"Soviet" solution in Afghanistan?

Their entire nation has never been developed. Ever. Attempts have been made but all have failed. Many people think that if the US pours enough money in we could just create an infrastructure. It is really not that easy. Certain steps and measures have to be taken beyond mere infrastructure building. for example, the American governemnt needs to find a president that can stand without us controlling the puppet strings. I think 99% of american soldiers who go to afghanistan experience the most severe case of culture shock possible.

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Originally Posted by Aemilius Paulus

LOL, epic burn coming up...

Yeah, it is called the Salang tunnel and the Ruskies you hate so much :tongue: built it...

Did you honestly think the Afghans could build something like that? :rolleyes: (it is sad, but I am actually serious here...)

It is sad, but before the Americans came, basically almost anything that large was built by the Soviets the Afghans and Americans fought so hard to keep out. Talk about irony. Really, I do believe the Soviet rule in Afghanistan would have done much good, but not at the cost of a war to institute that rule.

Afghanistan really is a Mediaeval place... Their tribal organisation and deep vendettas coupled with powerlessness of the gov't and the lawlessness do create rather very inhospitable conditions for any development.

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USAID actually built quite a few things in Afghanistan before Ivan's friends in the Democratic Republic popped up. Like Marjah, an agricultural project in the arid south of A-stan which NATO is ironically currently trying to capture from Taliban.

My point wasn't really that the Afghans can build anything though, bud, so your "burn" is misdirected. I was merely pointing out that there actually is infrastructure in Afghanistan. There are roads and there are cars and there are tractors. There are also automatic weapons, lots of them, and they're very well-used, too. But, despite Afghanistan's low level of development, we're not trying to pull a country out of the Stone Age by its hair people, despite all our misconceptions about the Third World. Albania also suffers from "tribal thinking" as you call it, and of course vendettas, but it's not suffering a debilitating civil war either.

“We did it in Bosnia, we can do it in Afghanistan.” You really want to do the same mistake? Bosnia is actually at the verge of chaos…

“When the Soviet hammer tried to crack the Afghan rock, the hammer shattered.” Thanks to blowpipes and potable AA misssiles provided by the CIA…
The final defeat of the Re Afghan came fron the fall of the berlin Wall then the Soviet Union, not from a military defeat…

The Moudjahidin can only loose the war. Karzai was not install by NATO, he was the successor of Massoud after the assassination of this one…
You do remember that US and allies were not really keen to see the Northern Alliance offensive…
So, if propally back-up by the Allies/US, the regime will never fall, and the Talibans will have to negotiate…

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You really want to do the same mistake? Bosnia is actually at the verge of chaos…

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That's one of the biggest overstatements I've seen recently. I'm really hoping you're not serious, though I doubt it

“That's one of the biggest overstatements I've seen recently”: Political system completely blocked, political “elites” playing games with nationalist old ghosts, a blackmail for secession, a Federation which is a federation just thanks to SFOR, a High Commissar who is a pro-consul as in the Bridge on the Drina, a process of reconciliation on hold thanks to The Hague proceeding, a permanent victimisation on all sides… Do you want to carry on?
If THAT is a success, Kosovo/va is a bright star in the sky of diplomatic achievement…

It's hardly about to return to the mid-90s was my point, bud. And that puts it a couple leagues above Afghanistan.

"It's hardly about to return to the mid-90s was my point, bud. And that puts it a couple leagues above Afghanistan." That is for sure. How ever, hardly a success story and the bright path of democracy...