The Soviets did not fight the Taliban. It was a war of imperialism and the Taliban came about after the end of the conflict. The warlords that the Soviets fought lost to the Taliban. The warlords can now go back to the way that they lived before, supplying opium to the world.

The Soviet army was made up of conscripts who only wanted to go home. Much like Vietnam, eh?

>You will remember that before we took out the Taliban consensus was that Afghanistan was a place that had swallowed up the British and the Russians and we would suffer 10,000 casualties. In fact, we used about 200 CIA officers, 300 Special Forces/Delta and Seals and $50 million or so in cash. Our casualty rate was lower than traffic deaths in New York in one day. I would be very surprised if you could find any international opinion in late September 2001 that thought taking out the Taliban would be akin to defeating Trinidad and Tobago.
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