From: Kai Becker (kmb@kai-m-becker.de)
Date: Mon Dec 17 2001 - 07:02:45 MST
Am Montag, 17. Dezember 2001 01:38 schrieb Spike Jones:
> Samantha Atkins wrote:
> > Simply open your eyes to what we have done in the Middle East
> > and what we continue to do to this day.
>
> Ok, what we did: sent aid workers.
You should browse in your history book to a few pages earlier. There you
will find which massive influence the former US governments (and the former
Soviet Republic) had in that region.
At the beginning of the 70s, Afghanistan had an elected government and made
slow progress to transform its middle aged clan structure into a more
modern society. It has always been the target of external interests and
influence, though.
In the middle and late 70s the USA and the SU pumped loads of military
"aid" into the country (military, not humanitarian), because both parties
were interested to control and exploit the largest fields of natural gas in
the middle east. They either wanted to sell it to Europe (the USA, instead
of Europe buying Soviet gas) or (the SU) control the price for both
resources.
This destabilised the country more and more. In 79, the soviets invaded
Afghanistan that the external influence had pushed on the brink of a civil
war, but the USA didn't give in. The military resistance, the Mujahed, were
trained by Pakistan and the USA. Again, loads of weapons were pumped into
the country. Modern weapons, even Stinger missiles. Their leaders were
trained by CIA people and - read this carefully - Osama bin Ladin was one
of them and the US knew exactly who he was.
The Mujahed were pushed by Pakistan and CIA - now comes the interesting
part - to see the resistance as a islamic Djihad, a holy war of
self-defense. The "islamic rush" in that region can therefore be seen as a
direct result of the influence of the super powers.
The Taliban appeared during the civil war between the clans that followed.
They also got their share from the financial and military "aid" of the USA.
I repeat: the Taliban got financial and military support from the USA. And
if you ask why, it was (and is still) the natural resources.
We could repeat this lesson for the Irak, Indonesia, Chile, etc. It always
started with "military aid", destabilizing governments to aquire influence,
causing civil war, helping "the right people" into power. It ends with "the
right people" becoming "the wrong people", when they become too powerfull
or overstress the limits set by the US (example: Saddam in Kuwait).
It is never as simple as "we did good, they did bad".
BTW, not "we" (or "you", the USA) sent aid workers. Nor did other western
countries. These were NGOs. International groups, not directly supported by
any government. "Shelter Now" is not neutral, but a christian group (see
http://www.shelter.org/about.html). While the Red Cross and many other
organizations did their work, and even SNI worked in Afghanistan since 1979
without major problems, one of their goals was "to spread the word". This
is not wise in a strict islamic country. There're many arabic countries,
were christian mission is strictly forbidden. Saudi Arabia is one of them.
Many Saudi Arabians also send a lot of money to islamic terror
organizations. Should we go and bomb Saudi Arabia? Now, this will never
happen, even if the FBI had found that the tickets for 9-11 were payed
directly from the Saudi bank. My suspicion is, that "we" (the US and their
followers) would lose too much (money and influence, that is).
Unfortunately this was not the case in Afghanistan. Or at least it seems so
on the first view.
Kai
P.S. Sources:
http://www.erdkunde-online.de/hintergrund/84.htm
http://www.zeit-fragen.ch/ARCHIV/ZF_85a/T16.HTM
http://rhein-zeitung.de/on/01/09/17/topnews/afghan.html
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:sYJhtiBR2_w:www.dwelle.de/aktuelles/tagesthema/berichte/011015-1.html+afghanistan+udssr+usa+erdgas&hl=de
http://www.dominic2000.de/afganistan.htm
-- == Kai M. Becker == kmb@kai-m-becker.de == Bremen, Germany == "Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced"
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