Wednesday, December 27, 2006

 

This Day in History

On this day in 1979, Soviet troops invade Afghánistán and overthrow President Hafizullah Amin. Our rock of a President, Jimmy Carter, does nothing except boycott the Moscow Olympics in 1980--man, did he play rough. The Soviets stay for nearly 8 years and suffer a worse defeat that we did in Viet Nam because soon after their withdrawal, their empire collapses and is carted off to the dungheap of history along with any rational notion that a rigid, Government controlled socialism can work. Oh, and radical Islam grew in strength and confidence. They think they brought the CCCP down. They helped.

Comments:
Why did you use Cyrillic script for "SSSR", but not for the rest of the post?

8-)
 
I like the look of it and its Cyrillic I can type. Hope you had a good Christmas.
 
Blame Carter.

A much better plan was to back the Taliban.
 
Mike, we did support the Mujahedeen after Carter left office and the stingers we supplied them changed the face of the battle for the worse for the Russians (so I imagine they get some satisfaction selling anti-aircraft missiles to Iran), the taliban was later, well after the Russians left and Afghanistan suffered a Lebanon-like civil war. I think I catch your drift though that it may have always been a mistake to arm Islamic extremists.
Maybe. Haven't seen many stinger attacks lately though, at least none that get reported.
 
That was what I mean, so thanks for following. If you look at the area, whenever foreign forces arrrive, extreme Islamist power waxes.... just like now.

There was a lot of talk about the stinger missles early on, but that never really came to pass. I think we are more likely to see something like that in Iraq before we see it in Afghanistan, with Iran supplying Russian missles to the Shia.

The helicopter "crash" earlier this month may well have been an early sign of such a trend getting started but not reported.

Such a development would be the final nail in the coffin for the coalition (should it come to pass) just as it was for the Russians in Afghanistan.

Yes, I am sure the Russians are keenly aware of the not-so-ironic connection.
 
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