Myths About Afghanistan September 5, 2008
Posted by Sobek in Politics.trackback
As some of you know, I’ve recently been reading up a lot on the Middle East and Central Asia. I recently finished Steve Coll’s book Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan and Bin Laden From the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001. The book has its problems, including but not limited to the author’s liberal bias (he’s a Washinton Post editor) and the bias of his sources (he relied heavily on interviews and statements by the Clinton Administration, which is not exactly a neutral party. Still, I recommend it, especially if you already have some background in the Middle East (otherwise it’s a tough read, because it jumps around a lot).
As I read that book and others, I have been surprised to see how many of the common media assumptions about Afghanistan (specifically, the assumptions the media uses to oppose America’s involvement there) are directly contradicted by the available evidence.
I don’t claim to be an expert. But I do claim that Muslihoon is an expert, and if I get anything wrong here, he can let us know. And I will remind him that he once said that Tajiks are Turks, a long time ago.
Myth #1: The CIA Armed the Mujahideen Against the Soviets in the ’80s.
Why the Media Likes It: It proves that America deserves to get attacked, and instead of military intervention, we should suck it up when our citizens are killed, and we should be more internationalist, like the Europeans.
Why It’s Not True: It’s too oversimplified. First of all, the word “mujahideen” refers to an extremely diverse group of people, all of whom agreed only on one point: they didn’t like the Soviet occupation. In the mid ’80s, Pakistan recognized seven main mujahideen groups based in Peshawar, Pakistan. Four are broadly described as “Islamist,” and the other three are “nationalist.” And they tended to hate each other, especially as the Soviet occupation dragged on. The Iranians also supported their own mujahideen clients, the Victory Organization of Afghanistan. The U.S. did not support “the mujahideen,” we supported individual groups, to greater or lesser extents.
In addition, the U.S. had very little choice in which groups got the support. Afghanistan being landlocked and all, the only way to get money and guns to the Afghans was through Pakistan, and Pakistan attached some very important strings: The U.S. couldn’t have direct contact with any mujahideen (we did anyway, without telling them) and the Paks had sole discretion as to where they sent the goods (and as a legal fiction, America had to pretend it wasn’t fighting a proxy war against the USSR, so its official policy was that once our stuff was dropped off in Karachi, it was Pakistani property). As it happened, the Paks preferred the Islamists, because the nationalists were perceived as natural allies of India, and therefore as natural enemies of Pakistan.
A related, definitional myth is that we supported the Taliban, with that terms being conflated with the mujahideen. The Taliban was not created until the early ’90s, after the Soviets were gone and long after the U.S. had finally ceased sending money or guns to Afghantistan.
Myth #2: Okay, Well the Mujis that the U.S. Trained Eventually Turned On Us Anyway
Why the Media Likes It: See #1, above.
Why It’s Not True: Again, it’s far too simplistic. America was not the only nation dumping money, guns and training into Afghanistan; in the early ’80s, the Saudi government promised to match every dollar the U.S. sent to the Mujis. And that was just the government assistance. Various Mujis travelled repeatedly to Saudi to beg for cash (zakat, a religious charitable contribution). They were enormously successful, to the point that Saudi funds dwarfed the U.S. donations.
While the U.S. money came only with an instruction to harass the Soviets, the Saudi money came with an ideology. It was used to build not just training camps, but also thousands and thousands of madrassas along the Paki-Afghan border, including some build by billionaire eccentric Osama bin Laden. The students at these schools were steeped in radical Wahhabi doctrine and guerilla tactics, but mostly … okay, pretty much in equal proportions. To make matters worse, the Saudis (both the government and private organizations) also financed young men travelling from all over the Muslim world, who later went home with (a) battle experience, (b) a serious distaste for “the West,” and (c) unparalleled street cred among their compatriots.
The fact is, a lot of the money and weapons we sent to Afghanistan did end up with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a radical Islamist (and anti-American) who, as it turns out, is still alive and active in Afghanistan. And Hekmatyar had his champions in the American services like Department of State and the CIA. But his was just one mujahideen group — and after the Soviets left, an essentially ineffective one.
Myth #3: Afghans Are Fiercely Independent
Why the Media Likes It: America should have learned the lesson of the Soviet invasion, when the disparate tribes and ethnicities successfully defeated the world’s largest standing army, and stayed out of an unwinnable war.
Why It’s Not True: It contradicts all the historical evidence.
During the “Great Game” in the 1800s, when England and Russia were competing for influence in Asia, Afghanistan became a locus of serious intermeddling by the foreign powers. If one assumes a simplistic “Afghans are all independent” worldview, we would expect universal resistance to all such intermeddling. Instead, while various Afghan kings had to fight off British invasions (the “Anglo-Afghan Wars), during peacetime they preferred to play the two sides against each other.
In the 1900s, England started to drop out, and America came in. During the Cold War, America and Russian actively competed against each other for influence in Afghanistan, and the Afghans were more than happy to be lavished with public works projects, education, and highly-favorable loans.
Even in the 80’s, this trend continued. Most of Afghanistan hated the Soviet invaders, but the government itself obvious supported them. In 1978, the communist party (which had been trained and armed by Moscow) took over the government of Afghanistan. But the party (which was actually an alliance of two parties) almost immediately fractured into warring factions. The Soviets invaded to prop up the communist regime (murdering the communist President Amin in the process, and replacing him with the communist and more pliable Najibullah). After the Soviet army left in 1989, some Russian military advisors remained to help Najibullah. The Americans dropped out of the game of supporting Muji groups, but the warring factions were at all times funded and trained by Iran, Russia, Saudi and Pakistan, and they had intelligence contacts with America, Britain and France.
The historical record simply doesn’t support the notion that Afghans are more or less independent than any other group of people. They take outside support from foreigners where they can find it.
Right now I’m reading a book about a USAID contractor in Helmand, in the south of the country. He mentions a conversation about how the Afghanistans in Helmand like the Americans, while those in Jalalabad (in the east, near the Pak border) like the Russians — not coincidentally because that’s where the Cold War contacts were.
Myth #4: Horrible Afghans Mandated Burqas for Women
Why the Media Likes It: Well, back in the Clinton Administration when the media actually cared about women’s rights more than it cared about attacking Bush, it’s because it made Westerners feel good about themselves for condemning something far away, without them having to actually do anything about it.
Why It’s Not True:
Sometimes a burqa is just common sense.
Myth #5: Afghanistan is Ungovernable
Why the Media Likes It: Bush is too dumb and arrogant to realize he can’t rebuild the country into a modern democracy.
Why It’s Not True: Again, the historical record shows the contrary.
Now there’s only so far that I can go with this one. Afghan rulers in the 20th Century have tended to meet very bad ends — a coup and exile at best, and violent revolution at worst.
Even so, the record is there. Most of the 1900s essentially involved a strong-man government in a hereditary monarchy. I won’t argue that’s the best system, but it <i>is</i> a government (compare the Kingdom of Jordan, which is pretty moderate, all things considered). In the 1920s, the heavily Europe-influenced Amanullah Khan introduced serious modernizing reforms, including the creation of representative parliaments, and a popularly-ratified constitution that protected equal rights. Some might criticize my reference to Amanullah as self-defeating, because it appears Amanullah pushed too hard: after his first wave of reforms and a trip to Europe, he came back and pushed even harder for modernization. Traditionalists led an uprising in Jalalabad and march west to Kabul, and Amanullah’s army defected.
Even though Amanullah’s experiment was ultimately a failure, he was not the only reformer. Zahir Shah reigned from 1933 to 1973, during which time he enacted more government reforms, and abolished the monarchy in favor of a presidency led by Mohammad Daoud Khan, who had power until the communist revolt.
Neither Amanullah, Zahir Shar, nor Daoud turned Afghanistan into a liberal, westernized democracy, they all presided over relative peace and prosperity. And, in fact, they governed the nation. Their immediate successors, the Soviet-backed communist puppets, did not govern well, but they did govern, until 1989. Only then, after the Soviets withdrew, did the country erupt in a civil war which continued until the Americans invaded. Only for about a decade was Afghanistan truly lawless.
Myth #6: Afghanistan is an Ostrich
Why the Media Likes It: ???
Why It’s Not True: While Afghanistan has some traits in common with ostriches, such as they are both nouns, and they are both tangible, Afghanistan is a Central Asian nation, bordered by Iran, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. Ostriches are large, flighless birds.
Honestly, I don’t even know where you got that one.
A Few Other Interesting Notes:
1. Islamic suicide terrorism is not native to Afghanistan at all. During the Soviet invasion, Pakis and Saudis repeatedly tried to get mujahideen groups to use suicide tactics, but couldn’t get volunteers. The Pakis wanted to detonate a truck in the middle of the Salang tunnel, along the main road from Kabul to Moscow. The Russians monitored the tunnel too closely to let a driver get out of a truck and get far away enough to detonate it, and no one would detonate the truck while they were still inside.
2. Kabul still sounds like a hellhole, but a USAID contractor who visited between 2003 and 2005 wrote descriptions of Kabulis plastering over bulletholes in their houses, fixing holes in streets, repairing a massive Soviet grain silo that had been used as a sniper perch, and even — most incredible of all — building several glass-fronted buildings in an area called Sharh-i-Nau (lit. “New City”). In 2003, the city had restaurants selling Italian, Indian, French, American, Thai, German, Croatian and Chinese food. The fact that Afghans are building — especially using something as fragile as glass — demonstrates an amazing and heartening level of hope that they will have stability now. It is my considered opinion that much of the suffering in Afghanistan over the past two decades could have been avoided had the Bush I and Clinton administrations stuck by their Afghan allies and supported them in building a nation, rather than calling it all a job well done and deciding that Afghanistan is someone else’s problem. I hope and pray we don’t make the same mistake twice.
3. God hates the Taliban. Shortly after Mullah Omar and his gang of thugs took over Kabul in 1996, the country was hit with the worst drought in living memory. The drought finally broke late in 2001 — as soon as the Americans came in.
An excellent analysis!
There is one thing I would like to point out, which may shed light on the whole “we armed the muj, we abandoned them, this is our just dessert”: the word “mujahideen” refers not to a group but to a philosophy or set of actions. It is the plural of mujahid. “Mujahid” means, literally, in Arabic, “he who fights or does jihad”. So, “mujahideen” means “those men that fight or wage jihad”. This refers to any group of men whose stayed goal is to wage jihad, and there are literally thousands of such groups. Their composition, networks, linkages, structure, cooperation (or lack thereof) vary constantly. So one cannot say “America armed the mujahideen” because there are thousands of mujahideen with whom America has had no relations whatsoever, and there have been numerous jihadi groups in the Afghan region with which we have had no relations.
One interesting point: Gulbuddin Hekmatyar was one of stars of Pakistani involvement in Afghanistan. He was an Islamist, as you said. Thing is, he was part of the Northern Alliance, which was fighting the Taliban.
Pakistan switched its support from Gulbuddin (and, thus, the Northern Alliance) to the Taliban when Gulbudding began to lose support in the Northern Alliance. The Taliban, obviously, wouldn’t take him in, despite his being an Islamist. He fled to Iran, returning to make life Hell for everyone once the Taliban regime fell.
I find it a little amusing: the media say Afghanistan is fiercely independent, so we should leave it alone, but Afghanistan is not fiercely independent. But FATA in Pakistan is fiercely independent, and the media constantly wail and gnash their teeth on why Pakistan is not more in control and why we’re not doing more to make the region behave.
An excellent analysis, Sobek. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Thank you! I hope there will be more forthcoming.
As long as you pronounce Kabul as “cobble” I’ll assume you have a doctorate in the subject. BTW, “Paki” was used in a pretty derogatory way in Toronto when I was a missionary there. Not as bad as “spudder,” but close. Thanks. That was interesting.
“BTW, ‘Paki’ was used in a pretty derogatory way in Toronto…”
Then I should clarify that I use the term, not to cause offense, but because I am profoundly lazy.
I see Hekmatyar (and his Pakistani supporters) as one of the primary bad guys in all of this. When the Soviets fled, warring factions fought to depose the communist Najibullah, without success for a while. In rough terms, this battle turned into Hekmatyar in the south against Ahmed Shah Massoud (the closest thing to a “good guy,” and now a national hero) in the north.
Massoud — the better general by far — was eventually successful in capturing the city. He patched together an uneasy government of mujahideen factions. But Hekmatyar refused to cooperate, and he turned to indiscriminate shelling right into Kabul — something not even the Soviets had done, nor would the Taliban do afterwards. It was Hekmatyar’s refusal to join the government and insistence on continuing the battle for his sole supremacy that kept the country in such an unstable condition that the Taliban could come to power.
Hekmatyar also had a nasty habit, even before the Soviets withdrew, of assassinating his opponents in Afghanistan and Pakistan. For him, it was all about power, not about the Soviets.
I do wonder why Hekmatyar is still alive. With the combined genius of the KGB (now FSB), CIA, ISI, Taliban, and other extremists and militants, surely someone would have taken him out by now.
Maybe someone should make him taunt the Russian intelligence agencies. Or put words in his mouth to make him appear to do so. That way, he might mysteriously die of radioactive poisoning.
I personally don’t find “Paki” offensive (although I know others who do find it offensive). Intention is all that matters.
In your estimation, Sobek, how long before things in Afghanistan calm down and the various tribal entities begin to work together, if this will at all happen?
Hey Sobek, that disgraced judge here got beat up by her husband last night. He allegedly hit her over the head with a metal object and she’s in the hospital “fighting for her life”, according to the local news.
I heard that. Holy crap, that’s crazy.
“BTW, ‘Paki’ was used in a pretty derogatory way in Toronto…”
I recall that on the British-made Super Banzai Video Show, a guy was challenged to rattle off as many racial epithets as he could without stopping or repeating himself. He got to about 30. “Paki” was among them.
What has Hekmatyar done to recieve such negative comments from everyone?? Is it because he was the soul Muslim fighter who stayed Muslim through out the fighting, never to change sides unlike other leaders hence Masoud?
^um….he has allied himself with the terrorists, or is that OK in your book?
If terrorist in your book defines a Muslims than yes. He was always allied with his belief and all his actions were conducted in accordance to Islam.
If you had a brain you would notice that millions of people define America as a terror organization.
Continuing my point…
Hekmatyar didn’t take sides with Taliban, Masoud, Russia, America, Al-qaeda or Pakistan.
“it also denounces suicide attacks, a favorite Taliban method in war with Western coalition forces and their Afghan allies.” Hekmatyar as I said before was always allied with his faith, that is why he denounces suicide bombings.
link: http://wyborcza.pl/1,76842,4326627.html
If you had a brain you would notice that millions of people define America as a terror organization.
If you had a brain you would realize they are wrong and would never cite something so morally bankrupt.
Hekmatyar didn’t take sides with …America…
Strike 1.
Hekmatyar has publicly allied himself with the Taliban and al-Qaida. If those aren’t terrortist groups, then tell me what they are.
Also, may your suicide belt detonate before you reach that Sbarro you are targeting.
“What has Hekmatyar done to recieve such negative comments from everyone??”
1. Hekmatyar is and always was a virulent anti-American. Good enough? Is it okay to hate a guy who wants me and my country destroyed? And you’re right, he never supported the Americans, but that didn’t stop him from taking millions of dollars in cash and weapons, including the Stinger missiles that ultimately defeated the Soviets.
2. If not, then how about a few more reasons. After the Soviet occupation, Massoud and the other mujahideen put together a weak coalition that made an attempt to govern. Hekmatyar refused to take part in the coalition. Instead, he shelled Kabul indiscriminately, killing innocent Muslim civilians. Is that not terrorism, in your view?
3. As to staying true to his Muslim beliefs, what of his coalition of convenience with Shahnawaz Tanai, a radical communist and atheist? Staying true to one’s principles means helping your ideological enemies to slaughter your co-religionists?
Massoud, by contrast, was willing to work with other mujahideen leaders after the Soviet withdrawal, to form an actual government by actual Afghans. Hekmatyar wouldn’t do it because of his committment to his one true principle: Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.
Afghans apparently recognize the difference. If you fly into Kabul airport, whose portraint do you see there? Here’s a hint: it’s a portrait of a Tajik, not a Pashtun.
Sorry, two more things.
During the Afghan civil war, Hekmatyar fought against the Taliban. That’s not because he was opposed to the Taliban’s cruel methods or strict Islam, but because they were a rival for his plans for power.
After 9/11, Hekmatyar again saw an opportunity to switch sides as a matter of political convenience:
“In May 2006, he released a video to Al Jazeera in which he accused Iran of backing the US in the Afghan conflict and said he was ready to fight alongside Osama bin Laden…”
“In January 2007 CNN reported that Hekmatyar claimed ‘that his fighters helped Osama bin Laden escape from the mountains of Tora Bora five years ago,’ and BBC news reported a quote from a December 2006 interview broadcast on GEO TV, ‘We helped them [bin Laden and Zawahiri] get out of the caves and led them to a safe place.’”
Both quotes from Wikipedia.