Welcome Back, My Friends, To the War That Never Ends

A brief explanation of the five civil wars of Afghanistan:

In December 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan to shore up the Communist government that had taken over the country a year earlier by installing their own chosen Afghan leaders and helping the local Communist Party keep the populace in line. The Mujahideen Islamic rebels took up arms - many supplied by the United States - to defeat the Afghan Communists and the Soviet invaders who supported them, forcing the Red Army out after nearly a decade. Once the war was over, a new one began two minutes later to oust the Communist president, Mohammed Najibullah.

The second civil war lasted three years, from 1989 to 1992 until President Najibullah was overthrown and executed. Two minutes later another civil war started among factions of the Mujahideen for control of the country.

The third civil war found Islamic factions trying to start an interim government and getting a quorum of Mujahideen supporter on one side. This went on for some time until the Taliban formed and gained strength, eventually taking Kabul in 1996 and establishing themselves as the new Afghan government. The third civil war was over.

Two minutes later, anti-Taliban factions and the Northern Alliance started a new civil war to retake Kabul and the countryside. This went on for five years. Meanwhile, Osama bin Laden took up residence in Afghanistan, and, because of the "scandal" involving President Clinton's private sexual affairs, no one paid attention. Except President Clinton himself, who was trying to get bin Laden. No one cared, least of all the next President, George Walker Bush. Then, on September 9, 2001, Ahmad Shah Mas'ud, the one anti-Taliban leader in Afghanistan who could unite much of the country behind him, was assassinated. Two days later the same people who assassinated Mas'ud blew the World Trade Center in New York to kingdom come. The United States entered the fourth civil war in Afghanistan and won a huge victory by helping the anti-Taliban forces take over Kabul. The Taliban fell, and the war was over.

Two minutes later, the Taliban started a counterrevolution, beginning the fifth civil war that has lasted to this very day.

So, we're in Afghanistan to bring a lasting peace and a solid, stable government to a country that has only had eight minutes of peace in thirty years.

And oh yes, when the Soviets invaded in 1979, they had the previous prime minister executed, who had had his own predecessor executed after taking over in a coup.

We boycotted the Moscow Olympics for these people?