In December 1979, more than 50,000 heavily armed Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan, igniting

a dangerous new confrontation in the Cold War.

This is a callous, violation of international law.

It is a deliberate effort of a powerful, atheistic government to subjugate an independent

Islamic people.

That was President Jimmy Carter in a nationwide TV address laying out steps he was taking

to respond to the Soviet incursion.

He curtailed U.S. sales of sensitive technology, cut off Soviet fishing rights in U.S. waters,

blocked millions of dollars worth of grain sales to Russia.

He even threatened a highly symbolic public response, a boycott of the 1980 Olympics in Moscow.

The Soviet Union must realize that its continued aggressive actions will endanger both the

participation of athletes and the travel to Moscow.

But there was something else the U.S. was doing to combat the Soviet invasion that Carter

didn't mention that night.

He had already signed a top-secret finding authorizing the CIA to funnel lethal weapons

to Islamic guerrilla forces who were resisting the Soviets.

The Afghan guerrillas are capable of launching attacks on the Soviets and then fleeing.

The Bujahideen are all over the country, they are numerous.

They wanted to make us communists.

Thank God we are Muslims, we are following God's path, we do not want communism in Afghanistan.

As you were about to hear, a few did more to publicize and champion the Bujahideen war

against the Soviets than a young Saudi journalist dispatched to report on the conflict some years

...