🚀 go-pugleaf

>It is not a contradiction. They have no interest in the country apart
>from making sure Russia was beaten. After that, the US haven't been
>involved.

I think it's important to add here that the U.S. supplied the mujihadeen with
the weapons (and caves) it needed to keep the Soviets from invading and taking
over their country.  I would describe that as helping DEFEND Afghanistan from
invasion.

Second of all, it was AFTER the war with the Soviets that Bin Laden et al
turned and ousted the existing government and installed the Taliban as a
religious/political authority in Afghanistan.

You (Greg) could probably blame us for that by saying we armed them in the
first place, and I might accept that as an axiom, but the point is that the
Taliban has not been a long-standing governing authority, but one that recently
took the country by force.  The U.S. AND the U.N. have recognized Afghanistan
as a sovereign nation, but NOT the Taliban as a legitimate government thereto.

We would not even have bothered with the Taliban if they had simply turned over
those responsible for an attack of OUR citizens on OUR soil.  They did this
knowing that U.S. retribution would fall on terrorists and those who harbor
them.  They made their bed.  In the meantime, I remember seeing the news
reports of people dancing in the streets after we ran the Taliban out of Kabul.
 In the meantime, the existing tribes within Afghanistan have cobbled together
a new government (again, not installed by the U.S.), and the Afghan people are
fighting alongside the U.S. to drive the remaining Taliban officials and Al
Qaeda terrorists OUT.

Unless you (Greg) think there just HAPPEN to be citizens tending sheep in the
barren mountains in the east, and they just HAPPEN to be using the caves
constructed for the mujihadeen, and they just HAPPEN to have an enormous
stockpile of weapons, and they just HAPPEN to be shooting at us.

Stephen