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> Not crazy Arabs and their religious agenda. I may be misremembering, but weren't the Americans supporting the crazy religious? At the time, they were conside
by saint_fiasco 11y ago
> Not crazy Arabs and their religious agenda.
I may be misremembering, but weren't the Americans supporting the crazy religious? At the time, they were considered less scary than the godless communists.
- andreasvc 11y agoYes the US initially supported the Taliban in Afghanistan.
- AndrewKemendo 11y agoDifferent group and location, but yes, we backed the mujahideen in Afghanistan against the soviets. The enemy of my enemy etc...
- nickpsecurity 11y agoExactly. Tools to be used in a proxy-war with little thought on long-term consequences.
- AndrewKemendo 11y agoEh, not really. There is a whole group within the Pentagon that evaluates long term strategy, J5. The problem is, it's impossible to tell what will happen in the years after a particular conflict subsides on either side.
- nickpsecurity 11y agoI could've told you whether a coup was likely to increase or worsen stability: always default on the latter if imperialism is the motive. Likewise, financing dictators' wars or religious nutjob's training in beating superpowers. Either this group you mentioned is incompetent or nobody listened to them. I'm going with the latter since many of the documents warn of high risk of blowback.
- AndrewKemendo 11y agoExcept you would probably be wrong. I know the crowd here likes to think they can solve all problems better than the status quo but the reality is that for these kinds of things data doesn't help much. See: COIN