Title: Ronald Reagan dedicated the Space Shuttle Columbia to the people of Afghanistan Source:
you tube URL Source:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abkg94I_uWo Published:Aug 25, 2010 Author:NA Post Date:2010-08-25 20:01:57 by Ferret Mike Keywords:None Views:15553 Comments:24
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"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.'
The video this is from is is the BBC documentary, The Power of Nightmares.
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.
