I am readin the book "The Cardinal of the Kremlin", and there is is alot of talk about the fighting there. I was wondering if some could give me info on this war. Who was involved? Why were they fighting? When and how long did it go on? What was the US involvement? I am just looking for some info. Please pass on what you know.

Six

this is from memory, so be patient: in the early 1970's afghanistan was essentially a monarchy. the soviet union, always keen on imperialism, wanted to exploit the region for its vast natural resources. they got their opportunity when a coup effectively ended the rule of the kingship and an afghanni communist party emerged to govern. the "glorious april revolution" of 1978 was possible because of the commies gaining a foothold during the period of modernization between 1954 to 1964. they were allowed to thrive as a party, and grew in numbers, despite their atheism. the communists decided that they could operate independantly of the USSR, and began to break away from their watch. the soviets were not willing to let this commie government go, and invaded in december of 1979. they had the support of the french communist party, and thought of the red army as unbeatable. the war quickly turned ugly, as guerilla wars do, and the reds began using time-tested tactics like villiage liquidations, mass deportations, land-mines, mass murder and assassinations. they even sprinkled brightly colored toys that contained explosives, so that when picked up, they would blow. the CIA began to support the mujahadeen through a complex network that began with the ISI in pakistan, and  eventually ended up in afghanistan. US interests in seeing the USSR lose are many and obvious, so i won't get into them. the invasion began under brezhnev's rule, and was inherited by gorbachev - who amazingly (given his record of openness and moderation) stepped up the effort! the world was now horrified, and thought it would be over by then. nevertheless, EVERYONE in afghanistan became a combatant, they fought bravely for their independence, and got it with the soviet withdrawal in february 0f 1989. the cost was: 1.5 million dead, 7 million refugees and a costly civil war that followed immidiately after.

CIA support for the mujahadeen was typical of our bizarre tunnel vision during the Cold War. To mess with the Soviets (who were fighting their own stupid version of Vietnam) we supported and armed with Stinger missiles the most radical Islamic fundamentalists on Earth and we're still paying the price today. Osama Binladen was one of the CIA's "elements" in their pipeline to the Mujahadeen. As it turned out Islamic fundamentalism has been far worse than communism ever was to the actual security of the U.S.