CIA Photo Taken Just Before Its Operatives First Entered Afghanistan After 9/11 | Hacker News Reader

CIA Photo Taken Just Before Its Operatives First Entered Afghanistan After 9/11

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55 pointsvinnyglennon35 comments

This is the weirdest and most disturbing flex by the USG in a long time. For reference on where some of this money ended up:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/23/world/asia/afghanistan-mi...

(Yes, I know this report is from a period long after 9/11, but it's not like these "cultural norms" and "accommodations" are unique to the 2010 era.)

I guess we're not even trying to act as though we're ashamed anymore.

That's really disturbing. That says something about the Afghan culture as well.

Ashamed of what? The Taliban was pure evil. If the photo was of American operatives in 1942 headed to occupied France to bring money to the French resistance, would this be any different?

Afghanistan was run by corrupt evil warlords who oversaw massive opium production empires. The Taliban eliminated the warlords and got rid of opium production, improving the country. The US plan to overthrow the Taliban and restore opium production predated 9/11. That's why it was ready to go after 9/11. First thing we did was restore the warload power, calling them now the legitimate government and paying them off, and making sure opium production resumed, under US protection. If 9/11 never happened the US would still have gone into Afghanistan on schedule. 9/11 had nothing to do with Afghanistan.

>> The Taliban eliminated the warlords and got rid of opium production

Yeah to become themselves the new warlords and reinstate sharia law. Not sure which one is worse but I can tell you the Taliban are not good guys either.

You mean other than Bin Laden being there, of course.

The Taliban provided shelter to a guy who committed a terrorist attack on the US, and refused to give him up. We would never have gone in otherwise.

No one in the US government wanted opium production in Afghanistan, we spent a great deal of time eradicating it when we were there.

> You mean other than Bin Laden being there, of course. The Taliban provided shelter to a guy who committed a terrorist attack on the US, and refused to give him up. We would never have gone in otherwise.

The US was involved in large scale operations in the 1970s and 1980s to destabilize the secular Afghan government. The US bankrolled and armed bin Laden, and much of what would become the Taliban, in their jihad against Afghanistan's then secular government.

Where can I find more information about the history of the region? I know so little.

See the link I posted above. Lots of history there. Charlie Wilson's war also has a lot about the US influence operations against the Soviet Union.

No.

The US was involved in operations to destabilize the USSR government that invaded and took over Afghanistan, that the USSR was using to destabilize the entire region in the effort to spread communism across the globe.

And no, the US did not bankroll and arm Bin Laden, the Muslim Brotherhood, Al Qaeda, or the Taliban. The Taliban has essentially nothing to do with the Mujahideen that we worked with against the USSR, popular reporting over the last few years notwithstanding. The Mujahideen were almost exclusively Afghan tribes, the Taliban were interlopers who took over from Pakistan in the years after the USSR was driven out.

In fact, the Mujahideen continued to fight the Taliban until the US invaded in October 2001 and reestablished connections with the Northern Alliance in the initial effort to drive the Taliban out.

https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/who...

It's a wonder how CIA and other 3 lettered agencies are allowed to act. Almost as sovereign states acting completly independent from the public and its scrutiny.

Americans wonder why other countries don't always have a positive opinion of the USG. Many countries meddle with the internal affairs of others. Very few have the gumption to declare to the world that it is for the meddle-ees benefit. There's only one that has consistently taken that stance for over 75 years.

Not exactly — we Russians are also doing our Russian meddling for the good of all people involved (especially back in Soviet times). Why anybody would do that for evil? /s

There is only one world superpower and that's the US. Everyone knows that including the US. That comes with some prerogatives such being an asshole(i.e Trump) and not suffering any consequence.

There is an episode of Jack Ryan the show by Amazon Video where they pay a turk sex trafficker to guide them to a vital asset. They essentially have cash stuffed into a backpack and just hand it over to the trafficker after they locate the assets.

aside from this photo, a lot of similar pictures appear on reddit.com/r/militaryporn , not to mention similar subreddits like /r/combatfootage

A lot of loyalty for some hired guns...

Or perhaps they're wondering how the CIA managed to obtain all that cash

Khaki pants? I'd have thought they would have worn something more 'badass'.

Can't you deconvolve photos with a gaussian blur?

That's a lot of blur. There isn't much detail to extrapolate.

Give it a shot. Typically they'll pixelate then blur. Doubt there is any detail left.

It depends on the constants. This one doesn’t look retrievable.

you should try

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