Quote:
Originally Posted by Billcat
We certanly did support many of the folks who later became the Taliban regime. And if we did not overtly supply Hussein, we did covertly - and turned a nice, blind eye to his use of chemical weapons. Seems the name is familiar, too - Rumsfeld! http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp...nguage=printer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._su..._Iran-Iraq_war
In any case, I've seen too many of our leaders either distorting the truth or just plain lying over the years to accept what I am told when the politicians are trying to sell me some idea. |
You are ignoring the role of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan here. In Afghanistan the U.S. role was to provide logistics and technological support as well as money. Our only interest there was to drive out the Soviets. We funneled money to the Mujahadeen via the Pakistanis so as to give ourselves "plausible deniability" with the USSR. The Saudis collaborated with Pakistan's intelligence service, ISI, to really run the war on the front lines. It was the Pakistani army, in particular the ISI, that picked the political winners and losers in the jihad. They favored radical Islamist factions because it suited the goal of the Pakistan army to pacify Afghanistan. The U.S. acquiesced with all of this because our government really didn't care about local politics in the region, only booting out the Soviets. The Saudi government lavishly funded Saudis who were fighting in Afghanistan. Bin Laden had no contact with America - nor does he appear to have needed funding from anyone due to his own considerable resources. The former foreign correspondent and editor at the Washinton Post, Steve Coll, covers this war in his book "Ghost Wars."
And I agree. Turning a blind eye to things others are doing is not good policy. Unfortunately, this is the way of the world.....and successive administrations. I wish we could put an end to it. I don't trust government either. Ditto large segments of the media establishment.