The destablisation of Afghanistan began with a Soviet influence campaign that began in the 1930’s. In text-book style, the Soviets provided the Afghani’s with military assistance and training, which resulted in the subversion of their officer corps. These efforts led to a coup in 1973, in which General Muhammad Daoud, of the Afghan National Revolutionary Party, deposed his cousin King Zahir Shah and founded a Republic. What this did was couple modernity with foreign influence. Daoud attempted to pull back from his pro-Soviet stance, but in April 1978 the Marxist People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), confident in the support of the Afghan army and the Soviets, deposed Daoud in another coup.
Daoud’s pro-Soviet progressivism had not been popular with traditionalist Afghans and particularly the Islamics. In true Leninist style, the PDPA sought to resolve this problem by a program of assassination. The PDPA’s policy of assassination was primarily directed against the Mullahs, religion being main upholder of traditional society. This campaign raised foreign influence to brutal domination by an alien culture. It created the Mujahedeen and ultimately the Taliban. It did this in two ways. Firstly, as the major societal structure outside the state, Islam was the vehicle of national independence. Similarly, in Vietnam, those seeking national independence supported the Communist Party, as the most effective organization likely to achieve this aim.
Secondly, in a brutal conflict, the moderates are marginalized at best and more often go to the wall. Violence begets violence, in a cycle where only the most violent survive.
With blood in the water, sharks began to circle. In 1978-79 the Iranian Revolution had deposed the monarchy and shortly after became dominated by Islamics. It is no co-incidence that the first open rebellion against the PDPA was in Herat, the ‘pearl of Khorasan’ an old Persian province. Pakistan also had a very close interest in its neighbor. According to Politbureau reports, available at the Wilson Centre, the Soviets also suspected Chinese and US involvement. These records, show that the Politbureau had become concerned at the PDLA’s Leninism, which not only involved assassination of Mullahs and traditionalists but also the murder of even low ranking members of its communist rivals, the Banner (Parcham) Party.
The Soviet Intervention
The Soviets attempted to get the PDLA to pull back on aggressive policies, by removing their most aggressive advocate, Hafizullah Amin, but this backfired when Amin learnt of this and instead had the head of the PDLA, Nur Mohammad Taraki, killed, taking his place. Although Amin’s presidency only lasted a year before he was killed by the Soviets, as part of their intervention, the situation was now deteriorating rapidly.
The Politbureau records also show that some of the hard-headed rulers of Russia were astonished to learn, that when rebellion broke out in Herat, the PDLA could rely on no popular support at all and that elements of the army were deserting. The record of the Politbureau meeting of 17 March 1979 shows that even hard-liners, such as Andropov, saw Soviet intervention against a popular struggle as being disastrous. Gromiko, the Foreign Minister, saw intervention as being completely destructive of all the Soviet efforts at nuclear détente. They rejected Amin’s suggestion that they could disguise Soviet troops, as a ploy that could only hope to last for days and then backfire on them. Despite these misgivings, Ustinov, head of the army, continued with contingency plans . Ultimately the Soviets bit the bullet, weighing the strategic loss of Afghanistan against the cost of intervention and the troops rolled in at the end of the year. The only mitigation for this decision is that the same mistake was made 20 years later, despite the abject failure of the Soviets.
The Soviets first act of intervention was to kill Amin. Clearly they hoped to deescalate the situation, but it had gone too far and they were the ultimate cause of the destabilisation. To try and keep themselves at arms-length from military engagement with the population, the Soviets first attempted to suppress it with Afghan troops but this was a failure, similar to the failure of the Kuomintang to crush Mao’s CCP in its infancy. In fairness, the Soviets were also in damage control, as to their international reputation. The few Afghan forces they could rely on were simply inadequate to fight against a popular based guerilla campaign, in a vast and difficult terrain, which by now was receiving substantial aid from abroad. The Soviets were soon involved in “the war of mines” to which they ultimately committed some 115,000 troops. All they achieved was to weld the Mujahedeen into the Taliban. Violence begets violence, in a cycle where only the most violent survive.
The NWO Steps In
While no doubt the US provided the money and the muscle for the invasion of Afghanistan, it is unfair that despite this worthless sacrifice, they also get all the blame. The invasion was supported by the UN and NATO, despite Afghanistan being about as far away from the North Atlantic as you can possibly get. Fifty countries sent troops. This alliance was essentially that of the globalist New World Order. Besides the US, the alliance was principally comprised of the old European powers, the central European initiates, conducting their rites of passage, together with Britain and its Imperial forces. Proportionately, it is the latter group that appears to have done most of the fighting, led by Canada with a 2.2% death rate, followed by the much smaller NZ elite contingent at 2.1%, compared with the US .76%. The UK death rate was 1.4%. The highest of the old European powers was Denmark’s 1.8%, the lowest was Germany’s .34%, despite it supplying the third largest contingent. Some appear to have been either relatively or completely kept out of harm’s way, although the haphazard nature of guerilla warfare means that firm conclusions cannot be made without exhaustive examination.
One thing that can be said for sure, is that the failure of the invasion demonstrates that air superiority and special forces cannot defeat a determined people, in hard terrain.
The rationale, that the invasion was to find Osama Bin Laden and stymie international Islamic terrorism is belied by NATO’s drive east. The NWO invaded Afghanistan for exactly the same reason the Soviets did and the British did before them, its strategic location vis a vi Russia. It was part of the NWO encirclement of the Russian Federation and its CIS allies. From the NWO point of view this was a rational strategic objective, but as General von Molke once famously observed, the best laid battle plans only last until first contact with the enemy. The Taliban was born in the wilderness and once pushed out of the cities, was in its natural element. They simply did again what they had done before to the Soviets. The NWO did again what the Soviets had done, co-op a small part of the population and antagonise the rest, for whom they were simply another invader. All that was achieved was to harden the Taliban. Violence begets violence, in a cycle where only the most violent survive.
The Daily Lama 