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New Interesting.
Maybe the lesson for Russia should have been that "buffer states" created by force aren't a good idea?

I wonder how that would apply to Ukraine today. Hmmm...

;-)

Afghanistan was complicated, even before the invasion - Wikipedia - Soviet War in Afghanistan. It's complicated today. Foreign military intervention, by anyone, wasn't a good idea. Dressing it up as being "for the poor suffering women" by the Spartacus Youth League true believers that I heard in college was laughable, even to me, back then. (Yes, there were parallels in Bush's invasion of Iraq as well...)

Thanks.

Cheers,
Scott.
New I don't think it was all that complicated.
First, we have, (Emphasis Mine), "Fifty-two American diplomats and citizens were held hostage for 444 days (November 4, 1979, to January 20, 1981), after a group of Iranian students, belonging to the Muslim Student Followers of the Imam's Line, who were supporting the Iranian Revolution, took over the U.S. Embassy in Tehran."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_hostage_crisis

Next we have (from your link), "The initial Soviet deployment of the 40th Army in Afghanistan began on December 24, 1979, under Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev."

So, 50 days after our embassy falls in Tehran, the Soviets invade Afghanistan. You think that was just a coincidence?
New Lots of things happened in November-December, 1979.
Wikipedia.

Vietnam invaded Cambodia the same day. Coincidence??

The folklore I heard was that the invasion had something to do with the things you cite (Iran, friendly client on the border), but it had more to do with the Brezhnev Doctrine:

As a direct result of the so-called ‘Brezhnev doctrine’, the USSR asserted its “right and duty” to go to war in foreign countries “if and when an existing socialist regime was threatened.”[5] This accounts for the increased overseas military, political, and economic support being given at this time to pro-Marxist régimes in Nicaragua, Angola, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Yemen, etc. Such expeditions were in line with the twin geopolitical objectives of the Soviet Union. The first Soviet policy consisted of preparing the Red Army for a potential conventional and, probably, nuclear confrontation with the US. Secondly, Moscow pledged to continue supporting “wars of national liberation” abroad.[6] The latter resulted in what some analysts cleverly called the Third World War.[7] It would be decisively challenged in the deserts and mountains of Afghanistan.


IOW, it's complicated. ;-)

That's my story, YMMV.

Cheers,
Scott.
(Who thinks coincidences are quite common, actually.)
New "Complicated" ??? Try.. invented, spun, macerated and contrived (?)
{{sheesh}}

Surely you see ... within your own measured degree-of- doubt/maybe?/Certainy, the extent to which every factoid is suspect on-its-face? We "Know" ever so little right now just as.. we "Knew".. as: the Shogunate conned most-of the vox populi, as they launched their Glorious OIl-war: to be paid for from Iraq's brilliant Oil Future. You dismiss Mike's deductions as-if it were obvious that: You? I? Mike ARE vastly-more-accurately informed of (any?) of the very-similar clusterfucks worldwide? Do we not delude ourselves (about our Bayesian filters' Effectiveness?)

Maybe the take-away from this thread and the several related ones is ~ despite the vaunted techno-communications du jour, the techno has mainly.. exponentially increased the potential (and actuality) of n3 ways of hiding, morphing, re-assembling of pics/videos: per whatever political overview is expected within the local readership.
With few authentic journalists actually employed today: diluted by legions of amateurs and cadres of specially-skilled spin-doctors: we fancy that we Must be 'better informed' than ever; in the famous quip of [whomever] " ..communications'? we have many; communication--not much.

So each one of us, via fav sources may indeed construct a version, trying not to "lead the witness" to our fav overview. From my equally-iggerant POV: Mike's version is quite as credible as the opposition's well-phrased diametric rebuttals. But I do not kid myself that, in 2014 I can discern enough-of the subtle, premeditated admixture of lying + (Deep State? or just our Shallow-one?) algorithmic bloviations. And, amidst this chaos of absent-truthiness-by-design:) BHO's proclivity for presenting to us pabulum-grade Gross SImplicities always!, whether re expectations small-or-large! in the M.E. and--what was our topic?--UKRAINE per se:

Imperialism is the clear direction of dis-USA governance and this has been so.. for most of my sentient life in this bastion of double-speak and jingoist simplicities. I expect 'closure' re say The REAL Ukraine Story sometime after the hegemony of the Owners of the US government's policies (not stated ones; Actual ones) have been starkly revealed. That could occur only After the hegemony was finally extirpated and--most improbably--a near-democracy had begun to function on these shores.

(All fanciful musings, of course: I be long Daid before This Tribe will ever risk the acute discomfort of any 'revolution' that is more than its usual verbal construct, always in-lieu-of-any Action (beyond token.)
We are thralls of our demands for ever-more-Comfort, 24/7. This defect alone may tip the planetary clusterfuck decisions into FAIL.

This is-all a fucking Shadow Play; its onion-layers almost totally within Stealth armor ... as viewable by my (or your?) radar. If that is not obvious via all previous rewritings of the "histories" we first viewed as tykes, onward? ..then I must have missed the Bay of Tonkin, the Grenada invasion, Nicaragua, the manufacured-financial crashes, everything to do with Cuba, "Command and Control" (the nuke near-disasters) [want 33 more?]


We are DROWNING in speculations.. especially on any Important topic! as never before. It will become worse.
Above all, each one of us is charged Not-to-be/become within the crowd: Gehabt, Kindern! We'vee Been Had more times than a ____
n'est ce pâs, mon frere?
tl;dr: From the rubble of 'Ukraine' may.. rise a proto-democracy quite before such a revisitation occurs in the smug, Entitled, anti-Reasoning dis-USA,
or my name isn't H. L. Mencken III (either.)
New What Russia could have learned from Afghanistan.
The West (and in particular the US) will come to the aid of anyone( be they thugs, fascists,religious zealots, megalomaniacs, psychotics of any stripe, etc.) who wishes to take up arms against Soviet Russian aggression. It's good for our economy. Plus, we haven't forgotten that those damned Rooskies tried to set up a Commynist Gubenment based on principles that are an anathema to the foundations of the Capitalist Tycoon Gubenments created in the West. We'll never forgive them for that, by God.
New Well.. the 'by God' kinda blows the comparo, eh? :-0
I mean.. the Official Soviet non-God/vacuum seemed about as creepy ... as many of the alleged practitioners (while being creeps also too)
... of the Corporate digital yes/no choices.
     In other news, over 3,500 dead in Ukraine. - (mmoffitt) - (15)
         Face it, Putin is responsible for the carnage! - (a6l6e6x) - (14)
             Does Putin bear some responsibility? Of course. - (mmoffitt) - (13)
                 Here's what it's like in Putin's Ukraine: - (a6l6e6x) - (12)
                     Why bother? - (crazy)
                     And here's what Kiev's governance in Odessa looks like. - (mmoffitt) - (10)
                         Should we trust the original source? - (Another Scott) - (9)
                             Don't like the source? How about the late Alex Cockburn's former haunt? - (mmoffitt) - (8)
                                 Heh. It takes two to tango. - (Another Scott) - (7)
                                     Heh. Afghanistan. - (mmoffitt) - (6)
                                         Interesting. - (Another Scott) - (5)
                                             I don't think it was all that complicated. - (mmoffitt) - (1)
                                                 Lots of things happened in November-December, 1979. - (Another Scott)
                                             "Complicated" ??? Try.. invented, spun, macerated and contrived (?) - (Ashton)
                                             What Russia could have learned from Afghanistan. - (mmoffitt) - (1)
                                                 Well.. the 'by God' kinda blows the comparo, eh? :-0 - (Ashton)

Check out Elimidate.. but not right after a meal, OK?
50 ms