By Judi McLeod
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
On February 2, 1989 a long convoy of Soviet trucks under a mushroom cloud of dust made its final trek from Kabul afghanistan in a troop withdrawal that had started the previous May.
The trucks were full of tired Soviet soldiers, some of them waving rifles whose barrels were graced for the occasion with field flowers. afghans standing along the roadside to see them off were in the most jubilant of moods. Under equipped, rug merchants and farmers out of the field had fought the enemy in their bare feet. In the end it was their day, for they had put the run to the most dreaded force on earth--the Russian Red army.
Don't know where documentary filmmaker Michael Moore was in 1989, but according to him, the former Soviet Union withdrew from afghanistan after only 36 weeks.
That's part of the history lesson the ever voluble Moore gave in his Thanksgiving weekend letter to “Friends”, entitled Cut and Run, the Only Brave Thing to Do.
It didn't take Moore long to order the Democrats to pull the troops from Iraq “NOW, not six months from now.”
“apologize to our soldiers and make amends. Tell them we are sorry they were used to fight a war that had NOTHING to do with our national security.”
always too big for his elephantine britches, the man made famous by Fahrenheit 9/11 and who hides behind a camera, is now in charge. Indeed, the 10-cent general is now giving the orders.
This is a general who doesn't know that the Soviet Union did not quit afghanistan in 36 weeks, but fought afghans for 9 long years.
Moore: “They (the Soviets) did so and suffered hardly any losses as they left.”
They lost dignity and face and allowed the victorious Mujahideen to show to the world that the legendary Red army, feared by so many had changed dramatically--it could be beaten.
Moore is correct in his statement that “a civil war ensued”, but is more than a little presumptuous when he says, “the bad guys won. Later, we overthrew the bad guys and everybody lived happily ever after. See! It all works out in the end!”
afghan hero ahmad Shah Masoud, the Northern resistance leader fighting toe to toe with the Taliban, would be surprised to hear that the bad guys won. Masoud, affectionately dubbed “the Lion of the Panjir Valley” for his valour fought the Soviets and the Taliban after the Soviet withdrawal. He would have been still there fighting, but two days before 9/11 Osama bin Laden had Masoud murdered by assassins posing as photographers, and the rest as they say is history.
Not a shoot-from-the-lip Michael Moore revised history, but one paid for in blood by afghans who defied Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, who had used as his excuse for going into afghanistan, the necessity to drag the ignorant afghans kicking and screaming into the 21st century.
The quintessential Hollywood malcontent, Moore makes the perfect armchair critic. Never fought with the coalition of the willing a single day in his life, but an expert on the exit strategy all the same.
Canada Free Press founding editor Most recent by Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck. Judi can be reached at: judi@canadafreepress.com
Pursuant to Title 17 U.S.C. 107, other copyrighted work is provided for educational purposes, research, critical comment, or debate without profit or payment. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for your own purposes beyond the 'fair use' exception, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. Views are those of authors and not necessarily those of Canada Free Press. Content is Copyright 1997-2024 the individual authors. Site Copyright 1997-2024 Canada Free Press.Com Privacy Statement