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When the Soviet Union, concerned about the growing power of Islamic fundamentalists in places like Afghanistan, as well as in some of their satellite states, invaded Afghanistan, the United States saw it as an opportunity to give the Soviets their own Vietnam, a quagmire of monumental proportions that would keep them busy and, if we were lucky, might contribute to the downfall of their whole system. We helped finance and train the very Islamic fundamentalists the Soviets were fighting.
It also placed millions of innocent people in the middle of a vicious war between opposing ideologies.
When the Soviets withdrew, the extremists were quick to consolidate their power, becoming what we now know as the Taliban. We didn't have issues with the Taliban. In many ways, they were our creation. We ignored their brutality and oppression. In fact, only months before 9/11, we gave them a massive Aid package in return for helping with our own version of brutality and oppression, the War On (some) Drugs.
That all changed on 9/11, when a man who was trained by the United States to fight in that war (allegedly) struck against us, possibly from a base within Afghanistan. It put Afghanistan on our hit list, and we swept in to give them a good drubbing. We dropped ourselves into the very quagmire that we'd set up for the Soviets that contributed to the fall of their communist government, pitting ourselves against people that we trained, or, at the very least, people trained by the men we trained.
Again, millions of innocent people were caught in the middle.
Some time ago, probably close to two years, I wrote a post talking about the moral bankruptcy of our little "fight them over there so we don't have to fight them here" meme, asking what gives us the right to preemptively attack another country to create a battlefield to which our enemies will flock? I was talking about Iraq at the time, but, if anything, it goes double for Afghanistan. The damage the United States has done to that country to protect our interests is a perfect example of how fucked up our priorities have been.
Now some may argue that the attack on Afghanistan was justified, given that the Taliban was known to have harbored Osama Bin Laden. I know I didn't myself feel as outraged by that attack as I did regarding the later assault on Iraq. Had we not attacked Iraq, it might have been possible to pacify Afghanistan, defeat the Taliban, and restore some kind of just government to take its place. It wouldn't have made up for what we'd done, but at least something good might have come out of it.
Instead, as we all know, the whole thing turned into a raging clusterfuck. Now it seems the plan is to withdraw from Iraq and throw our efforts into Afghanistan. And, hopefully, not end up fighting Pakistan as well.
You know, I don't have a solution to this mess, and I really can't fault Obama for not having a solution either. I may have a few things I'm willing to criticize him for, but this isn't one of them. We've been fucking that country for something like thirty years. We owe those people something, something we can probably never provide. Security and stability.
The same is true in Iraq, but it's been clear for some time that our continued presence there was making things worse, not better. It may be that the same will be true in Afghanistan. But, honestly, what else are we going to do? Leave them lying wounded by the roadside and drive away? Apologize?
All of this was done in our name, and it's ALL been about "fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them over here." We went to war with the Soviets with the Afghanis as our proxies. We trained, armed, and left the Taliban and Al Qaeda to do as they would when we were done with them.
And now we're paying the price. And so are the innocents caught in the crossfire. All to keep the fight away from our own backyard.
Sad, isn't it?
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