Word: afghanistan
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...toward the Soviet Union. A Middle East peace seemingly more elusive than ever. These are the troubles and threats that America faces in the so-called crescent of crisis-that great swath of countries running from the Horn of Africa through Egypt and across the Middle East to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Here, more than in any other area of the world, the U.S. has vital interests that are threatened by forces it has not been able to control, and all too often seems unable to influence...
...supposedly proSoviet, has been making efforts "for the last five, six years, even longer than that" to develop contacts with the U.S. Partly this is because it is afraid of Iran, whoever may be in charge. And Tahtinen even saw opportunities for "lowlevel cooperation" between the U.S. and Afghanistan, which has a treaty with the U.S.S.R...
...unpredictable paths, with the U.S. acting largely as a bystander. Leftist gunmen kidnaped and then freed a wounded U.S. Marine embassy guard. American civilians continued their airborne exodus. Sure of its case, the U.S. did respond more firmly than it had earlier to the killing of U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Adolph Dubs. It slashed aid to Afghanistan from $15 million to $3 million, sparing only humanitarian projects, and it angrily rejected Moscow's claim that Soviet advisers were not involved in the killing. But here, too, Carter conveyed an impression -however unfair that impression might be-of helplessness...
Editorialized Paris' right-of-center Le Figaro: "U.S. influence has shrunk in all directions. It has lost Angola, Ethiopia, Somalia, South Yemen, Afghanistan, Laos, Cambodia and most recently a kingpin in Iran, guardian of the Gulfs oil... the Yankee umbrella has more and more holes in it. The free world now asks itself the question: Must it still count on Americans?" London's Daily Telegraph was no kinder: "There is a nervelessness at the center in Washington coupled with clumsiness at the extremities. Hence the alarming loss of respect...
There simply is no easy answer. President Carter has combed through the cables from Afghanistan concerning the death of our ambassador, Adolph Dubs. The handling of the incident by the Afghans and the Soviet advisers on the scene he found appalling and he spoke out. Yet even in that tragic tangle there is the dilemma of courage. The White House does not believe that the Soviets deliberately intended to harm the ambassador. It was simply their brutish sense of how strong-and, yes, courageous-men respond in a crisis. Crush the offenders and all those...