“Under Reagan, the Taliban, then called Mujahideen, were invited to the White House for photo-ops and declared the Afghani equivalent of our Founding Fathers.”
Taliban emerged later in the mid-90’s as a force that sought to crush the CIA warlords whose Bacha Bazi and other devilish deeds were making life more hellish for the ordinary Afghans.
Michael Scheuer has some very sharp words about Afghanistan as he always has. He points out the British called certain military actions “punitive campaigns.” You go into a country, kill a bunch of men, women, and children, bomb a bunch of buildings, blow up some bridges and dams … then you leave. You know they will leave you alone for a couple of years as they rebuild.
On the surface at least this is what Scheuer wanted for Afghanistan. Go in, kill Osama Bin Laden, kill the Taliban leadership, bomb weddings to demoralize the population, then get the hell out, by 2004 at the latest.
But the US stayed for 20 years. Why? Scheuer makes a chilling revelation. He claims during the initial planning for the war, the Pentagon completely ignored the people who were Afghanistan specialists. He mentions a specific paper done that laid out the basic knowledge and…
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