First Essay: The cold war between the United States and Russia and how Afghanistan was used as a pawn
First Essay: The cold war between the United States and Russia and how Afghanistan was used as a pawn
In the following essay I would like to discuss the Cold war between the United States and Russia and how Afghanistan was used as a pawn. The Cold War was the most important political and diplomatic issue of the latter half of the 20th Century. The main enemies were the United States and the Soviet Union. The Cold war got its name because both sides were afraid of fighting each other directly. In such a "hot war," nuclear weapons might destroy everything. So, instead, they fought each other indirectly and also used words as weapons. They threatened and denounced each other or they tried to make each other look foolish. Besides that, both countries played havoc with conflicts in different parts of the world. One of the victims was Afghanistan, who was used as a marionette in this scheming dirty war. At Christmas 1979, Russian paratroopers landed in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. The country was already in the middle of a civil war. The Prime Minister, Hazifullah Amin, tried to establish a more western life style instead of the ruling Muslim traditions. This idea was totally against the common values in Afghanistan. Thousands of Muslim leaders had been arrested and many more had fled the capital and gone to the mountains to escape Amin's police. Amin also lead a communist based government - a belief that rejects religion. Many Afghans joined the Mujahideen – a guerrilla force on a holy mission for Allah. The Mujahideen declared a jihad - a holy war - on the supporters of Amin to destroy his government. This was also extended to the Russians who were now in Afghanistan trying to maintain the power of the Amin government. The Russians claimed that they had been invited in by the Amin government and that they were not invading the country. They asserted that their task was to support a legitimate government and that the Mujahideen were no more than
In the following essay I would like to discuss the Cold war between the United States and Russia and how Afghanistan was used as a pawn. The Cold War was the most important political and diplomatic issue of the latter half of the 20th Century. The main enemies were the United States and the Soviet Union. The Cold war got its name because both sides were afraid of fighting each other directly. In such a "hot war," nuclear weapons might destroy everything. So, instead, they fought each other indirectly and also used words as weapons. They threatened and denounced each other or they tried to make each other look foolish. Besides that, both countries played havoc with conflicts in different parts of the world. One of the victims was Afghanistan, who was used as a marionette in this scheming dirty war. At Christmas 1979, Russian paratroopers landed in Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. The country was already in the middle of a civil war. The Prime Minister, Hazifullah Amin, tried to establish a more western life style instead of the ruling Muslim traditions. This idea was totally against the common values in Afghanistan. Thousands of Muslim leaders had been arrested and many more had fled the capital and gone to the mountains to escape Amin's police. Amin also lead a communist based government - a belief that rejects religion. Many Afghans joined the Mujahideen – a guerrilla force on a holy mission for Allah. The Mujahideen declared a jihad - a holy war - on the supporters of Amin to destroy his government. This was also extended to the Russians who were now in Afghanistan trying to maintain the power of the Amin government. The Russians claimed that they had been invited in by the Amin government and that they were not invading the country. They asserted that their task was to support a legitimate government and that the Mujahideen were no more than