the Russians and armed then with Stinger missiles and recoil-less rifles. If you can racism there, I'd like to know how. How racist is it to keep American troops there because they aren't able to rule themselves. Now that's some real chauvinism and racism for you.
https://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/26/news/what-about-the-talibans-stingers.html
What About the Taliban's Stingers?
By Joseph Fitchett, International Herald Tribune
Sept. 26, 2001
PARIS— Taliban forces in Afghanistan are reported to have up to 100 shoulder-fired Stingers, the U.S.-made missile with the deadliest record against low-flying aircraft of any weapon since World War II.
In a terrorist's hands, a heat-seeking Stinger could bring down a low-flying airliner as it approached or left an airport, specialists said. But they described such risks as low for commercial flights operating in the United States, Europe and Asia.
No terrorist attack with a Stinger has been recorded in the 12 years since the end of the war in Afghanistan.
In the 1980s, the Reagan administration delivered several hundred Stingers to Afghan resistance groups, including the Taliban.
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https://www.globalresearch.ca/9-11-analysis-from-ronald-reagan-and-the-soviet-afghan-war-to-george-w-bush-and-september-11-2001/20958
9/11 ANALYSIS: From Ronald Reagan and the Soviet-Afghan War to George W Bush and September 11, 2001
By Prof Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research, May 20, 2017
9 September 2010
Theme: Terrorism
In-depth Report: AFGHANISTAN
[print]
This article first published in September 2010 summarizes earlier writings by the author on 9/11 and the role of Al Qaeda in US foreign policy. For further details see Michel Chossudovsky, America’s “War on Terrorism”, Global Research, 2005
“The United States spent millions of dollars to supply Afghan schoolchildren with textbooks filled with violent images and militant Islamic teachings….The primers, which were filled with talk of jihad and featured drawings of guns, bullets, soldiers and mines, have served since then as the Afghan school system’s core curriculum. Even the Taliban used the American-produced books,..”, (Washington Post, 23 March 2002)
“Advertisements, paid for from CIA funds, were placed in newspapers and newsletters around the world offering inducements and motivations to join the [Islamic] Jihad.” (Pervez Hoodbhoy, Peace Research, 1 May 2005)
“Bin Laden recruited 4,000 volunteers from his own country and developed close relations with the most radical mujahideen leaders. He also worked closely with the CIA, … Since September 11, [2001] CIA officials have been claiming they had no direct link to bin Laden.” (Phil Gasper, International Socialist Review, November-December 2001)
Highlights
-Osama bin Laden, America’s bogyman, was recruited by the CIA in 1979 at the very outset of the US sponsored jihad. He was 22 years old and was trained in a CIA sponsored guerilla training camp.
-The architects of the covert operation in support of “Islamic fundamentalism” launched during the Reagan presidency played a key role in launching the “Global War on Terrorism” in the wake of 9/11.
– President Ronald Reagan met the leaders of the Islamic Jihad at the White House in 1985
-Under the Reagan adminstration, US foreign policy evolved towards the unconditional support and endorsement of the Islamic “freedom fighters”. In today’s World, the “freedom fighters” are labelled “Islamic terrorists”.
-In the Pashtun language, the word “Taliban” means “Students”, or graduates of the madrasahs (places of learning or coranic schools) set up by the Wahhabi missions from Saudi Arabia, with the support of the CIA.
-Education in Afghanistan in the years preceding the Soviet-Afghan war was largely secular. The US covert education destroyed secular education. The number of CIA sponsored religious schools (madrasahs) increased from 2,500 in 1980 to over 39,000.
The Soviet-Afghan war was part of a CIA covert agenda initiated during the Carter administration, which consisted in actively supporting and financing the Islamic brigades, later known as Al Qaeda.
The Pakistani military regime played from the outset in the late 1970s, a key role in the US sponsored military and intelligence operations in Afghanistan. In the post-Cold war era, this central role of Pakistan in US intelligence operations was extended to the broader Central Asia- Middle East region. From the outset of the Soviet Afghan war in 1979, Pakistan under military rule actively supported the Islamic brigades. In close liaison with the CIA, Pakistan’s military intelligence, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), became a powerful organization, a parallel government, wielding tremendous power and influence.
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My personal opinion is the Afghans are perfectly capable of sorting it all out themselves if all nations would quit dumping money and weapons on them.
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