Soviet–Afghan War

There were 17 of his fellow tribesmen in him.

At the end of the Afghan-Soviet War, he was the most powerful of all Afghan guerrilla commanders, they used the term commander, fighting the Soviet Union.

And he became so close to the United States that... a fellow who was the head of the CIA, Milt Burden, for two years, 1987 to 1989, during which time he told me he had $1 billion to spend.

This is how much we would put into that war, the Afghan-Soviet war.

And he wrote an op-ed in the New York Times praising Jalal ad-Din Haqqani for how tough he was, how capable he was.

The reason I'm saying is how close we were to these people.

And we came down and we made our way down to a city called Khost.

And I saw a giant, the biggest mosque I'd ever seen in my life with minarets going, controlling, looking so high, like a cathedral in France or an ancient cathedral.

Of course, what gets left out of this story of the swift and successful campaign in Afghanistan that ultimately lasted 20 years, even skipping past the foreign policy history of the past decades, especially the 1990s, and the known connection between foreign occupation and radical suicide terrorism is that the policy focus of hiring warlords to fight the Taliban The brewing distraction of other regime-chained wars with countries that had nothing to do with perpetrating 9-11 and failure to provide requested support narrowly allowed bin Laden to escape, with the help of certain U.S.-paid warlords, into Pakistan in late 2001.

The analysis also neglects to mention that it was bin Laden's longstanding desire to provoke the U.S. to fight a long, costly, pointless war against Mujahideen in Afghanistan, inspired by the fall of the Soviet Union after the Soviet-Afghan War.

that several Afghans questioned knew nothing about 9-11 when shown pictures, though any Muslim statements often get summarily dismissed as subterfuge without evidence.

that a significant aspect of the strategy in fighting the taliban involves supporting criminals warlords and child rapists who often use the support against their enemies to benefit themselves consolidate power and terrorize others That more anti-American terrorists, including al-Qaeda and similar groups, increased from approximately 400 in 2001 to about 20,000 in Syria alone in 2019.

It was afterwards that they began to-- There was an uneasy feeling, as there was in Afghanistan, that we have backed people to, to fight the Soviets, and in so doing, we have created something ter- or helped to create something terrible here.

We know that the, you know, from the mujahideen in, in Afghanistan spawn Al-Qaeda, spawn ISIS, spawn Osama Bin Laden, that, you know, 9/11, the Afghan War.

This is the outcome of unintended consequences.

You know, you, you can't see the future, and, and in the, in the parameters of the time, it was defensible, and they-- and it is still defended.

in the years since 9/11, or even through this 9/11 story, there is a often rejection of complexity.

You know, as you talked about, the Soviet-Afghan War and all the beginnings of 9/11, and history is tough, it's challenging, and especially when it happens to us, it can, we can be blinded by what we know, what we feel emotionally.

Um, and the answers are not easy, and they're not often simple, and-

Right

And in America, we're seeing that, you know, they'll side with the Democrat or the Republican against the opposite party.

And then you look at during the Soviet-Afghan War.

The U.S. CIA was arming and training the Taliban against the Soviets during the Soviet-Afghan War in the 1980s.

Well, the same way the Soviets were arming and training the PLO against Israel, and they turned Israel by de facto against America.

America is supporting this imperialistic Israel, right? And so they take advantage of disagreements.

When did 9-11 really begin?

9-11 begins with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan back in the late 70s.

And the fact that the United States then jumps in and supports the Muj groups, the Mujahideen, to resist them, and Arabs from around the Arab world jump into Afghanistan to try to fight the Russians off.

And the United States had funded some of those groups, worked with some of those groups.

West Germany and East Germany, a la the Wall, and the Wall was built and created.

Now fast-forward, I think what everybody really began to recognize, [lip smack] you know, Russia's, uh, challenges, uh, was facing some significant economic challenges as a result of the Russian-Afghan War from '79 to '80, I think '89.

Uh, it basically, uh, bankrupt them.

Uh, they had a profound amount of casualties, uh, and really exposed them, almost like the Vietnam War exposed us, uh, on a level that, you know, even superpowers have vulnerabilities to a, a high degree.