Wednesday, June 28, 2006
The U.S. "commitment" to Afghanistan
WIIIAI points us to this interview with that noted Sovietologist, Condoleezza Rice, in which she says: "We are not leaving. We are not leaving again, as we did in the 1980s."
And what were the circumstances of the 80's in which the U.S. was "in" Afghanistan? Let Wikipedia sum it up:
In 1979 the United States government under President Jimmy Carter and National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski began to covertly fund and train anti-government Mujahideen forces through the Pakistani secret service agency known as Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), which were derived from discontented Muslims in the country who opposed the official atheism of the Marxist regime, in 1978. Brzezinski's recruiting efforts included enlisting Usama bin Laden to fight the Soviets.Brzezinski brags about that "Afghan trap" to this day. And what was it the U.S. was funding? An effort to overthrow a government which prioritized women's education and religious freedom and a secular state. That's the "commitment" that Condi is sorry the U.S. walked away from.
