Title: Ronald Reagan dedicated the Space Shuttle Columbia to the people of Afghanistan Source:
you tube URL Source:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abkg94I_uWo Published:Aug 25, 2010 Author:NA Post Date:2010-08-25 20:01:57 by Ferret Mike Keywords:None Views:14552 Comments:24
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"These gentlemen are the moral equivalents of America's Founding Fathers" ~President Ronald Reagan 1985
'In 1982, Ronald Reagan dedicated the Space Shuttle Columbia to the resistance fighters in Afghanistan.'
The Taliban was a group that sprang up in Afghanistan amongst the Pashtu in the mid 90s. The Mujahadeen fighters of Afghanistan during the 80s and early 90s were not the Taliban, and the Taliban rose up as a local group not connected to them.
I understand your confusion, I even believed that, too, for a while. In the late 90s and around 9-11 there were a lot of reports that the Taliban was the same group, largely because of it's connection to Usama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda. Since then we've learned a lot more abou them. The Taliban was a local group who sprang up in the Pashtu region of Afghanistan in 96 as a reaction against the lawlessness of the warlords who were dividing Afghanistan. They had strict laws and violent enforcement of them, and as the defeated a couple of the warlords, they were joined by others, including some of the remnants of the mujahadeen. The warlords they were fighting were also remnants of the mujahadeen, though, so you could even argue that the Taliban rose up against the mujahadeen.
Later, when Clinton tried to capture Bin Laden and Bin Laden hid out in Afghanistan, the leaders of the Taliban allied with him, and Bin Laden began helping the Taliban to train its soldiers. But in the beginning the Taliban was a completely separate group.
The video this is from is is the BBC documentary, The Power of Nightmares.
Russia entered Afghanistan during a civil war with Prime Minister Amin who wanted a more Western slant government instead of traditional Muslim, but he also lead a communist base government. This outraged the citizens and they joined with the Mujahidin to overthrow him. They declared a jihad on his supporters and the Russians who had entered to support Amin. Russia stated they had been asked to help and were not invading. The resistance were called terrorists.
Amin was shot by the Russians and replaced with Babrak Karmal who now needed Russian soldiers to protect him and the government. Afghan soldiers deserted to join with the Mujahidin. The United Nations had condemned the invasion as early as January 1980 but a Security Council motion calling for the withdrawal of Russian forces had been vetoed by Russia. The United States seeing that Russia now had it's own Viet Nam began to supply surface to air missiles to the Afghanis soldiers.
Mikhail Gorbachev took Russia out of the Afghanistan fiasco when he realized what many Russian leaders had been too scared to admit in public - that Russia could not win the war and the cost of maintaining such a vast force in Afghanistan was crippling Russia's already weak economy.
By the end of the 1980's, the Mujahidin was at war with itself in Afghanistan with hard line Taliban fighters taking a stronger grip over the whole nation and imposing very strict Muslim law on the Afghanistan population.
Contrary to popular myth, most of the mujahidin were not Islamic radicals, but rather a group of loosely allied Afghan tribes. Two main portions of the mujahidin, however, were Islamic fundamentalists.
Barak Karmal was unable to consolidate his power and in 1986 he was replaced by Dr. Mohammad Najibullah. He left Afghanistan for Moscow, where he died in 1996.
In the mid-18th century, a Boston lawyer defended several British soldiers for firing into a group of people who were throwin rocks and snowballs at them.
He got them acquited.
He then became the second POTUS.
The Taliban took over in the mid 90's. They most certainlyh existed long before...had a network long before...and were trying to establish a political lbase long before.
You two realize that the Taliban were founded in 1994, right?
But don't let something like a fact stop you from telling a good lie.
Notice the lies are so outrageously and demonstrably false they aren't worth responding to.
Riiight, Reagan supported the Taliban...(eyes rolling)
This is just an example of desiring to change the topic from TODAY, and how badly the nation is suffering under the foolish bullshit of Barack Hussein Owe- bama.