Boldly Going
That bit of Goldfarbian idiocy below was prompted by reaction to this bit of Max Boot foolishness*:
Just as Islamist militants were emboldened by the Soviet Union’s retreat from Afghanistan in 1989, so they would be encouraged by our premature departure from Iraq.
As Yglesias notes, what happened after the withdrawal is fairly relevant. Yes, Bin Laden boasted about the withdrawal of the Soviets, so what did he do? Within the space of a few years, he had decided that it was time to start targeting…the main Western patron of the mujahideen! That sure showed Moscow what was what. Of course, the reasons he gave for doing this were related to the presence of U.S. forces in his home country and he used that presence to rally supporters behind him, just as today he and his ilk use the ongoing occupation of Iraq to rally support to their cause. So it is not really all that obvious that the answer is therefore to occupy Iraq indefinitely.
P.S. Yglesias writes in response to Boot:
But to argue that Mikhail Gorbachev should have continued the occupation of Afghanistan indefinitely in order to prevent a terrorist attack in Manhattan twelve years later is absurd.
That is absurd, but slightly less absurd than Goldfarb’s implication that Gorbachev should have continued the occupation of Afghanistan indefinitely to prevent terrorist attacks committed by people completely unrelated to the war in Afghanistan.
* I should add that it is the entire op-ed that is foolish, and not necessarily this particular line.
How sad to watch the level of political debate sink to such level. Neocons (more correctly – neofascists) are so tightly intertwined themselves to their hopeless Utopian policies that are now blinded themselves to a point of boring and stupid.
Sad, but logical.
I am a Conservative. Still (yet) a Republican. A delegate for Ron Paul. I will vote for Obama. The only way I can vote for McCain if Hillary is nominated (fat chance!)
Never thought it would come to that.
Gorbachev should have continued the occupation of Afghanistan indefinitely to prevent terrorist attacks committed by people completely unrelated to the war in Afghanistan.
But there is a connection there, no? Charile Wilson’s war did enable AQ in the end, no?
This is not to dispute the basic premise, but I am just a little confused.
The lesson (to me) is that we should have stayed out of Afghanistan, not that the Russians should have stayed.
We would be better off if the USSR still was there IMHO
But enabling AQ has no meaningful connection with apartment bombings in Moscow or the Beslan massacre. Those were the attacks that Goldfarb was talking about, and that was what I was referring to at the end of this post.
We probably should have stayed out of Afghanistan or at least not gotten into the business of arming mujahideen. I think we agree that it doesn’t make sense that continuing to fight pointlessly in Afghanistan made no sense for the Soviets. My point was simply that they did not suffer the attacks in 1999 and afterwards because they had withdrawn from Afghanistan, but because of something unrelated to Afghanistan. It’s as if we blamed 9/11 on leaving Vietnam–that is the equivalent of what Goldfarb was doing.
AQ has no meaningful connection with apartment bombings in Moscow or the Beslan massacre.
Got it. I missed that.
As a former resident of USSR I would say that I am glad that it is gone, Russia is better off this way and the world is better off with Russia not under a rule of geriatric marxist ideologs.
On the other hand being under an illusion of being singular superpower my beloved USA managed to damage its own soul the way no USSR would ever be able to.
So who won cold war? If the result is strong and growing stronger quite democratic by its standards Russia and USA stripped of its civil liberties, Habeas Corpus, americans spying on each other and the jewel of the human expreience, its Constitution raped by the likes of neofashists (we call them lovingly “neocons”) – who did win the “Cold War”?
alex, of course USA had won the cold war, but that win hit them hard in the head, especially the neocons.
The bolshevistskiy approach to foreign relationships will haunt us for a long time
Could it be that Warren Zevon is permeating the culture?
The lyrics of Zevon’s Turbulence:
Turmoil back in Moscow brought this turbulence down on me
Turmoil back in Moscow brought this turbulence down on me
Well, we’ve been fightin’ with the mujahaddin
Down in Afghanistan
Comrade Gorbachev, can I
Go back to Vladivostok, man?
Chechens coming home to roost?
Sorry, couldn’t resist.