Comments on the Soviet Invasion of Afghanastan and the role the Unites States played.

ML said:
>The Soviet experience in Afghanistan is a good example of such a
>conflict, yet it can be seen from the US experience there a decade
>later that a certain degree of technical superiority, in both equipment
>and training, can largely eliminate any advantage the local anarchists
>may have once had, even when the conqueror is under both media scrutiny
>and feels bound by international standards of behavior.

AG said:
"There was almost no "media scrutiny", and the Afghans defeated the Soviets with guerilla tactics, intelligence, and after the moderates died or escaped, a brutal extremism that was the end result of a decade of fighting."

The Afghans won against the soviets from the tremendous amount of guns, missiles, and supplies sent by the United States to supply the Afghan resistant against the tyrannicall murderous expansionist soviets. Leftists no longer felt it necessary to even attempt to defend people from murderous tyrannical regimes post vietnam. Your statements parrallel the same arguments made just before the US's ousting of the Taliban, that 'the Soviets fought them for years and these hardened warriors who knew the terrain fought them off!' Never mind the help they received from the other world superpower. Note that skeptics predicted similiar difficulty with the US defeating the Taliban, but with no military backing from a superpower, all the 'intelligence and guerilla tactics' of the hardened war machine of the Taliban fought off the fall of Kabul for, what, a month?

Just as the victory in Vietnam belongs to the Soviets, and not the North Vietnamese civilians fighting for a 'revolution' (using soviet tanks, guns, mines, and artillery) the victory in Afghanastan against the soviet invasion belongs to the US.

This further supports Mike's statements, no amount of intelligence and perserverence from guerilla tactic anarchists can defeat a massive statist invasion with advanced weaponry and overwhelming firepower.

Michael Dickey

matus
>This further supports Mike's statements, no amount of intelligence and
>perserverence from guerilla tactic anarchists can defeat a massive statist
>invasion with advanced weaponry and overwhelming firepower.

"I did not see any attempt by him or you or others to look at what Dan and I pointed links to regarding the definition of anarchocapitalism. I only saw some bizarre references by Mike to who he thinks are 'anarchists'. The Afghan comment was really the one that got me upset, though"

Your comments on Afghanastan were the focus of my attention. I dont really know if a anarcho capitalist defense is feasible against a statist totalatarian invasion, but I found The Private Production of Defense by Prof. Hans-Hermann Hoppe to be full of compelling arguments (as I said in an earlier post to Samantha). However, the events in Afghanastan seemed to superficially support what ML was suggesting.

Honestly, I dont care if such a system could adequately defend itself, since we aint gonna see one any time soon. Instead I am much more concerned about the proliferation of terrorist organizations, the expansion of groups that want nothing less than the destruction of western civilazation, technology, progress, and freedom, and the reign of murderous oppresive regimes. Hopefully one day I will feel it necessary to concern myself with the functional capabilities of an anarcho capitalist system and its capabilities for defense. However, I note, the number of anarcho-socialists probably exceeds the number of anarcho-capitalist 10 - 100x.

"If anyone is wondering why more enlightened topics not often-enough make into broad discussion on extropians, then here is one reason why. For me, it takes too much energy to talk about that here, fighting against narrow-minded views and I see little interest with these people to look into it further and study the sources."

I think at one point in time, each of us has felt we could justifiable say this about everyone else. In this case I think your assessment of the Soviet Afghan US situation was a gross oversimplification of what actually occured there and why, which is why I felt compelled to respond.

"The title of the message is of course, referring to what the Afghan people called the invasion of the Soviets in 1979. How many millions disappeared? Nobody knows. By the crudest estimates, some 10 million Afghans by 1986 no longer existed and a generation of Afghans mostly gone (dead, in prisons, in refugee camps, escaped to the west). The largest population of refugees in the 1980s were the Afghan population. The world was very silent during this time. Please read some history and please talk to some Afghan refugees from that time. There is no better source than the people who were actually there."

I could just as easily make the same suggestion to you, and probably feel as justified about saying it as you do to me. Perhaps my comment was a little brash, but it is at the very least intellectually dishonest not to acknolwedge the critical role that the US's assistance played in Afghanastan. Despite how I may come off on the list, I am not a cold hearted impassionate callous hate monger. I dearly empathize with the attrocities that people face at the hands of murderous tyrannical governments, which is why I am so vocal about telling the correct history of Vietnam, where millions upon millions of people were enslaved or murdered.

A quick search on the subject reveals

"By 1983, the CIA was purchasing assault rifles, grenade launchers, mines, and SA-7 light antiaircraft weapons, totaling 10,000 tons, mainly from China...in 1985, President Ronald Reagan made a secret decision to escalate covert support to the mujahidin. Soon after, the CIA began to supply an extensive array of intelligence, military expertise and advanced weapons to the Muslim rebel forces...Furthermore, Reagan made the decision to equip the mujahidin with sophisticated U.S.-made Stinger antiaircraft missiles. By 1987, the CIA was sending a steady supply of 65,000 tons of arms to the mujahidin. In all, the United States provided over $2 billion in weapons and money to seven Islamic mujahidin factions in the 1980s, making this last Cold War battle the largest covert action program since World War II"

from - http://www.cdi.org/terrorism/afghanistan-history-pr.cfm

And

"This military aid mostly stemmed from the US, but China, Egypt, Israel, and Saudi Arabia also funded the anti-Soviet efforts. By 1985, military aid reached an estimated $500 million, half of which came from the US; in 1986 the number doubled; and the total amount from the US for the years 1980-86 was around $625 million. During the same period, an additional $400 million from the US went to aid Afghan refugees.[8]"

from - http://www.seattlecentral.org/gedt/docs/afghans.html

Would these Afghan Refugees tell me all this equipement and weaponry was not used? Btw, I have never come across a Afghan refugee, but if I ever did I would not miss an oppertunity to hear everything he/she has to say.

A history note:
"The Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979. The Afghans fought them with little help, surprisingly successively for a large part of that war. Please look to Soviet sources or talk to Russians for how difficult of a time the Soviets were having. The U.S weapons to the Afghan fighters were not until some 7 or 8 years later. We all know how that turned out, don't we?"

As noted above, the invasion took place in 1979, the US was providing 10,000 tons of equipement *by* 1983, a mere 4 years later. But assistance started nearly immediately, with the US providing through China and Pakistan a much needed quardaped gastrobot capable of carrying large loads over rough terrain for great distances with little maintence. The US supplied thousands of these devices, also known as 'mules' to aide the mujahadeen in 1980.

"Oh yes, it's lovely to have two superpowers using an innocent people for their political goals."

Yes it is, unfortunately you seem in this statement ambivalent as to who the oppresive murderous tryannical expansionist regime was that invaded Afghanstan in the *FIRST* place.

Michael Dickey

"The Soviet and US Wars in Afghanistan: Why They Differed"

from - http://www.theestimate.com/public/113001.html

noteable excerpts -

"It is easy to romanticize the guerrilla. From T.E. Lawrence to Che Guevara, guerrilla leaders have often become figures of legend; the late Ahmad Shah Mas‘oud, who was indeed a highly skillful fighter and tactician, emerged as the legendary figure from the war against the Soviets. But Lawrence (who, despite his legend, was only an advisor, not a commander of Arab forces) did not defeat the Turks merely through the guerrilla tactics mentioned above. The Arab irregulars with whom Lawrence fought used armored cars, artillery, and aircraft, and even so it was ultimately British and Australian forces (along with Arab regulars who are often forgotten) who beat the Turks. Mao Zedong's guerrillas might swim like fish in the sea of the people, but it was regular People's Liberation Army units which defeated Chiang Kai-shek. No Afghan mujahedin leader ever took a city or even a major town from the Soviets."

"Overall, the military technology of the Soviets was massively superior to that of the resistance, but the Stingers provided a force multiplier that negated some of the Soviet edge. Without the Stingers and the financial support of the US, as well as military and other support from Pakistan, the mujahedin might well have been crushed by the Soviets long before 1989"

And from http://hubcap.clemson.edu/~eemoise/limit6.html some more accurate estimates on aide provided to Afghanistan

"This war began toward the end of Jimmy Carter's term as President of the United States. Carter provided some US military aid to the guerrillas fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan while he was president. He did not provide a huge amount--about $30 million for 1980. Under Ronald Reagan this went up $50 million for 1981, $50 million for 1982, $60 million for 1983, and $140 million for 1984. These figures do not suggest a huge differenc in policy between the Carter and Reagan administrations. One would not expect deliveries in the first year after the Soviet invasion of December 1979 to have been huge; it could legitimately take some time to get the pipeline going. For the first-year deliveries to have been half of the fourth-year level actually looks to me as if Carter got things off to a pretty fast start. (Figures from Cordesman & Wagner, The Lessons of Modern War, vol. 3, The Afghan and Falklands Conflicts, p. 20).

The big break was between Reagan's first and second terms. US military aid jumped to $250 million in 1985, and in succeeding years to $470 million, $660 million, and $700 million. In 1986, the US began supplying Stinger anti-aircraft missiles to the guerrillas. These imposed such heavy casualties on low-flying helicopters and assault planes that the airmobile tactics were largely abandoned in 1987, and the Soviet troops returned to a strategy of defending strongpoints and supply routes."

In short, the guerrilla fighter often thought of as the hero of the Afghans and the North Vietnamese was nothing short of a romanticized flight of fancy. It was the millions to billions in aide that these fighters recieved that kept them fighting.

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