Didn't the U.S. support the Taliban when they were fighting the USSR?

Question

It's a small world isn't it?

Answer 1

Bill Clinton helped Al Quada invade Bosnia, and made sure our military trained them in all our tactics.

Answer 2

Yes, the CIA trained his troops and Ronald Reagan called him a freedom fighter.

Answer 3

Yes, and we also supported the Soviet Union during WW II.  Things and world events change!

Answer 4

Yep, and, ya just never really know what will come back to bite ya in the butt, till later.

Answer 5

Not exactly, no, since the Soviets pulled out of Afganistan in 1989, while the Taliban did not form as a group until 1996.  However, it is true that the US supported the Afghanis with money, weapons, and training to fight the Soviets, in a fairly successful attempt to give the Soviets their own version of Vietnam.

What happened subsequent to the Soviet pullout is an example of what the CIA calls "blowback," the unintended consequences of covert operations.  Using the weapons and training provided by the US, groups such as the Taliban and Al Qaeda were able to form and gain power, with the Taliban actually taking control of the country for a while.  We all know what Al Qaeda went on to do.

Oh, and contrary to Bones' assertion, while the support for the Afghanis may have begun during the Carter administration, the majority of it occurred during the Reagan adminstration.  So it wasn't just Carter's policy, it was Reagan's, too.

Answer 6

Not only that, but we are now friends with both Japan and Germany and not long ago we fought a major war with them.  And we fought the Indians in America and now we allow them to walk freely anywhere they want to go.  Talk about inconsistent.

Answer 7

Yes. That was stupid. But then, that was Jimmy Carter's policy.

Answer 8

yes, they were called freedom fighter back then

Answer 9

Yes, indeed, Uncle Sam did it again.  This shows how our policy is inconsistent from time to time, from place to place. As a result, it is WE THE PEOPLE who suffer the most in terms of financial loss, loss of young American lives, loss of good American reputation, loss of our friends in Europe, loss of unity of this country, ....

Answer 10

No, not directly at least. They were pretty much a post Soviet phenomena that arose to fight the corrupt and criminal warlords that took over Afghanistan after the Russians left. These warlords were the people we gave tons of modern weapons too, not the Taliban. Maybe you are confusing the Taliban with Saddam, who we most definitely supported before we decided he wasn't a reliable western stooge.

Answer 11

YES!

Answer 12

Of course.  We used to support Saddam Hussein also when Iraq fought Iran in the 1980s.

We provided Iraq with biologic weaponry also.

Answer 13

well remembered , they even took a taliban delegation to disney world florida...

Answer 14

The Government has a selective memory

Answer 15

Taliban was not the name of the militant outfit when various factions of the Afghan resistance movements gathered strength and waged their struggle of independence against the Soviet occupation for those ten years! In its aim, first to weaken the Soviet economy by heavily to drag on the war and finally to oust them America has mindlessly pumped the arms and ammunition plus the money to all the groups including the Mujaheddin and the Taliban!

In this exercise US has made the Pakistan as the regime to group the resistance forces and to deliver the arms and money since two millions Afghan people took refuge in the border areas with Pakistan and this area has virtually become the world's largest open market for the sale of weapons of all grades for everybody and the huge illegal trade continue even to this day, making innocent people to become terrorist for just a thousand dollars to save their homes!

To be very precise to say the United States has only one goal to force the Soviet out and DEFINITELY NOTHING TO IMPROVE THE CONDITIONS OF AFGHAN PEOPLE, after the Soviets has left the nation! This has led to the Taliban to gain the power and to establish a religious, barbaric regime which bred the fugitive like the Osama Mohamed Bin Laden and his terrorists outfit Al-Quida which planned and blown up the planes in 911 operation in the USA! If the US has taken the right steps in bringing the democracy in Afghanistan, the 911 would not have happened at all and so also the wars in Iraq and the Afghanistan since BIN LADEN would have been killed long back and so his AL-QUIDA!

Answer 16

It was the mujahdeen, with Osama bin Laden as the leader. Over six billion US dollars spent giving him arms and fortifying caves in Afghanistan, I think.

Answer 17

A major problem that we have is many people's willingness to blame a certain political party supersedes their view and in fact their critical thinking. There is no political party who has not gotten in bed with those who later came back to bite us. Every president has been elected into a system that needs changing. But it is much bigger than that the "might makes right" mentality worldwide (with few exception), makes it not a US issue, but a world issue.

I believe that at the core of who they are, both McCain and Obama want what's good for America, although they disagree to some extent (but not as much as many may believe) as to what that means. But is it not the President who will alter the structure of the political system. The voice of the people will ultimately be the catalyst for that change that will reverberate from the streets, the ballot boxes, corporations, faith-based institutions and every corner of our society.

The US has not only supported the Taliban but as you can see from other answers, many others, The issue is that there is no reason for us to believe that it is now or ever will be any different. What true changes in the system would have to happen that for that to change?

I am no pacifist, but I am a realist.