Kabul in the 1950s "Mad Men furniture, pencil skirts, record stores and factories"

[Kev Bar]

I post this in full knowledge that the blind ideologues on this site - you know who you are - will leap upon US exploitation.
And never bother their pre-programmed heads to look at what is being exploited.

I also note that Michael Semple, he who is often almost demonised in the Phoenix, seems to be an advocate of a more judicious approach to an unsightly affair.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011...?newsfeed=true

[People Korps]

I post this in full knowledge that the blind ideologues on this site - you know who you are - will leap upon US exploitation.
And never bother their pre-programmed heads to look at what is being exploited.

I also note that Michael Semple, he who is often almost demonised in the Phoenix, seems to be an advocate of a more judicious approach to an unsightly affair.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011...?newsfeed=true

ah yes the article that seems to almost suggest that Nato are happy when Afghan civilians are mass murdered by supposed Taliban . Lest anyone be deluded the Taliban are potentially worse than Russians or Yanks when running Afghanistan. Note I say potentially ......

[Count Bobulescu]

I post this in full knowledge that the blind ideologues on this site - you know who you are - will leap upon US exploitation.
And never bother their pre-programmed heads to look at what is being exploited.

I also note that Michael Semple, he who is often almost demonised in the Phoenix, seems to be an advocate of a more judicious approach to an unsightly affair.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011...?newsfeed=true

Good piece. The situation is clearly Black and/or White or somethin. If Obama is re-elected and sticks to his pledge of having the US out by 2014, I can’t see the remains of NATO sticking around for much longer, and so back to square one

[Kev Bar]

http://soundcloud.com/calvert-ink/ta...nda-dispatches

I remember writing a similar story back in the day about Cambodian Gov grunts using walkie talkie to engage in radio burst warfare with the Khmer Rouge.

[C. Flower]

I post this in full knowledge that the blind ideologues on this site - you know who you are - will leap upon US exploitation.
And never bother their pre-programmed heads to look at what is being exploited.

I also note that Michael Semple, he who is often almost demonised in the Phoenix, seems to be an advocate of a more judicious approach to an unsightly affair.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011...?newsfeed=true

Everyone has an ideology. People don't just have formless random thoughts.

To my mind, a blind ideologue is a person who doesn't know what their own ideology is. Some people are not aware that their thinking is formed by the ideology dominant in the society in which they live. They take it for granted that their thinking is the only right and proper view of how things are.

But even ideologically driven people of opposing viewpoints, in sharing information and focusing on evidence, may come to certain shared conclusions about events.

[C. Flower]

[quote]

Yes...but the Afghan war to which I refer was the war against the Russians.

This is what you said.

Yes that would have been the time the US decided to back the "holy warriors" in their war against Najibullah's Soviet backed communist regime whose sway never fully extended across the vast country which was devoid of any modern communications systems.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Najibullah

Najibullah was not elected President of Afghanistan until 1986, by which time the US had been backing the warlords for seven years.

[C. Flower]

To clarify,

From the U.S. perspective, the anti-Soviet war in Afghanistan began in 1978, when a coup d'état brought a communist regime to power in Kabul. Over the next year, armed resistance grew, a trend which triggered approaches to the CIA by Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Plans began to be drawn up for reversing “the current Soviet trend and presence in Afghanistan,” and in the summer of 1979, Carter approved covert aid to mujahedin guerrillas. Although this aid did not include arms, it provided nonmilitary supplies and cash with which weapons could be purchased. Six months later, the Soviets sent troops into Afghanistan, a move which immediately led Carter's National Security Adviser to advocate “more money as well as arms shipments to the rebels,” both directly and via Pakistan, China, and Islamic countries. For the next decade, the CIA aided the guerrillas, at first with weapons purchased from China, Egypt, and Pakistan, then with increasingly sophisticated U.S. arms (including Stinger missiles, shipped to the mujahedin at the same time as to UNITA). All told, U.S. aid in arms and cash totaled some $2 billion. Up through the late 1980s, American assistance was supplied through the Pakistani intelligence service (ISI), which also provided training; except on rare occasions, the CIA did not deal directly with the rebels. In addition, Saudi Arabia contributed significant sums of money to the resistance until, by the end of the 1980s, its financial role was greater than that of the U.S.

There were a few months only between the CP coming to power, some "armed resistance" but no room for a war, and after pages of random verbiage claiming there was, no evidence that there was one, until boosted up by billions of US dollars.

[Kev Bar]

Everyone has an ideology. People don't just have formless random thoughts.

To my mind, a blind ideologue is a person who doesn't know what their own ideology is. Some people are not aware that their thinking is formed by the ideology dominant in the society in which they live. They take it for granted that their thinking is the only right and proper view of how things are.

But even ideologically driven people of opposing viewpoints, in sharing information and focusing on evidence, may come to certain shared conclusions about events.

A belief in not believing has never struck me as dominant.
Though I do not dispute that a suspicion of any point of view is a point of view in itself.


Neither do I dispute that the US exploits and tries to work to its advantage any given situation ... but I see it as the exploitation of a given reality as opposed to the creation thereof.

I think the Afghan 'blowback' testifies to the fact that he who piggybacks can be thrown.

[C. Flower]

"Kabul before the Taliban" - recently tweeted photos of women in the 1970s.

[Sam Lord]

It certainly seems to have modernised significantly through the 1950s and 1960s. In the 1970s Kabul was a big draw on the hippie trail.

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=id2XoHZIleE&feature=related"]Modern Afghanistan in 1950s - 60s - YouTube[/ame]

The gap between rich and poor, however, was simply too great to ensure social stability.

And then it became a pawn in the superpower conflict pushing it back decades.

Hard to see any particularly bright future for it now.

[C. Flower]

It certainly seems to have modernised significantly through the 1950s and 1960s. In the 1970s Kabul was a big draw on the hippie trail.

Modern Afghanistan in 1950s - 60s - YouTube

The gap between rich and poor, however, was simply too great to ensure social stability.

And then it became a pawn in the superpower conflict pushing it back decades.

Hard to see any particularly bright future for it now.

I have a lot of hope for the region

http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/20...13/243519.html

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/10/17/wo...ack/index.html