Jun 15, 2004
By M B Naqvi
... The state of Afghanistan has actually been destroyed, and the blame for it lies, to an indeterminate extent, on Reagan's thoughtless but enthusiastic support of the Afghan jihad throughout the 1980s. He fomented and abated the rise of religious extremism in Pakistan that is now threatening this country's stability ...
But what was being done in Afghanistan was done through the help and instrumentality of the Pakistan army. The first requirement of the 1979 war in Afghanistan was people imbued with anti-communist zeal. Pakistan helped manufacture as well as mobilize the Islamic extremists and trained and indoctrinated them into first-rate mujahideen.
The war was fought in the bogus name of Islam, funded and led mainly by the US government, though nominally by Afghanistan and Pakistani mujahideen ...
The Islam that Pakistanis knew was recognized on all sides, even by dictators, as being able to countenance democracy and all fundamental rights. But in the 1980s, the official propaganda by General Zia ul-Haq, the darling of Reagan and the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), was that Islam and democracy could not go together ...
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/FF15Ak02.html
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