> Unlike her, though, Hitch didn't support the Soviets in Afghanistan,
> right (a position that looks wiser by the day)?
I take your point, but isn't it conceivable that the SU's incursion redoubled and redirected US aid, intrigue and encouragement in the region, such that the SU's preemptive strike against trouble created twice that trouble - for them, for Afghanistan, and, for the US, and, ultimately, for the world?
I am tempted to conclude rather, from the whole story as I understand it (and with dollops of hindsight), that big nations attacking or attempting to take over small nations is as dodgy a practical idea as it is a moral proposition. One so rarely sees even the professed aims of the aggressor realised. Even less often sustained.
I mean, would the Taliban be in Kabul, or ObL in his cave, if the SU had not gone in mob-handed way back then?
Cheers, Rob.
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