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Re:The Truth Shall Make You Free: Catholicism and the CIA by nimbius on Wednesday November 17, 2021 @12:17AM (#29249515)
>its flawed understanding of Catholicism led to some of its greatest debacles, including the failure to see the rise of Islamic fundamentalism.

Daily reminder: the CIA directly and intentionally funded and fomented the rise of islamic fundamentalism in order to counter Soviet interests in Afghanistan through the Mujaheddin in 1976.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cyclone

to say the CIA just "misunderstood" religion is outright disinformation.

Re:The Truth Shall Make You Free: Catholicism and the CIA by 1cvmask on Wednesday November 17, 2021 @12:27AM (#29249557)
Zbigniew Brzezinski to the Mujahideen in Afghanistan: "Your cause is right and God is on your side!"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9RCFZnWGE0

And the CIA weaponizes religion for it's purposes including using Uyghur extremists or Isis members. One of the experts on that is the retired Graham Fuller:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_E._Fuller

-

Graham Fuller's daughter used to be married to the uncle of the Boston marathon bombers and he had arranged their visas as well as the visa for the wanted "Islamic" fundamentalist cleric Gulen, who is the spiritual leader of the CIA's Islam and Enes Kanter.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21692069

https://www.mintpressnews.com/celtics-cia-gulenist-hoops-sta...

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=-nwTCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA61&red...

Re:The Truth Shall Make You Free: Catholicism and the CIA by ethbr0 on Wednesday November 17, 2021 @01:05AM (#29249706)
> Daily reminder: the CIA directly and intentionally funded and fomented the rise of islamic fundamentalism in order to counter Soviet interests in Afghanistan through the Mujaheddin in 1976

That seems incomplete enough to be a misleading statement. Ghost Wars (Steve Coll) is as authoritative and well-sourced treatment as I've found.

It lays out the imperative as "confront the Soviets in Afghanistan." To that end, the State Department and CIA continually bickered over who to best fund and arm in Afghanistan.

Add in the added complexity that most funding was run through the Pakistani ISI, but paid for by the Saudis and Gulf states, all of whom generally had no compunctions and/or outright preference for Islamic fundamentalists (Pakistan due to India, Saudis due to portions of the royal family).

And on top of that, you had a constant realpolitik (arm who will fight, and who our allies will support) vs ideological (arm who believes more in democracy) debate going on. Generally speaking, the Islamists were willing the right, but the moderates tended to find reasons to avoid committing their forces, despite being paid to do exactly that.

So an accurate statement would be "the CIA helped funnel Saudi money to Afghani mujahideen, with Pakistan's ISI steering large portions of that towards Islamist groups, a practice which the US generally knew about but saw no way around."

Re:The Truth Shall Make You Free: Catholicism and the CIA by sudosysgen on Wednesday November 17, 2021 @01:49AM (#29249894)
You do know that all the mujahideen were Islamists, right? We are talking about Afghanistan.

The Mujahid group that was the least Islamist was led by the heir of a religious order and structured as such.

The OP's assertion are fully accurate. The CIA knowingly funded and fomented the rise of Islamic fundamentalism.

It is incorrect the relationship was fully indirect. The CIA directly met with militant Islamic fundamentalist groups, including inviting leaders to the USA, and directly funding them :

https://books.google.com/books?id=b95MAgAAQBAJ&q=cia%2C+bin+...

https://books.google.com/books?id=wcljXYTZVnUC&q=rABBANI,+re...

https://books.google.com/books?id=r3TLByMXsJkC&q=thatcher,+h...

https://books.google.com/books?id=N8Qxf-33dxMC&q=howard+hart...

https://books.google.com/books?id=-R13CgAAQBAJ&q=zalmay%2C+g...

https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2008/07/11/afghan...

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2012/01/2012126145...

The evidence is absolutely crushing. The statement of the OP is not misleading at all - it is completely accurate.

Re:The Truth Shall Make You Free: Catholicism and the CIA by ethbr0 on Wednesday November 17, 2021 @10:59AM (#29254748)
We can quibble over the meaning of Islamist, but there's an obvious gradient in goals and methods between (to use examples) Massoud, Hekmatyar, and Omar.

And the primary reason the CIA met directly with groups was to cut the ISI out of the picture and give them more direct control over to whom and how aid was provided.

Re:The Truth Shall Make You Free: Catholicism and the CIA by sudosysgen on Wednesday November 17, 2021 @01:01PM (#29256480)
The CIA still met with some of the more extreme groups. The reason they wanted to cut the ISI out was to maximize their interests.

If you read the sources I linked, you will see that the CIA directly met with and financed Haqqani, which was one of the most extreme and who went on to be instrumental in the founding of Al Qaeda by greatly assisting Bin Laden in Afghanistan and allying with him.

That is to say, unequivocally, the CIA directly funded and abetted the rise of Islamist fundamentalism.

Re:The Truth Shall Make You Free: Catholicism and the CIA by ethbr0 on Wednesday November 17, 2021 @02:50PM (#29258034)
Didn't the CIA fund Haqqani because his group was one of the more effective at attacking the Soviets?

My impression was that effectively, their decision at the time was: (a) fund moderate elements who weren't gung-ho about actually risking their forces to kill Soviets vs (b) fund religious extremists who were a more militarily effective option.

And even given that calculus, they still spread the money around (or even skewed it towards moderates), because even at the time they were uncomfortable going all-in on someone who took his orders from God.

Re:The Truth Shall Make You Free: Catholicism and the CIA by sudosysgen on Wednesday November 17, 2021 @05:27PM (#29259670)
As I said, the most moderate faction of the mujahideen was literally a religious order. They all believed to be taking their orders from God in one way or another, and even the most moderate ones were organized around religion.

The CIA only ever directly financed the more extreme elements that I know of. The more moderate ones, ironically, got all of their funding through Pakistan, though Pakistan gave more to the extremists.

If the CIA gave them more money because they wore more effective, it doesn't change the fact that they directly fomented the rise of Islamic fundamentalism.

Re:The Truth Shall Make You Free: Catholicism and the CIA by 1cvmask on Wednesday November 17, 2021 @01:50AM (#29249902)
The Saudis and Gulf states are told to pay and match the CIA or else..... Their heads will roll otherwise. Those colonies are used as ATMs for the national security state and the forced purchase of junk military gear, in addition to ensuring the petro dollar remains intact.
Re:The Truth Shall Make You Free: Catholicism and the CIA by ethbr0 on Wednesday November 17, 2021 @04:33PM (#29259106)
I don't know if I'd call the F-15QA "junk military gear."
Re:The Truth Shall Make You Free: Catholicism and the CIA by chucktingle on Wednesday November 17, 2021 @05:41AM (#29251287)
Fully agree. To add to the list of "religious" mischief the CIA is involved with, let's take a look at the Tibetan situation and the current Dalai Lama:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_Tibetan_program

Re:The Truth Shall Make You Free: Catholicism and the CIA by remarkEon on Wednesday November 17, 2021 @12:22AM (#29249529)
>we literally praised and exhalted the Mujaheddin in a Rambo movie

I thought this was a photoshop and wasn't actually in the film?

Re:The Truth Shall Make You Free: Catholicism and the CIA by Intermernet on Wednesday November 17, 2021 @06:53AM (#29251847)
The script to Rambo 3 has three mentions of Mujaheddin in it. Two of them are in the following section:

"What you see here, are the Mujahedin soldiers, holy warriors.

To us, this war is a holy war.

And there is no true death for a Mujahedin,

because we have taken our last nights, and because we consider us already dead.

To us, death for our land and God is an honor.

So, my friend, what we must do is to stop this killing of our women and children.

If getting this man free, so he can tell to the free world, and tell what happens here, is necessary then of course we will help."

I'm not sure if that's praising or exalting, but it wasn't damning in the context of the movie.

My favourite (and probably most prescient and ironic) quote from the movie is:

"You can't defeat a people like that. We tried. We already had our Vietnam! Now you're gonna have yours!"

Re:The Truth Shall Make You Free: Catholicism and the CIA by pjc50 on Wednesday November 17, 2021 @06:59AM (#29251914)
The specific message is indeed a photoshop, but the film was broadly pro-Mujaheddin as it was anti-Soviet.

As was The Living Daylights, in which the Mujaheddin led by an Oxford-educated Afghan help James Bond destroy a rogue Soviet drug-running operation.

Re:The Truth Shall Make You Free: Catholicism and the CIA by reducesuffering on Wednesday November 17, 2021 @04:24AM (#29250694)
Correct
Re:The Truth Shall Make You Free: Catholicism and the CIA by perl4ever on Wednesday November 17, 2021 @11:18PM (#29261937)
>Daily reminder

Indeed.

Re:The Truth Shall Make You Free: Catholicism and the CIA by LogonType10 on Wednesday November 17, 2021 @12:29AM (#29249560)
>to say the CIA just "misunderstood" religion is outright disinformation

They definitely understood it, and they also understood that the USSR had 45,000 nuclear weapons pointed at your backyard.

Re:The Truth Shall Make You Free: Catholicism and the CIA by RNCTX on Wednesday November 17, 2021 @12:42AM (#29249611)
none of which killed a soul.

On the other hand CIA handled instigators killed far in excess of 45,000 people during the 'cold' war.

Re:The Truth Shall Make You Free: Catholicism and the CIA by drran on Wednesday November 17, 2021 @06:18AM (#29251525)
Are you joking? Russian spies are killing people right now. Former «Vympel», now «Alpha», entered Ukraine recently, and they started to collect money for their covert operation by murdering of innocent families. They are trying to kill me since 2008, because I searched/found their agent «24». USSR starved to death 7 million adults (number accepted by RF State Duma on 02.04.2008) and 23 million children (still not accepted by RF).
Re:The Truth Shall Make You Free: Catholicism and the CIA by sudosysgen on Wednesday November 17, 2021 @08:05AM (#29252476)
His comment is accurate. The comment he was replying to was about nukes, not all of the state.

23 million is the loss of expect natality, not dead children. It's people that weren't born.

As with all famine as atrocities narratives, I wonder if you apply this standard fairly. Is every poor country that had a famine responsible or only those whose economic system you don't agree with? In that case isn't the West responsible for 2 million deaths every year by forcing Africa to adopt an economic system that leads to starvation? Of course you will say no but to me these are equivalent. It turns out there are no good guys

If you're really being hunted by the FSB then I am sorry that Russia is doing this to you. I suggest that you would not post about it here as this forum is monitored and this information would be identifying to the FSB. I truly wish you the best of luck.

Re:The Truth Shall Make You Free: Catholicism and the CIA by goohle on Wednesday November 17, 2021 @08:58AM (#29252999)
The actual number of victims in 1932-1934 is the top secret of RF. If you know actual number and can prove that, you should be already assassinated by RF, like many other historians, e.g. recently killed this year Vladimir Schukin[0].

The earliest intact document suggests that there was 81 million of Ukrainians before Holodomor and 31 million after.

Nationality for 20 million ethnic Ukrainians was forcefully changed from Ukrainian to Russian (direct evidence of that filmed in 199x, when victims were still alive, and is available at YouTube[1]). 7 million adults starved to death (official number by RF[2]), 23 million children were dead also, but nobody counted them back then. 30 millions of Holodomor victims are hidden as victims of WWW2 («total» number of WWW2 victims raised from 12 million to 42 million).

Famine and starvation is not equal to mass murdering by starvation. You are trying to downplay the murder to just «a death».

[0]: https://www.pravda.com.ua/news/2021/05/14/7293521/

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j8x0sgGPInM

[2]: https://duma.consultant.ru/documents/955838

Re:The Truth Shall Make You Free: Catholicism and the CIA by sudosysgen on Wednesday November 17, 2021 @05:46PM (#29259825)
I'm sorry but I cannot take your opinion over that of historians which, after the fall of the USSR and access to the archives, saw the general consensus shift away from murder - instead it was found that the incompetence of party officials was even greater than one could have imagined.

The assertion that Schukin was assasinated by the Russian Federation is unsupported. I cannot find any non-Ukrainian media that supports this thesis and I can find many that don't from third countries that are unfavourable to Russia. Therefore I conclude that the theory of assassination by a violent anti-semite is the most likely. I doubt that the Ukrainian prosecution would shy from suggesting a Russian assassination if they thought so.

I don't doubt that the nationality of Ukrainians was changed to Russians. A lot of persecution of Ukrainians happened, which is a historical fact. The question is whether the famine was intended or if it was a mistake, and it seems clear that this was not the case. Then the question becomes if it was murder on the side of the Soviet government not to redistribute food, which it would have been if they had known the extent of the famine, but as we know now the corruption and incompetence was so high that it is wholly believable that they actually thought the situation was far from as bad as it was. From then on the immigration bans make sense and so does the maintenance of exports.

Now was this on the the absolute fault of the Soviet government? Yes, it is. But so is every single famine from 1900 onwards. If you consider it to be murder, so is every single other famine since the invention of fertilizer. I only ask that one is consistent.

As for your estimates, even the Kyiv court of appeals cites a much lower figure of 3.9 million : https://lb.ua/news/2010/01/14/19793_nalivaychenko_nazval_kol... and I can find no credible source that even approaches your numbers.

Re:The Truth Shall Make You Free: Catholicism and the CIA by TheMonarchist on Thursday November 18, 2021 @02:58AM (#29263165)
> instead it was found that the incompetence of party officials was even greater than one could have imagined.

If the famine was indeed due to sheer incompetence, it could be argued that they were victims of the revolution that set up that incredibly incompetent government.

Re:The Truth Shall Make You Free: Catholicism and the CIA by sudosysgen on Thursday November 18, 2021 @09:59AM (#29266142)
Again, do you extend that argument to every single government that has a famine or mass casualty event due to incompetence? You can, as I said, but do you do so?
Re:The Truth Shall Make You Free: Catholicism and the CIA by TheMonarchist on Friday November 19, 2021 @12:10AM (#29274036)
I don't see why not.
Re:The Truth Shall Make You Free: Catholicism and the CIA by goohle on Thursday November 18, 2021 @10:19AM (#29266386)
> I'm sorry but I cannot take your opinion over that of historians which, after the fall of the USSR and access to the archives, saw the general consensus shift away from murder - instead it was found that the incompetence of party officials was even greater than one could have imagined.

It's reads like joke. You are completely incompetent, right? Can you murder just 1 million of people and cover it for decades? What level of incompetence is required for that? Can you kill 1 million by mistake?

Communists party has a goal: kill bourgeoisie as class. Why you are trying to label the MAIN GOAL of communists party as "incompetence" or "mistake"?

Leaders of USSR created secret police, to watch transition of USSR from bourgeoisie past to communist future. Secret police found that majority of Ukrainians prefer freedom and free market, so Politbureau decided to eliminate Ukrainians as traitor nation, like many other nations. They created a plan and then performed it.

> The assertion that Schukin was assasinated by the Russian Federation is unsupported.

Yeah, nor passport nor business card were left by killer to help us. Same situation was with his science director: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mykola_Shytyuk , and many other scientists. Maybe, it's martians. What you think?

Re:The Truth Shall Make You Free: Catholicism and the CIA by drran on Wednesday November 17, 2021 @05:18PM (#29259590)
> On the other hand CIA handled instigators killed far in excess of 45,000 people during the 'cold' war.

It doesn't look like a comment about nukes. It's more like "OMG, CIA killed 45,000 enemies during the war!" It's CIA job to kill mad Russians to protect USA. What's wrong with that?

> I suggest that you would not post about it here as this forum is monitored and this information would be identifying to the FSB.

They know that I know.

Re:The Truth Shall Make You Free: Catholicism and the CIA by sudosysgen on Wednesday November 17, 2021 @05:30PM (#29259695)
Killing Russians did not protect the USA from nukes, because the USSR didn't use the nukes. Read the comment in it's context.

>They know that I know.

It doesn't matter. Any comment you make online that can be linked to your identity will bite you in the ass in ways you cannot even begin to imagine. I also have personal experience in that domain.

Re:The Truth Shall Make You Free: Catholicism and the CIA by bigbillheck on Wednesday November 17, 2021 @10:18AM (#29254173)
> They are trying to kill me since 2008, because I searched/found their agent «24».

It's 13 years later, they can't have been trying very hard.

Re:The Truth Shall Make You Free: Catholicism and the CIA by drran on Wednesday November 17, 2021 @05:19PM (#29259597)
They're trying very hard, but we have the same education. I knew one of their trainers. He was a nice guy.
Re:The Truth Shall Make You Free: Catholicism and the CIA by LogonType10 on Wednesday November 17, 2021 @07:36PM (#29260775)
...who are you?
Re:The Truth Shall Make You Free: Catholicism and the CIA by anticodon on Wednesday November 17, 2021 @02:51AM (#29250184)
> They definitely understood it, and they also understood that the USSR had 45,000 nuclear weapons pointed at your backyard.

And USSR understood that immediately after WWII end, USA planned to finish what Nazis started. Using also nuclear bombs which USSR didn't have at the time.

Re:The Truth Shall Make You Free: Catholicism and the CIA by drran on Wednesday November 17, 2021 @06:11AM (#29251476)
Communists in USSR killed about 10x more innocents than Nazi. (Did you heard about Holodomor?). Why Nazi bad but USSR isn't?
Re:The Truth Shall Make You Free: Catholicism and the CIA by trasz on Wednesday November 17, 2021 @07:43AM (#29252299)
If you count Holodomor as communism victims, you should also count all the people who died of poverty in the West as capitalism victims.
Re:The Truth Shall Make You Free: Catholicism and the CIA by goohle on Wednesday November 17, 2021 @08:38AM (#29252785)
Famine ≠ killing by starving to death. USSR had massive famines before and after Holodomor.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor