How difficult do you think it was for the USSR to just press a button and put everything to a real quick stop? Why do you think they didn't do that?
Same reason the Americans didn’t nuke the North Vietnamese or the North Koreans and the Russians didn’t just nuke the Hungarians or the Chechens or the Chinese?
Because it would be political, social, moral and yes, military suicide. One sure way to have the world gang up against you just by the “press of a button” as you up it, hardly worth one warm water seaport.
C’mon why didn’t the US win the Cold War when USSR could have just nuked them to oblivion with their superior quantity of warheads? Why did the Soviets lose when their vast armies could have just bulldozed through Europe in 15 days? Because everything has consequences, the USSR and the US were not ready to deal with those consequences.
LOL did you even put an ounce of thought into it before you framed that “Why didn’t Russia nuke Pakistan” question?
Where were the engagements between the USSR and the Pakistani army? I know some Pakistani army soldiers were part of the Afghan militias but an army to army fight! Please prove your assertion with some decent sources.
Another contradiction there, if I might point out. You just acknowledged that
Pakistani soldiers and officers were involved in combat with the Soviets. And yet you see fit to dispute my observation that
it was Pakistan that defeated the Soviets more than can be said for any other country short of the Afghans themselves. So do you seriously disagree or is this another failure to comprehend my post resulting in an impulsive and little thought through rebuttal (as usual)? The training, planning, organization, logistics and aye direct professional on the ground military contribution came from Pakistan. It is very fair to say that if any country, other than Afghanistan can claim to be victors when the Soviets withdrew, that would be Pakistan.
And do you really think Pakistan had the resources to take on a Superpower? Did China and Saudi have the might to take on a Superpower? Remember its 1980s we are talking about? They could have contributed with money and some weapons, but defeating a Superpower with more than 10,000 nukes.
Just gimme a break please! Who on Earth said you need to beat someone nuke by nuke and dollar by dollar in order to defeat them in any one particular theatre?
So, while no doubt Pakistan was the staging ground for arming and training the militias, you are claiming much more credit than the reality warrants. You simply didn't have the resources to sustain it, nor the might.
I'm afraid we did have the might and the resources. Where we got them from is secondary to the fact that we had them and used them. The Indians had Soviet technical, military, financial support and backing, and they defeated our garrison in East-Pakistan but I'm not going to claim that it was the Soviets or their communist allies that did it.
The weapons that came to us from the west were mostly not from the west, they were recycled, faulty, unreliable and inappropriate in almost any way you can think of other than the fact that they made it harder for the Soviets realize that the west was on our side. All of the manpower came from Pakistan and our Muslims allies, Saudis payed every bit as much as the Americans did and that’s not even counting the Chinese. So yes we had allies and friends, and we made use of them just like every other country has allies and makes use of their contribution in its endeavors. But that does not mean that you get to ridicule the fact that it was a Pakistani victory. We live in an inter-dependant world especially where finance and security are concerned. All the weapons, money and recruits you name it, went through us (despite the CIA persistently insisting on direct battlefield supply).
Of course you took a neat cut from all the supplies that poured in for the Afghans and that explains the massive militarization of your population and later the same arms and militants were used in kashmir.
It was something that was essentially ours to give. Supplies ‘poured’ into us, our garrison and depots, not Afghanistan directly.
May be you can't see the contradictions in your statements in claiming the credit and blaming others for any fallout.
I used the words ‘American commitment’, not ‘contribution’. They are spelt quite differently if you would care to note. During the campaign American aid was faulty, inconsistent and insufficient at times but after the conflict it was completely non-existent.
All of the countries involved in rearing those militias had a responsibility to rein them back in. It was a collective failure but most of all it was a failure of the Afghans to come together. They destroyed their own country beyond redemption. And you guys kept on supporting those criminals who were destroying the whole country. People like Hikmatyar ring a bell. He destroyed the whole countryside including the capital and you are supporting him till date.
It’s very funny you should raise that. Okay we supported ‘criminals’ like Hikmatyar who ‘destroyed their whole country’ but who the hell supported the Northern Alliance might I add? The KNOWN drug smugglers, wanted-for-human-right-abuses warlords? People who were/are every bit if not more brutal than Hikmatyar and any of his friends. You don’t suppose they were destroying their country much were they? India sure was keen to ‘help’ them ruin their country and pump drugs into Pakistan despite the fact that India had no part in the war before. Why is only Pakistan crucified for looking out for her interests?
Thanks for the movie suggestion. I do intend to watch it.
Reading some books too won’t be so bad either.
And there is no pretension as you would like to feel. Its just a bit amusing.
No please, as always, the pleasure is all mine.
Great. Provide some of that wide acknowledgement for my reading pleasure.
It should go something like this-
Why should I bother finding you internet links? Almost everyone knows it’s true, they must’ve heard or read about it on occasions (including you probably). If you are too stubborn to acknowledge it that’s not my problem. This is not the place for it either.
Some presidents or GHB as he's still alive and was both Director of the C.I.A. and former vice-president to Ronald Reagan. How about a few key generals? A senator or two from the day?
Oh! Don't forget that "global presence" too. Key Euro leaders who've blamed the U.S. for abandoning Afghanistan back in the day.
Your contention is VERY MUCH IN DOUBT. Prove it instead of tossing innuendo out as accepted fact.
Um that was pretty lame. You just highlight some BS written by yourself pretending they were my words. My words are pretty clear, “widely acknowledged including within the US itself”. Surely you realize your demands of written proof by ‘key’ Euro leaders is pretty retarded. You can’t compensate your lack of factual counters with a mixture of trash talk and ridiculously out of context assumptions, everyone can see that. Heck I’ve even seen Obama mention it in one of the debates, it’s actually a pretty common theme about how ‘we left Afghanistan after our cold war needs and it came back to bite us in our ***’. But I guess you’re not likely to hear it much on Fox News. Open your eyes, instead of wasting my time with denial.
Your stuff is very, very weak.
Funny I was about to say the exact same thing about your 2 preceding paragraphs. What ‘wheels’ did the CIA set into motion in the Pakistani embassy before the threat even materialized? Do you even know what ‘gloves off’ means, I wonder? I would have loved to quote from my Oxford Press printed book called the
Military History of Afghanistan (by Stephen Tanner) to the both of you where it says late 80s was when America finally took her gloves off. But this is not the place. So instead might I suggest you read it yourselves instead of bombarding people with stereotypes and trash talk. bye bye.
