- a disproportionate share of U.S. arms went to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, "a particularly fanatical fundamentalist and woman-hater."'
- followers first gained attention by throwing acid in the faces of women who refused to wear the veil.
- followers first gained attention by throwing acid in the faces of women who refused to wear the veil.
- to export a composite ideology of nationalism and Islam to the Muslim-majority Central Asian states and Soviet Republics with a view to destroying the Soviet order."
- "What was more important in the world view of history?... A few stirred-up Muslims or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War."
Despite the objections of the CIA, the Reagan Administration was more than willing to provide the predecessors of the Taliban, Al Qaeda and ISIS with $6 billion of military equipment, including 1000 stinger missiles.
Of the approximately 600,000 Soviets that served in Afghanistan, 14,500 were killed, another 54,000 were wounded and 416,000 became ill with typhoid fever, hepatitis, and other serious diseases.
As long as these Moslem fundamentalists were fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan during the 1980's, America considered them "freedom fighters" and "the moral equivalents of American's Founding Fathers" - it is only when they redirected these same efforts toward the US that they became "terrorists!"