Word: sovietize
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
During the same years, the CIA, intent on seeing a Soviet defeat in Afghanistan, was also funneling money and arms to the mujahedin. Milton Bearden, who ran the covert program during its peak years--1986 to 1989--says the CIA had no direct dealings with bin Laden. But U.S. officials acknowledge that some of the aid probably ended up with bin Laden's group anyway...
...will likely fall short of a full-scale invasion. The last army to march successfully through Afghanistan was led by Alexander the Great. In 1842, when a British expeditionary force of 17,000 was forced to retreat from Kabul to Jalalabad, just one man--an army doctor--survived. The Soviet Union's mighty Red Army invaded Afghanistan with tanks and helicopter gunships in 1979; 10 years later, cold and defeated, its troops left the place hoping never to see it again...
...sympathizers and operatives in dozens of countries, all sharing a messianic vision of an Islamic holy war and posing new challenges to the forces of counterterrorism. Many of bin Laden's foot soldiers have combat and logistical experience gained in the Afghan war of 1979-89; indeed, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan turns out to have been one of those events that unexpectedly changes the world. It hastened the demise of the Soviet Union, as poorly trained young Soviet troops got massacred in hostile terrain. It convinced American policymakers, who supported the Afghan resistance, that the U.S. could wage...
...compared with the rest of the world, the U.S. takes the middle road when it comes to airport security. Israel's El Al still sets the highest standards (see box). Put up against Swiss-cheese operations such as those in the countries once part of the Soviet Union or Thailand, where corruption at the airport is endemic, the U.S. is a model of tightness. But compared with the top airports in Europe and Asia, the U.S. continues to lag. In India, only ticketed passengers can enter the terminal. Hong Kong and Kuala Lumpur put international bags through a rigorous screening...
...Taliban and its heavy-handed religious police. Residents have learned to live alongside an array of the Taliban's so-called foreign guests, including Arabs, Chechens, Kurds, Uzbeks and Pakistanis--all believed to be in Afghanistan for secret military training. In the 1980s, Washington fueled Afghan resistance to the Soviet invasion by passing billions of dollars of covert aid to mujahedin fighters. Once the Soviets pulled out, the mujahedin turned on one another, and the country descended into civil war. When the Taliban--a band of warrior students--swept into Kabul five years ago, it imposed a ruthless Islamic rule...