Foreign Invaders

In December of 1979, the former Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. It was a long (ended in 1989), drawn-out conflict that sapped Soviet resources and one that many believe led to the downfall of the USSR and its fractionalization into a number of new nations. The United States (through the CIA) began covert aid to the mujahideen in 1980, often passing weapons and munitions through Pakistan’s notorious ISI intelligence directorate to the “freedom fighters” in Afghanistan. These mujahideen, which included the Taliban, eventually evolved into Al Qaeda. The term “blow back” germinated from the shift of focus of these mujahideen from the Soviets to attacks against the Western world, notably, the United States.

What started with a small contingent of 700 “disguised” Soviet troops (wearing Afghan uniforms) soon escalated into a large invasion force, reinforced with heavy air cover. Eventually, the Soviet force numbered over 100,000 troops. The mujahideen wore down the Soviets with hit and run tactics, well supplied with American and captured arms. The Soviet forces never seemed to gain the upper hand, and the withdrawal began in 1988, ending in 1989, just as the regional communist empire began to crumble and fall.

The Soviets were hated by virtually everybody. As their troop strength magnified, as villagers were often “collateral damage” in battles between “insurgents” and Soviet troops, any pretense by the Russians that they were there to support an incumbent government fell by the wayside. They were viewed simply as “foreign invaders.”

The recent Afghan “re-election” of Hamid Karzai – fraught with allegation of voter fraud (supported by wholesale disqualification of a number of submitted ballots – is the tip of the corruption iceberg. Karzai’s government, which Americans have hailed as “democratically elected,” is laced with greed and avarice, with bribes and “special interests” becoming the rule in one of the most corrupt governments in the region (and that’s saying a lot!).

Indeed, as U.S. troop strength reaches 68 thousand by the end of the year, supported by NATO forces adding another 40 thousand forces, we are beginning to look more like that failed Soviet invasion than an attempt to oust unpopular insurgents (like the Taliban) from the country. Villagers are often caught in the crossfire, Americans failed in their promise to upgrade the country and build infrastructure, schools, hospitals, etc., and locals are growing weary of never-ending conflict to support a clearly corrupt regime.

On September 11^th, experts gathered to discuss the future of international operations in Afghanistan over the weekend. The speeches provided dire warnings. Former Carter Administration National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski (he was there when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan), saw the clear parallels between the Soviet failure in the 1980s and what is going on with NATO forces today: ““We are running the risk of replicating — obviously unintentionally — the fate of the Soviets.”

Americans toppled the Taliban in 2001 with 100 U.S. Special Forces, but the United States soon lost interest in the Afghan fight and turned its attention and deployed its massive forces in a questionable pursuit of weapons of mass destruction theoretically hidden by Saddam Hussein somewhere in Iraq. The Taliban and other insurgent forces returned to the Afghan countryside with a vengeance, leaving the American-supported government with little under its effective control other than the capital, Kabul (and the surrounding area). Now we will have over 100,000 troops in the country, and we seem to have lost the support of the people.

Britain’s Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, the foreign secretary’s special representative for Afghanistan and a former British ambassador to Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and Israel, as summarized in the September 14^th New York Times: “What is needed now is ‘the intelligent application of military force,’ alongside long-promised development strategies, Sir Sherard said, evoking what he called a dream that, by 2011, a truckload of pomegranates would be able to pass unhindered from Afghanistan through Pakistan and into India, that Western students could study Afghan archaeological ruins, and that posters in the Pashto language inviting Pashtuns to ‘come on over’ from the Taliban would be tattered remnants — unneeded rather than unheeded — on the roadsides of southern Afghanistan… ‘That,’ he stressed, ‘is the dream.’”

Sometimes dreams can become nightmares.

I’m Peter Dekom, and I approve this message.