# Afghanistan comes full circle as NATO seeks Russian help



## Ravage (Mar 15, 2008)

By Scott Taylor
March 12, 2008
One of the most ironic twists to the ongoing mission in Afghanistan emerged from the NATO meetings held in Brussels last week. With member countries either reluctant or unable to add military resources, NATO is now seeking assistance from Russia, its erstwhile Cold War enemy and one-time "evil occupier" of Afghanistan. In fact, the irony is so thick that we should first roll back decades' worth of propaganda and start at the very beginning.
NATO was formed in 1949 as a collective self-defence alliance to prevent any encroachment of the Soviet Union into Western Europe. The Soviets responded to this by creating their own defensive coalition of Communist countries (the Warsaw Pact) to protect them from any eastward expansion of NATO's influence. The nuclear arms race was at its zenith and even Europeans, still recovering from the massive destruction and carnage of the Second World War, understood the importance of maintaining large conventional armies. Troops and tanks were regarded as a preferable deterrent to an apocalyptic mushroom cloud. 
The impasse that resulted in Europe did not prevent the U.S. and Soviets from waging war by proxy in non-aligned Third World countries around the world. Afghanistan, in fact, became a key battleground for the CIA and the KGB. Since it bordered the Soviet Union's central Asian republics of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, the U.S. knew that Moscow could not afford to ignore events in impoverished and underdeveloped Afghanistan.
Throughout the '50s and '60s, Soviet engineers undertook several major infrastructure projects in Afghanistan, including the construction of the Salang tunnel through the Hindu Kush Mountains, which provided the first viable access between the country's northern and southern provinces. A full-scale program was introduced to train Afghan army officers and a large number of economic aid packages were extended to Kabul's Communist government.
The Americans decided things were going a little too smoothly for the Kremlin, so they decided to stir things up a little. By arming and funding Afghan Muslim extremists who were already resisting the social changes, the Americans sought to draw the Soviets into a full-scale military intervention. 
By 1979 events had escalated to the point where the instability, lawlessness and flourishing drug trade along their shared border could no longer be ignored by the Kremlin. Following a coup staged by the KGB in Kabul, the newly appointed Afghan Communist president invited Soviet troops to deploy a security assistance force to help him stabilize Afghanistan.
It would have been high-fives all around for the CIA planners watching the Soviet tank columns rolling south through the Salang tunnel. The Russian bear had taken the bait and put his paw squarely on the American trap. 
On the surface, the U.S. vehemently denounced the invasion of Afghanistan and in protest they pulled their athletes out of the 1980 Moscow Olympics. Behind the scenes, the U.S. ramped up military aid to the Afghan guerrillas and assisted in bringing in foreign mujahedeen fighters - such as a young Saudi Arabian zealot named Osama bin Laden - to bleed the Soviets white.
The stated objectives of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan were to provide a secure environment, equality for women, a centralized education and medical system, and the training of a self-sufficient Afghan army. While this may sound eerily similar to the current wish list for the NATO coalition in Afghanistan, a friend of mine at the American embassy was quick to point out one fundamental difference: "The (Soviets) were Communists," he emphatically stated, as if that in itself made any further explanation unnecessary.
The U.S. plan worked like a charm and by the time the last of the Russian troops retreated out of Afghanistan in 1989, they had left behind 50,000 dead comrades, the Moscow treasury was bankrupt and the Soviet Union was in a state of dissolution. The U.S.-equipped Afghan warlords finally triumphed over the Communist regime in Kabul and then turned on each other in an orgy of destruction and bloodletting. Whatever Soviet-built infrastructure was still intact in Kabul in 1996 was destroyed when the Taliban movement forced the mujahedeen warlords north of the Hindu Kush. 
In the wake of 9-11, the planners in the White House must have suffered from short-term memory loss as they rushed to throw their troops into the very same trap they had built to destroy the Soviets. After using military force to topple the Taliban, the Americans appointed Hamid Karzai as president. His first act as leader was to invite the U.S.-led coalition to deploy a security assistance force to prop up his regime. Unlike the Soviets, the Americans didn't need to deploy in support of this request - they were already on the ground.
Now into the seventh year of their occupation and with the American economy on the point of collapse, NATO is looking to Russia for help in transporting troops and equipment into Afghanistan. With the skyrocketing oil prices boosting the Russian ruble to dizzy new heights and no one asking for their troops to fight and die in Afghanistan, it would seem that the wheel of fate has turned a full circle.
If you want to drive this point home, go out and rent an old copy of Rambo III. That's the sequel wherein Sylvester Stallone fights alongside the guerrillas, and the final credits dedicate the movie to "the brave mujahedeen in Afghanistan."

http://www.espritdecorps.ca/Ontarget 080312.htm


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## irnbndr (Mar 15, 2008)

NATO is fucking that war up by the numbers!

After my last rotation there, the Afghan forces which were trained. led and advised by Americans were immediately desolved upon NATO TOA.  Each man, owning his own AK-47 was then forced to go find some other way to support his family.  Hmmm... wonder where they went?  These guys will fight and die with anyone who will pay them, seems to me it would be a good idea for NATO to keep them on our payroll!  NATO is full of a bunch of pussies with no common sense.


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## Ravage (Mar 15, 2008)

irnbndr said:


> After my last rotation there, the Afghan forces which were trained. led and advised by Americans were immediately desolved upon NATO TOA.



Why they do that ?


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## Hitman2/3 (Mar 15, 2008)

WTF :doh:


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## Pete031 (Mar 15, 2008)

If there is one country that all the Afghans hate collectively, it is Russia. Would be a terrible mistake to send them.


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## AWP (Mar 15, 2008)

Pete031 said:


> If there is one country that all the Afghans hate collectively, it is Russia. Would be a terrible mistake to send them.



Isn't that the truth. A very bad move to get the Russkies involved.


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## irnbndr (Mar 15, 2008)

Pete031 said:


> If there is one country that all the Afghans hate collectively, it is Russia. Would be a terrible mistake to send them.



I agree.  I was studying my language by watching Russian TV.  there was a young man there who was cleaning up around the house when there was a joke on the TV.  He laughed.  I immediately tried to speak with him, due to his lack of English.  I thought he might want to be able to communicate in Russian.  Not the case!  He hates Russians.  Would not speak with me but to tell me that he hated the language and the people.
Horrible situational awareness to even ask them to get involved.



Ravage said:


> Why they do that ?



Who knows why they decided to do that.  Alot of animosity towards SOF in that theatre... in any theatre for that matter.  NATO is a strange animal, we will lose that war if something is not done with those jokers.


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## RackMaster (Mar 15, 2008)

A true act of desperation.    It would make more sense to ask the Chinese.  :doh:


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## DA SWO (Mar 15, 2008)

irnbndr said:


> NATO is fucking that war up by the numbers!
> 
> After my last rotation there, the Afghan forces which were trained. led and advised by Americans were immediately desolved upon NATO TOA.  Each man, owning his own AK-47 was then forced to go find some other way to support his family.  Hmmm... wonder where they went?  These guys will fight and die with anyone who will pay them, seems to me it would be a good idea for NATO to keep them on our payroll!  NATO is full of a bunch of pussies with no common sense.



Great move, guess the NATO Commander was making a statement.

IIRC; NATO=No Action, Talk Only.

Was it a German Commander by any chance?


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## irnbndr (Mar 15, 2008)

No idea what nation the commander was from.  

I have nothing bad to say about the German forces.  Those guys have a great SOF contingency and did a nice job there.  Always trying to close with the enemy.  I even had respect for the French SOF, good dudes.


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## irnbndr (Mar 15, 2008)

well said J.


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## Ravage (Mar 16, 2008)

I understand. NATO want's to take away the snakes venom, where SOF wants to make the snakes kill all the other snakes.


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