An interesting narrative. I learnt a few things from it. I do respect Ahmad shah massoud for his sincerity.

Let’s be objective and put aside some biases. Afghans ended an oppressive monarchy and chose to go down the road towards socialism. Usa, forever terrified of the bogeyman of communism, hastened to create opposition by fomenting fears of Islamic hardliners. Mujaheddin were trained and armed to the teeth by Americans to fight communism. Period. Not for any altruistic reasons. They created a force which spun out of control into complete fundamentalism and became Taliban. Mujaheddin and Talibaan are basically creatures of America. Russia was out and Islamic fundamentalism rooted firmly in place. Pakistan was paid handsomely by usa to groom them. Pakistani generals and ISI grew fat on handouts and we can all see what that’s done to Pk. So I don’t see america as a benign actor in this drama at all. We’ve all seen pics of Bush family shmoozing with bin Ladens.. The force we trained came back in a big way to bite us and the rest of the western world. It was typical shortsightedness on our part. Just as abandoning hapless Afghans to the mercy of extremists of our own creating is. A monster with multiple heads — including al Qaida.

Incidentally, reckless cowboy drone bombing by usa In Pk, Afghanistan and Mid East radicalized youth who lost entire clans and became suicide bombers. What more could they lose?

One invasion (ussr) does not justify another. Incidentally, Iraq had no WMDs. Libya, Syria, Yemen have been destroyed. For no good reason apart from feeding American military machine and imperialist hubris.