Before the Americans, Afghanistan was peaceful

Another young lady I talked to in Skypeland from a Muslim country told me that I have a bad opinion of Muslims. I do not. I think Islam is a good religion, but I am not in favor of the extreme aspects or the more extreme Muslims, as I am not in favor of the extreme parts of fundamentalist Christianity, or extreme Judaism/Zionism, or Hindutva etc.

She then proceeded to tell me that the US should never have gone to Afghanistan. She had no idea why the US were in Afghanistan. She was even surprised to hear that other countries were fighting with the US in Afghanistan. She did not understand that 9/11 had anything to do with Afghanistan.

She also did not know the Russians had been in Afghanistan for about 11 years and caused about 1 million deaths between 1979 and 1989 (and over 5.5 million refugees):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_war_in_Afghanistan


She did not know that there was an internal civil war in Afghanistan during the 1990s between the Taliban and their foes, including the Shiites and the warlords in Afghanistan:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghan_Civil_War_(1989-1992)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghan_Civil_War_(1992-1996)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afghan_Civil_War_(1996-2001)
with many many casualties (one battle alone had 5000 deaths associated with it).

By comparison the present military operations count only about 10,000 dead adversaries on the battlefield and about 7500 dead civilians (which is still too high) in Afghanistan after almost 6 years of operations; most of these are presumably Taliban and al Qaeda forces:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Afghanistan_(2001–present)

Also, contrary to what this young lady claimed, the US is not in Afghanistan alone, but is part of a coaltion. The coaltion forces are called the International Security Assistance Force and consist of troops from 37 countries, and is authorized by by the United Nations Security Council (UNSCR 1386) on December 20, 2001:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Security_Assistance_Force

Wow...what people do not know...