Reply to Peter Herz

Submitted by Bidyut (United States), Aug 17, 2006 at 11:22

It is true that the USA chose confrontation only because its adversaries left no other option open; but the USA had an option of not to fight when it shouldn't have. The Vietnam War was not imposed on America by the Soviets but America chose to send its troops to stop the Vietcong from taking over South Vietnam. Similarly, the Afghan people never invited the Russians in Afghanistan; but the Russians invaded the country to proliferate communism, as a result the U.S had no choice but to support the mujahaddins to avenge the defeat in Vietnam. The Vietnam and Afghan war are very important events.

Firstly, because in both the cases the invaders was completely routed, secondly it became quite clear that to defeat your adversary you don't need a nuclear bomb, doesn't matter if your adversary has the biggest stockpiles of nuclear weapons. Thirdly, the Afghan war gave birth to militant Islam; and the U.S nurtured the Islamic fanatics all throughout the Afghan war. The question of ‘option’ doesn’t apply to the U.S because it chooses its enemies and its friends; nowadays its friends and enemies are determined lesser by supreme national interests and more by Unocal, Exxon Mobil, British Petroleum, Halliburton and the likes.

The U.S is responsible for the rise of Islamists and the Islamists may be responsible for the fall of the U.S. During the early nineties when the Islamists defeated Najibullah’s government in Afghanistan the U.S stood as a mute spectator, the then U.S ambassador to Pakistan traveled to Kabul to welcome the Islamic forces; and the Islamic forces of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and later the Taliban received financial favors from Unocal to provide Unocal an oil route to central Asia through Afghanistan. The U.S state department and the CIA had complete knowledge of what was going on in Afghanistan but the Clinton administration remained indifferent and thought that silence is golden.

Al-Qaeda proliferated in Afghanistan during the same period (1992-1997), by the time 9/11 happened it was too late for America, it had the option to stay away from mixing religion with politics and politics with oil but it chose not to; the result of not giving in to the temptation, as we see today, is catastrophic.

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