http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/03/general-russia-supplying-taliban-fighters-170323161613169.html
>The top US general in Europe said on Thursday he has seen growing Russian influence on the Afghan Taliban, and raised the possibility that Moscow was helping supply the fighters.
>"I've seen the influence of Russia of late - increased influence in terms of association and perhaps even supply to the Taliban," Army General Curtis Scaparrotti, who is also NATO's Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, told a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.
>Taliban officials have told Reuters news agency the group has had significant contacts with Moscow since at least 2007, but added Russian involvement did not extend beyond "moral and political support".
>Nicholson testified that Russia is giving the Taliban encouragement and diplomatic cover in order to undermine American influence and to defeat NATO, but he did not address whether Russia is supplying the group.
>>124596
>US backed the taliban against the Russians.
>Russians now back the taliban against the US
pottery?
>>124597
Maybe, but the US is spreading freedom, Russia is spreading autocracy
>>124603
its true
>>124603
As we've seen, freedom in the Middle East is basically freedom to go apeshit on rival clans.
>>124603
Autocracy is the only system that can actually keep the peace in the Middle East.
>>124596
Couldn't that accidentally make the Taliban a legit government if a country negotiates with them?
>>124678
im laughin to hard to fap, thanks asshole.
>>124603
>the US is spreading freedom
Yeah, they're freeing the blood out of brown children and soldiers caught in friendly fire one ounce at a time.
>>124678
There have been peaceful democratic elections in the middle east, it's just that if they wanna be peaceful, they get dominated by Islamist parties.
Democracy is great but as a freestanding institution it may as well extinguish itself. It requires a lot of cultural and governmental and perhaps even some economic framework underpinning it to actually produce something sustaining that can be trusted to look out for the rights of everyone as well as the collective development of the country.
Like, universal basic education, secularism, a constitution that guarantees free press and expression, well-balanced separation of powers, independent judiciary, low wealth inequality (especially for a nation with a resource curse).
I think along side democracy, what we need to figure out is how to push for genuine liberalism in the Islamic World.
>>124678
>Autocracy is the only system that can actually keep the peace in the Middle East.
The Kurds have been doing pretty well for themselves in the middle east as well as doing most of the actual fighting against ISIS and other terrorists, and they're socialists. Many middle eastern countries were actually becoming more secular a few decades ago but then the US had to go fuck things up by supporting religious fundamentalists over there because the people pushing for secularization were commies (gasp!). If the west had just stayed the hell out of the middle east there wouldn't be so many issues there recently.
Another Russian US equivalence story.
>>124778
>I think along side democracy, what we need to figure out is how to push for genuine liberalism in the Islamic World.
They had it in the fifties. We've all seen the memes. The Islamic revolutions in the 60's killed it. Didn't help that the CIA was fucking up the liberals in the Middle East out of the fear of them turning coommunist.