Ghosts of Afghanistan: Hard Truths and Foreign Myths

Instead, Daoud and Naim, pistols in hand, charged out of the palace at the soldiers, and were shot and killed. The revolution was initially welcomed by many people in Kabul, who were dissatisfied with Daoud government. In Kabul, the initial cabinet appeared to be carefully constructed to alternate ranking positions between Khalqis and Parchamis.

Ghosts of Afghanistan: Hard Truths and Foreign Myths

The unity, however, between Khalq and Parcham lasted only briefly. Taraki and Amin in early July relieved most of the Parchamis from their government positions. Karmal was sent abroad as Ambassador to Czechoslovakia. In August , Taraki and Amin uncovered a "plot" and executed or imprisoned several cabinet members, including the military leader of the Saur Revolution, General Abdul Qadir.

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In September , it was Taraki's turn to become a victim of the Revolution. Amin overthrew and executed him. Once in power, the PDPA implemented a socialist agenda. That led to an agricultural crisis and a fall in agricultural production. The PDPA, an advocate of equal rights for women, declared the equality of the sexes. A prominent example was Anahita Ratebzad , who was a major Marxist leader and a member of the Revolutionary Council. Ratebzad wrote the famous May 28, New Kabul Times editorial, which declared: Educating and enlightening women is now the subject of close government attention.

The revolution also introduced severe repression of a kind previously unknown in Afghanistan. According to journalist Robert D. Kaplan , while Afghanistan had historically been extremely poor and underdeveloped, it "had never known very much political repression" until The soldiers' knock on the door in the middle of the night, so common in many Arab and African countries, was little known in Afghanistan, where a central government simply lacked the power to enforce its will outside of Kabul.

Taraki's coup changed all that. Between April and the Soviet invasion of December , Afghan communists executed 27, political prisoners at the sprawling Pul-i-Charki prison six miles east of Kabul. Many of the victims were village mullahs and headmen who were obstructing the modernization and secularization of the intensely religious Afghan countryside. By Western standards, this was a salutary idea in the abstract. But it was carried out in such a violent way that it alarmed even the Soviets.

Kaplan states that it was the Saur Revolution and its harsh land reform program, rather than the December Soviet invasion "as most people in the West suppose", that "ignited" the mujahidin revolt against the Kabul authorities and prompted the refugee exodus to Pakistan. The Khalqist regime pushed hard for socialist reforms and was brutal in its repression of opposition.

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Discontent fomented amongst the people of Afghanistan, and after several uprisings the following year— March in the town of Herat , June in the Chindawol district of Kabul , August at the fortress of Bala Hissar — troops from the USSR entered Afghanistan in December , citing the Brezhnev Doctrine as basis for their intervention. Insurgent groups fought Soviet troops and the PDPA government for more than nine years until the final withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan in February Instability remained in Afghanistan, with war continuing to plague the country for more than four decades after the revolution.

So too was Western intervention. The Kabul regime appealed thirteen times for Soviet military support, even as Soviet diplomats as we now know from Soviet archives and memoirs of former Soviet officials sent the Kremlin frequent reports on the developing crisis. But it was not until December 12 that the Soviet leader, Leonid Brezhnev, and a small group within the Politburo authorized regime change in Kabul. Soviet troops would enter the country and topple the hard-line PDPA leader, Hafizullah Amin, replacing him with a team that was intended to soften the revolution in order to save it.

At the time of my first visit, in November , that policy had enjoyed some success, although not as much as the Soviets originally hoped. They controlled Kabul and the key cities of Jalalabad, which is close to Pakistan, and Mazar-i-Sharif and Balkh in the north, as well as the roads between them.

Herat in the west and Kandahar, the de facto capital of the Pashtun south, were less secure, subject to sporadic mujahedin raids. But the Afghan capital was safe. From the window of my room in a small, family-owned hotel opposite the main Soviet military hospital, I could see ambulances delivering wounded men to a row of tents on the grounds that had been added to relieve pressure on the overflowing wards.

Ghosts of Afghanistan: Hard Truths & Foreign Myths

The soldiers had sustained their injuries in ambushes on the supply routes to Kabul or in failed, tank-led assaults on mujahedin-held villages. The Afghan capital was almost untouched by the war and Soviet troops were hardly ever seen on its streets. They occasionally came into the city center in small groups to buy souvenirs shortly before their tours of duty ended. Like the Obama administration, with its plan to build up the Afghan army, the Soviets tried to leave as many military duties as possible to Afghans. In Kabul and the main cities, the effort was successful.

Security was in Afghan army and police hands. The Afghan army was largely made up of conscripts and there were no reliable figures on its size. The desertion rate was high. In a document published in , the U. State Department claimed the army shrank from one hundred thousand in to twenty-five thousand by the end of Whatever the truth, the Soviets were able to depend on Afghans for urban law and order, if not for combat.

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Others wore a loose head scarf over their hair. Only in the bazaar where poorer people shopped was the all-embracing burqa common, usually blue, pink, or a light shade of brown. The reformist wing of the PDPA that was put into power by the Soviet invasion saw the burqa as a product of tradition rather than Islamic fundamentalism. The same political charge ran in the other direction when the Bush administration toppled the Taliban and hailed the lifting of the obligatory burqa rule as the complete emancipation of Afghan women.

Ghosts of Afghanistan: Hard Truths & Foreign Myths

I never discovered the cause of those explosions I heard during my interview with Foreign Minister Dost, but his point that Kabul was unaffected by the destruction of war was valid. Below the dam wall there was a primitive golf course; from the top you could sometimes see Soviet tanks at the far end of the lake or Soviet war planes making low bombing runs. In those early years of the occupation, Soviet officials were still hoping they could win the war of attrition. They felt that, as they represented the forces of modernity, time was on their side.

In the company of other Europeans, Russian diplomats and journalists in Kabul complained about the natives like any European expatriates in any developing country. They were unreliable, unpunctual, inefficient, and unnecessarily suspicious of foreigners. You complain to the tailor and what does he answer?

A seasoned journalist, Volkov had been in Afghanistan on and off since his first trip in Winter had not yet set in and as long as the sun was up the air of the high plateau where Kabul sits was crisp and warm. Startled, I sat upright. He may be carrying a machine gun under his robes. Sometimes they even veil themselves to look like women.

Only that morning, one of his staff had told him she had received a nighttime message warning her not to carry on working for Russians. This was constantly happening to people on the Soviet staff, he confided. The head of the PDPA branch at Kabul University told me five of his colleagues had been assassinated in the last two years.

Mullahs who worked with the government under its new policy of financing the building of dozens of new mosques, in a bid to show the revolution was not against Islam, were prime targets. On my next visit to the city, in February , the mujahedin were now able to cause more fear in Kabul thanks to the long-range mm rockets that they lobbed into the capital on an almost daily basis.

But the weapons were untargeted, and produced minimal damage and few casualties. Rockets landed at least three times in the U. Meanwhile, Soviet forces were doing marginally better than in the first two years of the war. They had managed to push their security perimeter farther out around the key cities. Whereas in I had not been allowed out of the city centers, now, with a minder but no military escort, I was taken to villages a dozen miles out of Jalalabad, Mazar-i-Sharif, and Kabul.

Nov 01, Frank rated it really liked it. An excellent read which provides significant insight into just how screwed up US Foreign Policy really is. Find out why a US victory in Afghanistan will never occur. Learn why the Soviets voluntarily left Afghanistan - they knew it was a no win proposition and chose to bail. Learn why the US and its Allies wasted their treasure and spent the blood of heroic service personnel on the poorest county in the World where the Life expectancy is Negotiations with ALL of the parties involved, including the Taliban "The Students" is the only long term path toward peace in this Country.

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May 15, Zack rated it it was amazing. Another well-written and depressing book explaining the ongoing poor decision-making of US leadership with regard to the war in Afghanistan. This would go a long way toward educating people about the background of Afghanistan from a social standpoint over the past 30 or so years. It also gives much to chew on with regard to how to resolve things going forward. A very sobering and incisive account which well draws the parallels between the Soviet and the American interventions as it goes on to demolish some of the pervasive myths or received wisdom that seems to become entrenched in the perceptions and discourse of the Afghan war.

A very timely and illuminating read for anyone interested in the country Mar 06, Mark Monsma rated it liked it Shelves: A great report on the military history of Afghanistan, although the narrative got a bit wordy and elongated. It is still a great read, but be prepared for a lot of learning. Sep 09, Assad added it. It was nice to see the political differences in Afghanistan from an American point of view. Jillian rated it really liked it Dec 02, Mikkel rated it really liked it Jun 29, Lucybelle rated it really liked it Dec 19, Srikrishna rated it really liked it Sep 27, Emi rated it really liked it Jan 01, Cheechee rated it really liked it Feb 01, Arjun rated it really liked it Nov 20,