AFGHANISTAN:
The
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of Empires
Dr. Zoltán Grossman
Member of the Faculty (Geography/Indigenous Studies)
The Evergreen State College, Olympia, WA
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Mackinder’s Heartland Theory
(Whoever controls Pivot Area can control the world)
The Great Game
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British and Russian empires
vie for Afghanistan as part
of regional rivarly
Anglo-Afghan Wars
1839-1842 British defeat
1878-1880 British controlled
foreign affairs, drew borders
1919 British defeated;
Afghanistan independent
Afghan identity coalesced
in battle with outside empires
Independent period
1933-73
Monarchy under Zahir Shah
1973-78
Republic under Mohammad Daoud
1978
Socialist, secular revolution
1979
Civil war of pro-Soviet factions
under Taraki (Parchami/Flag) and
Amin (Khalqi/Masses)
Clerics oppose land reform, girls’ education
Afghan women, 1978
Carter/Brzezinski aid to jihadist mujahidin
provokes Soviets to invade
Blowback
U.S. aided jihadist fundamentalists to
set a trap for the Soviet Union in Afghanistan:
"What was more important in the worldview of history? The
Taliban or the fall of the Soviet Empire? A few stirred-up
Muslims or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the
Cold War?” --President Carter’s national security advisor
Zbigniew Brzezinski, 1996.
Soviet occupation, 1979-89
Afghan-Soviet War begins Dec. 1979 (Babrak Karmal)
Soviets control Kabul—not much damage
US / Saudi / Pakistani ISI aid 1/3 northern mujahidin,
2/3 Pashtun south (Hekmatyar)
Pakistan vs. Russia and India
Bin Laden tunnel engineer
Maktab al-Khidamat (MAK)
(Office of Order)
Soviet defeat, 1989-92
Reagan’s Stingers tip balance for mujahidin
1989 Soviet withdrawal, leave Najibullah in charge
“Decent interval”
( like Vietnam
1973-75)
1992 Najibullah
executed,
mujahidin win
Complex Afghan ethnic geography
Types of territoriality
State
(patriotism)
Ethnic
(nationalism)
Religious
(sectarianism)
Racial
Mujahidin civil war, 1992-96
North vs. south ethnic groups
Damage to Kabul from missiles, fighting
First restrictions on women’s rights,
massive use of rape as weapon
Warlords unpopular
In Kabul, countryside
Taliban, 1996
Taliban (Students) were
Pashtun trained in Pakistan,
took over Afghanistan
Continued restrictions on
women’s rights
US State Dept, DEA cooperates on opium;
Taliban visit Texas, negotiate gas pipeline with Unocal
Al Qaeda attack on US embassies, 1998
Clinton bombs Sudan, Afghanistan; Bin Laden takes refuge
with Taliban; destruction of Buddhist temple
US breaks relations, aids Northern Alliance warlords
9/11/2001
Assassination of Ahmed Shah Massoud
(popular unifying northern warlord) on
Sunday, 9/9
9/11 on Tuesday—how fits in?
Why attack WTC?
(Fisk)
9/11 as minor
sideshow to
Afghanistan
(3,000 vs. 1-2 mil.)
U.S. invasion, Oct.-Nov. 2001
Ostensibly reaction to 9/11, but war vs.
Taliban already in planning.
Backed Northern Alliance takeover of Kabul;
condemned by RAWA opponents of Taliban
“Two wrongs don’t make a right”:
Afghan civilian toll quickly equals 9/11 toll
Drawn
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into a trap?
• Bin Laden provoked U.S. to
launch ground invasion?
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• Bin Laden thought he would
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“fight the last war” that the
Afghans had won against the
Soviets.
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• Taliban were easy to run out of
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Kabul, but guerrilla campaign
steadily growing
• Like Soviets, Americans’ control
of Kabul is useless
Afghanistan as
the “Wild West”
“I want justice. And there's an
old poster out West that says,
‘Wanted: Dead or Alive.’ ”
--George W. Bush (9/17/01)
“Taliban and Al Qaeda figures do hide in remote
regions of Pakistan. This is wild country; this is wilder
than the Wild West.”
-- --George W. Bush (2/07)
Patterns
The U.S. supported the mujahidin
takeover of Kabul in 1992, the
Taliban takeover in 1996, and the
Northern Alliance takeover in
2001.
Its aims were usually to "liberate"
Afghanistan from the last regime it
supported.
Taking sides in internal Afghan
warlord disputes risks “blowback.”
Afghanistan is Vietnam?
Like the Afghanis who defeated British and Russian
invaders, the Vietnamese defeated the Chinese and
French before us. The U.S. took on a people whose
main motivation was not ideology, but a fierce sense
of independence from foreign rule.
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Vietnamese rebels had widespread rural support,
partly because U.S. bombers distinguished little between
combatants and civilians, and were backing an unpopular and
corrupt South Vietnamese dictatorship. It is similarly difficult in
Afghanistan to find any force representing "freedom."
BUT: After the Communists won the war in 1975, Vietnam
became a unified state with a stable central government and a
single core ethnic identity. Afghanistan has never had a strong
central government, and is split into ethnic enclaves.
Afghanistan is Yugoslavia?
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Like Yugoslavia before it violently split into ethnic
ministates, Afghanistan is a multiethnic country with
no single dominant group. Its civil wars have further
divided the country into strong enclaves of ethnic groups, most
of which straddle the borders of neighboring countries. The
conflagration in Afghanistan could result in a partition that
enlarges adjacent states or splinters the country into new and
even more unstable ethnic ministates.
BUT: Afghanistan is not simply like Yugoslavia. Serbian and
Croatian voters eventually ousted their ultranationalist leaders.
Their new countries have industrial economies, unlike
impoverished Afghanistan which has long been forced
to rely on an underground, illegal drug economy.
Afghanistan is Colombia?
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Just as all sides in the Colombian civil war have
profited from the cocaine trade, all Afghan factions
together form one of the global centers of the opium
trade. The U.S.-backed mujahadin rebels defeated the
Soviets partly by purchasing weapons with drug profits. Their
successors in the Northern Alliance have continued the practice
despite international pressure. The Taliban also engage in drug
trafficking, despite a generous U.S. grant of $43 million to aid us
in the "drug war." The outlaw tradition is ideally suited for the
drug warlord culture.
BUT: Afghanistan is not simply Colombia. Though divided into
government and rebel zones that intersect with narcotic
fiefdoms, it at least has national institutions and political parties.
Afghanistan has little national identity apart from its resistance to
outsiders, and no cohesion within its political factions.
Afghanistan is Somalia?
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From the outset of the so-called "humanitarian
intervention" in Somalia, U.S. forces divided the
East African country into "good guys" and "bad guys."
Instead of working with clan elders to end clan warfare, it sided
with one local warlord against another local warlord, It is
repeating the same basic error in Afghanistan, by backing the
Northern Alliance and alienating the Pashtuns and their Pakistani
allies.
BUT: Not only has Afghanistan been divided into political,
ethnic and clan factions, but each faction is itself divided. The
royalists were divided. Pro-Soviet Communists were
divided into factions that killed each other. The mujahadin who
ruled Kabul in 1992-96 also battled each other, opening the
way for the Taliban takeover. New schisms are becoming evident
within both the Northern Alliance and the Taliban.
All rolled into one…
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Afghan War, 2001-?
Backed Hamid Karzai:
now Pashtun “mayor of Kabul”
U.S. atrocities against civilians
help Taliban grow to 71% of country
Direct civilian deaths: at least
4,972 - 7,764
Indirect civlian deaths in initial invasion:
3,200 - 20,000
Direct & indirect civilian deaths:
8,172 - 27,764
AfPak War, 2005-?
CIA missile and air strikes and
Special Forces raids on alleged Al
Qaeda and Taliban refuge villages
in FATA, NWFP kill multiple (200+)
civilians.
Mehsud network (Pakistani Taliban)
now also targeted as domestic threat
Obama names Richard Holbrooke
envoy to AfPak; partitioned
Yugoslavia under Clinton
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Northwest Pakistan
* North West Frontier
Province (NWFP)
* Federally Administered
Tribal Areas (FATA)
* Taliban also in Quetta
(Baluchistan in SW)
Ralph Peters
Somalia, 2006-09
Predator drone with
Hellfire missile
Naval patrols vs. “pirates”
Training Ethiopian occupiers, 2006
Predator drone strikes and
Special Forces helicopter raids
AC-130
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AC-130 attacks on UIC,
Al Shabab militias
UIC popular, returns to power,
but also battles Al Shabab, 2009
Caspian
Basin
oil and gas
pipelines
1996 Unocal plans
for route across
Afghanistan
Afghan oil/gas connection
Premier Karzai and U.S. envoy Khalilzad
are both former Unocal reps.
Central Asian bases guard new oil infrastructure;
risk local “blowback” and Chinese reaction.
Staying in Central Asia
“When the Afghan conflict is over we will not leave
Central Asia. We have long-term plans and interests
in this region and... its countries will be given
assistance…in exchange for concrete steps…”
-- Elizabeth Jones, Assistant Secretary of State, 2001
Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan
Torture at Bagram
CIA torture started at Bagram AFB, 2001
Exported to Guantánamo, Iraq, secret prisons, etc.
Taliban treated as terrorists,
not combatants
Obama “reforms” do not
apply to Afghanistan
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/22/
obamas-refusal-to-reverse_n_168952.html
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New U.S. military base clusters
1. Gulf War,
1991
2. Yugoslav Wars,
1995-99
3. Afghan War,
2001-?
4. Iraq War,
2003-?
“Their function may be more
political than military. They
send a message to everyone.”
--Deputy Defense Secretary
Paul Wolfowitz, NYT 2002
Google Earth database: www.tni.org/detail_page.phtml?act_id=17252
Dr. Zoltán Grossman
Member of the Faculty
(Geography/Indigenous Studies)
The Evergreen State College
Lab 1, 2700 Evergreen Pkwy. NW
Olympia, WA 98505 USA
Tel.:
(360) 867-6153
E-mail: grossmaz@evergreen.edu
Website:
http://academic.evergreen.edu/g/grossmaz