AFGHANISTAN: THE UNLIT PATH

LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL

OR CUSTERS LAST STAND?

By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor

In 1979, the Soviet Union sent 100,000 troops into Afghanistan, starting a conflict the United States is fighting today.  In reality, it is the same war, just moving from stage to stage, increasingly becoming a 21st century version of "Custer’s Last Stand."

The Soviets left in 1989, humiliated after a decade of fighting mujahideen armed by the United States, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Between 500,000 and 2 million Afghani’s died and another 5 million fled the country, including the majority of Afghanistan’s educated class.

Through 1996, when the Taliban, a radical Islamic group, seized Kabul, the country was involved in continual conflict between warlords, many former US allies, many of whom were massive opium producers.  By 2000, the Taliban controlled the entire country and instituted a repressive rule but also eliminated opium production.

Only weeks after 9/11, elite US forces entered Afghanistan and organized the warlords of the Northern Alliance to move on Kabul with US support.  Hamid Karzai, a Pashtun of royal blood, was chosen president and a basis for democratic government was established. 

What should have been the end of war and the rebuilding of Afghanistan with the return of millions of Afghani’s to rebuild their war torn nation, has become years of warfare, threatening to destabilize neighboring Pakistan, a nuclear power.  A war America thought was won is now growing daily, a war against an enemy 90% of Afghanistans military could care less about. America is going to be very lonely, waiting for the "Afghanization" of the war.   

At home, America is able to put a name and face on an enemy.  In Afghanistan, especially in the new Afghani military, many of whose units cross normal tribal and cultural divides, the enemy is not an enemy at all.  The enemy is the same race, the same religion, the same family and, likely as not, politically identical as well.

After decades of civil war, Afghanistan is proving unwilling to destroy itself as long as America and its western allies provide ample targets as President Obama continues the failed policies of the Bush regime that only seem to be spreading terrorism and Islamic extremism and flooding the streets of Western Europe and America with heroin.  Only one economic development in Afghanistan has been a great success, each year’s opium crop is a record. 

Attempts to bring an the Afghan Army with some of the world’s best fighters and a few top quality units, into broad combat against the Taliban has been a total failure.  National unity in Afghanistan was damaged by an election many in the country believed was rigged and President Karzai is continually defending family members from accusations of drug smuggling and war profiteering.

General Stanley McChrystal’s request for 45,000 new troops, believed by many in Congress to be a first step in an escalation that would require several times that number, is being met with open skepticism.  President Obama openly admits that a pullout from Afghanistan is on the table and that his support of a continued presence in Iraq is only based on a timed pullout from a war he continues to indicate was morally unsupportable.

The continuing issue for America is how to bring Afghanistan, a country that is, again, substantially under Taliban control, into a broad civil war when there is no desire by Afghanistan to participate.  There is no "Sunni/Shiite" rift nor are there any broad political divisions between political theories in one of the world’s least developed nations.

After years in Afghanistan and billions spent on "nationbuilding" little or nothing has been done other than to alienate the population while millions of highly educated and trained professionals born in Afghanistan are unwilling to return under these circumstances.

The only driving factor to bring Afghanistan to war would be the presence of a foreign enemy, worse, one with clear religious differences.  People who won’t kill their neighbors and family members for the honor of a central government most look on as corrupt.  Most won’t fight support the billions of dollars of opium trafficking.

However, tens of thousands or more,  seem more than willing to pick up one of the more than ample supply of top quality Russian weapons flooding the region and attack Americans who came to Afghanistan with the overt intention of restoring a democratic government.

Though President Obama is a much less polarizing figure than Bush and new US policies on detention, torture show a moderation of views, Bush era "crusaderism" steeped in anti-Islamic rhetoric and driven by Christian extremism, in many ways mimicking the Taliban, may have done permanent damage to the American cause.

America at home, appears to the rest of the world to be closer to civil war than Afghanistan.  With powerful "mainstream" news networks continually attacking government policies and screaming of "liberal news bias," a bias not seen outside the US, much of the world believes America has gone mad.

The world sees evidence of a 9/11 coverup, war crimes, rigged elections, massive corruption and American officials being bought and sold by foreign governments shrugged off as though it were nothing, scandals that would collapse governments in any but the world’s most brutal and repressive dictatorships.

In the midst of a war, the only debate in America involves health care, an issue no major nation other than the US recognizes as subject to unregulated private sector abuses.  Videos of parading mobs, often armed, attacking President Obama based on obvious racial hatred is disconcerting in a world neither Christian fundimentalist nor white.

Even moderate Islamic friends of the US, even those who find Iran’s current regime deplorable, believe that America is fixated on looking for wars to fight and not economic prosperty and peaceful development.  America has become an easy target in this sense, after 8 years of flexing what has proven to be relatively ineffective military muscle.

With the majority of America’s forces stored in Iraq, useless in the event of war with Iran because of current agreements and a country unmotivated despite continual terrorist alerts and warnings of nuclear doom at the hands of Iran, whatever enemies America has around the world know they can buy massive loss of power and prestige for the US with little actual cost and no risk at all.

How many old scores are being settled even now?  An ineptly managed war 8 year ago is now a massive debacle that new sanctions against Iran and dredging tactics and strategies into play from totally different lessons in Vietnam are never going to be able to address.

Few Americans forget the scenes of helicopters being loaded from the roof of the American embassy in Saigon.  Nothing more could be done to repeat that scene than what is being done now. 

Gordon Duff is a Marine combat veteran and regular contributor on political and social issues.

Gordon Duff

Gordon Duff posted articles on VT from 2008 to 2022. He is a Marine combat veteran of the Vietnam War. A disabled veteran, he worked on veterans and POW issues for decades.

Gordon is an accredited diplomat and is generally accepted as one of the top global intelligence specialists. He manages the world’s largest private intelligence organization and regularly consults with governments challenged by security issues.

Duff has traveled extensively, is published around the world, and is a regular guest on TV and radio in more than “several” countries. He is also a trained chef, wine enthusiast, avid motorcyclist, and gunsmith specializing in historical weapons and restoration. Business experience and interests are in energy and defense technology.

• Gordon’s Archives:  2008-2015
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