Does anyone here recognize this photo?

[pnorman]

Is it authentic, or is it a Photoshop job?

[liberal N proud]

1. Yes, we need to give credit to Reagan for the death of bin Laden

[bbinacan]

2. Looks like photoshop

Look at Reagan in the picture vs. the rest.

[Sonoman]

8. That's because he wasn't there - never was.

Just some doddering, drooling old fool who just hung around and couldn't remember Cabinet members' names.

An empty suit with multi-hued hair.

Sonoman

[LiberalAndProud]

3. Most likely it is authentic. Back then the Taliban were the good guys.

They were fighting the good fight against the Soviets at the time.

[yawnmaster]

19. Back then there was no Taliban to speak of. The Taliban really emerged after the Soviets left...

Afghanistan and a power vacuum was created.
Whereas one might say that the Taliban is Mujahideen, one cannot say that all Mujahideen are Taliban.

[Uben]

4. All these gentlemen went on to become....

...successful convenience store owners and cab drivers. Series!

[Enrique]

5. here's video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3f9mlUQzJA

the photo is real, but the quote I think is out of context, but I'm not sure.

[TheBigotBasher]

6. Both are real.

Watch Rambo 3 to remind yourself about how the US viewed the Taliban back then.

[Sonoman]

10. I think the quote was about the Contras.

But the Old Fool would've said it about the Taliban if someone had reminded him.

Sonoman

[customerserviceguy]

7. As I recall

Reagan made that statement about the contras, not those we financed to get the Soviets out of Afghanistan.

[Travis_0004]

9. The Afghans were fighting the soviets, durring the cold war.

[Solly Mack]

11. Those are the "Afghan Mujahideen Commanders" and the year is 1983

http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/archives/photographs/atwork.html

According to the Reagan Archives.

[eridani]

15. Did they remove this already? I'm not seeing it. n/t

[Solly Mack]

16. it's the 17th picture down on the page. Small pictures.

and here's the info on the quote

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/general-article/reagan-iran/

[Luminous Animal]

12. Unrec for misinformation. Reagan's quote was in regards to the Contras.

Another vile group that we supported.

[PCIntern]

13. You're right...but if we played the game like the Rethugs,

we'd not only let it stand, we'd AMPLIFY it and say that Reagan stated that these guys are almost biblical in stature...and that one of them said that he invented the steam railroad engine (rather than the Internet).

[PoliticAverse]

14. The photo is real... but..

This was a meeting at the White House on 2/2/1983 with "Afghan Freedom Fighters"/"Afghan Mujahideen Commanders".

(edited to correct date/title).

The photo can be seen online at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library Archives at:
http://www.reagan.utexas.edu/

The "Moral Equivalents of America's Founding Fathers" comment is one attributed to Reagan
concerning the Nicaraguan Contras.

[kentuck]

17. Who is the tall one on the left??

Could it be??

[defendandprotect]

18. US/CIA funded the Taliban/AlQaeda via ISI-Pakistan ... US went into Afghanistan

6 months before the Russians came in --

We did this to "bait the Russians into Afghanistan ... in hopes of giving them

a Vietnam-type experience."

We didn't want to be the only losers!!



We also created/printed/shipped those violent and obnoxious text books we heard so much about

on our TV's and shipped them into the ME in hopes of creating a more violent form of Islam!

[Gregorian]

20. I did a Tineye, and it appears to be real. Here's a link to some discussion.

http://www.legitgov.org/Reagan-calls-Taliban-moral-equivalent-Americas-founding-fathers

'In 1982, Ronald Reagan dedicated the Space Shuttle Columbia to the resistance fighters in Afghanistan.'

[pnorman]

21. I was certain about the sentiment, almost certain about the excxt words,

but a bit dubious about the image. I'll probably use it, but with a suitable caveat. Thanks to all for the input!

[pnorman]

22. That grapic had been passed on to me by a friend. Had I run with it without first checking,

I'd probably have been debunked and ended up with egg on my face. But it'd have been an honest error; a conflation of two separate but related examples of Reagan mendacity. But it'd also have been light years removed from the sort of shit that the Freek Republic types swallow whole these days1