Afghanistan before and after photos you won't believe

[Quixote1818]

This image of Afghanistan might be hard to wrap your head around, but it's totally accurate. Prior to three-plus decades of war, Afghanistan, and Kabul in particular, had a pretty solid setup, one that westerners would often visit.

Sadly, the image on the right is likely to remain a reality for the foreseeable future.

Taken by amateur photographer Dr. William F. Podlich in the 1960s, the two women are his daughters (Afghan women, even most men, don't bare arms or legs in public), this and other pictures show westerners and Afghans in western-style clothing, clean streets, and buildings without any bullet holes.


Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/before-and-after-afghanistan-image-2013-2#ixzz3GqIguXSp

[Quixote1818]

1. Here are a bunch more photos from the 60's

http://blogs.denverpost.com/captured/2013/01/28/podlich-afghanistan-1960s-photos/5846/

[2naSalit]

2. Thanks for posting.

I had seen other photos of what Afghanistan had been like back then. These are amazing and sad to realize how advanced the civilization was and what it has become due to hubris and greed of outsiders. What a tragedy and the loss of some of the most spectacular feats of artistic endeavor leaves me speechless when I think of what it implies about mankind at this stage in the history of our species.

Bookmarked for future reference.

[Scootaloo]

3. Specifically, due to Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan

Their initial and expanded (respectively) engagement to topple Afghanistan's (Admittedly fairly authoritarian) leftist government led to US arms, funds, and training going to the same assholes who, twenty years later, we would be going to war with.

This is why sane progressives oppose the current administration's juggle-job on Syria and IS, where we fight IS in Iraq while arming it by proxy in Syria. we've seen where this goes, we know what happens.

[JDPriestly]

4. But also to extremists from Afghanistan and the Middle East.

And don't forget Russia, which invaded Afghanistan before we did and laid a lot of it to waste.

[Scootaloo]

6. All a consequence of what I just mentioned

Russia did not "invade," any more than the men Reagan armed were "freedom fighters." Russia came to the aid of an ally nation, at that ally's request. Yup, the Tariki government of Afghanistan asked Russia to intervene in the situation. What situation? Well, the insurgency that had been basically created, funded and armed wholly by the United States government in an effort to topple the government of a soviet satellite state. The Tariki government fell over the course of the fighting, leaving the soviets as more or less the sole organizational authority

We started Operation Cyclone well before any soviet involvement in Afghanistan.

Then when Russia did intervene (Well, the soviet union; most of the soldiers involved were Uzbek) that's when the rest of the "Mujahadin" showed up... thanks in large part to US-funded and supported efforts by our Saudi "man" in the region, Osama bin Laden.

We created Afghanistan as it is today, as an effort to pull the Soviet Union into a Vietnam, and to topple a leftist govenrment. Both goals achieved, I suppose. Aren't we happy with the results?

[JDPriestly]

7. Nonsense.

Mohammed Zahir Shah, Nadir Shah's 19-year-old son, succeeded to the throne and reigned from 1933 to 1973. Until 1946, Zahir Shah ruled with the assistance of his uncle, who held the post of Prime Minister and continued the policies of Nadir Shah. Another of Zahir Shah's uncles, Shah Mahmud Khan, became Prime Minister in 1946 and began an experiment allowing greater political freedom, but reversed the policy when it went further than he expected. He was replaced in 1953 by Mohammed Daoud Khan, the king's cousin and brother-in-law. Daoud Khan sought a closer relationship with the Soviet Union and a more distant one towards Pakistan. Afghanistan remained neutral and was neither a participant in World War II nor aligned with either power bloc in the Cold War. However, it was a beneficiary of the latter rivalry as both the Soviet Union and the United States vied for influence by building Afghanistan's main highways, airports, and other vital infrastructure. In 1973, while King Zahir Shah was on an official overseas visit, Daoud Khan launched a bloodless coup and became the first President of Afghanistan. In the meantime, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto got neighboring Pakistan involved in Afghanistan. Some experts suggest that Bhutto paved the way for the April 1978 Saur Revolution.[64]
Marxist revolution and Soviet war
Main articles: Saur Revolution, Soviet war in Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of Afghanistan and History of Afghanistan (1978–1992)
Outside the Arg Presidential Palace in Kabul, a day after the April 1978 Marxist revolution in which President Daoud Khan was assassinated along with his entire family.

In April 1978, the communist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) seized power in Afghanistan in the Saur Revolution. Within months, opponents of the communist government launched an uprising in eastern Afghanistan that quickly expanded into a civil war waged by guerrilla mujahideen against government forces countrywide. The Pakistani government provided these rebels with covert training centers, while the Soviet Union sent thousands of military advisers to support the PDPA government.[65] Meanwhile, increasing friction between the competing factions of the PDPA — the dominant Khalq and the more moderate Parcham — resulted in the dismissal of Parchami cabinet members and the arrest of Parchami military officers under the pretext of a Parchami coup.

In September 1979, Nur Muhammad Taraki was assassinated in a coup within the PDPA orchestrated by fellow Khalq member Hafizullah Amin, who assumed the presidency. Distrusted by the Soviets, Amin was assassinated by Soviet special forces in December 1979. A Soviet-organized government, led by Parcham's Babrak Karmal but inclusive of both factions, filled the vacuum. Soviet troops were deployed to stabilize Afghanistan under Karmal in more substantial numbers, although the Soviet government did not expect to do most of the fighting in Afghanistan. As a result, however, the Soviets were now directly involved in what had been a domestic war in Afghanistan.[66] The PDPA prohibited usury, declared equality of the sexes,[67] and introducing women to political life.[67]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghanistan

Russia tends to think it has the right to support coups and take over countries. Strangles other countries with a big bear hug and thinks that is friendship. If Afghanstan liked Russia that much, the Russian soldiers would not have left. A lot of the problems in Afghanistan are due to Russian interference.

[Man from Pickens]

5. Sadly you can do the same thing with Detroit

the aftermath of economic warfare looks awfully similar to that of military warfare

[eridani]

8. True, but even then there was a lot of resentment of Kabul by conservative rural reactionaries

Before any Soviet or US incursions, people like Gulbiddin Hekmatyar (later to be a major recipient of US aid) was getting a reputation for throwing acid in the faces of young women like those pictured in the "before" photo.