25 Years ago: Soviet invasion of Afghanistan enters fifth year

[Hannah Bell]

US-funded “Mujahideen” rebels bombarded Kabul for five consecutive nights in a display of defiance marking the fifth anniversary of the Soviet army’s invasion to prop up Afghanistan’s pro-Moscow government.

The rebels were based in Peshawar, Pakistan, and operated with the funding and support of both Pakistan and the US. Comprised overwhelmingly of ethnic Pashtuns from the border regions, the Islamist rebels also included Arab recruits, prominent among them a Saudi named Osama bin Laden, who worked with a group called Maktab al-Khadamat that funnelled money and arms from Arab regimes, Pakistan, and the US to the Jihadists, and which received training from the US Central Intelligence Agency.

Calling the anniversary of the Soviet invasion a “day of infamy,” US President Ronald Reagan, who had earlier extolled the Islamists as “the valiant and courageous Afghan freedom fighters,” condemned Moscow. “There is no excuse for a great power like the Soviet Union doing what is doing to the people of Afghanistan,” Reagan said.

The New York Times editorial board also condemned the Soviet Union, writing that Moscow initially claimed its military presence would be “limited and temporary.” “The war thus spawned in lies ... has now run longer than Stalin’s war with Hitler,” the leading US newspaper declared. The Times decried civilian casualties and complained that the Soviet occupation force had reached 115,000 soldiers.

The same week US Republican Senator Gordon Humphrey issued a statement claiming that most US aid to the Mujahideen was unaccounted for and being lost in “a leaky pipeline.” The “mismanagment” of the aid was of “scandalous proportions,” he charged.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2009/dec2009/twih-d28.shtml#top

[bluestateguy]

1. I know how disappointed you are that the Soviet Union lost

My condolences.

[Hannah Bell]

2. isn't it ironic, guess you don't do irony.

so to be more obvious, this is year eight of the US occupation of afghanistan.

[Ken Burch]

3. Why should the defeat of the Soviets in Afghanistan be considered a GOOD thing?

The result was the emergence of the Taliban. There were NO positive consequences for the Afghan people. It was a dead loss.

Why do you think being able to say "We beat the Russkies" matters more than anything ELSE?

[mmonk]

4. The good of the people wasn't and still isn't the goal.

[blindpig]

9. And don't go nowhere near women's rights.....

which during the socialists period were far in advance of women's rights anywhere in the region today.

[daleo]

5. But they were dirty communists

And we are clean capialists.

[mmonk]

6. Another irony is the insurgence has its foot in the Peshawar region

of Pakistan.

[Hannah Bell]

7. you could pretty much sub out the us for ussr & the dates & nothing has changed.

[mmonk]

8. Yep.

Very much so. What began as an operation to give the USSR its Vietnam has given us their Afghanistan.

[Hannah Bell]

10. kik