Afghanistan

[xoxoxoBruce]

Soviets? Since the USSR no longer exists I think Soviets is passé.

Originally Posted by classicman

Um, cuz they're Russians??

We didn't beat 'em, we bankrupted 'em. Now the oil/gas business has refilled the coffers, Putin wants to return Russia to their place as a World power, an influential player. With NATO, which use to be the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, pushing far from the North Atlantic, I can understand Russia's concern.

[sugarpop]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Soviets? Since the USSR no longer exists I think Soviets is passé.

We didn't beat 'em, we bankrupted 'em. Now the oil/gas business has refilled the coffers, Putin wants to return Russia to their place as a World power, an influential player. With NATO, which use to be the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, pushing far from the North Atlantic, I can understand Russia's concern.

ummm, excsuse me, but they bankrupted themselves.

[tw]

From the NY Times of 23 Jun 2009 - or what happens when your government is not trying to make enemies of everyone:

Kyrgyzstan Allows Limited U.S. Access
Kyrgyzstan, which four months ago said it would close an American air base central to the NATO mission in Afghanistan, appeared Tuesday to partially reverse its decision. ...

Kyrgyz officials said the United States could use the base in Central Asia as a transit center to supply NATO forces in Afghanistan. Official details of the agreement were not immediately available, but it appeared that the United States had sharply increased the rent that it paid to avoid complete closure.

In February, President Kurmanbek Bakiyev gave the United States six months to vacate the airbase, which has been used since 2001 as a refueling stop and transit hub for about 15,000 troops and 500 tons of cargo a month headed for Afghanistan.