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0 pointssampo10y ago0 comments

> it would probably look relatively similar to what it does today.

So, speculatively, even without the US supporting the mujahideen in the 80s, the Soviets would have eventually left, Taliban or something similar would have kind-of-won the civil war, and Afghanistan would be about the same chaos as it is now. So why is US blamed for "destabilizing Afghanistan" and "unintended consequences", if the area would probably be similarly unstable even in this alternate timeline? And if bin Laden and such are anti-American in our universe, even after having received American support in the 80s, they surely would be anti-American in the alternate timeline, too?

So if the US meddling didn't change anything for the worse, why all the blame?

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chimeracoder10y ago

> why is US blamed for "destabilizing Afghanistan" and "unintended consequences", if the area would probably be similarly unstable even in this alternate timeline? if the US meddling didn't change anything for the worse, why all the blame?

Well, first, I didn't say that the US "didn't change anything for the worse". I just said that it wouldn't have resulted in a more stable regime, ceteris paribus. Stability is not the only axis on which to evaluate whether the result would have been better or worse[0].

And we're just talking about the US's actions. The US and the USSR are both responsible for the current situation; the "blame" doesn't have to be assigned unilaterally to one single entity.

[0] I'm also deliberately not defining "stability", because that's already an incredibly hefty topic when discussing middle eastern history and politics.

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