Im gonna be honest i dont remember if this is the right comm
fighting against misogynistic druglords and apartheid is bad actually, dont’ya know?
i swear to god, the maoist to neocon pipeline is nonexistent, because oftentimes there never was a difference in the first place.
Apartheid was in southern Africa, not the horn. In the horn the USSR backed the derg, a genuinely fucky “socialist” regime, and its wars on its neighbors
U could use basically the same argument to support US imperialism in Afghanistan. “Fighting against misogynistic terrorists is bad, dont ya know?” Soviet intervention in Afghanistan wasnt bad cuz they were fighting the mujahideen, it was bad cuz they imposed a brutal occupation to prop up an already unpopular government, which never beat the mujahideen either and very likely made more ppl support them, just like the US occupation made more ppl support the taliban. This is all Americas fault for arming the mujahideen (baiting the soviets into war was their plan from the start, after all), yes, but the USSR wasnt good in this war either (idk if id actually call it “social-imperialism”, but it wasnt good either way)
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Where in my comment do i defend either the muj or nato? This is a thing i cant stand about some leftists on the internet, even when u admit the soviet occupation failed and was riddled with atrocities, if someone critizises it even when i critizise the US at the same time u instantly launch into an angry rant calling me a salafist nato simp. Jfc
Energy
her: the ussr was just as bad as nato, actually
me: fuck you for thinking that
her: where did i defend nato?
what exactly is me misinterpretating things here?
and before people get the wrong idea, no i am not claiming that the ussr was perfect, nor that the intervention was the correct course if action. im not even claiming that afghans arent justified in their dislike of the ussr.
all i want to say is that people who spew outright state department talking points shouldn’t get to call themselves socialist.
“U could use basically the same argument to support US imperialism in Afghanistan” =/= “the ussr was just as bad as nato, actually”
“Fighting misogynistic terrorists” was the justification for Bush’s war of terror on the Arab world.
Pointing out that you’re using the same argument to defend the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan doesn’t mean OffSeasonPrincess is equating the USSR and NATO.
She’s equating your argument and Bush’s.
We should own and learn from our losses instead of papering over them.
fuck you for thinking that
shouldn’t get to call themselves socialist
Your attitude is really poor and shows very little goodwill towards the other users of the site
Where in my comment do i defend either the muj or nato?
you stated that the soviet occupation was morally equivalent to the us intervention. wouldn’t it be nazi apologia to claim the reich was as bad as the people who fought against it, even if those people had comitted warcrimes?
The user is saying that СССР made a mistake in how they tried to intervene against the USA. My takeaway then is: СССР should have supported the Afghani people, instead of becoming a 3rd party. At least that’s how I read it.
If both of you agree and the issue is communicating your thoughts, then we can all just move forward. Trying to find different interpretations of text, instead of resolving the underlying matter at hand, is very lib coded behavior.
СССР should have supported the Afghani people, instead of becoming a 3rd party. At least that’s how I read it.
if this was all her claims entailed, there would be no need to argue and everyone would be in agreement.
But instead she pretends like subjugating a nation for opium profits is actually the same as (again, admittedly in the wrong way) trying to defend a socialist state that explicitly asked for your assistance, since the soviet army committed human rights violations (though the much higher amount of atrocities from the various reactionary forces is somehow simultaneously irrelevant)
I said that “the soviets were right cuz they fought against islamic terrorists” os the same argument as “the us was right cuz they fought against islamic terrorists”. U are seeing shit i never said if u think im making any claims about which occupation was “more moral” (i dont care which one technically committed less war crimes)
A ww2 comparison makes zero sense here and idk how the fuck u even came to that conclusion. Is it just “the soviets were good guys in ww2 so they have to have been kinda good guys here too”?
It’s because you are using liberal idealist universal principles and not seeing that war, intervention and violence in general is simply a tool for the advancement of class interests. I don’t think anyone can say that the Soviet intervention and counterattack on Poland that aimed to conquer it would be a bad thing, especially in retrospect where that border with Germany could be used to intervene on the side of the communists, altering the future of humanity where Germany becomes Red instead of Nazi. Materialism doesn’t recognize these arguments outside of their material background. The Soviets invading Afghanistan was in support of a progressive regime, the american one is purely out of the class interest of the bourgeoisie.
If ur gonna make a “materialist” argument u also have to look at what the war actually materially accomplished, which is that Afghanistan itself got ratfucked and is stuck in a cycle of war and fundamentalism (arguably wouldve happened anyway, but the soviet invasion sure as shit didnt help), the USSR arguably collapsed faster/worse because of the disastrous war, the USSRs international standing got worse for it and the afghan jihad spread worldwide including to the countries of the now former USSR (again, couldve happened anyway, but the fact the muj could recruit a bunch of international volunteers to “fight against global communism” certainly didnt help with that). Defending an abject disaster cuz it was done for “progressive” reasons is extremely idealist and not slightly materialist
Is it just “the soviets were good guys in ww2 so they have to have been kinda good guys here too”?
the soviets tried to help a progressive régime, while the us and China propped up the most reactionary forces they could get their hands on, with the yanks later invading, in order to get control of the opium trade. definitely a “both sides bad” situation…
and the reason i brought up ww2 was because fascists and their sympathizers often resort to pointing fingers towards various real or imagined allied atrocities, in order to draw false equivalence, completely ignoring that the orders of magnitude of, as well as the ideological reasons for those actions make them completely incomparable! this is exactly what you and other liberals are doing with regards to afghanistan (“i dont care which one technically committed less war crimes”). interestingly, you dont seem as concerned with the warlords atrocities, which were much more numerous and vile than soviet violations
Calm down mate
Past few days have unleashed the worst takes I’ve ever seen it’s glorious. It will not be difficult to argue the alt media is still one of the most useful tools of the CIA in these circumstances
Is this tweet not tongue in cheek?
I would wish what they mean with Horn of Africa. I am certain they mean the Ogaden war. But why should the soviet union support pro-apartheid somalia under siad barre? Afterall Sharmarke was supported by the soviet union and Ethiopia was actually closer aligned politically with the warsaw pact.
What was wrong with the USSR in Afghanistan besides the fact they lost?
Isn’t that kind of enough proof that it wasn’t the right strategy? Warfare against guerrilla groups armed by the USA in their local territory was a horrible idea.
They could have applied other types of power in the region, and started to do that earlier. There were plenty of people in central Asia who could have been trained as “socialist missionaries” in the decades preceding that for example, bringing gifts and aid to the rural areas of Afghanistan in which the Mujahideen dominated. I’m just making up the example, but my point is that the fact that it wasn’t the right strategy is proven by the results.
Isn’t that kind of enough proof that it wasn’t the right strategy?
this kind of sidesteps the moral dimension of the Soviets were there to help a project to improve people’s lives and the US was there to grow opium and pretend to revenge 9/11
I’m having a conversation with comrades here. Obviously if I were having a conversation with a lib I’d make a point to spend some minutes talking about the cold war, how it’s ultimately the US fault funding and arming radical militias in the area, and how if Afghanistan had been in the area of control of the Soviet Union it would be similar to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan in terms of development and human rights nowadays.
it would be similar to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan in terms of development and human rights nowadays.
Bold to assume libs know what those countries are
Agreed! I’m always feeling like comrades don’t realize that being ‘correct’ but losing isn’t useful or valuable. Learning from those mistakes is the only way to interact with strategic losses
The Afghan government was already aligned with the soviets, they had a communist government. You are talking as if they were trying to conquer them and that was the wrong strategy. You are talking about a strategy that doesn’t make sense given the situation.
Well, the afghan government was also partially propped up by the Soviets.
The soviets lost because the afghan socialists were trying to do atheism in afghanistan. The failure lies with the policies of the afgahn communists, not really the soviet union (well maybe because they didnt correct them enough)
The soviets lost because the afghan socialists were trying to do atheism in afghanistan
That wasn’t the only issue, and the soviets told them to not do that anyway. State atheism is just an easy scapegoat.
Edit: And anyway, if we’re going to look at the history of communist movements. Not one has ever managed to maintain a fruitful relationship with religious authorities no matter how many concessions they give. State atheism is a necessity for any real communist movement at some point.
Nothing, necessarily. But the Communist Party of Afghanistan itself had some pretty hostile lines towards the peasantry, which didn’t help matters.
war crimes
