Trump

[rstrong]

I wonder why Trump hasn't mentioned...

I'll bet you don't wonder why.

[O Really]

I wonder why Trump hasn't mentioned...

I'll bet you don't wonder why.

Nope. Not a bit.

[Vrede too]

An American hero!

I wonder why Trump hasn't mentioned ...

How a heroic (Muslim?) Marine's military training helped him save dozens from Orlando gunman

Maybe for the same reason that the right isn't mentioning that the shooter's father, Mir Seddique Mateen, is a Pashtun Aghani who emigrated here in the 1980s and was a supporter of Reagan/Bush financed Mujahideen that later became the Taliban.

[rstrong]

Reagan/Bush financed Mujahideen that later became the Taliban.

That's one of those truthiness things that *sounds* about right but isn't.

You may remember that on 9/10 there was a civil war in Afghanistan - the Taliban vs. the Northern Alliance. It's the Northern Alliance (and their predecessors) that the US supported. The Taliban was a created and backed by the Pakistani intelligence service.

The assassination of the leader of the Northern Alliance on September 9, 2001 could be considered the first attack of 9/11. He'd likely be the one the US would have turned to for a post-Taliban government. (In fact they were already doing just that.) Apparently he was a decent guy and supported women's rights. Instead we got Hamid Karzai and his brothers, whose hyper-corruption have split the country apart.

[rstrong]

Omar Mateen appears in hidden video footage in the 2012 BP oil spill documentary The Big Fix, complaining while working as a security guard after the BP oil spill in 2010. "They're just hoping for more oil to come out and more people to complain. They just want more disaster to happen because that's where the money making is."

[billy.pilgrim]

Reagan/Bush financed Mujahideen that later became the Taliban.

That's one of those truthiness things that *sounds* about right but isn't.

You may remember that on 9/10 there was a civil war in Afghanistan - the Taliban vs. the Northern Alliance. It's the Northern Alliance (and their predecessors) that the US supported. The Taliban was a created and backed by the Pakistani intelligence service.

The assassination of the leader of the Northern Alliance on September 9, 2001 could be considered the first attack of 9/11. He'd likely be the one the US would have turned to for a post-Taliban government. (In fact they were already doing just that.) Apparently he was a decent guy and supported women's rights. Instead we got Hamid Karzai and his brothers, whose hyper-corruption have split the country apart.

Granted all true, but you leave out the Mujahideen. We contributed to these religious nuts when they were also committing terrorist attacks on the soviets

[rstrong]

Granted all true, but you leave out the Mujahideen. We contributed to these religious nuts when they were also committing terrorist attacks on the soviets

They were backed as the lesser of two evils. They were occupied by a foreign invader. You could better describe the American Revolution as "terrorist attacks."

At the time they were not so much "religious nuts" as "people in a war who happened to have a different religion."

The Taliban wasn't just a Pakistani Intelligence Service creation. The backbone of the Taliban were thousands of Arabs brought in by Bin Laden and friends. The locals called them "tourists."

[Vrede too]

Reagan/Bush financed Mujahideen that later became the Taliban.

That's one of those truthiness things that *sounds* about right but isn't....

Although there isn't any evidence that the CIA directly supported the Taliban or Al Qaeda, some basis for military support of the Taliban was provided when, in the early 1980s, the CIA and the ISI (Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency) provided arms to Afghans resisting the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and the ISI assisted the process of gathering radical Muslims from around the world to fight against the Soviets....

When Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq became President of Pakistan he feared that the Soviets were planning to invade Balochistan, Pakistan so he sent Akhtar Abdur Rahman to Saudi Arabia to garner support for the Afghan resistance against Soviet occupation forces. In the meantime, the United States and Saudi Arabia joined the struggle against the Soviet Union by providing all the funds....

One can debate the worthiness at the time of our repeatedly using the homes and blood of other peoples to fight our Cold War proxy wars, but what it directly led to is indisputable.

[Vrede too]

Omar Mateen appears in hidden video footage in the 2012 BP oil spill documentary The Big Fix, complaining while working as a security guard after the BP oil spill in 2010. "They're just hoping for more oil to come out and more people to complain. They just want more disaster to happen because that's where the money making is."

He actually makes sense, if albeit not being very circumspect with a stranger.

Ironically, he could have been describing the gun industry.

[rstrong]

...but what it directly led to is indisputable.

Apparently it *IS* disputable.

[Vrede too]

Really? Our allies, our money, our weapons, the Soviets got kicked out, the Taliban took over.

[neoplacebo]

Reagan/Bush financed Mujahideen that later became the Taliban.

That's one of those truthiness things that *sounds* about right but isn't.

You may remember that on 9/10 there was a civil war in Afghanistan - the Taliban vs. the Northern Alliance. It's the Northern Alliance (and their predecessors) that the US supported. The Taliban was a created and backed by the Pakistani intelligence service.

The assassination of the leader of the Northern Alliance on September 9, 2001 could be considered the first attack of 9/11. He'd likely be the one the US would have turned to for a post-Taliban government. (In fact they were already doing just that.) Apparently he was a decent guy and supported women's rights. Instead we got Hamid Karzai and his brothers, whose hyper-corruption have split the country apart.

I just finished reading a book; "The Osama bin Laden I Know" by, I think, Peter Berman, a British guy. Anyway, the book covers the internecine struggles among the various Afghan groups and how the Taliban eventually came out on top. It also states that Osama was very happy when Bush invaded Iraq. The book was written before Osama was killed but I found it quite informative. Right now I'm reading "The Age of Extremes; the History of the World 1914-1991." This is also rather enlightening; better than the history I was "taught" in public school.

[neoplacebo]

I guess I should confess that I think Trump is full of shit since this is the Trump thread.

[rstrong]

Really? Our allies, our money, our weapons, the Soviets got kicked out, the Taliban took over.

Really. Our allies, our money, our weapons, the Soviets got kicked out, the Islamic State of Afghanistan took over in 1992. (Thanks to several Afghan political parties agreeing on a peace and power-sharing agreement, the Peshawar Accord.)

Not *full* control, mind you. It's not an easy area to control. Lots of local warlords and tribes who weren't on each others' MCI Friends and Family lists. There was near-lawlessness in the south - which led to many welcoming the Taliban.

As Wikipedia notes - with plenty of citations - "The Taliban were largely founded by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) during 1994. The I.S.I. used the Taliban to establish a regime in Afghanistan which would be favorable to Pakistan, as they were trying to gain strategic depth. Since the creation of the Taliban, the ISI and the Pakistani military have given financial, logistical and military support"

Islamic State of Afghanistan created the Northern Alliance to fight the Taliban. But the Taliban seized control of the majority of the country, including Kabul, in 1996. The Northern Alliance retained control only of some northern territory, and the civil war continued until the Taliban were overthrown. The Islamic State remained the internationally recognized representative of Afghanistan at the United Nations until the Taliban were overthrown.

[rstrong]

It also states that Osama was very happy when Bush invaded Iraq.

Also Iran. As a War Nerd column put it, the American invasion of Iraq only makes sense if Dick Cheney is an Iranian mole:

...got us to do the Ayatollahs’ dirty work for them by taking out Iraq, their only rival for regional power. Iraq is destroyed, and Tehran hasn’t lost a single soldier in the process. Our invasion put their natural allies, the Shia, in power; gave their natural enemies, the Iraqi Sunni, a blood-draining feud that will never end; and provided them with a risk-free laboratory to spy on American forces in action. If they feel like trying out a new weapon or tactic to deal with U.S. armor, all they have to do is feed the supplies or diagrams to one of their puppet Shia groups, or even one of the Sunni suicide-commando clans.
[...]
Turkey, America’s one real ally in the Middle East, is a huge loser in this war. We slapped them in the face, gave the Kurds a base to destabilize southeastern Turkey, and helped elect the first Islamist president in what used to be a proudly secular country. Happy now, Cheney, you Khomeini-loving, anti-American mole?
[...]
If you use armored columns as stationary cops in enemy neighborhoods, you give the locals plenty of time to figure out their weak spots. That’s what we did: gave the Arabs a trillion-dollar, multi-year seminar in how to defeat U.S. forces.

[Vrede too]

As the same Wikipedia article notes and I quoted, the US acted in knowing concert with Pakistan, who we were largely funding, and Saudi Arabia, our ally, to defeat the Soviets in Afghanistan. We can't do a Pontius Pilate on the results.

[rstrong]

As the same Wikipedia article notes and I quoted, the US acted in knowing concert with Pakistan, who we were largely funding, and Saudi Arabia, our ally, to defeat the Soviets in Afghanistan. We can't do a Pontius Pilate on the results.

The US worked concert with Pakistan to defeat the Soviets. Once that was done the US largely abandoned the region and the issue. Those it backed were (mostly) running things.

Pakistan LATER, in its own self-interest, created the Taliban. Which went on to (mostly) defeat the new government.

This is something that has to be explained to both the American right AND the American left: Other countries are OTHER COUNTRIES. Even allies are not "client states" that the US can dictate policy to. They are not subordinate. They will act in their own interests even when that goes against US interests, just like the US often acts against the interests of its allies.

No, the US is not responsible for Pakistan's later actions after the Soviets were kicked out of Afghanistan.

[Vrede too]

I don't cut Pakistan any slack and our ongoing cozy relationship with it meant that it got a nuclear bomb and shared that technology with others with little effective reproach or consequences from us.

Our Cold War destabilization and subsequent abandonment once our geopolitical aims at the cost of others' blood had been satisfied is definitely a huge part of the story. We might have been better off now if the Soviets had stayed. The people of Orlando sure might think so.

[rstrong]

I don't cut Pakistan any slack and our ongoing cozy relationship with it meant that it got a nuclear bomb and shared that technology with others with little effective reproach or consequences from us.

Again, Pakistan is a whole other independent country. Take away any "cozy relationship" and they'd have the nukes regardless.

If the US insists on having nukes - and it does - then the US can hardly tell Pakistan that it can't. If the US trades nuclear technology with other countries - and it does - then the US can hardly tell Pakistan that it can't.

Yeah, it's scary. But Pakistan is its own country with its own interests.

We might have been better off now if the Soviets had stayed. The people of Orlando sure might think so.

The shooter's parents left Afghanistan in the 1980s while the Soviets were in control. Millions of Afghans fled after it was invaded in 1979. So blame the Soviets for the shooting, not America.

Back in reality the shooter's ethnic background seems to have had little to do with the shooting. He was a mentally unstable bipolar wife-beater with a history of using steroids. The more that comes out about the shooting, the more it looks like a mental health issue.

[Vrede too]

I don't cut Pakistan any slack and our ongoing cozy relationship with it meant that it got a nuclear bomb and shared that technology with others with little effective reproach or consequences from us.

Again, Pakistan is a whole other independent country. Take away any "cozy relationship" and they'd have the nukes regardless.

Not necessarily. We looked the other way because of the cozy relationship and what we saw as more pressing interests.

If the US insists on having nukes - and it does - then the US can hardly tell Pakistan that it can't. If the US trades nuclear technology with other countries - and it does - then the US can hardly tell Pakistan that it can't.

I certainly agree with the principle. Our ignoring and violation of the disarmament provision in the NPT is an abomination. However, we do hypocritical stuff all the time, witness both Israel and Iran.

Yeah, it's scary. But Pakistan is its own country with its own interests.

We might have been better off now if the Soviets had stayed. The people of Orlando sure might think so.

The shooter's parents left Afghanistan in the 1980s while the Soviets were in control. Millions of Afghans fled after it was invaded in 1979. So blame the Soviets for the shooting, not America.

Sorry if I wasn't clear, I meant the growth of Islamic radicalism and terrorist tactics. It would be a different world, better or worse, if they hadn't flourished in Afghanistan. I'm not sure exactly what year the parents came, before US intervention or after, and can't speculate how a different Afghan result might have affected the household.

Back in reality the shooter's ethnic background seems to have had little to do with the shooting. He was a mentally unstable bipolar wife-beater with a history of using steroids. The more that comes out about the shooting, the more it looks like a mental health issue.

I'd settle on a mix from what we know so far, also including wannabe cop authoritarianism, dead end employment, confused sexuality, good ole American homophobia, gunhugging . . . and radical Islam, which he seems to have had some probably non-criminal association with for years, not to mention being in Florida . He sure wasn't "crazy" in a legal sense, too much coherent planning and execution.

Funny aside: We're currently talking about terror in the Trump thread and about a yellow-orange orb in the terror thread.