Leaving AfghaniNam
Even before the USSR sent troops to Afghanistan to assist the government (much like the US says it does), Jimmy Carter was pouring money and weapons into the country.
The US Quagmire in Afghanistan was meant to stop a Homegrown Leftist Revolution
Like Viet Nam, the fiasco in Afghanistan is ending in a bitter retreat. It’s as if the high school bully got beat up by a 7th grade girl. If other countries were as warlike as the US, they would be lining up to kick America’s ass.
US involvement started under Jimmy Carter. Yes, that President. He was influenced by National Security Advisor, Zwigneiw Brezinzki, who said that whoever controlled Asia, controlled the world.
In 1973, there was a coup against the king, Haji Mohammed Zahir Shah, led by his cousin, Mohammed Daoud Khan, with assistance from the leftist People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA).
(Note: King Zahir Shah was brought back to reign over Afghanistan in 2002, after the U.S. had forced the Taliban to retreat from Kabul, the capital city. Shah continued as king until he died in 2007.)
Daoud Khan’s regime was anything but democratic. In fact, the nation of Afghanistan had never known democracy in its whole existence.
Back in 1978, tensions were growing between Daoud Khan and the PDPA. When one of the PDPA’s leaders was assassinated, his colleagues believed it was the beginning of a wholesale slaughter of PDPA members in government. Led by Hafizullah Amin, a military officer and PDPA member, they preempted further supposed violence by seizing power, with help from members of the Afghan National Army. The new government was led by Nur Mohammad Taraki, Babrak Karmal and Hafizullah Amin.
At long last, democracy became the order of the day. The government was led by the PDPA, which was an umbrella group for two main factions, the Khalq and the Parcham. The more radical Khalq faction had led the revolution under Taraki, and was the dominant group.
In addition to changing the country’s name to the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA), the new government gave women and ethnic minorities equal rights. Women were free at last of being sold as brides, or having forced marriages. Burqas were banned. A broad literacy program was set up for children, men and women. A program of land reform was begun and usury was ended.
Women assumed leading positions in the social and political life of Afghanistan. Anahita Ratebzad had been active on women’s issues since the 1950s, but after the revolution, she became deputy head of state, from 1980 to 1986. She escaped Afghanistan when the Taliban took over in 1992.
Revolutionaries Blunder While Mullahs Organize
It seems impossible in hindsight that such a radical government and program could have popular support, but in fact, the new government was strongly supported in Kabul and other major cities, and among the military. But out in the countryside, the medieval Mullahs were having none of it. Pakistan and Saudi Arabia began sending them weapons.
If the more moderate Parcham faction had been in charge, the revolution might have succeeded. Alas, once in power, the Khalq faction instituted a full-on socialist program. In a state where nothing had changed in hundreds of years, this was a mistake.
A year later, in 1979, things were going downhill. In March, Taraki went to Moscow to plead for ground troops but was turned down flat. Alexei Kosygin told him "we believe it would be a fatal mistake to commit ground troops... if our troops went in, the situation in your country... would get worse."
Most of the new leaders of the country were professors and intellectuals, not fighters. They appealed to the Soviet Union for help. The USSR declined to send troops, but did send weapons, including helicopters, and some advisors to support the government.
Animosity was growing between Taraki and his fellow Khalq activist, Hafizullah Amin. Several assassination attempts had been made on Amin by Taraki supporters. Then in September, Taraki, the president of the Democratic Republic, was found smothered in his bed.
Amin tried to reverse some of the anti-Islamic edicts from Taraki, but he sought advice from the CIA and from Pakistan, while snubbing the Soviet Union. Amin lasted only three months in power.
Soviets Dither While Washington Lays a Trap
On Dec. 27, 1979, Soviet troops began a massive airlift into Kabul. The death of Taraki and the assumption of power by Amin, whom the Soviets did not trust, likely changed their leadership’s opinion about sending troops from “hell, no” to “definitely, yes.” In addition, the fundamentalists in the countryside were getting supplied with weapons by the US, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.
The comrades in Moscow and Prague thought Karmal was the “real deal.” He was, perhaps, the only person who could save Afghanistan, in their opinion. On the other hand, Taraki and Amin were only making matters worse with their super-militancy.
Even though Karmal was the leader of the Parcham faction, he was given the relatively lowly appointment of Ambassador to Czechoslovakia. Taraki wanted to make a potential rival go away. Later, he decided that Karmal must go away permanently.
The Czech leaders found out that three assassins were headed to Prague with orders to kill Karmal. The Czechs spirited Karmal, his wife and children, out of town. He spent most of the time at a hunting lodge near the German border. Despite numerous requests from Taraki to send the Ambassador home (to certain death), the Czechs ignored the leader of a fraternal country, the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. Finally, the Czechs told Karmal that the three assassins sent by Taraki had been “dealt with,” making it safe for him to go to Moscow where he had meetings with top officials.
The upshot of the Moscow meetings was that the current leadership of the DRA had to go. There was no showdown with Taraki, since he had been murdered by Hafizullah Amin, who assumed the presidency. But, before he died, Taraki had requested the intervention of Soviet troops. Months after his death, the Soviets granted the dead president’s request.
Karmal hitched a ride to Kabul with the Soviet armada, where he promptly took over as president. Amin was killed the night the troops arrived in Kabul, in a gun battle between his palace guard and Soviet troops.
The US, by way of National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski and President Jimmy Carter had gotten seriously interested early in 1979, months before Soviet troops arrived. The CIA was put in charge of Operation Cyclone, which was a plan to put modern weapons in the hands of the mujahideen, who were fighting with the government in Kabul and the Afghan army, which supported it. Carter and Brezinzki reasoned they could give their rival a black eye without sending any troops.
President Carter issued a secret presidential finding in July 1979, that it authorize interaction with the mujahideen, provide training for them, and Arab volunteers, as well as providing a “credit card” with a limit of $1.7 billion, with which the mujahideen could go shopping for the latest US military weapons. The funding was to be matched by Saudi Arabia, with more money and weapons also coming from Pakistan, the UK, and China, which was in its anti-USSR period. Moral support came from Congressmember Charlie Wilson of Texas. Soon Soviet helicopters, which had been donated to the Afghan military, were falling out of the sky as a result of the rebel’s new weapons.
The fall of the left in Afghanistan was because of several factors. First, the overwhelming firepower, and billions of dollars, given to the mujahideen prevented Karmal’s government from securing a base in the countryside. When Karmal added non-Marxists to the ruling bodies, it did not result in a broader popular base. Most Afghans saw the Soviet intervention as an invasion, much as they would later view the 20-year-long occupation by the US.
Afghan Left Outlasts the Soviet Union
In retrospect, Karmal and the other Parcham leaders exceeded expectations by lasting until 1986, and then in coalition until 1992. By then, it was the Soviets who grew weary of so many soldiers dying, and the financial drain. In 1986, Leonid Brezhnev was long gone and Mikhail Gorbachev was calling the shots. The Afghan leadership fell in line and replaced Karmal with Mohammad Najibullah, another Parcham member. Karmal was treated well by the Soviets, who gave him an apartment in Moscow and a Dacha.
Did the leftists maintain any support, or was it all propaganda? In 1988, the first election was for the governing legislative body, now called the House of Representatives. The Parcham candidates won the most seats, and were able to control the government, with the support of the National Front and independent leftists who were elected.
However, with the withdrawal of Soviet troops in February 1989, prospects for the survival of Najibullah’s government looked bleak. The mujahideen attempted to supply the coup de grâce by taking over the city of Jalalabad, with support of the Pakistani secret police. They were surprised to find stiff resistance from government forces defending the city. In all, the mujahideen lost more than 3,000 soldiers in their failed assault.
It was to be the last hurrah for the government. On April 14, 1992, Najibullah announced his resignation which was interpreted as the end of the progressive experiment. Warlord Ahmad Shah Massoud and Army Commander Abdul Rashid Dostum switched sides and joined the mujahideen. On September 26, 1996, the Taliban abducted Najibullah from UN custody and tortured him to death, and then dragged his dead (and, according to Robert Parry, castrated body behind a truck through the streets of Kabul.) He and his brother were then hung from light poles in Kabul.
During the next five years, Afghanistan saw an assortment of Mullahs and holy men who worked to turn the country (variously known as The Islamic State of Afghanistan or The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan) back to the Middle Ages.
That interlude was interrupted by the events of September 11, 2001, and the subsequent invasion of Afghanistan by US forces. The 911 plot was undertaken by Saudi Arabians, led by one of their leading citizen, Osama bin Laden but Afghanistan and Iraq paid the price. Years earlier bin Laden had participated in fighting the left government and Soviets, along with the mujahideen. Like the rest of them, he likely raked in money and arms from the CIA.
As bad as the Taliban might have been, they weren’t dumb enough to get involved with al Qaeda. Even so, George W. Bush, and the Pentagon warmongers, were determined to ruin the innocent-bystander countries of Afghanistan and Iraq. In Afghanistan, the Mullahs were replaced by US-supported oil executives, like Hamid Karzai.
Afghanistan has been the longest running intervention by the United States. It became one of the best known of the 81 covert or overt interventions from 1945-2000, says Carnegie-Mellon University Professor Dov Levin. The pace of interventions certainly hasn’t slowed since 2000, with the 911 World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks which encouraged further atrocities, including a full-scale occupation of Afghanistan by the US military, on the pretext of searching for Bin Laden, who was in neighboring Pakistan the whole time (until he was allegedly killed by US Marines in 2011).
It is likely that Afghanistan will get a whole lot nastier once US troops are gone. It might even get as bad as the first time the Taliban seized power. However, countries, including the US, should not take this as a call for renewed occupation, or bombing.
The best solution would be for a coalition government, including the Taliban. The worst solution would be a civil war and bloodbath. Either way, it is none of the business of the United States, or any other uninvited third party. No one needs another 20 year occupation. That’s not how people learn to be nice.
Unless we are all being fooled by Joe Biden, this long and embarrassing imperialist crusade may be coming to an end. At least, we now know the farthest reach of the US Empire, and it doesn’t include Afghanistan. Let us hope that neighboring China and India have greater respect for the sovereignty of this poor country than did the invaders from the other side of the world.
Perhaps now, Afghanistan will be able to chart its own destiny, whether we like it or not.
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