[*] US State Department Memorandum six months before the Soviet invasion: “The United States’ larger interest…would be served by the demise of the Taraki regime, despite whatever setbacks this might mean for future social and economic reform in Afghanistan… The overthrow of the DRA [Democratic Republic of Afghanistan] would show the rest of the world, particularly the Third World, that the Soviet’s view of the socialist course of history as being inevitable is not accurate” (reproduced in Cockburn and St. Clair’s Whiteout, pp. 262-63).
Thanks for the context. I agree that if the war is unjust, the individual events should have been avoided and are culpable to the one who is perpetrating the injustice.
I’ll need to look into it more carefully, but that looks pretty convincing that the US was unjust to get involved.
It was a result of the U.S. purposely undoing progressive reform in Afghanistan[*] and backing extremists to draw the USSR in and provoke a slaughter (then lying about it and saying they only funded extremists afterwards, only to admit this later); the U.S. then returned to assert control of the middle east due to oil pipeline plans/natural gas reserves. Oh and also the U.S. used the economic system that they had set up during occupation to starve Afghanis after they left. This wasn’t some silly accident, it was part of a plan that no matter what meant the destruction of Afghanistan and the murder of hundreds of thousands. It doesn’t matter if it was directly “on purpose.”
[*] US State Department Memorandum six months before the Soviet invasion: “The United States’ larger interest…would be served by the demise of the Taraki regime, despite whatever setbacks this might mean for future social and economic reform in Afghanistan… The overthrow of the DRA [Democratic Republic of Afghanistan] would show the rest of the world, particularly the Third World, that the Soviet’s view of the socialist course of history as being inevitable is not accurate” (reproduced in Cockburn and St. Clair’s Whiteout, pp. 262-63).
Thanks for the context. I agree that if the war is unjust, the individual events should have been avoided and are culpable to the one who is perpetrating the injustice.
I’ll need to look into it more carefully, but that looks pretty convincing that the US was unjust to get involved.