Question for my fellow freepers (regarding Afghan-Soviet 1980s war)

Main objective then was to prevent Soviet access to the Persian Gulf. I’m sure we would have funded Martians (legal or not) if they could have driven the Soviets out of Afghanistan.

Complicating matters was the brand new regime of the wacko rags of Khomeini that kicked out the Shah.

Back then we knew the rag wackos were bad guys but the Soviets were godless communists. Kinda like mixing oil and water. We knew the jihadists would work on the Soviets till they kicked them out. So we funded them and gave them weapons.

The key - we had no idea the wacko rags would turn on us. Sure we were aware of the Khomeini speeches; rhetoric and propaganda. But after the wacko rags kicked out the Soviets they decided to set their sights on the next Great Satan. Tired of watching year-old reruns of Dallas and General Hospital they decided it would be better (and more entertaining) to fight us.

I do speak Urdu pretty well, toured around the whole ME several times

Born and raised here, 100 percent American, 110 percent conservative :)

As for “freedom fighter” it really is a great propaganda tool that stuck. Of course we had to not only win the actual war against the Soviets we had to win the PR portion of it.

The strategy was brilliant in terms of getting a local population of “Freedom fighters” to fight the oppressive Soviets. Absolutely brilliant overall

The problem clearly was the execution of it and the blowback that has occurred since then

Being a student of history I think of these “what if” moments constantly. This was just one I was mulling the past few days based on the events of the past 2 weeks

My parents have seen Pakistan go from a relatively calm, relatively secular country to a nation of violent nut cases in their life time. So as with anything, I try and pinpoint how we got here and would could have been different to prevent a 9/11, 7/05, 9/20 (Marriot Bombing in Islamabad) and Mumbai

Being a student of history I think of these “what if” moments constantly.

That's cool. This was an interesting scenario. I study security & intelligence, so naturally I'm interested in the Middle East and Russia :)

BTW, I have a Pakistan ping list if you're interested...

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