To Peter Herz

Submitted by Vijay (United Kingdom), Aug 17, 2006 at 03:44

>Submitted by Peter Herz, Aug 16, 2006 at 19:52

>by my account of things. The Soviet Union was a great danger--and the hostility it and other Communist >powers met from the USA was richly invited. Further, its power and population base were such that it could >have easily launched a Third World War if not constrained by fear of American nuclear retaliation. In the >case of Islam, we have dozens of states and sects, not one of which is capable of forming the nucleus of a >credible, global threat (albeit their regional threats are very real).

Look the US and UK are caught in the Afghanistan quagmire just like the Soviets and it is draining the economies of US/UK. The last Soviet soldier left Afghanistan in 1988; after that whatever happened in Afghanistan was Afghan affair. In spite of that US Administration went on giving billions of dollars to the islamic fundementalists, Jihadis, taliban and of course Pakistan's military. What was the pragmatic use of unlimited US support to these elements in the period 1988-1995 , when the Najibullah government fell down and the Taliban captured Kabul.

Due to the US military support to the Jihadis in that period, so much of Jihadi violence was unleashed in India and the so-called "Kashmir problem" came about only becuase of that. One reason why the US slogan of "war on Terror" is looked at ith scepticism in India is that India has faced Jihadist violence for much longer and many of the Jihadis were directly or indiectly amed by the US in the 1980s and 1990s.

After the Soviet soldiers left Afghanistan 1988, the Afghan secularists like Najibullah were holding on their own pretty well against hordes of Jihadists and talibanists who were all armed by pakistan's military. How well Najibullah was doing can be seen by the fact he was holding Jalalabad which is only 30 miles from Pakistan border, for 5 years with the troops of Gen.Dostum (wh is now a VIP in the Karzai govt). If Afghanistan has been left alone after 1989, Al-Queda and Taliban would not have had a safe haven there; lot of Islamic fundementalism which affects India and now the West, would have been easily contained; and Pakistani military would have given place to some kind of democracy in pakistan.

The political karma of US policies now goes in full cycle. Afghanistan had become a problem child of the US foeign policy with no exit in the forseeable future. Great Game of the 19th century continues today, with th US replacing the USSR, who replaced the British Empire in Afghan affairs.

You also write "Aryan South Asians would have to move back to the Danube region and leave the Ganges" . One has not a more asinine statement. Aryas have been in India from the dawn of Indian history. It was Nazi view of histoy which stated that part of Indians came frm Danube. Keep your Nazi myth to yourself.

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