Charlie Wilson is gone

[wolveraptor]

As far as what has resulted in Afghanistan, it is indeed a massive tragedy. It amazes me how a country like the US can have such a large case of collective amnesia when it comes to learning the lessons of foreign intervention, and make so many obvious mistakes.

Hell, this very article (and once again, the movie) are examples of that. We're already celebrating this man who spearheaded at best morally ambiguous policies.

[K. A. Pital]

I understood the original question to be if the US intentionally set out to implement a fundamentalist regime in Afghanistan.

My question was if the end results of the US intervention were something worth celebrating. Looking through my post, I have to wonder how you arrived at that conclusion as I have not argued US intentions, but the result of the US intervention. After all, intent is worth nothing when looking at the consequences of actions.

Ah, I see. I initially based my response on Simon_Jester's post a few lines later.

As far as what has resulted in Afghanistan, it is indeed a massive tragedy. It amazes me how a country like the US can have such a large case of collective amnesia when it comes to learning the lessons of foreign intervention, and make so many obvious mistakes.

That is nothing unusual. The US, like many other large interventionist powers (USSR, British Empire) is pathetically bad at understanding foreign cultures.

Usually it takes a "I don't give a crap about your culture" approach, which results in massive disasters. The understanding of foreign cultures is critical when you are even contemplating such things as foreign intervention.

The USSR thought that Afghanis mostly want to live in an industrialized society or something; they thought that by deposing the corrupt heads of Afghan communist government, they would win the war in weeks (at least Ustinov considered such terms realistic). The reality of just how backwards the society was came as a rude awakening.

Same goes with many other nations in the world. For one, U.S. intervention in Iraq is such a spectacular display of total ignorance of safety considerations, culture, even military logic... that I just consider it to be typical great-power condescending behavior - "we depose your government, job done".

[Rogue 9]

NPR's Fresh Air program reran 2003 interviews with Charlie Wilson and George Crile (who wrote the book Charlie Wilson's War: The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History) today, amid other things concerning him. Here's the link.

[stormthebeaches]

That legitimizes U.S. involvement how, exactly? We of course killed much more in completely illegal bombing raids on neutral states during our Indochinese wars.

What does this have to do with Afghanistan. This is completely irrelevant.

I'm hardly a Leninist, but at least the DRA made some moves toward developing an organized, industrializing, and modernizing society. One cannot say of the motley group of thugs we supported, who ruined the country so badly that the Taliban was sponsored by their former sponsors and welcomed by the populace.

The country was ruined to do ten years of fighting a Soviet occupation. Also, it is very dishonest to say that it was only the Mujahadeen who ruined the country when the Soviet's and Afghan government adopted a policy of destroying infrastructure and farmland in areas they did not control to make the Afghan people reliant on the government. Of course, the Mujahadeen do get some blame for fighting among themselves once the Soviet's left and the Afghan government collapsed, but to pin all the blame on them is dishonest. Considering how Afghanistan was one of the poorest countries in the world BEFORE the Soviet's invaded, it's not a surprise that the country turned out the way it did.

[K. A. Pital]

The country was ruined to do ten years of fighting a Soviet occupation.

Yeah, but how does this contradict the statement that "at least the DRA made some moves toward developing an organized, industrializing, and modernizing society"? One does not follow from the other.

That's like saying "Well, this nation was ruined in a war. From this follows that it's government had bad goals". A total non-sequitur.

Considering how Afghanistan was one of the poorest countries in the world BEFORE the Soviet's invaded, it's not a surprise that the country turned out the way it did.

It became even worse because of the war with the USSR, and then the civil war, then the deposing of Najibullah and finally the rise of the Taliban, the ousting of the latter, and now the U.S. occupation. It has de-volved, and the period of rule of the Taliban was about the low botton of shithole you can think of. Probably worse than sub-Saharan Africa. That's saying something.

[stormthebeaches]

Yeah, but how does this contradict the statement that "at least the DRA made some moves toward developing an organized, industrializing, and modernizing society"? One does not follow from the other.

That's like saying "Well, this nation was ruined in a war. From this follows that it's government had bad goals". A total non-sequitur.

It wasn't to contradict the statement "at least the DRA made some moves toward developing an organized, industrialized and modernizing society?". The statement was to contradict the claim that the Mujahadeen ruined the country. Which is quite unfair because the Afghan government and the Soviet's played their role in ruining the country, and the Mujahadeen was not one collective entity but a series of different groups and warlords who had different goals and were only really unified but a common enemy (Soviet Union and Afghan government).

As for the Afghan government whilst some of its goals were good its methods were horrible. It was hopelessly incompetent, very brutal, prone to infighting (look at how Amin took over) and was full of contradictory policies (it was the Afghan government first brought holy war into the conflict, it declared Jihad on the rebels, which caused the rebels to declare a Jihad of their own).

Even the goals of the Afghan government weren't that good. Yes they wanted to modernized the country but they also wanted to created a totalitarian nation where political opponents would be executed by the thousand and unacceptable cultures would be wiped out.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

unacceptable cultures would be wiped out.

Most of the cultures in those areas are regressive and often very very conservative, especially in their treatment of women. How is that not a bad thing?

[stormthebeaches]

Most of the cultures in those areas are regressive and often very very conservative, especially in their treatment of women. How is that not a bad thing?

Alright, consider this point conceeded.

[Simon_Jester]

unacceptable cultures would be wiped out.

Most of the cultures in those areas are regressive and often very very conservative, especially in their treatment of women. How is that not a bad thing?

If you could wipe out a culture without wiping out a significant fraction of its members, it wouldn't be a bad thing. Most of the time, you can't, not when you're trying to impose the changes from outside.