Ahmad Massoud: The Lion of Panjshir

One man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist. This man was a freedom fighter. No questions asked. He grew up in a rural part of Afghanistan and got a good education before following in his father’s footsteps of joining the military. Then Communism entered the “Graveyard of Empires,” and they faced off with the Mujahideen and learned why Afghanistan earned that nickname. When your choice is to help clean up the Chernobyl disaster or go fight in the desert, growing a third testicle and glowing was probably a better choice. Massoud got the backing of Western powers in the form of weapons and high-end training to fight the creeping spread of Communism. After the Russians left, the power vacuum was plugged in and flipped on, and infighting started among Mujahideen factions. There’s one scum-sucking turd that got involved and basically forced Massoud out of any kind of power he was building, and he was doing good things, building schools and hospitals in poorer parts of the country and trying to give women more rights. He also started passing information off to the CIA that would fall on deaf ears and lead to tragedy and war.Get early, ad-free access to all episodes on Patreon: https://patreon.com/1159media