Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Then and Now

Afghanistan's Islamization was not our fault. We were not involved. Some will say, "The United States armed Bin Laden", and yes that's true. But we did not provide for the overthrow of the Afghani regime which led to such freedom back in the 1970's.

In the cases of both Iran and Egypt, however, we elected Presidents (Carter and Obama) who encouraged the Islamization of those two nations.

We're fucking morons for having elected them.

The two worst Presidents in history.

From I Own The World:

thennow

4 comments:

Epaminondas said...

Actually according to BOTH detailed histories, Ghost Wars (Steve Coll, NYT), and Charlie Wilson's war we armed Massoud, whom Bin Laden killed 48 hours before 9/11. The PAKISTANIS armed the Taliban and cooperated with the Saudis and Bin Laden's efforts.

Pastorius said...

Thanks. I did not know that.

midnight rider said...

At the time Ahmed Shah Massoud and Bin Laden were on the same side, although they had ideological differences re Islam and were none too fond of each other. Massoud was far more the powerful player against the Soviets than bin Laden (almost a bit player at the time). It's not too much a stretch that his leadership was in some part the reason the Soviets invaded. He was an original leader of the insurrection against the communist backed afghan gov't (preSoviet invasion).

He then was a leader in the insurrection against Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and finally, opposing their fundamentalist view, against The Taliban when they came to power.

Then, of course, bin Laden had him killed 2 days before 9/11, likely to ensure continued protection from the Taliban although it probably pleased him to have him killed on a personal level as well.

This is a very quick and cheap as I understand it synopsis. Yeah, we funded Massoud and bin Laden, with a fair share of financial help from the Saudis themselves. With bin Laden it turned out badly. With Massoud it could have turned out much better (to the point of having avoided 9/11) if we had only followed through after the war. AS Charlie Wilson said we fucked up te end game. We committed all this money ($1 billion or more) to fight the Sovs and then would give a million or two to rebuild schools and at least try to introduce Western ideas and thought to help counter the Taliban's fundamentalist views.

midnight rider said...

*should read wouldn't give a million or two