What was the United States’ role in the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan?

Question by yurbbylove: What was the United States’ role in the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979?
I want to know what did the United States think about Afghanistan and its perspective of the invasion. Also what was the outcome of the invasion, and why did the Soviet invade Afghanistan in the first place?

Answers and Views:

Answer by James E
Basically Afghanistan was an up and coming nation, they were working on equal rights for women and had health/education systems, the problem was however they were friends with the USSR not the USA. The USA didn’t like this so they supplied aid/funds to an Islamic fundamentalist group call called the “Taliban” who then attempted to overthrow the pro-soviet government.

The USSR had no choice but to send a large army to Afghanistan to support the government their. It was an ingenious trap the USA had planned, it forced the USSR into its own “Vietnam” a war they could not win. The USA continued to supply/fund the Taliban and sent CIA agents to train them. The mass troops/hardware that the USSR was forced to commit to the war in Afghanistan significantly weakened their combat effectiveness in Europe.

Eventually the USSR was forced to pull out of Afghanistan just as America had been forced to pull out of Vietnam. The US backed Taliban then took charge of the county (something that would come back to haunt them)

On a lighter note, in the films “Rambo 3” and “James Bond: The Living Daylights” both hero’s fight alongside the Taliban against the USSR, showing how the “mood” was in those days

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