Scenes from ‘Rambo III’ in Afghanistan are going viral after Taliban takeover

Team Udayavani, Aug 23, 2021, 11:36 AM IST

After the Taliban took over Afghanistan, scenes from war movies have surfaced on social media.

Thousands of Afghans with or without passports rushed to the airport, trying to flee the country.

Amidst this chaos, an old scene from Rambo III has gone viral on the Internet. The then most reputed mercenary, played by Sylvester Stallone, was paying a visit to Afghanistan, on a mission to rescue his friend, Colonel Sam Trautman, who was being held in a Soviet camp high in the Afghan mountains, so he could spout exposition about Afghanistan’s reputation as the graveyard of empires.

The clip that went viral was the conversation between Colonel Trautman (Richard Crenna) and Zaysen (Marc de Jonge) while Trautman is being interrogated in Afghanistan. During this conversation, Trautman warns Zaysen about how stupid it is to start a holy war in the middle east in the name of freedom.

He tells his Soviet captors, “Every day your war machines lose ground to a bunch of poorly armed, poorly equipped freedom fighters. If you’d studied your history, you’d know that these people have never given up to anyone. They’d rather die than be slaves to an invading army. You can’t defeat people like that. We tried. We already had our Vietnam.”

Apart from this scene, another clip on Youtube, titled ‘Rambo in Afghanistan’ – posted in 2011, depicting the 1988 film, has also gone viral. Its the first time Rambo makes his way to Afghanistan, which he is introduced to by an Afghan.

“This is Afghanistan. Alexander the Great tried to conquer this country. Then Genghis Khan, then the British, now Russia,” the interpreter describes the country to Rambo.

Further sharing,  “Ancient people make prayer about these people. It says: May God deliver us from the venom of the cobra, teeth of the tiger, and the vengeance of the Afghans.”

Another reason why Rambo III was back in the news is that the movie was allegedly “dedicated to the brave Mujahideen fighters of Afghanistan.”

These credits to the film Rambo 3 were possibly the most popular quiz question when I was in college.

[For some reason, the Arabic participle "mujahid" fell out of use later on and got replaced by Hindi-Urdu construction "jihadi" in English. Maybe a suffix was more familiar?] pic.twitter.com/7INX3AWJul

— Shoaib Daniyal (@ShoaibDaniyal) August 15, 2021

I'm surprised people aren't posting Rambo 3 clips. pic.twitter.com/8eo2PcmsAg

— American Krogan (@AmericanKrogan) August 15, 2021

Just finished watching Rambo 3, time to casually scroll through social media. pic.twitter.com/gmgftMWLFY

— steve catanese (@old_noise) August 15, 2021

Yes, at least TLD stopped short of this sort of behaviour #Rambo3 pic.twitter.com/wuvaDcbnPL

— The Bubbles Tickle My Tchaikovsky (@TheTchaikovsky) August 15, 2021

In the clear vision of 20/20 hindsight, Rambo 3 didn't age well. #Afghanistan #Mujahideen pic.twitter.com/7bLyLZBhvO

— An Absurd Hero (@ohhheyitsisaac) August 16, 2021