Wasn’t this the strategy in the 1980s to appose the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan? The Regan Administration (with the approval of a Democratic Congress) made the deliberate choice to arm the ‘lesser of two evils’ in the form of radical Muslim fighters going after the Soviet occupation army.

I wonder what happened to all those militiaman we trained and equipped after the Soviets left. Oh yeah, many of them went on to form the nucleus of Al-Qaeda.

Gee I wonder what will happen to all these guys we’re training and equipping now in ten years.

Exactly so and what, I wonder, would Mr. Kaplan say to this observation. Shouldn't we really just boogie?

Boogie is right lol.

The Reagan Administration did fund the mujahadin in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation. However, in the words of Ronald Reagan at the time, these were not the "lesser of two evils" rather "freedom fighters."

exactly. it's this kind of no thinking beyond what would make the headlines better next week that got us into this mess.

True Regan call them ‘Freedom Fighters’ but when looking at which ‘Freedom Fighters’ to provide arms to the CIA made the deliberate choice to go with the most radical elements of the resistance. It was felt that the radical Muslim groups were less likely to compromise or cut deals with the Soviets thus ensuring a long bloody conflict. The goal wasn’t so much to drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan as to bleed them for as long as possible.

It was well known at the time that such groups had contact with anti-US and anti-Israeli groups that were involved with terrorist acts against western interests but the short term goal of bleeding the Soviets won out over the long term problems of giving those groups access to US weapons and training.