MOSCOW, December 4 (RIA Novosti) - A U.S. citizen commented in a blog posted on the White House website that people of Afghanistan suffered too much from Soviets and 'other terrorist groups.'
"The people of Afghanistan have endured violence for decades. They've been confronted with occupation - by the Soviet Union, and then by foreign al Qaeda fighters who used Afghan land for their own purposes," Katie Stanton wrote in her blog posted on the official White Hose website.
The war in Afghanistan was a nine-year conflict involving Soviet forces supporting the Marxist PDPA (People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan) government against the largely Islamic fundamentalist Mujahideen insurgents. It began on December 25, 1979 and over 14,000 Soviet troops died in the conflict, over a million Afghan civilians are reported to have been killed in the war.
"We have no interest in occupying your country. We will support efforts by the Afghan government to open the door to those Taliban who abandon violence and respect the human rights of their fellow citizens," she said in her blog.
The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and a separate U.S.-led coalition, involved in Operation Enduring Freedom, have a total of 112,000 troops in Afghanistan.
The U.S., which has so far contributed the largest number of troops, has some 68,000 troops there, and the number will increase to 98,000 when the new troops are deployed.
Most of the heroin and hashish coming into Russia originates in Afghanistan, and is trafficked via the former Soviet republics of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. They are then sold in Russia's largest cities, or shipped on to Europe.
