to emulate" list. nt

[blogslut]

50. Oh, FFS!

I'm getting pretty tired of this historical penis measuring.

I didn't want us to go into Afghanistan to begin with but I realized that wasn't going to happen. Osama bin Laden wasn't Taliban. He was Al Qaeda. Sure, he had a symbiotic relationship with the Taliban and the Taliban were pretty damned awful when it came to human/civil rights. But we are fucking there now, and the Taliban is pretty much back in charge and the masses equate the Taliban with Al Qaeda.

What I think we fail to realize is that president Obama isn't going to do the shock and awe thing. I'm pretty sure his intent is to transition from occupying forces to peace-keeping forces, to rebuilding forces to military bases. I wish it happened overnight but we made these messes and personally, I feel it is our duty to clean them up.

Frankly, I'm a little disturbed that the SmirkingChimp is suggesting Obama allow our form of government to collapse when it is nothing like the U.S.S.R. was.

[FrenchieCat]

55. So a month into office, and Pres. Obama is already being underestimated?

Geeze, that was fast! :wow:

[underpants]

56. We ain't leaving Afghanistan nor should we

sorry folks we are there for a looooooooong time

[nolabels]

60. We in the US won't be looooooooong in Afghanistan, nor could we be

Hasn't anybody looked into how the US treasury operates lately, we in the US are broke and borrowing money to stay in those foreign countries at any rate.

Sooner rather than later those creditors will cut us off and that will be the end of it x(

[G_j]

59. Soviet Lists Afghan War Toll: 13,310 Dead, 35,478 Wounded

(probably closer to 15,000)

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=940DE3DA153AF935A15756C0A96E948260

Soviet Lists Afghan War Toll: 13,310 Dead, 35,478 Wounded

By PHILIP TAUBMAN, SPECIAL TO THE NEW YORK TIMES
Published: May 26, 1988

LEAD: The Soviet Union, ending a long silence about the exact number of its casualties in the war in Afghanistan, said today that 13,310 soldiers had been killed, 35,478 wounded and 311 are missing.

The Soviet Union, ending a long silence about the exact number of its casualties in the war in Afghanistan, said today that 13,310 soldiers had been killed, 35,478 wounded and 311 are missing.

At the same time, the Government said continued aid by Pakistan to the Afghan guerrillas was unacceptable now that Soviet troops have begun to return home, and warned that Moscow might reconsider its options if the assistance does not stop.

The number of troops killed was slightly higher than the United States had estimated. Washington had put the number of Soviet casualties in the eight and a half years of war at 33,000 to 38,000, a third of them fatalities.

Moscow has never made public the number of Soviet troops in Afghanistan, and officials again declined to do so today. The United States has estimated that the number has been about 115,000 since Soviet forces entered Afghanistan in late 1979. Losses Are 'Quite Heavy'


..more..

:hi:

[Canuckistanian]

62. Gorbachev was defeated in Afghanistan by a superpower - America

With all the covert aid, training and equipment that was poured into Afghanistan through Pakistan, the USSR didn't have a chance of remaining in power in Afghanistan.

Gorbachev knew what he was against and didn't immediately "accept defeat". He kept his troops in there fighting a losing battle for YEARS. It was widely regarded as the USSR's Vietnam - a pointless occupation/war that accomplished exactly nothing.

And if you think Vietnam vets were treated badly, just read some of the horror stories of Russian Afghanistan vets.

I'm very familiar with Margolis and like his opinions, but on this point he's dead wrong.