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Even if the Soviets had still lost, it would have been possible that the Twin Towers would still be standing. During "Operation Cyclone" we gave aid to Pakistan who then passed it on to Afghanistan. I'm sure the Russians were eventually disillusioned to their cause, but we (the US of A) gave weapons and money that would eventually win the Soviet-Afghan war. If we would have continued helping Afghanistan after they won, they would be in a much better situation now. Instead, we backed out completely and then let Pakistan fund money to a resistance leader named Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. This man used our weapons to kill civilians and then used his power to promote his buddy Bin Laden. A man of strict Islamic ideology who was part of the reason Afghanistan fell to the Taliban. (Not al-Qaeda. We made that word up.)
Hindsight is 20/20, but we created our own enemy.

Well, it's one of my fave movies of all times, but I've also read up on the matter. I didn't get all that just from Tom Hanks.

I'd assume it would have looked hypocritical for the US to simultaneously support Israel and help a bunch of Muslims who didn't much care for it's existence. Ah well, not much we can do about it now.

lol We did nothing other than watch as the country fell into decline as they could not keep up with demands that was set back to World War II. They outstripped there needs of their military and the demands of social life.

America and the CCCP fought proxy wars with each other. Using Africa, South-East Asia, Latin America, Western Europe as the battlefields. We did not do direct fighting per say in actual country conflict. Which is why Latin America hates us so much.

America did not better as the CCCP did and both supported regimes that was repressive to the population, for the goal of attacking the other side.

Outside the mineral rights and opium production, Afghanistan was rebelling against their socialist government and the USSR went to defend it.

Now mind you, the Soviet Union made a BIG deal of their military. They were portrayed as the great liberators, saviors of the common man, defenders of the People's Republic. The Army and Navy were the heroes of the Soviets and was something honorable to aspire to be part of.

Then came Afghanistan... then came Perestroika, the social and political changes spearheaded by Mikael Gorbachev. Then came glasnost, freedom of the Press. Before all media matters were censored to prevent the government from looking bad. Now the press would report on what the troops were doing, how many were dying and what they were fighting for, without any bias or fear or reprisal.

This caused the people as a whole to become disillusioned with the Soviet way of life. Kind of like what is happening with the whole War in Iraq. Bush has an approval rating in the mid to high teens and not many people think he's a smart cookie. But there's not going to be a revolution here because of Bush. Jan 20th 2009, he's out. No ifs ands or buts, he's done.

Soviets didn't have term limits or free elections. They wanted a change in the regime. The Soviet Union tried to appease their people, lifting the iron curtain. Giving back control to the countries they "liberated" in World War Two to their people. This caused The republics within the soviet union, such as Georgia and Estonia to openly revolt against Russia. This led the Soviet Union to send troops within it's borders to lead strikes against rebel leaders. The news of this leaked out, people became more angry, more provinces revolted, more crackdowns by the government. Gorbachev tries to restructure the Soviet Union, allowing free elections, to have a secondary government elected by the people to represent them in the politburo. The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, and the people elected Boris Yeltsin.

At the end of the day, specifically August 20th 1991, the army itself had had enough of Gorbachev and lead a coup. Tanks started shelling the Russian houses of Government. Yeltsin condemned the Coup, and rallied the people not to allow the military to drag us back to the days of Stalin.

The coup failed, lacking the will of the people, not even the Russians wanted to be communist anymore. The Soviet Union dissolved and then the transition period began, which they're still in. Open markets with developed countries selling imported goods to Russia, which was both economically and politically a 3rd world country. Supply and Demand took control of the economy, no more fixed prices. The Russian people realized they needed quality goods and needed to mass produce them themselves or else save wages for 3 months to buy their children a Lego play set for Xmas.

Yes the fall of the soviet union was a difficult period, but now they have learned how to be in a competitive market, get a work ethic that requires self dependency not communal support and above all, the pride of making something better for yourself than what your parents were given.

For all these reasons I approve the end of the Soviet Union and condemn communism as a faulty, unproductive, crippling government and economic system.

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics abbreviated in English is USSR

Союз Советских Социалистических Республик is USSR in Russian, abbreviated CCCP and is pronounced Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik

Too true. Let's face it, the Domino effect and all of that is really all a succession of chance. A single stray bullet could kill a man who was going to kill another man, who will now to kill another man, and so on and so forth until a war is lost on the fact that that single bullet hit him...

In Communism they would do what they want, so if A wants to farm, he farms.