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"Insufficient evidence"Reader comment on item: The Deceits of Bridges TV Submitted by Ianus (Poland), Mar 4, 2009 at 17:54 > The Northern Alliance that was supported by the Reagan Administration against a Soviet invasion was (were?) not the "illiterate dirty Afghans" of the "murderous, efficient, best-armed monsters of jihad" commanded by Mullah Omar and Usama bin Ladin.< As far as I know the Reagan Administration never heard of any Northern Alliance. It's a later creation. During the 1980-ties C. 70 parties, factions, groups were opposing the government in Kabul. After many tribulations and much bloodshed the US , assisted by China and Pakistan, forced some of them to form in May 1985 " Alliance of 7" including the seven radical parties with such notorious gangsters and obscurantists as Khekmatiar , Rabbani, Mojaddadi etc. Simultneously , the other big sponsor of terror and jihad but at that time a strange bedfellow of America - Iran managed to organize "Alliance of 8" from shi'a Afghan tribesmen's groups and parties with their own 'respectable' leaders. I am not sure what idea you have of what Afghanistan and its people are like. Around the time of the Soviet intervention c. 97% of the Afghans were illiterate. Most land belonged to few powerful landlords and to mosques. Tribalism and Islam made any progress outside big cities impossible. Hygenic conditions were appalling for a European at least. Ritual ablutions didn't change much in this respect. Illness is seen there as Allah's will and what can one do against Allah's will? I read memoirs of Soviet soldiers who described that when a child fell ill, the only thing the Afghan would do was ask the mullah whose answer was well-known beforehand. The good Afghan would never think of going to a Russian doctor, especially after the mullah had warned him Allah would get angry with him because the Russians are kafirs, Allah's enemies. In short 'by dirty and illiterate' I meant no metaphors. As to "murderous, efficient, best-armed monsters of jihad" I also tried to describe what's going on in Afghanistan. Life has little value in Afghanistan , not only because life expectancy is c. 40 years of age there. Every Afghan man is armed and the difference from the times before 1979 is that the arms were not modern and so deadly as they are now thanks to the US/Soviet shippings. Tribalism in Afghanistan makes killing and murdering a matter of honour and survival while daily experience brings professionalism. They are all Moslems and every war, every feud is seen as jihad. This jihad mentality is especially incited when kafir foreigners are on Afghan soil - be it the Russians , be it the Americans. They are enemies of Allah and after his own tribe Allah is the most sacred thing for every Afghan. By giving these brutes modern weapons and instruction on how to use them Reagan committed a heinous crime whose tragic consequences reach far beyond 9/11 2001. >In fact, when the Lion of Peshwar (sorry, phonetic spelling), the leader of the Northern Alliance, was murdered on or about September 9, 2001, that should have been a clue for US and other intelligence services that bin Ladin was up to something big, and deadly.< Really ? I have the impression that the brave Lion of the Pandjsher Valley was hardly a nicer guy than those who had him killed. He also grew fat on the war, made his fortune on smuggling rubies, sapphires and emeralds from his fief. His party was notorious for refined torture methods applied to teh captured Russians. Yet he was clever enough to keep all the ceasefire agreements he repeatedly signed with the Soviets after every heavy defeat the latter had inflicted upon him - in 1980,1982 and 1984. With the reconcilliation policy commenced in 1987 he had free hands to prepare for the war against his ' Sunni 'brothers' from "Alliance of 7". He was unlucky enough to be a Tajik and so could not hope to rule the Pashtoon-dominated capital or even in his own fief if things went wrong. His popularity in the West comes from his utility in the struggle against the Pashtoon Talibans and from his gemstones. As far as Islam is concerned we was not less religious and Islamic than Obama. >But in any event, Reagan left office January 1989, well before bin Ladin set up housekeeping in the Tora Bora neighborhood.< Bin Laden started his Afghan jihad as early as 1979. He collected money first, trained his jihadists but in 1986 he participated himself in the war. People like Reagan and other US sponsors of jihad made this career possible. I just wonder how many bin Ladens the two European Afghanistans cretaed by the US in Bosnia and Kosovo will produce ? > He skipped over to Afghanistan during the Clinton Administration, after intermediary Monsoor Ijaz tried to persuade Clinton to take bin Ladin (for prosecution) in a hand-over from some other government. Clinton declined, citing "insufficient evidence" to prosecute.< Well, "human rights activists" , "Amnesty International" and a horde of similar do-gooders' organizations might have raised an outcry if the US had arrested our poor Osama and his Afghan War Veterans from al-Qaida! The sacred cow of today's lawyers - the presumption of innocence - mustn't be questioned , let alone encroached upon so brutally! Besides, Bill Clinton, the Balkan Jihadist , couldn't do that to another jihadist, could he ? The US-jihadist honeymoon wasn't over yet at that time. I ask myself , is it over now ? Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments". << Previous Comment Next Comment >> Reader comments (104) on this item
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