NP:rhetoric and belief

[kevin at limits.org]

On Sat, 29 Sep 2001, pynchon-l-digest wrote:
> From: "rhaenda" <rhaenda at swbell.net>
> Subject: NP:rhetoric and belief
>
> This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
>
> Two observations on recent postings:=20
> 1) Much is made by some over U.S. responsibility for the plight of the =
> Afghani people due to previous U.S. support for bin Laden, u.s.w.  Yet, =
> I have have not seen (or perhaps I have failed to notice) any =
> attribution of responsibility for the same privatio boni given to the =
> people of the former Soviet Union.

[snip]

Everyone knows the Soviets did terrible things in Afganistan.  It hasn't
been that long since American news media would tell their
readers/viewers/etc. what the Soviets were doing there.  Tom Clancy
readers followed the glorious struggle of the Mujahadeem on side-stages of
_Red Storm Rising_ and _Cardinal of the Kremlin_, and Bond fans saw them
selling opium in that first Timothy Dalton flick.  It's fucking obvious
that the Soviet Union, through its Red Army, invaded and for 10 years made
war upon the Afgani people.

The reason Americans, in general, don't blame the Soviet Union for
bin-Laden is that Soviet war upon the people of Afganistan was a given, an
unavoidable evil, a constant, if you will, from 1979 on.  The American
foriegn policy to deal with that situation, however, _was_ controllable,
as was and American Middle East policy in general.  In 1989, the USA
turned its back on Afganistan, which has turned out to be a mistake,
because it let a whole lot of Afganis down, ya know?  Bin-Laden's big
gripe against the USA, its military presence in Saudi Arabia -- nope,
that's not Brezhnev's doing, either.

It's much the same reason Americans in the 60s didn't blame their mistakes
in Vietnam on the French.