The Afghan

#Quote -

'May God deliver us from the venom of the Cobra, teeth of the tiger, and the vengeance of the Afghan.'
                           - Mousa, Rambo III


Tora Bora.... A funny name to me. Sounds right out of a Disney cartoon to me. This cave complex known locally as "Spin Ghar" in the mountains of Safed Koh (white Mountain) was said to house the dreaded Al Queda militant Osama Bin Laden. During the US invasion of Afghanistan it was one of the strongholds of the Taliban and its Al-Qaeda allies.

Tora Bora was variously described by the western media to be an 'impregnable cave fortress' housing 2000 men complete with a hospital, a hydroelectric power plant, offices, a hotel, arms and ammunition stores, roads large enough to drive a tank into, and elaborate tunnel and ventilation systems. But what it was, was a small cave with basic housing & heating facilities holding hard men, holding back the most modern army in the world.

The Bombing Of Tora Bora

Not to sympathise with these insurgents, but these men were nothing but local populace who took up arms against a invading force, when yu see it from this point of view. Not every man in Tora Bora was a Al Queda man.

Also, were'nt the Mujhaideen supported by the Americans during the cold war? Supplied with SAM's??

Wat it may be..,.. Bin Laden in the end was not found in Afghanistan. But in Pakistan.

An encapsulation of this can be viewed in the movie Rambo III.Anyone who has seen this film particularly within the last decade will have probably noticed what seemingly must be a 'strange' attitude towards the Afghan fighters, or specifically the Mujahideen fighting "the foreign invasion".

The irony was not lost on the studio/distributor. Here's a quick movia trivia:
The movie ends with two quotes: "This film is dedicated to the gallant people of Afghanistan." and "I am like a bullet, filled with lead and made to kill" However, this was a not the original quote in the movie. Prior to the American war in Afghanistan, the ending quote of the movie read "This film is dedicated to the brave Mujahideen fighters of Afghanistan". This was then edited to read "people of Afghanistan" during the post 9/11 era.