Tomgram

Afghanistan: from triumph to quagmire?

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Margolis, a veteran reporter from America’s last Afghan war — against the Soviets — and columnist for the Toronto Sun is, as ever, on the mark about a story just beginning to rise to consciousness in the mainstream media. This week, two wounded American soldiers and a dead one brought some modest attention to the American situation in Afghanistan. Margolis reminds us that the Soviets too were initially triumphant in Afghanistan, installed a puppet government, declared the liberation of Afghan women and churned out similar propaganda about their good deeds. Where the analogy breaks down, of course, is that there is no other superpower left to fund and arm a resistance movement against an American Afghanistan. Still, we declared victory awfully early and didn’t go home. It’s likely to prove a dangerous combination. (The word to watch for in the American press is “quagmire.” When you see that and Afghanistan appearing in the same articles, you’ll know we know we’re in trouble.) Tom

Details of U.S. victory are a little premature
By Eric Margolis
Contributing Foreign Editor
The Toronto Sun
December 22, 2002

On the frigid night of Dec. 24, 1979, Soviet airborne forces seized Kabul airport. Elite Alpha Group commandos sped to the presidential palace, burst into the bedroom of Afghan President Hafizullah Amin and gunned him down. Columns of Soviet armour crossed the border and raced south toward Kabul.

It took Soviet forces only a few days to occupy Afghanistan. They installed a puppet ruler, Babrak Karmal. Moscow proclaimed it had invaded Afghanistan to “liberate” it from “feudalism and Islamic extremism” and “nests of terrorists and bandits.”

Soviet propaganda churned out films of Red Army soldiers playing with children, building schools, dispensing medical care. Afghan women were to be liberated from the veil and other backward Islamic customs. The Soviet Union and its local communist allies would bring Afghanistan into the 20th century.

Two years later, Afghans had risen against their Soviet “liberators” and were waging a low-intensity guerrilla war.

To read more Margolis click here

On the frigid night of Dec. 24, 1979, Soviet airborne forces seized Kabul airport. Elite Alpha Group commandos sped to the presidential palace, burst into the bedroom of Afghan President Hafizullah Amin and gunned him down. Columns of Soviet armour crossed the border and raced south toward Kabul.

It took Soviet forces only a few days to occupy Afghanistan. They installed a puppet ruler, Babrak Karmal. Moscow proclaimed it had invaded Afghanistan to “liberate” it from “feudalism and Islamic extremism” and “nests of terrorists and bandits.”

Soviet propaganda churned out films of Red Army soldiers playing with children, building schools, dispensing medical care. Afghan women were to be liberated from the veil and other backward Islamic customs. The Soviet Union and its local communist allies would bring Afghanistan into the 20th century.

Two years later, Afghans had risen against their Soviet “liberators” and were waging a low-intensity guerrilla war.

To read more Margolis click here