Afghanistan

In 1979, The Soviet army invaded Afghanistan in order to prop up a failing regime which was favourable to Soviet interests and antagonistic towards the western powers. The Soviet leader was Leonid Brezhnev, who had followed Nikita Krushchev into the leadership.  Brezhnev reversed his predecessor’s liberalising reforms. During his tenure there was economic stagnation, a rise in corruption and the strangulation of the 1968 Prague Spring.

His biggest mistake was to go blindly blundering into Afghanistan. This was the country which had seen the obliteration of Russian and British armies during the 19th century, when these two powers were repeatedly engaged in what became known as “The Great Game”, battling each other for control of Afghanistan, Russia seeking a route to India and the Indian Ocean, and Britain seeking to retain control of India, the  biggest colony within the British Empire.

If bovine Brezhnev, or any of his acolytes, had Spent a couple of days reading Eric Newby’s best-known travelogue, A Short Walk In The Hindu Kush,  they would have known they were taking the army into a hornet’s nest.

Eric Newby described an agrarian country, dependent on centuries-old, intricate irrigation systems; a very conservative tribal population, led by warlords, with deep divisions based on geographical ties and Islamic sects.

Just as, in 2003, The British and Americans blundered ignorantly into Iraq, knowing not what they were letting themselves in for, so it was with the invasion of Afghanistan by multiple forces.

Opposition to the Red Army was led by Osama Bin Laden and his Mujahideen guerrillas backed by the US, the UK, Pakistan, Iran and China, with numerous UN agencies trying to mitigate the impact of the war on the civilian population.

Between 1979 and 1989, the first ten years of the war, up to two million Afghan civilians were killed, as well as thousands of Soviet conscripts. UK forces lost 456 dead and over 2,000 seriously wounded. Millions of Afghans have fled the war-torn country as refugees and receive no welcome in Britain.

Having trashed the entire country, the US and UK  have now left it to the undefeated  and triumphant Taliban Mujahideen.

With their tails between their legs, the western forces pulled out of the massive Bagram Airbase, in a moonlight flit, leaving millions of dollars-worth of equipment to Al-Quaeda , the Taliban and any thieves who care to loot the place.

It is doubtful whether the Afghan National Army can cope with the chaotic country now  bequeathed to it.

Can we identify any lasting benefit to the people of Afghanistan resulting from our military blundering?

No.

Britain’s  STOP THE WAR COALITION  of peace groups has been right all along.  We should have stayed out of it, just as we should have stayed out of Iraq and Syria.

George W Bush and Tony Blair, by their intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan, have set the Middle East alight and have brought terrorism into their own countries. They should both be arraigned before the International Criminal Court for War Crimes and Crimes against humanity.

But their political and military entanglements have made both of them very rich men.  Bush, to his credit, at least now keeps a  low profile.  But Blair, with very expensive 24-hour security protection, still struts upon the world stage, as if oblivious to the fact that he is thoroughly discredited and hated.