greedy Hoosier primitive discusses war in Afghanistan

[franksolich]

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=277x480

Oh my.

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IndianaGreen  (1000+ posts)        Thu Apr-30-09 06:41 PM
Original message
 
Afghanistan and the Lessons of Soviet Intervention

The Obama administration, as it seeks to withdraw from Iraq, finds itself in a far more difficult and complicated situation in Afghanistan. In February, the National Security Archive, a Washington-based institute that uncovers classified documents from the Cold War era, released a collection of fascinating documents from Soviet sources in the Gorbachev era.

These primary source documents concern the Gorbachev leadership’s attempts to extricate the USSR from its years-long military intervention in Afghanistan. From these documents, we might glean some important historical lessons about military intervention in Central Asia and look for alternatives to the Obama administration's plan to increase troop numbers there.

While I do not share the sympathetic portrayal of the “reformers” in the Gorbachev leadership of the USSR put forward by the analysts at the National Security Archive, particularly Gorbachev’s naïve, or worse, effort to cooperate with the Reagan administration and the Pakistani dictatorship, the documents could be a valuable source of information on the region for the Obama administration, as it seeks to learn from the past in order not to repeat the errors of the past.

Background

First, let us look from the US bloc side at how we arrived at the present situation 30 years after Zbigniew Brzezinski successfully convinced Jimmy Carter to throw US support to the right-wing Muslim guerrillas fighting a Communist-led government in Afghanistan. Brzezinski correctly argued that US intervention there could provoke the Soviets to fall into what he called “the Afghan trap,” a political military quagmire that could be “their Vietnam.”

Out of that policy, greatly expanded by the Reagan administration, came the victory of corrupt regional warlords and ultra-right religionists who formed the so-called mujahideen, the latter favored especially by the Pakistani regime. In 1988, under the leadership of Osama bin Laden, who had previously led the Saudi Arabian contingent of the tens of thousands of foreign Muslim “holy warriors," Al Qaeda, or “the base," was founded and joined the mujahideen.

Backed and funded by the US, this ultra-right group strove to fight to “purify” the Muslim world of all secular forces and regimes, drive out all “foreign” influences and establish an idealized multinational theocratic state founded on a distorted view of early Islam and governed by a fundamentalist interpretation of religious law.

Al Qaeda, along with the other US-backed groups and warlords that formed the mujahideen, literally drowned the Afghan revolution in blood at the beginning of the 1990s. Afghanistan's Communists, who had struggled since the late 1970s to achieve a social revolution based on land reform, secular government, education and gender equality, faced relentless terror and murder. Unfortunately, their seizure of power by force, subsequent internecine violence, and a general failure by the Communists to build popular support for a broad democratic and social justice program hurt their cause.

With the support of Pakistan, the Taliban, those sections of the guerrilla movement led by fundamentalist religious students, won out over the warlords and established a regime based on clerical dictatorship, which even the Iranian clerical regime would call "medieval."

http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/articleview/832...

Robeson  (1000+ posts)        Fri May-01-09 03:14 AM
Response to Original message
 
1. Interesting article...

...reminds me of all the Cold War era wars we've been in. I've recently reread a biography on Dean Rusk, and what we're dealing with - as the Soviets did - is a Vietnam type conflict. Unfortunately, as we did in Vietnam, and the Soviets did in Afghanistan, it seems our military leaders can only think of wars in Cold War terms, and tactics.

In fact, Obama's approach towards Afghanistan reminds me a lot like Nixons, when he took over: A peace with honor. It starts with escalation, and will end with a draining of treasure.

Touched in this article, was our need for a police action in conjunction with the surrounding nations. Of course, it's not in China or Russia's immediate interest to go along with that, since they would probably rather see us pay the price of attrition. In fact, that's almost as naive as Gorbachev thinking the U.S. and Pakistan would work with him. It would be easy to go on and on with the similarities, but suffice it to say, the only way to get out of this is with a new paradigm.

And, of course, we very well may lose.

[djones520]

Idiots...  the lot of them.

[AllosaursRus]

And, of course, we very well may lose.

How patriotic of you DUmbAss!

[delilahmused]

"We" won't lose...the democrats will lose. The American people who voted for Obama will lose and they'll revel in it. Losing will be a choice just like it was in Vietnam. Only now they can hand their sons, grandsons, nephews, etc. the legacy of shame they saddled Vietnam vets with. I honestly thought America had learned her lesson and would never again put her military through that. I was wrong. Just about the time I think the country truly cares about something greater than themselves they elect someone like Obama and I'm reminded that we care about sacrifice only if it doesn't affect us, personally, too much. So much for hope...but we sure got the freaking change.

Cindie

[BlueStateSaint]

"We" won't lose...the democrats will lose. The American people who voted for Obama will lose and they'll revel in it. Losing will be a choice just like it was in Vietnam. Only now they can hand their sons, grandsons, nephews, etc. the legacy of shame they saddled Vietnam vets with. I honestly thought America had learned her lesson and would never again put her military through that. I was wrong. Just about the time I think the country truly cares about something greater than themselves they elect someone like Obama and I'm reminded that we care about sacrifice only if it doesn't affect us, personally, too much. So much for hope...but we sure got the freaking change.

Cindie

I've come to the conclusion that every 20-30 years or so, we have to put ourselves through this, just to remind ourselves that there's some in this country who are real ****ups.  The people put them in power, and the ****ups begin.  Four years or so later, the people come to their senses and throw the ****ups out.  Then, we get people like Ronald Reagan in the White House.

The light at the end of the tunnel is not honking at us.

[SSG Snuggle Bunny]

While I do not share the sympathetic portrayal of the “reformers” in the Gorbachev leadership of the USSR put forward by the analysts at the National Security Archive, particularly Gorbachev’s naïve, or worse, effort to cooperate with the Reagan administration...

He-Who-Invaded-Tiny-Peaceful-Lithuania-and-had-to-be-Challenged-to-End-Soviet-Oppression-of-Eastern-Europe's only sin was cooperating with Reagan?

[DumbAss Tanker]

War in Afghanistan can only be fought in two ways; 1 - Blow the shit out of everything dangerous to you and split, or 2 - Make the multi-generational commitment to the Long War, protecting and institutionalizing the cultural changes necessary to bring them from a pre-feudal social organization to something roughly resembling modern civilization.  Anything between the two will end in failure.

Nobody likes to say anything good about the Russkiis and their involvement since they were, after all, our dyed-in-the-wool adversaries, but the original involvement of the Soviets there (Before the invasion) was largely well-intentioned and motivated by a progressive (Small p) desire to bring the Afghans into at least the 19th Century, whcih is essentially what we would also have to do to actually win the Long War strategy.  The incident that kicked off the invasion was a massacre of Soviet civilians (Women and men) with multiple beheadings by Muj at a cultural  center where the Soviets had taught about horrifyingly outrageous ideas like women's equality and birth control.  Can't say I really blame the USSR for wanting to clean out the tribesmen after that, but of course it was in our best national security interests to back the uncivilized tribesmen at the time to give the Red Army something to do besides preparing to overrun Western Europe.     

[AllosaursRus]

We actually had a chance to fix this after we helped the natives beat the shit outa the Rusky's back in the 70's and early 80's, I believe.

What did we do? We pulled the plug on the funding! It would have cost us 1/10th of what it has already cost us this go-around and we're no where near finished. With Bam Bam in charge we got a long way to go in order to pull outa there.

 If we had only lent a hand in the first place, to the restructuring of the country, they might have been the first Democracy in the ME instead of Iraq!!

Anyone else read Charlie's war? I believe that's the title.