US Support for Afghan Mujahideen and Its Aftermath in Pakistan

In a struggle with the Soviet Union, they invaded Afghanistan, and we did not wanna see them control Central Asia, and we went to work. And it was President Reagan, in partnership with the Congress, um, led by Democrats, who said, "You know what?

Sounds like a pretty good idea. Let's deal with the ISI and the Pakistani military, and let's go recruit these mujahideen, and that's great. Let's get some to come from Saudi Arabia and other places, importing their Wahhabi brand of Islam, so that we can go beat the Soviet Union." And we-- guess what? They retreated.

They lost billions of dollars, and it led to the collapse of the Soviet Union. So there's a, a very strong argument, which is, wasn't a bad investment to end the Soviet Union, but let's be careful what we sow because we will harvest.

So we then left Pakistan. We said, "Okay, fine.

You deal with the Stingers that we've left all over your country.

You deal with the mines that are along the border.

And by the way, we don't wanna have anything to do with you.

In fact, we're sanctioning you." So we stopped dealing with the Pakistani military and with ISI, and we now are making up for a lot of lost time