Taliban’s Tank-Killing Bombs

For myself I would like the details of the kind of "tanks" knocked out due to mines, as such main battle tanks such as the M1 are damn hard to knock out by any means.

Calling an armor Humbee or a light personal carrier a tank may be what we have here.

What we have here is another case of our troops being killed by weapons we supplied. There's a multi-generations long history of that.

So you think it was a bad idea to had arm the Afghans in their fight with the former USSR in the 1990s?

The Brzezinski Doctrine was a huge blunder. And Reagan's "freedom fighters" are killing people around the world. Good for war profiteers and bad for the human race.

I can not agree with you that it was wrong to grant a people the means to fight back under an invasion of the former USSR.

That a part of the large scale aid was then turn against us is regrettable to say the least but you seem to be willing to paint the whole Afghanistan society as terrorists and that is clearly not the case.

There was no "invasion" of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union. When the Brzezinski Doctrine kicked in the duly elected government faced an enemy armed and funded by America which was only partly Afghani and which included international Islamic terrorists who had no good intentions for Afghanistan and who were hell bent on spreading an oppressive, fundamentalist agenda around the world. The Taliban is very much the child of the Brzezinski Doctrine. As a result of the Brzezinski Doctrine the duly elected government of Afghanistan begged the Soviets for help. And that was exactly what the Brzezinski Doctrine was designed to do. Entrap the Soviets in a unwinnable war. Brzezinski still brags on that to this day. http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/coldwar/interviews/episode-17/brzezinski2.html Never mind that the al qaeda and the Taliban were the end results of Brzezinski's blunder which has led to death and destruction around the world with no end in sight.

There was no "invasion" of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union. When the Brzezinski Doctrine kicked in the duly elected government faced an enemy armed and funded by America which was only partly Afghani and
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Rewriting history it would seem!!!!!!!

And there was no holocaust either and no moon landing or planes hitting the world trade centers or..................

Sorry but there had to be some connection to the real world to have a discussion and you had just gone far away from the real universe.

Rewriting history is what the corporate controlled American MSM does even as it happens. The duly elected government of Afghanistan begged for Soviet help in fighting the ultra fundamentalists armed and funded by America. "To End Terrorism, We Need Truth" "In the 1970s a moderately reformist government came to power in Afghanistan, a leftwing populist movement seeking to democratize Afghan society. It mounted literacy campaigns, and built schools and clinics in rural areas. It sought to end restrictions on women in education and employment, and discouraged the use of the purdah. It talked, although often little more than that, about land reform.

That was enough to earn it the enmity of traditional elements of Afghan society, who began organizing armed attacks on government officials, literacy workers, and people associated with the values the government promoted. http://dbacon.igc.org/PJust/27EndTerrorism.htm

Perhaps in another era, those internal conflicts might have been resolved among Afghans themselves. The forces of rightwing religious extremism might not have come out the better for it.

But Afghanistan's common border and friendly relationship with the Soviet Union made it an attractive target for Cold War destabilization. British and US intelligence agencies funneled money to those groups opposing the government through the Pakistani intelligence service. When real civil conflict broke out, the Afghan government appealed for Soviet military help, and the war was on. From that point forward, the US spent more money building training camps for the fundamentalist forces, and supplying them guns and missiles, than it spent in the contra war in Nicaragua and the counterinsurgency in El Salvador combined. Intelligence services dreamed of extending that war into Soviet Central Asia itself, and after the Soviets' fall, the conflict did in fact spread north.

Those who wanted a secular Afghanistan and social progress and justice for its citizens, were murdered or driven into exile or silence. Meanwhile, military leaders, bent on using Soviet troops to pursue their side of the civil war, replaced reformers.

U.S. aid fueled a philosophical movement which combined conservative religious doctrine with nationalism. Having defeated the Soviets in Afghanistan, this movement is now directed against the U.S., using resources originally supplied by our government, by people formerly viewed by U.S. intelligence agencies as "assets," including perhaps even elements of the Pakistani Inter Service Intelligence. It is fueled by the growing U.S. military presence in the mideast and the oil interests it protects, its suppørt for Israel, and the bombing and sanctions against Iraq.

What questions, then, would a truth commission, arising from the current tragedy, ask? And who might give answers?"

Was a policy bent on destabilizing the Soviet Union sufficient justification for the U.S. decision to support a war against a government which shared more of our professed values than those we armed to fight against it? Will those former national security advisors who made that decision now answer for its consequences?

Blueflame1 you could give Trutledove a run for his money in alt-history novels!

Sorry but the first thing the friendly USSR did was to tell the Afghan military that they needed to gather all their armor into one place so the friendly Soviet technicians could replaced batteries and do other tasks on them just before they roll there military over the border and took the country over.

With friends like the soviets you do not need enemies.

Ah, but Turtledove can produce a plausible story.

Oh after the friendly soviet troops took over the country they kill the country president and his family.

You could say the Soviets invaded Afghanistan if they had attacked the duly elected government. Instead the duly elected government asked them for help after America incited, armed and funded religious fanatics unhappy with reform. Many of Reagan's freedom fighters were not Afghanis. bin Laden being the most infamous of the group.

http://74.125.93.132/search?q=cache:6UC70Vg_jjsJ:www.michaelparenti.org/afghanistan%2520story%2520untold.html+afghanistan+pdp&cd=5&hl=en&ct=clnk&ie=UTF-8 Some Real History

Since feudal times the landholding system in Afghanistan had remained unchanged, with more than 75 percent of the land owned by big landlords who comprised only 3 percent of the rural population. In the mid-1960s, democratic revolutionary elements coalesced to form the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). In 1973, the king was deposed, but the government that replaced him proved to be autocratic, mismanaged, and unpopular. It in turn was forced out in 1978 after a massive demonstration in front of the presidential palace, and after factions of the army intervened on the side of the demonstrators.

The military officers who took charge invited the PDP to form a new government under the leadership of Noor Mohammed Taraki, a poet and novelist. This is how a Marxist-led coalition of national democratic forces came into office. “It was a totally indigenous happening. Not even the CIA blamed the USSR for it,” writes John Ryan, a retired professor at the University of Winnipeg, who was conducting an agricultural research project in Afghanistan at about that time.

The Taraki government proceeded to legalize labor unions, and set up a minimum wage, a progressive income tax, a literacy campaign, and programs that gave ordinary people greater access to health care, housing, and public sanitation. Fledgling peasant cooperatives were started and price reductions on some key foods were imposed.

The government also continued a campaign begun by the king to emancipate women from their age-old tribal bondage. It provided public education for girls and for the children of various tribes.
A report in the San Francisco Chronicle (17 November 2001) noted that under the Taraki regime Kabul had been “a cosmopolitan city. Artists and hippies flocked to the capital. Women studied agriculture, engineering and business at the city’s university. Afghan women held government jobs"-in the 1980s, there were seven female members of parliament. Women drove cars, traveled and went on dates. Fifty percent of university students were women.”

The Taraki government moved to eradicate the cultivation of opium poppy. Until then Afghanistan had been producing more than 70 percent of the opium needed for the world’s heroin supply. The government also abolished all debts owed by farmers, and began developing a major land reform program. Ryan believes that it was a “genuinely popular government and people looked forward to the future with great hope.”

But serious opposition arose from several quarters. The feudal landlords opposed the land reform program that infringed on their holdings. And tribesmen and fundamentalist mullahs vehemently opposed the government’s dedication to gender equality and the education of women and children.

Because of its egalitarian and collectivist economic policies the Taraki government also incurred the opposition of the US national security state. Almost immediately after the PDP coalition came to power, the CIA, assisted by Saudi and Pakistani military, launched a large scale intervention into Afghanistan on the side of the ousted feudal lords, reactionary tribal chieftains, mullahs, and opium traffickers.

A top official within the Taraki government was Hafizulla Amin, believed by many to have been recruited by the CIA during the several years he spent in the United States as a student. In September 1979, Amin seized state power in an armed coup. He executed Taraki, halted the reforms, and murdered, jailed, or exiled thousands of Taraki supporters as he moved toward establishing a fundamentalist Islamic state. But within two months, he was overthrown by PDP remnants including elements within the military.

It should be noted that all this happened before the Soviet military intervention. National security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski publicly admitted--months before Soviet troops entered the country--that the Carter administration was providing huge sums to Muslim extremists to subvert the reformist government. Part of that effort involved brutal attacks by the CIA-backed mujahideen against schools and teachers in rural areas.

In late 1979, the seriously besieged PDP government asked Moscow to send a contingent of troops to help ward off the mujahideen (Islamic guerrilla fighters) and foreign mercenaries, all recruited, financed, and well-armed by the CIA. The Soviets already had been sending aid for projects in mining, education, agriculture, and public health. Deploying troops represented a commitment of a more serious and politically dangerous sort. It took repeated requests from Kabul before Moscow agreed to intervene militarily.

Jihad and Taliban, CIA Style

As a first step killing the president and his family of the country might be consider an unfriendly act!!!!

What strange universe do you live in or is it your position that the man wish to commit suicide and take his family along with him so he ask his kind allies to aid him?

The Soviets killed no Afghani President. You're using soundbites and CIA hearsay on that one. And the strange universe you live in justifies and excuses arming known madmen who blowback on us and kill our soldiers with our weapons. That betrayal has been American history for generations. As for the the divide between communism and capitalism documented history shows some of the fiercest American capitalists armed and funded Lenin and the Bolshevik Revolution. That must be the gretest bang for the buck capitalist divide and conquer investment ever. Costly and bloody for the human race but extremely lucritive the Wall Streeters and international bankers who create and control perpetual chaos. And that seems aok with you.

You got to be kidding me you are either rewriting history completely or just got off a cross time shuttle.

It a matter of public record that President Amin was kill by soviet troops and not even the leadership of the the former USSR now denial it was an outright invasion! Hell they even have written books about the subject from the former USSR leadership viewpoint.

You are a complete nut case and any one can google the subject for all the details anyone could wish for.

This is sadly as pointless as holding a conversion with a holocaust or moon landing denailer and I will therefore block this thread and the author of this thread.

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

On December 27, 1979, 700 Soviet troops dressed in Afghan uniforms, including KGB and GRU special force officers from the Alpha Group and Zenith Group, occupied major governmental, military and media buildings in Kabul, including their primary target - the Tajbeg Presidential Palace.


Soviet paratroopers aboard a BMD-1 in KabulThat operation began at 19:00 hr., when the Soviet Zenith Group destroyed Kabul's communications hub, paralyzing Afghan military command. At 19:15, the assault on Tajbeg Palace began; as planned, president Hafizullah Amin was killed. Simultaneously, other objectives were occupied (e.g. the Ministry of Interior at 19:15). The operation was fully complete by the morning of December 28, 1979.

The Soviet military command at Termez, Uzbek SSR, announced on Radio Kabul that Afghanistan had been "liberated" from Amin's rule. According to the Soviet Politburo they were complying with the 1978 Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Good Neighborliness and Amin had been "executed by a tribunal for his crimes" by the Afghan Revolutionary Central Committee. That committee then elected as head of government former Deputy Prime Minister Babrak Karmal, who had been demoted to the relatively insignificant post of ambassador to Czechoslovakia following the Khalq takeover, and that it had requested Soviet military assistance. [26]

Soviet ground forces, under the command of Marshal Sergei Sokolov, entered Afghanistan from the north on December 27. In the morning, the 103rd Guards 'Vitebsk' Airborne Division landed at the airport at Bagram and the deployment of Soviet troops in Afghanistan was underway. The force that entered Afghanistan, in addition to the 103rd Guards Airborne Division, was under command of the 40th Army and consisted of the 108th and 5th Guards Motor Rifle Divisions, the 860th Separate Motor Rifle Regiment, the 56th Separate Airborne Assault Brigade, the 36th Mixed Air Corps. Later on the 201st and 58th Motor Rifle Divisions also entered the country, along with other smaller units.[27] In all, the initial Soviet force was around 1,800 tanks, 80,000 soldiers and 2,000 AFVs. In the second week alone, Soviet aircraft had made a total of 4,000 flights into Kabul.[28] With the arrival of the two later divisions, the total Soviet force rose to over 100,000 personnel.


December 1979-February 1980: Occupation

Amin killed President Takari and yes later died in combat. The poor CIA operative lived by the sword and died by the sword. None of which justifies arming and funding bin Laden and the rest of the religious fanatics killing around the world today. Then and now Afghanistan's problems should be left to the people of Afghanistan to solve. But American meddling for Big Oil will not allow that. Now our troops are being killed in Afghanistan in record numbers that are beginning to resemble Iraq war figures.