Afghan with muzzle loader vs Soviet draftee with AK-47. A few minutes and the Afghan has a new AK.
> And most
> of all, they wouldn't have become a transnational force. They would just be
> locals, and only a local threat. It was Saudi Arabia, under our
> encouragement, piping in not only money but all of its radicals that were
> making life tough at home by assassinating Fahd and taking over Mecca that
> really created -- I don't think that is too strong a work -- the
> contemporary international terrorist threat, distinct and different from
> terrorism as a tactic directed at occupiers.
Yes, but Pakistan & Iran were also supporting various factions.
Also, arguably the West created the opium trade there. Recent reports say Af is a huge source of illicit opium, hence heroin. To some exent, that is how Taliban & other groups finance themselves.
I was through Af in the mid-70s, before the Soviet invasion. I looked like a hippy and was offered hashish many times daily, by everyone from hotel & restaurant staff to army officers, in any amount up to multiple kilos, but no opium. I was offered opium in the Shah's Iran, and saw huge poppy fields in Turkey (mostly controlled, for medical use), but not Af. It may have been there, but it certainly was not common or conspicuous.
-- Sandy Harris, Quanzhou, Fujian, China