Vicious Cycle

Today I was watching a documentary on Charlie Wilson while doing research for a school project. Obviously, in a post-9/11 world, the meaning of the Afghan's victory over the Soviet Union has completely changed. What once unequivocally stood as a series of actions that sounded the death knell of the Soviet Union, now is viewed as a series of actions that lead to the arming and training of religious fanatics on a massive level.

The success of Operation Cyclone can not be denied, the war that had once been though to be a victory for the communists, had somehow gone the other way. Sadly, this great success was immediately followed by a grave mistake that showed a distinct lack of judgment and foresight on the part of the U.S. We had given the Mujahideen the weapons and funding that they needed to win the war, and once they had won, we just left. We left despite the fact that Afghanistan had no infrastructure, no economy, no government to speak of. Out of this chaos the Taliban rose up and was able to take control over the nation. Eventually, two symbols of Western capitalism came crashing to earth in fiery blazes. Maybe if we had given the Afghan's more than just guns back in the 1980's, those two buildings would still be standing today.

The ironic and relevant part of all this is the fact that right now, as I type this, we are attempting to right our past wrongs in the Middle East. We have gone into Afghanistan and Iraq, we have removed the Taliban and Saddam Hussein, and now we are trying to rebuild those nations. And we are being condemned for it. Globally. By everyone. The U.S. has been accused of everything from imperialism to a high-stakes quest for oil.

How quickly people forget, both in the U.S. and in Afghanistan. The Afghan's forgot that it was the U.S. that enabled them to shoot down the Mi-24 Hind helicopters that were ravaging their countryside and killing millions of people. How quick the people of America (especially the politicians) are to forget our crucial failing at the end of the Soviet-Afghan War. How strange it is that no one thinks, "Maybe if we had done this twenty years ago, we wouldn't have to be dealing with it now".