Taliban why Usa made them like al-qaeda which was made by America

Who Enabled the Taliban, the US or Soviets?

Jul 27th, 2009 | By Paul Smith

The Cold War was fought here in Afghanistan.  My second in a series of articles.

Editors note:  I am in communication with Photo Journalist Michael Yon who is in an embedded reporter in Afghanistan.  Some of his pics are posted below.  He says that bullets routinely whiz over their heads on daily patrols and IED’s are everywhere.  The fear of a lone RPG shooting down a helicopters is very real.  To read his blog from July 25th click here.  This war will be like no other war we have ever fought.  To see the latest tactical directive from NATO click here.  Michael commented to me that the Afghani’s think that the troops are from the Soviet Union and that they are still at war with them and that they are the enemy!  Communications are non exitstent in the majority of the country.

Soviet helicopter over Afghanistan

Where 20 years of war has totally crippled the economy, and you must try to somehow survive day-by-day by scrounging enough food to feed your children.  Where people do not have the facilities to receive an education.  Where people do not have the facilities to receive treatment at hospitals.  Where, on average, men die at 40 years of age and women at 43.  Where hundreds of thousands of people are maimed, disabled, or blind because of war and land mines.  Where you face a high chance of becoming blind or crippled because of the lack of fresh fruit and vegetables, causing vitamin deficiency. If you are blind or crippled, no one can help you because those that are not blind or crippled need help as well.Author unknown.

In my first article that you can view here, I detailed the history of Afghanistan up to the invasion of the Soviet Union.  Click here and read the account of the Green-eyed Girl.   I will pick  up the history from there.

The  Soviet War in Afghanistan was nine years in length. The US supported the Islamist Mujahideen and  found support from a variety of sources including Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and other nations all under the guise of the Cold War.  The Soviets deployed the 40th Army.  The final troops started leaving  on May 15, 1988, and ended on February 15, 1989. Due to the interminable nature of the war, the conflict in Afghanistan has often been referred to as the Soviet equivalent of the United States’  Vietnam War.

The fearless Mujahideens in 1984

Around 1978 a civil war broke out between the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (a communist party) and the local Mujahideens.   In 1979 the Soviet Union entered the country to help the communist government.  They left   in 1989 after staying in the country for nine years.   After the Soviet withdrawal Afghanistan continued to deal with attacks from the Mujahideen.  They received funding and arms from the Soviet Union until 1991 when the Soviet Union collapsed.  For several years the government army had actually increased their effectiveness past levels ever achieved during the Soviet military presence, but the government was dealt a major blow when Abdul Rashid Dostum, a leading general, switched allegiances to the Mujahideen in 1992 and together they captured the city of Kabul.   The Mujahideen and Taliban forces destroyed the infrastructure established during the fourteen years of communist rule.  Ergo, bombing themselves back to the stone age… again.

The U.S. saw the situation as a prime opportunity to weaken the Soviet Union.  So instead of fighting them directly, we just supplied their enemy to do so on our behalf.   Remember this quote: “The enemy of my enemy… is my friend.”  This strategy would backfire on the U.S. later on.  As part of a Cold War strategy in 1979 the United States government under President Jimmy Carter began to covertly fund forces against the pro-Soviet government.   The Mujahideen belonged to various different factions but all shared to varying degrees a similarly conservative ‘Islamic’ ideology.

In response to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and part of its overall Cold War strategy the U.S.  responded by arming and otherwise supporting the Afghan  Mujahideen which had taken up arms against the Soviet occupiers.   We taught those folks well and it would later come back to bite the U.S.  During the Reagan years a doctrine was conceived to supply anti-communist groups covert help across the world.  Voila, the Cold War.

Victim of a cluster bomb

The Soviets sent hundreds of thousands of troops into the region and killed upwards of 2 million Afghans.  5 million Afghan’s fled to the surrounding countries.   To read the whole story of why the Soviets failed you must click here for the mind numbing story.  Will the U.S. forces do any better?  If you remember the ending on the Tom Cruise movie “War of the Worlds” a few years back, this will make sense.

The Soviet withdrawal from the DRA was seen as an ideological victory in the U.S. which had backed the Mujahideen through three U.S. presidential administrations in order to counter Soviet influence in the vicinity of the oil-rich Persian Gulf.  Oh you mean oil had something to do with this mess?  Ideological victories may sound good on paper, but in reality they are pretty worthless… read on.  All the intellectuals left the country and left a brain drain on the country which promptly lead to warlordism.  The most serious fighting during this period occurred in 1994, when over 10,000 people were killed in Kabul alone. It was at this time that the Taliban developed as a politico-religious force, eventually seizing Kabul in 1996 and establishing the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.  By the end of 2000 the Taliban had captured 95% of the country.  During the Taliban’s seven-year rule much of the population experienced restrictions on their freedom and violations of their human rights.  Women were banned from jobs and girls forbidden to attend schools or universities.  Communists were systematically eradicated and thieves were punished by amputating one of their hands or feet.   Back to the Stone Age part three!  How did this happen?  Ever hear the saying that nature abhors a vacuum?  When the U.S. pulled out someone had to step in and run the country and overnight the Taliban took over.

In this section I will explore the drug trade in Afghanistan and take you up to 911.  The following is a report done by the United Nations. 

 Trends in opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan have been on an upward trajectory since the early 1990s, accelerating quickly after the fall of the Taliban government. In 2007, opium poppy cultivation reached an all-time high of 193,000 ha with the majority of cultivation (69 percent) occurring in the five southern provinces. Concomitant with the rise in opium poppy cultivation has been the rise in opium production. 2007 witnessed a substantial 34 percent increase in opium production reaching 8,200 metric tons. This increase in production in Afghanistan combined with effective efforts at limiting production in other countries has made Afghanistan virtually the sole supplier of opium, accounting for 93 percent of global production.

Approximately two-thirds of the opium produced in Afghanistan is converted into heroin or morphine before export. Traditionally, the processing of opium into heroin occurred in Afghanistan’s neighboring countries, notably Pakistan, Iran and Turkey, with very few heroin production facilities located within Afghanistan. Recent years however have seen an increase in the number of laboratories moving upstream along smuggling routes and Afghanistan itself is now a major centre not just for opium production but also for its conversion.

The conversion of opium into heroin and morphine necessitates large amounts of precursor chemicals particularly acetic anhydride (AA). AA is neither produced in Afghanistan nor has it any licit purpose in the country. In 2007, total effective eradication, including governor-led and AEF-led efforts, amounted to 19,047 hectares which is equal 10 percent of the total opium poppy cultivation.

Corruption and violence continue to hinder the eradication process. The number of illicit drug users in Afghanistan is estimated at nearly one million, with few areas in the country where drug use does not occur. The 920,000 estimated drug users represent 4 per cent of the total population or 8 per cent of the adult population. Afghanistan’s opiate consumption is high at 2 percent of the adult population. There is a significant gender difference among drug users: 87 percent of all opium users are men and 93 percent of all heroin users are men. An estimated 14 percent of heroin users and a small fraction of opium users are believed to be injecting drug users. Sharing needles and other injection paraphernalia is believed to be widespread, creating the potential for the spread of HIV and hepatitis.

Afghanistan farmers switched to cannabis when poppies where outlawed

As you can see this is a very profitable crop for the poor farmers.  The U.S. has had a policy of disrupting the planting of poppies in Afghanistan that has worked against them as it has alienated the farmers against the U.S. and towards the Taliban.  The following is the new policy. 

 

Base Camp. July 27th 2009 from Michael Yon

Apache helo's head off after dropping supplies. Michael Yon

As the Philadelphia Inquirer reported on July 27, 2009   “U.S. and NATO troops,” with assistance from Britain and the DEA, “are attacking drug warehouses in Afghanistan for the first time this year to counter the country’s booming opium poppy and heroin trade.” In their first mission, “U.S. Marines and Afghan forces destroyed hundreds of tons of poppy seeds, opium, and heroin in Southern Afghanistan in raids that a top American official said showed the new U.S. anti-narcotics strategy was working.”  The Inquirer article also provides further details about that new strategy. Whereas earlier news articles have stated only that the U.S. would cease targeting “farmers of poppy plants” and go after major traffickers instead, this article specifies that “The United States announced last month that it would  increase attacks on warehouses controlled by drug lords.”

Brits unload gear on July 27 2009 Michael Yon

This summer, “Marines, British troops, and Afghan forces supported by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration have increasingly targeted drug warehouses in Helmand and Kandahar provinces, the largest opium-poppy-growing region in the world.” The effort has produced results; as the Inquirer states, “Seizures this summer” included “297 tons of poppy seeds, 77 pounds of heroin, and 300 pounds of opium.” Additionally, “About 1,200 pounds of hashish and 4,225 gallons of chemicals used to convert opium to heroin were also seized.” But the spoils of war did not stop there. Also rounded up in the summer raids were “bomb-making materials, rocket-propelled grenades, and AK-47s.”  U.S. officials say that these findings “underscore what the U.S. Embassy said was ‘the connection between drug trafficking and the insurgency.”

So the drug war is going to hit them after the crop is grown keeping the poppy farmer in business and cooperating with the U.S. forces.  Time will tell if that strategy will work.

So how did the Taliban become the dominate terrorist group in the world and crash two airlines into the World Trade Towers and, did we know this in advance?  Oliver North warned us about this, but nobody was listening.  See my next installment on this and today’s ground strategy and if it will work.  Are we doing the same thing the Soviets are doing?  Also a report on drug addiction by our U.S soldiers in Afghanistan and the problems with MRAP’s.