While watching the television once, I remember seeing the President of the United States talking about tyranny in the Middle East and the oppression of a people by what he called an "evil" entity.

He told Americans that we should unite behind his efforts to oust the occupying oppressing force.

He encouraged the people who lived in that country to rise against their oppressors to reclaim their own freedom.

He said the world would come to their aid and would rally behind them and when their day of victory came, the United States Government would support their efforts to establish a democracy and order to their homeland and they would eventually become a part of the "free" Western world.

The observance of this plea didn’t happen last week when President George W. Bush spoke to either Americans or when he addressed diplomats at the United Nations.

It took place almost 20 years ago when I was a teenager.

The President at the time was Ronald Reagan.

The country in question was Afghanistan.

The so-called "evil" oppressors then were the Soviet Union who had invaded the country after fearing the government there was a threat to them.

The Afghanistan of two decades ago holds several important lessons for us, the citizens of the United States today.

One is that of broken promises.

Eventually the Soviets did leave Afghanistan after a long, costly and bloody occupation of that country. The people did succeed in driving out Russian troops whose government had grown weary and broke from the campaign. But did the U.S. government live up to it’s promise of support and assistance?

No.

What then happened would set the stage for one of the most horrific crimes ever to be perpetrated on our own soil.

The clans who had a common enemy in the Soviets now only had each other so they fought for control of Afghanistan.

The U.S. stood by and did nothing.

Not even offering to broker a deal with the heads of the warring factions.

Eventually it would be the Taliban government that would win out over all in the major cities and several towns.

They instituted their form of oppressive rule on the people and again the U.S. stood by and did nothing for the people who were again slaughtered and again under the boot of dictatorship.

As we now know, that government provided a safe haven for an old friend of Afghanistan.

Osama bin Laden fought alongside their troops during the Soviet occupation.

The broken promise allowed a country to disintegrate into a training camp for terror — the kind of terror that brought down the Twin Towers, the Pentagon, orphaned hundreds of children, and changed thousands of lives.

The Soviet Union, a country so powerful at the time, felt they could do what ever they wanted to, including invade other countries to remove leaders they found "offensive".

Make no mistake, I would not lose one millisecond of sleep if I heard tomorrow that Saddam Hussein either died or was killed.

I believe he is building weapons of mass destruction now just like he was more than a decade ago when he invaded Kuwait. I also believe he is either harboring or funding members of Al Qaeda who planned the Sept. 11 attacks.

Invading Iraq will not be a walk in the park.

It will cost lives and billions of dollars — that’s billion with a ‘B’.

The U.S. would have to maintain an occupation force there to protect the new source of oil – a resource that seems to make people crazy, all over the world.

What could the end result be?

A once-mighty empire, broken in pieces, holding its hat in its hand, asking for help to stay afloat in the world economy while its people struggle to make ends meet.

Why should the U.S. be any different from Rome, Greece, Egypt, Great Britain, Russia or any other former world power throughout the course of history?