Ronald Reagan dedicated the Space Shuttle Columbia to the Taliban

[Lorien]

Run time: 00:36 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abkg94I_uWo   Posted on YouTube: August 23, 2010 By YouTube Member: axis4peace2 Views on YouTube: 335   Posted on DU: August 24, 2010 By DU Member: Lorien Views on DU: 4789

 
"These gentlemen are the moral equivalents of America's Founding Fathers" ~President Ronald Reagan 1985

'In 1982, Ronald Reagan dedicated the Space Shuttle Columbia to the resistance fighters in Afghanistan.'

[Webster Green]

1. Saddam was our good buddy too.

Till he wasn't, and then we gave him kangaroo court, and a botched hanging.

We suck!

[nashville_brook]

2. holy hell.

[madrchsod]

3. charlie wilson`s war.....

the cia-us military did`t want the stringers in the afghan hands-afraid to piss of the russians and afraid the russians would get a stringer to take apart...charlie got the word to reagan and he signed on to arming the afghans with stringers and that was the beginning of the end.

[tclambert]

15. Stingers

Pretty sure you meant Stinger surface to air missiles.

[leeroysphitz]

17. What else would he have meant? n/t

[HysteryDiagnosis]

31. Ya never know these days, we could have put oil in their

waters and then gave them stringers. The fish might have made the Russians sick enough to leave.

[Grassy Knoll]

4. Kind of misleading title........

The "Taliban" took hold in 1996, 6 years after Raygun was in power.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taliban

[BeFree]

6. Right

In the years before, reagan sent them weapons and money so they could fight and eventually win control.

reagan was the taliban's chief supporter.

[Grassy Knoll]

10. They weren't called the Taliban........

Taliban ( students ) was not a term then, and a link to you statement would be appreciated .
Don't get me wrong I fucking hated RayGun.

[jobycom]

13. Sorry, that's wrong.

The Taliban was a group that sprang up in Afghanistan amongst the Pashtu in the mid 90s. The Mujahadeen fighters of Afghanistan during the 80s and early 90s were not the Taliban, and the Taliban rose up as a local group not connected to them.

I understand your confusion, I even believed that, too, for a while. In the late 90s and around 9-11 there were a lot of reports that the Taliban was the same group, largely because of it's connection to Usama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda. Since then we've learned a lot more abou them. The Taliban was a local group who sprang up in the Pashtu region of Afghanistan in 96 as a reaction against the lawlessness of the warlords who were dividing Afghanistan. They had strict laws and violent enforcement of them, and as the defeated a couple of the warlords, they were joined by others, including some of the remnants of the mujahadeen. The warlords they were fighting were also remnants of the mujahadeen, though, so you could even argue that the Taliban rose up against the mujahadeen.

Later, when Clinton tried to capture Bin Laden and Bin Laden hid out in Afghanistan, the leaders of the Taliban allied with him, and Bin Laden began helping the Taliban to train its soldiers. But in the beginning the Taliban was a completely separate group.

[Turborama]

11. I thought I heard him say "To the people of Afghanistan"

So, the OP thinks that at the time (or any other time, for that matter) "the people of Afghanistan" were the Taliban?

[Rhiannon12866]

5. Yup, Saddam was our ally back in the '80s

Under Reagan and Bush I, during the Iran-Iraq War. I never thought I'd get the chance to post this again, my favorite Mark Fiore animation on the subject. I posted this one countless times back in 2003...

http://www.markfiore.com/animation/whoops.html

[heliarc]

7. Rambo 2 is a good one to watch now too

Where rambo fights the Soviets alongside the Taliban in the name of America. Super Ironic Good times.

[SnakeEyes]

9. That was Rambo 3

[Historic NY]

8. Great & Bush the lessor blew it up before the invasion.

[roxiejules]

12. How Jimmy Carter Started the Mujahideen

Interview of Zbigniew Brzezinski

http://www.counterpunch.org/brzezinski.html

Q: The former director of the CIA, Robert Gates, stated in his memoirs "From the Shadows", that American intelligence services began to aid the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan 6 months before the Soviet intervention. In this period you were the national security adviser to President Carter. You therefore played a role in this affair. Is that correct?

Brzezinski: Yes. According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise: Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul.

[florida08]

14. Russia entered Afghanistan during

a civil war with prime minister Amin who wanted a more western slant government instead of traditional muslim, but he also lead a communist base government. This outraged the citizens and they joined with the mujahidin to overthrow him. They declared a jihad on his supporters and the russians who had entered to support Amin. Russia stated they had been asked to help and were not invading. The resistance were called terrorists.

Amin was shot by the russians and replaced with Babrak Karmal who now needed russian soldiers to protect him and the government. Afghan soldiers deserted to join with the mujahidin. The United Nations had condemned the invasion as early as January 1980 but a Security Council motion calling for the withdrawal of Russian forces had been vetoed by Russia. The United States seeing that Russia now had it's own Viet Nam began to supply surface to air missiles to the afghanis soldiers.

Mikhail Gorbachev took Russia out of the Afghanistan fiasco when he realized what many Russian leaders had been too scared to admit in public - that Russia could not win the war and the cost of maintaining such a vast force in Afghanistan was crippling Russia's already weak economy.

By the end of the 1980's, the Mujahidin was at war with itself in Afghanistan with hard line Taliban fighters taking a stronger grip over the whole nation and imposing very strict Muslim law on the Afghanistan population.

Contrary to popular myth, most of the mujahidin were not Islamic radicals, but rather a group of loosely allied Afghan tribes. Two main portions of the mujahidin, however, were Islamic fundamentalists.

Barak Karmal was unable to consolidate his power and in 1986 he was replaced by Dr. Mohammad Najibullah. He left Afghanistan for Moscow, where he died in 1996.

http://www.guidetorussia.com/russia-afghanistan.asp

[Green_Lantern]

16. I'm not a huge Reagan fan but this video is historically inaccurate

During the Afghan war of independence the US backed the mujahideen fighters, not the Taliban. The Taliban rose to power by getting rid of the "govt." the Mujahideen set up.

The US failed to set up a strong enough replacement for the Soviets and Afghanistan went into anarchy.

[mckara]

18. Except the Video Never Mentioned the Taliban...

with regard to Reagan.

The video is the BBC documentary, The Power of Nightmares.

[Green_Lantern]

19. Well the OP said it so evidentally he/she thinks the video is

Saying that.

Is somone implying we should have one nothing to help the Afghanis stop Soviets massacring them?

[Dr.Phool]

20. During the 2000 campaign, Dubya thought they were a rock band.

I guess they gave "stoners" a whole new meaning.

[AlbertCat]

21. Though one cannot blame people for not knowing the future...

.... you can see how ideological thinking (in this case acute anti-communism) leads to really bad judgments and stupid photo ops.

[Jefferson23]

22. ROFL, Thank you for posting Lorien..priceless. n/t

[humbled_opinion]

23. Yep I hear it all the time and I must agree...

Obama and Reagan exactly alike.... except one of them got a Nobel Peace prize and dedicated 30k men and women's lives to the people of Afghanistan......

Just sayin.

[cleanhippie]

24. Very misleading headline. He did not dedicate it to the "taliban".

Besides the Taliban took over in the mid-90's.

There is no need to stoop to right-wing tactics and mislead and misconstrue what was said.

[jtuck004]

25. The Mujahideen were fighting the Russians on March 22, 1982, and

a lot of very honorable people died for their country (including a few Americans who have fought and died alongside them). It wasn't until after the Russians left in 1989 that the Taliban began to raise their ugly heads, and they attacked the Mujahideen in the mid 90's.

Please correct this. It's wrong, and disrepectful to people who are are on our side.

There is more [link:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mujahideen|here..., and in the book "Three Cups of Tea" if you are interested.

[xocet]

26. False Equivalency....

The people of Afghanistan are not the same as the Taliban.

Come on! It is not necessary to lie to make President Reagan look bad.

[griloco]

27. What's the difference between Hitler, Saddam, Osama, & Noriega?

There's no evidence that Hitler was a friend of Reagan

[RoccoR5955]

29. How do you know that? n/t

[RoccoR5955]

28. FUCK RONALD REAGAN!!!!!

He called AIDS a gay cancer, refused to fund fundamental research, and in doing so, signed my younger brother's death certificate!

Fuck him, and any of his ideals. He was the biggest piece of shit that was elected President ever! (Dubya was appointed by the Supreme Court, and doesn't count)

[HysteryDiagnosis]

32. Ronny was a hero in so many peoples' eyes.... fortunately I

disagree with all of them.

[Exilednight]

30. This is from a BBC documentar called The Power of Nightmares ...............

I suggest checking it out. Take it with a grain of salt. It's a conspiracy theory three part series, but there is some truth if you know where to look.

[AzNick]

33. Reagan did NOT dedicate the shuttle to the Taliban

Those were different times and the Mujahideen were our buddies.

We failed in the aftermath of the conflict and did not assist the Afghans in building a nation, which allowed for a power struggle out of which the Taliban came out victorious.

Reagan had little understanding and so did anyone on this board (were they even alive or in age to comprehend the event back then) of what the situation really was on the ground.

[time_has_come]

34. I don't hear him say "Taliban"...? n/t