August 2012 – Invisible History Blog

The tangled web leading up to Afghanistan

We made a documentary with economist John Kenneth Galbraith and Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT II) negotiator Paul Warnke on the eve of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. Our timing with this issue made the Soviet invasion seem all too convenient. As we point out at the very end, it was President Carter who asked the Senate to hold back on ratification of SALT II following the invasion while having secretly authorized Brzezinski’s black project to lure the Soviets into Afghanistan in the first place. The Soviet invasion enabled the military/industrial/congressional complex to shift the political discussion permanently away from the civilian sector and towards the need for an unending military escalation of all sectors of the economy. It’s the basis of the false narrative of triumphalism our country is dying from today.

The Arms Race and the Economy: A Delicate Balance can be viewed here. We included America’s Financial Armageddon and Afghanistan, an article we posted last September that goes more deeply into the Cold War effects on today’s economy is available online here.

Here is a link to a 53 minute program we created titled, Crossing Zero: The History of The Durand Line

About this episode

Crossing Zero, is a program based on Paul Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Gould book published by City Lights, Crossing Zero: The AfPak war at the turning point of American Empire. Crossing Zero will bring the crisis in Afghanistan and Pakistan into sharp focus by introducing the people, the arguments and the issues currently raging around America’s longest-running war. It will present the most up-to-date news coverage on Afghanistan as well as what every American needs to know for analyzing the politics and history of the AfPak region and how they effect America’s future. The History of the Durand Line: The region today delineated as both Afghanistan and Pakistan has known many borders over the millennia, yet none have been more artificial or contentious than the one separating Pakistan and Afghanistan known as the Durand line but referred to by the military and intelligence community as Zero Line.