Before the USSR invasion, Afganistan was a happening place, home of the finest horsemen in the world. I purchased many handmade items via a friend there years ago and treasure them.

Thank you Sharon, for your wonderful info.

During the Soviet invasion, a friend photographed the illegal use of Stinger missiles in Chitral as well as instruction manuals on the use of nerve gas written in Russian as well as photographs of captured nerve gas canisters. He also shot documentary footage of the war, including footage of moujahiddin armed with obsolete rifles fighting Russian tanks. We took this information to the major media outlets in New York and attempted to address the U.N. about it. NO ONE cared. Someone broke into our room at the San Moritz hotel on Central Park, rifled through the documents and stole my friend’s Italian passport. That same night, my wallet was lifted when we ate at a fancy Pakistani restaurant uptown. It was found days later in the light shaft of the elevator in the highrise housing the restaurant. Nothing was missing. My friend got travel documents from his embassy and left the country immediately. He was later killed, filming in the mountains of Afghanistan.

Later during the Soviet war, refugees…mostly women and children, mostly “peasants”….were housed in camps in Peshawar under the most arduous of conditions. Aid was not forthcoming from the United States. It was easy to radicalize the Afghani under these circumstances, since all they had to cling to was the Qu’uan. How can America possibly be surprised that the Taliban made such headway ? The Afghani were some of the finest people I have ever met. And in my opinion, Pakistan was and is one of the most dangerous places on Earth because of its irrationality and religious fanaticism. Young men are unemployed, urban, and cannot afford the bride-price to marry…a dangerous and easily swayed group. Many of the problems found there can be traced back to partition by the British and a displaced population. The same defensiveness, for many of the same reasons, exists in Israel, in my opinion.

Last month I stumbled upon some CIA-linked documents on the Internet. They detailed minerals, gemstones and other assets found in Afghanistan. The most interesting was the statistic documenting the fairly recent discovery of large deposits of uranium. I bookmarked these documents, but when I went back to review them a week later, they had been removed and in their place was a link requiring CIA clearance to access. There is so much more going on over there, such a different agenda, than what we are allowed to see in the popular press. I mourn the destruction of this wonderful place and the sorrow rained down upon its people.

@ Oh Whatever
The mess Afghanistan is in is definately in part caused by the Taliban, but their ascendency came after the nation was torn asunder by the Soviets, and unfortunately international support did not come to Afghanistan after the Soviets had left.

A war mentality brings out the worst in people and quite possibly religion and radical beliefs have an ‘in’ from the chaos and desperation caused by war.