Come on, guys! The russian invasion --and the US support for muslim-fundamentalist "Afghan Freedom fighters" CREATED the Taliban. Just the way US bombing etc helped bring the Khmer Rouge into being.
You write about Afghanistan the was Alex C did in his notorious VVoice column -- Afghans a bunch of sheepstealing savages who needed to be civilized by the Soviets. That is not what happened, though. The russians did some good things, sure -- like girls' education in the big cities. but they also conducted a war against large portions of the civilian population, complete with anti-personnel bombs and all the stuff listers get rightly upset about when they're deployed by NATO. Generally people don't like having their countries be invaded, even by forces some on this list might describe as "objectively progressive."
Katha