Cajnik: The USSR deployed the troops in Afghanistan after the 21st request from the Afghan government.

Ah yes, they were requested. Just like they were requested in '54 and '68


The Afghan nationalist were commies back then, but they were also the only people who wanted a cohesive nation. We backed the tribes, and that was a mistake. Both the United States and the Soviets intervened for misplaced ideological reasons, but if you remove the cold war narrative, the nationalists were the 'good guys.' The Northern Alliance, who was still funded and equipped by the Russians, weren't commies anymore but they were still Afghan nationalists.

DarnoKonrad: The Afghan nationalist were commies back then, but they were also the only people who wanted a cohesive nation. We backed the tribes, and that was a mistake. Both the United States and the Soviets intervened for misplaced ideological reasons, but if you remove the cold war narrative, the nationalists were the 'good guys.' The Northern Alliance, who was still funded and equipped by the Russians, weren't commies anymore but they were still Afghan nationalists.

That could be said about a lot of Asia back then. Example: The Vietnamese 'nationalists' were the commies, trying to liberate themselves from the French.

Bukharin: DarnoKonrad: The Afghan nationalist were commies back then, but they were also the only people who wanted a cohesive nation. We backed the tribes, and that was a mistake. Both the United States and the Soviets intervened for misplaced ideological reasons, but if you remove the cold war narrative, the nationalists were the 'good guys.' The Northern Alliance, who was still funded and equipped by the Russians, weren't commies anymore but they were still Afghan nationalists.

That could be said about a lot of Asia back then. Example: The Vietnamese 'nationalists' were the commies, trying to liberate themselves from the French.

Yep, and another example of how our primary concern with the cold war was at odds, or even irrelevant, to the primary concerns of the participants we were arming.

Cold war blinders if you will.

Just about everything said in that article and this thread is wrong.

elkev: Just about everything said in that article and this thread is wrong.

It's Pravda. By dint of effort, they actually managed to become less factual and based in reality after they were no longer the Soviet state newspaper.

As for Fark... It's Fark.

"It is very easy for us to provoke and bait. All we have to do is wave a flag that says al-Qaeda on it, and the generals rush there. What we are trying to do is spend the United States into bankruptcy." -- Osama bin Laden^ (PDF)


Congratulations. It's a shame you won't get to see the government filing for Chapter 11 protection.


And I know understand WHY we're going broke on our military. Who would dare collect?

elkev: Just about everything said in that article and this thread is wrong.


Your mother enjoys anal.

Who would have thought Russia has historical revisionists of its own?

By virtue of the fact that the Soviet Union collapsed a year after the last Soviet troop left Afghanistan, you might say the highly vaunted military supremacy of the USSR not only suffered a wound to its image but the governmental/political bureaucracy built to support that military suffered a mortal blow.

Afghanistan is not referred to as "the graveyard of empires" for naught.

Cajnik: DarnoKonrad:

The Afghan nationalist were commies back then, but they were also the only people who wanted a cohesive nation

The Hungarian and Czechoslovak communists also wanted a cohesive nation. Something about protecting Socialism (with tanks)


It's a totally different situation. The idea the soviets wanted a vassal state is not supported by internal soviet documents -- much like our Vietnam, they knew it was a bad idea but proceeded anyway.. Whereas, in Eastern Europe they did want vassal states as a buffer between them and Germany -- who had invaded their nation twice in 50 years and killed umpteen million people.

Today we're doing *exactly* what the Soviets failed to do in Afghanistan 30 years ago -- trying to turn Afghanistan into a stable nation state instead of a bunch of warring tribes and outside religious radicals.

Valarius: elkev: Just about everything said in that article and this thread is wrong.


Your mother enjoys anal.

This is no time for facts.

It seems pretty comparable with Vietnam.
The superpower involved never loses a battle and continues to win until the war becomes unfavorable. It then quits and whoever's left gets to charge in and fill the power vacuum.

If the definition of "lost" is being defeated in combat then neither nation lost.
However, so far as seeing their long term political goals through, they both got their butts soundly kicked.
Since our enemies now know how its done, we can expect them to repeat the process until victory is secured in any arena. They'll always win because we pay too much attention to keeping bad leaders in power instead of understanding why the population allows revolutionaries to persist in their midst.

/The world wars were an aberration. Securing Victory was never a simple thing.
/The less you want to get your hands dirty, the more impossible it becomes.
/Our Politicians can't rebuild their own nation, how do we expect them to make one from scratch?

Kaboom Tank

/obscure?

Not surprising. All kinds of clandestine "national security issues" were going on during the Carter administration.

Seems that no matter how "liberal" the President is we vote into office, there's the fact that American citizens have absolutely no say over foreign policy matters.

And fark yes that has to change.

The USSR? I thought you guys broke up years ago!?!

macross87: The USSR? I thought you guys broke up years ago!?!

That's what we wanted you to think!

macross87: The USSR? I thought you guys broke up years ago!?!

Viet Nam, Grenada, South and Central America, sure those were great places to wage cold war in. Our goody goody meddling foreign policy aside it's hard to believe that we would ever (openly) deploy troops to a country that actually bordered the Soviet Union.

That business would have gotten out of hand.

Only one person, Aleksei Kosygin, a member of the Political Bureau, voted against the decision.

Ron Paul?

FTFA: At any rate, historians say that if the USSR had not deployed its troops in the country, the USA would have done it instead.

Stunning amount of detail and documentation. I, for one, am wholly convinced.

Schmee: FTFA: At any rate, historians say that if the USSR had not deployed its troops in the country, the USA would have done it instead.

Stunning amount of detail and documentation. I, for one, am wholly convinced.

Ya, why the hell would we have done that?

Better yet, how the hell would we have done that? An unstable country that borders the USSR and they would be fine having American troops chilling on the border? Ya right.

Lunchlady: Schmee: FTFA: At any rate, historians say that if the USSR had not deployed its troops in the country, the USA would have done it instead.

Stunning amount of detail and documentation. I, for one, am wholly convinced.

Ya, why the hell would we have done that?

Better yet, how the hell would we have done that? An unstable country that borders the USSR and they would be fine having American troops chilling on the border? Ya right.

Same thought here, it was good for a laugh though.

Land war, Asia and all that

Oh yes. Jimmy Carter would have invaded with every single division we had.

We need to make a poster in the fashion of anti-drug campaigns

Afghanistan - Not even once

My friend invaded Afghanistan once, then he started invading Iraq
Afghanistan - A gateway invasion.

Ally asks you to invade Afghanistan? Just say no.

elkev: Just about everything said in that article and this thread is wrong.

Agreed. Especially the first 10 posters or so who look like they got their history of the political situation in Afghanistan from the back of a cereal box that they are now trying to recollect years later.

Was going to post a rebuttal but I found your reply succinct enough. Plus that was hours ago by now.

HotIgneous Intruder: Oh yes. Jimmy Carter would have invaded with every single division we had.

Here's what Soviet apologists are usually referencing:

In 1977 President Daoud made plans that the Government in Kabul would no longer have any personal relationships with the Soviet Union and try to make Afghanistan closer to the West, especially with other oil rich Middle-East nations. Afghanistan signed a co-operative military treaty with Egypt and by 1977 the Afghan military and police force were being trained by Egyptian Armed forces. This angered the Soviet Union because Egypt took the same route in 1974 and distanced itself from the Soviets. (from wiki)

So pretty much Afghanistan had always played both sides in the Cold War to their advantage, Daoud takes over in a coup that overthrows the King and launches a bunch of socialists reforms. Alls great for a few years but then the Afghan Nationalists are seeing the Soviets become more and more belligerent, and the communists parties grow more radical than ever. So Daoud distances himself from the communists and starts leaning more pro-west. This time, however, the Soviets were seeing severe economic decline in relation to the West (who ten years prior some might arguing they were surpassing), they had many domestic problems in oil production, and Saudi and Opec oil began flooding the markets making a steep decline in Russian oil revenues.

Rather than seeing their little baby flip flop again they decide to launch a coup/invasion to keep them in line, but also hopefully create a staging area into the oil rich Gulf waters to control the world's oil directly. Also remember during this time was the unrest in Iran, which, like Afghanistan the Soviet supported communist parties were a central figure against the pro-west Shah. In the mid to late 70s, it may have looked that both Afghanistan and Iran could topple and become hardline communist (almost leninist and stalinist, really, the Politburo were actually worried about how radical they were) client states. It was only when the Ayatollah took the reigns of power he immediately began brutally repressing his former communist allies that the Soviets lost any hope of having a central influence in the country. But if it did all work they might just see two communist client states right next to some of the most important land in the world: the baluchi area of Pakistan in the Gulf Waters, and into Iraq/Saudi Arabia, (which Iraq was also leaning towards the Soviets at this time as well). Even if direct force was never applied, the influence in the region could certainly persuade the Saudis and the rest of Opec to curtail oil production and their pro-west leanings.

Also during this time, Daoud apparently met with U.S. CIA. Drawing from memory, I believe there's no actual information of what this meeting might have entailed or if it would even lead to substantive relationship at all. But when the Soviets got wind of it they immediately assumed Daoud was preparing to kick out the Soviets and invite the U.S. in. So the Soviets launched an unpopular coup by hardline communists that had no way of retaining power on their own and purged the government of anyone who wasn't loyal to them. The only way the Soviets could maintain their power, with CIA involvement or not, was to launch a full-scale invasion "invited" by the newly minted communist government. In the Soviet mindset, they were protecting the country from a CIA backed coup or agitprop campaign, but their government they were protecting had little legitimacy to begin with.

Well that's that in a nutshell.

Interesting how, in the last couple of decades, both of the world's two biggest powers have been tricked into wrecking themselves against the rocks and bayonets of the Corrupt Sand Countries.

One Bad Apple: Our goody goody meddling foreign policy aside it's hard to believe that we would ever (openly) deploy troops to a country that actually bordered the Soviet Union.

That business would have gotten out of hand.

Been done before. Certainly Korea (when our troops were north of the 38th parallel prior to the armistice where the business did indeed get out of hand) and there were large forces in Turkey with a border on the USSR, (and if a small distance over water counts, Japan and even Alaska).

DarnoKonrad: Cajnik: DarnoKonrad:

The Afghan nationalist were commies back then, but they were also the only people who wanted a cohesive nation

The Hungarian and Czechoslovak communists also wanted a cohesive nation. Something about protecting Socialism (with tanks)


It's a totally different situation. The idea the soviets wanted a vassal state is not supported by internal soviet documents -- much like our Vietnam, they knew it was a bad idea but proceeded anyway.. Whereas, in Eastern Europe they did want vassal states as a buffer between them and Germany -- who had invaded their nation twice in 50 years and killed umpteen million people.

Today we're doing *exactly* what the Soviets failed to do in Afghanistan 30 years ago -- trying to turn Afghanistan into a stable nation state instead of a bunch of warring tribes and outside religious radicals.

Dugin or Leontyev?

Q: When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting that they intended to fight against a secret involvement of the United States in Afghanistan, people didn't believe them. However, there was a basis of truth. You don't regret anything today?

Brzezinski: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter. We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.

Q: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic fundamentalism, having given arms and advice to future terrorists?

Brzezinski: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?