From: James Rogers (jamesr@best.com)
Date: Mon Sep 17 2001 - 11:19:08 MDT
On 9/17/01 7:07 AM, "Michael Wiik" <mwiik@messagenet.com> wrote:
>
> I understand there are 10-15k Afghan fighters opposed to the Taliban
> that, according to a news report on TV last night, are calling for the
> bombing of their own country and 'wish to fight side by side with the
> U.S.'. I dunno how these people would feel about inviting the Russians
> in, though.
Several years ago I worked in a small office employing, by random
coincidence, a young Afghan woman who had been in Afghanistan during the
Russian invasion AND a young Russian man who had served two years in
Afghanistan as a soldier. I knew both of them reasonably well (and dated
the girl briefly), so I have an interesting perspective on their first-hand
perspectives.
1) Most Afghans have developed a deep-seated antipathy towards the
Russians. This is partly because the Russians committed atrocities on
occasion and people remember first-hand. I don't think this is going to go
away anytime soon.
2) Most Afghans look very favorably upon the US. Without the support of
American weapons and intelligence, they firmly believe that Afghanistan
would have collapsed relatively quickly under the Russian onslaught. We
pulled their ass out of a fire and they remember us for that.
3) Calling the Afghanistan campaign "The Soviet Vietnam" is more apt than
most people realize. That campaign was plagued by many of the same
political, social, and military problems that plagued the U.S. in Vietnam,
and was stopped after only 20,000 Soviet lives were lost (and millions of
Afghans dead).
4) Most Russians don't look disfavorably on Afghanistan; it was mostly an
embarrassing period for the Soviet Union and they have no specific dislike
of Afghans or Afghanistan. It was a political failure rather than a
military one; the people making the decisions weren't the people fighting
the war.
This was all pre-Taliban, but from all the Afghans I met, it seemed that
America held quite a bit of currency in the good will department and I doubt
this has changed much. It would be a shame to spoil that.
-James Rogers
jamesr@best.com
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