DISINFO: NATO is responsible for Afghanistan's destruction
SUMMARY
Those who caused the current mess in Afghanistan still dare to affirm that they are necessary and will stay there to keep the population safe, but we don’t hear anything about NATO accepting any responsibility for destroying the country after 9/11.
RESPONSE
The claim frames NATO as the cause and only responsible for Afghanistan’s destruction. In reality, when NATO took the leading role in the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in 2001, the country had undergone 21 years of war, including a 9-year invasion by USSR forces followed by another decade of civil war, none of which are mentioned. The war that erupted after the Soviet invasion left around one million dead, several million refugees and most of the country in ruins. The subsequent war among quarrelling Afghan factions increased already widespread destruction. The battle for Kabul in 1992-1996, for example, destroyed most of the capital, which had been largely spared in the previous years.
You can see other examples of pro-Kremlin disinformation on Afghanistan, such as claims that former Afghan president Hamid Karzai called Russia to liberate his nation from US occupation; that the West and the US are ferrying Islamic State members to Afghanistan to use them against China, as part of a so-called “Anaconda ring”; or that NATO is denying the presence of terrorists in the country but the FSB has evidence of it.