Doobie Doober
Active Member
Dude your right, land of the free, more like land of the shits. The runny shits. Why cant we have fun with a plant that makes us more productive, but we can get drunk and run over kids and blow shit up?
Iran digging graves for US troops if they attack. Shit is about to get real.
- Thread starter Puffer Fish
- Start date
Greenplease
Active Member
Thats probably quite true, so many people that I knew growing up that smoked, have become conspiracy theorists, not serious ones, but followers atleast!
Greenplease
Active Member
I don't know how many times I have tried bringing this subject up with people, I have been going nuts tring to tell people that the government laws are all fucking backwards, where is the sense.
Thank you for agreeing with me albeit indirectly hahaha!
Long live the Mary Jane!!!!!!!!
Puffer Fish
Well-Known Member
Hello friend, I deeply respect the sacrifice any service men and woman make in any battle. I have never met my grandparents, they perished in WW2. Please do not think of me as one of them conspiracy weirdoes.
I am curious as to your reason for enlisting, perhaps you would care to elaborate. But coming from a war torn country, I have realized that all I want out of my stay on this planet is to LIVE. That right should be universal to all (at least that is my opinion)
Facing death ... as I have cancer ... I came to conclusion that 'god' has many faces (If one believes in such entity at all) ... so the conflict bwn the Judeo-Christians and the Muslims holds no merit whatsoever. Thus, there must be another agenda. Here I can list a slew of reasons why things are the way they are. Without making such lists .... I reduce such conflicts stemming from greed for power and control of a given populus.
There is nothing worst to me than watching bodies of kids being brought back in coffins .... from unwinnable wars .... no matter which side of the coin I look at. If you are a service man and by chance studied at West Point ... you should be familiar with teachings of Sun Tzu Taking into consideration any conflict in the Middle East at this time, according to these teachings .... the fore mentioned conflicts can not be won by the US army.
So why did you enlist ?
blazin256
Well-Known Member
iran is feeling threatened, and they should. we are after all surrounding their country with american bases. lets take a completely hypothetical (and maybe laughable) scenario: extremist canadians and mexicans have made attacks on russian monuments, russia responds by going to war with the countries, setting up bases, surrounding america....how the hell would we feel? we wouldn't want those "evil" russians ruing our way of life, etc. so now we begin preparing for a war, making threats, etc, etc. what do you guys think iran looks like? some big desert where everyone rides camels and lives in caves? take a look at what tehran looks like...http://www.worldisround.com/articles/98910/ and iran in general http://www.worldisround.com/articles/73022/index.html
so what do we do? good question, cause either way, its damned if we do and damned if we dont. NWO coming soon to a government near you.
so what do we do? good question, cause either way, its damned if we do and damned if we dont. NWO coming soon to a government near you.
assasinofyouth420
Well-Known Member
Firstly I didnt join to die for my country I enjoy living as much as the next guy. And I also didnt join to fight in the name of any god. I joined becuase I think every one should dedicate their service to their country in one way or another. Whether it be military, politics, healthcare, education... and the list goes on. I'm too stupid to be a doctor, your too smart to listen to me teach and I would probably be in jail for beating the piss out of some senator if I was in politics. I never thought that the war we were fighting was honorable but that is for the politicians to decide and most of them appear to be too stupid to use good judgment.
MediMary
Well-Known Member
israel has been patient? are you kidding? the holocaust was so F*(&KED up, but then to take everyone from their land and put the isrealies there, that was pretty fucked up too!
If I was a Palestinian, I would be pissed at israel as well.
And I think we are Israels alley, not the other way around, without all our weapons, and help, Israel would have been gone awhile back. sure they held off attacks before( but with our weapons).
If I was a Palestinian, I would be pissed at israel as well.
And I think we are Israels alley, not the other way around, without all our weapons, and help, Israel would have been gone awhile back. sure they held off attacks before( but with our weapons).
Puffer Fish
Well-Known Member
With all do respect kind sir ... what does that make you ?
Dedication to ones country is one thing ... helping people is noble in any way. Serving for politicians who will not serve you in return is something else.
No health care, houses being take away by bailed out banks, education system in shambles .... bah .... how can you serve these politicians ?
Please kind sir, do not take my comment personally, as I am not attacking you.
I just would like to understand.
Not to switch gears here, as to me this is all related .... I feel I should add this video clip to the thread as per MediMary's comment.
This is my favorite Israelite Norman Finkelstein .... I admire this man for his conviction and share many of his sentiments.
What are your thoughts ?
[video=youtube;bDe65-nF3FQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDe65-nF3FQ[/video]
Wow, thank you all for participating in this thread. I have had some reservations this morning as I was compiling this.
But look at us now 66 posts and we are still contemplating .... and learning from each other.
Hats off to all !
Dedication to ones country is one thing ... helping people is noble in any way. Serving for politicians who will not serve you in return is something else.
No health care, houses being take away by bailed out banks, education system in shambles .... bah .... how can you serve these politicians ?
Please kind sir, do not take my comment personally, as I am not attacking you.
I just would like to understand.
Not to switch gears here, as to me this is all related .... I feel I should add this video clip to the thread as per MediMary's comment.
This is my favorite Israelite Norman Finkelstein .... I admire this man for his conviction and share many of his sentiments.
What are your thoughts ?
[video=youtube;bDe65-nF3FQ]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDe65-nF3FQ[/video]
Wow, thank you all for participating in this thread. I have had some reservations this morning as I was compiling this.
But look at us now 66 posts and we are still contemplating .... and learning from each other.
Hats off to all !
darkdestruction420
Well-Known Member
I read not long ago in the papers, 50 or so innocent people blown up in Afganistan by a NATO air strike. What the fuck is this shit!? Why?
At least they dont do it on purpose.....terrorists dont exactly care about if they are civilian or military deaths they inflict. Osama bin laden said that when he announced his war on the us. Go listen to it once.
At least they dont do it on purpose.....terrorists dont exactly care about if they are civilian or military deaths they inflict. Osama bin laden said that when he announced his war on the us. Go listen to it once.
darkdestruction420
Well-Known Member
Found it, heres the paticular part and below that the whole speeach.
The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies -- civilians and military -- is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque [Mecca] from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim. This is in accordance with the words of Almighty Allah, "and fight the pagans all together as they fight you all together," and "fight them until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in Allah."
Praise be to Allah, who revealed the Book, controls the clouds, defeats factionalism, and says in His Book: "But when the forbidden months are past, then fight and slay the pagans wherever ye find them, seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war)"; and peace be upon our Prophet, Muhammad Bin-'Abdallah, who said: I have been sent with the sword between my hands to ensure that no one but Allah is worshipped, Allah who put my livelihood under the shadow of my spear and who inflicts humiliation and scorn on those who disobey my orders.
The Arabian Peninsula has never -- since Allah made it flat, created its desert, and encircled it with seas -- been stormed by any forces like the crusader armies spreading in it like locusts, eating its riches and wiping out its plantations. All this is happening at a time in which nations are attacking Muslims like people fighting over a plate of food. In the light of the grave situation and the lack of support, we and you are obliged to discuss current events, and we should all agree on how to settle the matter.
No one argues today about three facts that are known to everyone; we will list them, in order to remind everyone:
First, for over seven years the United States has been occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian Peninsula, plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people, terrorizing its neighbors, and turning its bases in the Peninsula into a spearhead through which to fight the neighboring Muslim peoples.
If some people have in the past argued about the fact of the occupation, all the people of the Peninsula have now acknowledged it. The best proof of this is the Americans' continuing aggression against the Iraqi people using the Peninsula as a staging post, even though all its rulers are against their territories being used to that end, but they are helpless.
Second, despite the great devastation inflicted on the Iraqi people by the crusader-Zionist alliance, and despite the huge number of those killed, which has exceeded 1 million... despite all this, the Americans are once against trying to repeat the horrific massacres, as though they are not content with the protracted blockade imposed after the ferocious war or the fragmentation and devastation.
So here they come to annihilate what is left of this people and to humiliate their Muslim neighbors.
Third, if the Americans' aims behind these wars are religious and economic, the aim is also to serve the Jews' petty state and divert attention from its occupation of Jerusalem and murder of Muslims there. The best proof of this is their eagerness to destroy Iraq, the strongest neighboring Arab state, and their endeavor to fragment all the states of the region such as Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Sudan into paper statelets and through their disunion and weakness to guarantee Israel's survival and the continuation of the brutal crusade occupation of the Peninsula.
All these crimes and sins committed by the Americans are a clear declaration of war on Allah, his messenger, and Muslims. And ulema have throughout Islamic history unanimously agreed that the jihad is an individual duty if the enemy destroys the Muslim countries. This was revealed by Imam Bin-Qadamah in "Al- Mughni," Imam al-Kisa'i in "Al-Bada'i," al-Qurtubi in his interpretation, and the shaykh of al-Islam in his books, where he said: "As for the fighting to repulse [an enemy], it is aimed at defending sanctity and religion, and it is a duty as agreed [by the ulema]. Nothing is more sacred than belief except repulsing an enemy who is attacking religion and life."
On that basis, and in compliance with Allah's order, we issue the following fatwa to all Muslims:
The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies -- civilians and military -- is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque [Mecca] from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim. This is in accordance with the words of Almighty Allah, "and fight the pagans all together as they fight you all together," and "fight them until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in Allah."
This is in addition to the words of Almighty Allah: "And why should ye not fight in the cause of Allah and of those who, being weak, are ill-treated (and oppressed)? -- women and children, whose cry is: 'Our Lord, rescue us from this town, whose people are oppressors; and raise for us from thee one who will help!'"
We -- with Allah's help -- call on every Muslim who believes in Allah and wishes to be rewarded to comply with Allah's order to kill the Americans and plunder their money wherever and whenever they find it. We also call on Muslim ulema, leaders, youths, and soldiers to launch the raid on Satan's U.S. troops and the devil's supporters allying with them, and to displace those who are behind them so that they may learn a lesson.
Almighty Allah said: "O ye who believe, give your response to Allah and His Apostle, when He calleth you to that which will give you life. And know that Allah cometh between a man and his heart, and that it is He to whom ye shall all be gathered."
Almighty Allah also says: "O ye who believe, what is the matter with you, that when ye are asked to go forth in the cause of Allah, ye cling so heavily to the earth! Do ye prefer the life of this world to the hereafter? But little is the comfort of this life, as compared with the hereafter. Unless ye go forth, He will punish you with a grievous penalty, and put others in your place; but Him ye would not harm in the least. For Allah hath power over all things."
Almighty Allah also says: "So lose no heart, nor fall into despair. For ye must gain mastery if ye are true in faith."
The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies -- civilians and military -- is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque [Mecca] from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim. This is in accordance with the words of Almighty Allah, "and fight the pagans all together as they fight you all together," and "fight them until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in Allah."
Praise be to Allah, who revealed the Book, controls the clouds, defeats factionalism, and says in His Book: "But when the forbidden months are past, then fight and slay the pagans wherever ye find them, seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war)"; and peace be upon our Prophet, Muhammad Bin-'Abdallah, who said: I have been sent with the sword between my hands to ensure that no one but Allah is worshipped, Allah who put my livelihood under the shadow of my spear and who inflicts humiliation and scorn on those who disobey my orders.
The Arabian Peninsula has never -- since Allah made it flat, created its desert, and encircled it with seas -- been stormed by any forces like the crusader armies spreading in it like locusts, eating its riches and wiping out its plantations. All this is happening at a time in which nations are attacking Muslims like people fighting over a plate of food. In the light of the grave situation and the lack of support, we and you are obliged to discuss current events, and we should all agree on how to settle the matter.
No one argues today about three facts that are known to everyone; we will list them, in order to remind everyone:
First, for over seven years the United States has been occupying the lands of Islam in the holiest of places, the Arabian Peninsula, plundering its riches, dictating to its rulers, humiliating its people, terrorizing its neighbors, and turning its bases in the Peninsula into a spearhead through which to fight the neighboring Muslim peoples.
If some people have in the past argued about the fact of the occupation, all the people of the Peninsula have now acknowledged it. The best proof of this is the Americans' continuing aggression against the Iraqi people using the Peninsula as a staging post, even though all its rulers are against their territories being used to that end, but they are helpless.
Second, despite the great devastation inflicted on the Iraqi people by the crusader-Zionist alliance, and despite the huge number of those killed, which has exceeded 1 million... despite all this, the Americans are once against trying to repeat the horrific massacres, as though they are not content with the protracted blockade imposed after the ferocious war or the fragmentation and devastation.
So here they come to annihilate what is left of this people and to humiliate their Muslim neighbors.
Third, if the Americans' aims behind these wars are religious and economic, the aim is also to serve the Jews' petty state and divert attention from its occupation of Jerusalem and murder of Muslims there. The best proof of this is their eagerness to destroy Iraq, the strongest neighboring Arab state, and their endeavor to fragment all the states of the region such as Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Sudan into paper statelets and through their disunion and weakness to guarantee Israel's survival and the continuation of the brutal crusade occupation of the Peninsula.
On that basis, and in compliance with Allah's order, we issue the following fatwa to all Muslims:
The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies -- civilians and military -- is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque [Mecca] from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim. This is in accordance with the words of Almighty Allah, "and fight the pagans all together as they fight you all together," and "fight them until there is no more tumult or oppression, and there prevail justice and faith in Allah."
This is in addition to the words of Almighty Allah: "And why should ye not fight in the cause of Allah and of those who, being weak, are ill-treated (and oppressed)? -- women and children, whose cry is: 'Our Lord, rescue us from this town, whose people are oppressors; and raise for us from thee one who will help!'"
We -- with Allah's help -- call on every Muslim who believes in Allah and wishes to be rewarded to comply with Allah's order to kill the Americans and plunder their money wherever and whenever they find it. We also call on Muslim ulema, leaders, youths, and soldiers to launch the raid on Satan's U.S. troops and the devil's supporters allying with them, and to displace those who are behind them so that they may learn a lesson.
Almighty Allah said: "O ye who believe, give your response to Allah and His Apostle, when He calleth you to that which will give you life. And know that Allah cometh between a man and his heart, and that it is He to whom ye shall all be gathered."
Almighty Allah also says: "O ye who believe, what is the matter with you, that when ye are asked to go forth in the cause of Allah, ye cling so heavily to the earth! Do ye prefer the life of this world to the hereafter? But little is the comfort of this life, as compared with the hereafter. Unless ye go forth, He will punish you with a grievous penalty, and put others in your place; but Him ye would not harm in the least. For Allah hath power over all things."
Almighty Allah also says: "So lose no heart, nor fall into despair. For ye must gain mastery if ye are true in faith."
RavenMochi
Well-Known Member
Hitler taught us appeasement doesn't work. If someone wants a fight, you can't stop it, would be nice in an ideal world, but 6 million + already payed for that mistake once, it shouldn't be necessary again. We will have to go to war with them.
Puffer Fish
Well-Known Member
Did you know that approximately 20 million Russians alone died in that war. That is a low number .... some say that there was as much as 26 million.
HAVE A LOOK
Serapis
Well-Known Member
You musta been one of Hitler's confidants.
While Iran will not attack the US, they very well will attack Israel with a nuke. What possible goal could they have? The coming of the 12th Imam. Mr. Amadinejhad believes that a great conflict will cause the coming of the 12th Imam, or the prophet, to restore peace on earth. MUSLIMS will rule for this time. That is his belief.
When he tells you that they do not want the bomb, he is lying through his teeth. His goal is to destroy Israel and cause a prophecy to come true.
Serapis
Well-Known Member
The Russians suffered horribly in WWII. The battle for Stalingrad alone claimed millions of lives.
Hydro Hippy
Active Member
Well if they have a shitty attack strategy and other things then ya they might loose. I don't know the specs of their war strategy but with all the shit we have, if they use it correctly they could easily wipe them out. and I know u.s. isn't the top country financially, we need a pres that will actually pull this country out of the shitter. All it takes is common sense imo
assasinofyouth420
Well-Known Member
No offense taken at all. There are other people on this board with a brain. I joined specifically because I didnt want to deal with all of that political crap. I just wanted to do my duty and get out. Thats it. I served my country honorably. It was never about whether or not I agreed with the war I just wanted to do my duty and give one of those guys that had been deployed for over a year a break. They earned it.
Puffer Fish
Well-Known Member
In it's simplicity .... you have done a noble thing my friend.
"I just wanted to do my duty and give one of those guys that had been deployed for over a year a break. They earned it."
That is a very good reason to enlist indeed.
Hats off to you for your service sir !
"I just wanted to do my duty and give one of those guys that had been deployed for over a year a break. They earned it."
That is a very good reason to enlist indeed.
Hats off to you for your service sir !
Greenplease
Active Member
I have listened to it, and honestly, I expect that from a terrorist insurgent leader! Don't you? But saying that it's ok for us to do it, just because they are doing it isn't right! I mean you are basically putting Obama at the same level as Osama (the name similarity always gets me) Thats what I'm saying! This war on terror has gotten out of control, on both sides! I read again this morning, 3 more innocents killed in afganistan, under supposed "suspition" of being linked to the taliban! And look at how NATO tries to justify it!! I can't believe people buy this shit! Those people belong to fucking families, have brothers and sisters, and possbly even children, and I'm sorry dude, but from all the news I have gathered up, NATO has killed so many more civilians than the fucking terrorists during the war in Afganistan!
This whole war is fucked up, and there is no way in hell it can be justified!
According to Obama, the american military and NATO are hero's, do hero's kill innocent people? Do hero's ravage villages and cities, sacraficing thousands of lives just to hunt down insurgents?? No fucking way! You say that they don't do it on purpose, and that the "enemy" doesn't give a shit! Well from what I can see, it is quite the opposite. And almost every piece of news I see about this war backs this theory up.
Here is the link to the news article I read, nothing much, but it is enough to get my blood boiling over this war, again.........http://www.stuff.co.nz/world/asia/4019784/Afghan-villagers-protest-US-killings
Greenplease
Active Member
This is exactly why this war is so fucking messy, and needs to be stopped immediately, seriously the American Government is it's own worst enemy.........read away peeps!
Starts by talking about the russian invasion of afganistan
The CIA's anticommunist jihad
President Jimmy Carter immediately declared that the invasion jeopardized vital U.S. interests, because the Persian Gulf area was "now threatened by Soviet troops in Afghanistan. But the Carter administration's public outrage at Russian intervention in Afghanistan was doubly duplicitous. Not only was it used as an excuse for a program of increased military expenditure that had in fact already begun, but the U.S. had in fact been aiding the mujahideen for at least the previous six months, with precisely the hope of provoking a Soviet response. Former CIA director Robert Gates later admitted in his memoirs that aid to the rebels began in June 1979. In a candid 1998 interview, Zbigniew Brezinski, Carter's national security adviser, confirmed that U.S. aid to the rebels began before the invasion:
According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the mujahideen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan [in] December 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise: indeed, it was July 3, 1979, that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.... We didn't push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would....
That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap.... The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter: We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam War."
The Carter administration was well aware that in backing the mujahideen it was supporting forces with reactionary social goals, but this was outweighed by its own geopolitical interests. In August 1979, a classified State Department report bluntly asserted that "the United States' larger interest...would be served by the demise of the Taraki-Amin regime, despite whatever setbacks this might mean for future social and economic reforms in Afghanistan." That same month, in a stunning display of hypocrisy, State Department spokesperson Hodding Carter piously announced that the U.S. "expect the principle of nonintervention to be respected by all parties in the area, including the Soviet Union."
The Russian invasion in December was the signal for U.S. support to the Afghan rebels to increase dramatically.
Three weeks after Soviet tanks rolled into Kabul, Carter's secretary of defense, Harold Brown, was in Beijing arranging for a weapons transfer from the Chinese to the ClA-backed Afghani troops mustered in Pakistan. The Chinese, who were generously compensated for the deal, agreed and even consented to send military advisers. Brown worked out a similar arrangement with Egypt to buy $15 million worth of weapons. "The U.S. contacted me," [then-Egyptian president] Anwar Sadat recalled shortly before his assassination [in 1981]. "They told me, 'Please open your stores for us so that we can give the Afghans the armaments they need to fight.' And I gave them the armaments. The transport of arms to the Afghans started from Cairo on U.S. planes."
By February 1980, the Washington Post reported that the mujahideen was receiving arms coming from the U.S. government.
The objective of the intervention, as spelled out by Brezinski, was to trap the Soviets in a long and costly war designed to drain their resources, just as Vietnam had bled the United States. The high level of civilian casualties that this would certainly entail was considered but set aside. According to one senior official, "The question here was whether it was morally acceptable that, in order to keep the Soviets off balance, which was the reason for the operation, it was permissible to use other lives for our geopolitical interests." Carter's CIA director Stansfield Turner answered the question: "I decided I could live with that." According to Representative Charles Wilson, a Texas Democrat,
There were 58,000 dead in Vietnam and we owe the Russians one.... I have a slight obsession with it, because of Vietnam. I thought the Soviets ought to get a dose of it.... I've been of the opinion that this money was better spent to hurt our adversaries than other money in the Defense Department budget.
The mujahideen consisted of at least seven factions, who often fought amongst themselves in their battle for territory and control of the opium trade. To hurt the Russians, the U.S. deliberately chose to give the most support to the most extreme groups. A disproportionate share of U.S. arms went to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, "a particularly fanatical fundamentalist and woman-hater."' According to journalist Tim Weiner, " [Hekmatyar's] followers first gained attention by throwing acid in the faces of women who refused to wear the veil. CIA and State Department officials I have spoken with call him 'scary,' 'vicious,' 'a fascist,' 'definite dictatorship material."
There was, though, a kind of method in the madness: Brezinski hoped not just to drive the Russians out of Afghanistan, but to ferment unrest within the Soviet Union itself. His plan, says author Dilip Hiro, was "to export a composite ideology of nationalism and Islam to the Muslim-majority Central Asian states and Soviet Republics with a view to destroying the Soviet order." Looking back in 1998, Brezinski had no regrets. "What was more important in the world view of history?... A few stirred-up Muslims or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War>"
With the support of Pakistan's military dictator, General Zia-ul-Haq, the U.S. began recruiting and training both mujahideen fighters from the 3 million Afghan refugees in Pakistan and large numbers of mercenaries from other Islamic countries. Estimates of how much money the U.S. government channeled to the Afghan rebels over the next decade vary, but most sources put the figure between $3 billion and $6 billion, or more. Whatever the exact amount, this was "the largest covert action program since World War II" - much bigger, for example, than Washington's intervention in Central America at the same time, which received considerably more publicity. According to one report:
The CIA became the grand coordinator: purchasing or arranging the manufacture of Soviet-style weapons from Egypt, China, Poland, Israel and elsewhere, or supplying their own; arranging for military training by Americans, Egyptians, Chinese and Iranians; hitting up Middle-Eastern countries for donations, notably Saudi Arabia which gave many hundreds of millions of dollars in aid each year, totaling probably more than a billion; pressuring and bribing Pakistan-with whom recent American relations had been very poor-to rent out its country as a military staging area and sanctuary; putting the Pakistani Director of Military Operations, Brigadier Mian Mohammad Afzal, onto the CIA payroll to ensure Pakistani cooperation.
When Ronald Reagan became president in 1981, he found the Democratic-controlled Congress eager to increase spending on the Afghan war. A congressional staffer told a reporter, "It was a windfall [for the new administration]. They'd faced so much opposition to covert action in Central America and here comes the Congress helping and throwing money at them, putting money their way and they say, 'Who are we to say no?"
Aid to the mujahideen, who Reagan praised as "freedom fighters," increased, but initially Afghanistan was not a priority:
In the first years after the Reagan administration inherited the Carter program, the covert Afghan war "tended to be handled out of [CIA director William] Casey's back pocket," recalled Ronald Spiers, a former U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, the base of the Afghan rebels. Mainly from China's government, the CIA purchased assault rifles, grenade launchers, mines and SA-7 light antiaircraft weapons, and then arranged for shipment to Pakistan.... The amounts were significant-10,000 tons of arms and ammunition in 1983, according to [Pakistani General Mohammed] Yousaf-but a fraction of what they would be in just a few years.
In March 1985, the Reagan administration issued National Security Decision Directive 166,29 a secret plan to escalate covert action in Afghanistan dramatically:
Abandoning a policy of simple harassment of Soviet occupiers, the Reagan team decided secretly to let loose on the Afghan battlefield an array of U.S. high technology and military expertise in an effort to hit and demoralize Soviet commanders and soldiers....
Beginning in 1985, the CIA supplied mujahideen rebels with extensive satellite reconnaissance data of Soviet targets on the Afghan battlefield, plans for military operations based on the satellite intelligence, intercepts of Soviet communications, secret communications networks for the rebels, delayed timing devices for tons of C-4 plastic explosives for urban sabotage, and sophisticated guerrilla attacks, long-range sniper rifles, a targeting device for mortars that was linked to a U.S. Navy satellite, wire-guided anti-tank missiles, and other equipment.
Between 1986 and 1989, the mujahideen were also provided with more than 1,000 state-of-the-art, shoulder-fired Stinger antiaircraft missiles.
By 1987, the annual supply of arms had reached 65,000 tons, and a "ceaseless stream" of CIA and Pentagon officials were visiting Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) headquarters in Rawalpindi and helping to plan mujahideen operations:
At any one time during the Afghan fighting season, as many as 11 ISI teams trained and supplied by the CIA accompanied mujahideen across the border to supervise attacks, according to Yousaf and Western sources. The teams attacked airports, railroads, fuel depots, electricity pylons, bridges and roads....
CIA operations officers helped Pakistani trainers establish schools for the mujahideen in secure communications, guerrilla warfare, urban sabotage and heavy weapons. Although the CIA claimed that the purpose was to attack military targets, mujahideen trained in these techniques, and using chemical and electronic-delay bomb timers supplied by the U.S., carried out numerous car bombings and assassination attacks in Kabul itself.
I know it's a massive wall of text, but I think this is important in understanding the origins of this war! So please, take your time to have a good read, and educate yoursleves on the situation, this was written almost 10 years ago, imagine the current situation! This war is running at a loss, and has nothing to gain. What was America thinking.......?
Starts by talking about the russian invasion of afganistan
The CIA's anticommunist jihad
President Jimmy Carter immediately declared that the invasion jeopardized vital U.S. interests, because the Persian Gulf area was "now threatened by Soviet troops in Afghanistan. But the Carter administration's public outrage at Russian intervention in Afghanistan was doubly duplicitous. Not only was it used as an excuse for a program of increased military expenditure that had in fact already begun, but the U.S. had in fact been aiding the mujahideen for at least the previous six months, with precisely the hope of provoking a Soviet response. Former CIA director Robert Gates later admitted in his memoirs that aid to the rebels began in June 1979. In a candid 1998 interview, Zbigniew Brezinski, Carter's national security adviser, confirmed that U.S. aid to the rebels began before the invasion:
According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the mujahideen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan [in] December 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise: indeed, it was July 3, 1979, that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.... We didn't push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would....
That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap.... The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter: We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam War."
The Carter administration was well aware that in backing the mujahideen it was supporting forces with reactionary social goals, but this was outweighed by its own geopolitical interests. In August 1979, a classified State Department report bluntly asserted that "the United States' larger interest...would be served by the demise of the Taraki-Amin regime, despite whatever setbacks this might mean for future social and economic reforms in Afghanistan." That same month, in a stunning display of hypocrisy, State Department spokesperson Hodding Carter piously announced that the U.S. "expect
The Russian invasion in December was the signal for U.S. support to the Afghan rebels to increase dramatically.
Three weeks after Soviet tanks rolled into Kabul, Carter's secretary of defense, Harold Brown, was in Beijing arranging for a weapons transfer from the Chinese to the ClA-backed Afghani troops mustered in Pakistan. The Chinese, who were generously compensated for the deal, agreed and even consented to send military advisers. Brown worked out a similar arrangement with Egypt to buy $15 million worth of weapons. "The U.S. contacted me," [then-Egyptian president] Anwar Sadat recalled shortly before his assassination [in 1981]. "They told me, 'Please open your stores for us so that we can give the Afghans the armaments they need to fight.' And I gave them the armaments. The transport of arms to the Afghans started from Cairo on U.S. planes."
By February 1980, the Washington Post reported that the mujahideen was receiving arms coming from the U.S. government.
The objective of the intervention, as spelled out by Brezinski, was to trap the Soviets in a long and costly war designed to drain their resources, just as Vietnam had bled the United States. The high level of civilian casualties that this would certainly entail was considered but set aside. According to one senior official, "The question here was whether it was morally acceptable that, in order to keep the Soviets off balance, which was the reason for the operation, it was permissible to use other lives for our geopolitical interests." Carter's CIA director Stansfield Turner answered the question: "I decided I could live with that." According to Representative Charles Wilson, a Texas Democrat,
There were 58,000 dead in Vietnam and we owe the Russians one.... I have a slight obsession with it, because of Vietnam. I thought the Soviets ought to get a dose of it.... I've been of the opinion that this money was better spent to hurt our adversaries than other money in the Defense Department budget.
The mujahideen consisted of at least seven factions, who often fought amongst themselves in their battle for territory and control of the opium trade. To hurt the Russians, the U.S. deliberately chose to give the most support to the most extreme groups. A disproportionate share of U.S. arms went to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, "a particularly fanatical fundamentalist and woman-hater."' According to journalist Tim Weiner, " [Hekmatyar's] followers first gained attention by throwing acid in the faces of women who refused to wear the veil. CIA and State Department officials I have spoken with call him 'scary,' 'vicious,' 'a fascist,' 'definite dictatorship material."
There was, though, a kind of method in the madness: Brezinski hoped not just to drive the Russians out of Afghanistan, but to ferment unrest within the Soviet Union itself. His plan, says author Dilip Hiro, was "to export a composite ideology of nationalism and Islam to the Muslim-majority Central Asian states and Soviet Republics with a view to destroying the Soviet order." Looking back in 1998, Brezinski had no regrets. "What was more important in the world view of history?... A few stirred-up Muslims or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War>"
With the support of Pakistan's military dictator, General Zia-ul-Haq, the U.S. began recruiting and training both mujahideen fighters from the 3 million Afghan refugees in Pakistan and large numbers of mercenaries from other Islamic countries. Estimates of how much money the U.S. government channeled to the Afghan rebels over the next decade vary, but most sources put the figure between $3 billion and $6 billion, or more. Whatever the exact amount, this was "the largest covert action program since World War II" - much bigger, for example, than Washington's intervention in Central America at the same time, which received considerably more publicity. According to one report:
The CIA became the grand coordinator: purchasing or arranging the manufacture of Soviet-style weapons from Egypt, China, Poland, Israel and elsewhere, or supplying their own; arranging for military training by Americans, Egyptians, Chinese and Iranians; hitting up Middle-Eastern countries for donations, notably Saudi Arabia which gave many hundreds of millions of dollars in aid each year, totaling probably more than a billion; pressuring and bribing Pakistan-with whom recent American relations had been very poor-to rent out its country as a military staging area and sanctuary; putting the Pakistani Director of Military Operations, Brigadier Mian Mohammad Afzal, onto the CIA payroll to ensure Pakistani cooperation.
When Ronald Reagan became president in 1981, he found the Democratic-controlled Congress eager to increase spending on the Afghan war. A congressional staffer told a reporter, "It was a windfall [for the new administration]. They'd faced so much opposition to covert action in Central America and here comes the Congress helping and throwing money at them, putting money their way and they say, 'Who are we to say no?"
Aid to the mujahideen, who Reagan praised as "freedom fighters," increased, but initially Afghanistan was not a priority:
In the first years after the Reagan administration inherited the Carter program, the covert Afghan war "tended to be handled out of [CIA director William] Casey's back pocket," recalled Ronald Spiers, a former U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, the base of the Afghan rebels. Mainly from China's government, the CIA purchased assault rifles, grenade launchers, mines and SA-7 light antiaircraft weapons, and then arranged for shipment to Pakistan.... The amounts were significant-10,000 tons of arms and ammunition in 1983, according to [Pakistani General Mohammed] Yousaf-but a fraction of what they would be in just a few years.
In March 1985, the Reagan administration issued National Security Decision Directive 166,29 a secret plan to escalate covert action in Afghanistan dramatically:
Abandoning a policy of simple harassment of Soviet occupiers, the Reagan team decided secretly to let loose on the Afghan battlefield an array of U.S. high technology and military expertise in an effort to hit and demoralize Soviet commanders and soldiers....
Beginning in 1985, the CIA supplied mujahideen rebels with extensive satellite reconnaissance data of Soviet targets on the Afghan battlefield, plans for military operations based on the satellite intelligence, intercepts of Soviet communications, secret communications networks for the rebels, delayed timing devices for tons of C-4 plastic explosives for urban sabotage, and sophisticated guerrilla attacks, long-range sniper rifles, a targeting device for mortars that was linked to a U.S. Navy satellite, wire-guided anti-tank missiles, and other equipment.
Between 1986 and 1989, the mujahideen were also provided with more than 1,000 state-of-the-art, shoulder-fired Stinger antiaircraft missiles.
By 1987, the annual supply of arms had reached 65,000 tons, and a "ceaseless stream" of CIA and Pentagon officials were visiting Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) headquarters in Rawalpindi and helping to plan mujahideen operations:
At any one time during the Afghan fighting season, as many as 11 ISI teams trained and supplied by the CIA accompanied mujahideen across the border to supervise attacks, according to Yousaf and Western sources. The teams attacked airports, railroads, fuel depots, electricity pylons, bridges and roads....
CIA operations officers helped Pakistani trainers establish schools for the mujahideen in secure communications, guerrilla warfare, urban sabotage and heavy weapons. Although the CIA claimed that the purpose was to attack military targets, mujahideen trained in these techniques, and using chemical and electronic-delay bomb timers supplied by the U.S., carried out numerous car bombings and assassination attacks in Kabul itself.
I know it's a massive wall of text, but I think this is important in understanding the origins of this war! So please, take your time to have a good read, and educate yoursleves on the situation, this was written almost 10 years ago, imagine the current situation! This war is running at a loss, and has nothing to gain. What was America thinking.......?