Summary: On the 40th anniversary of the start to our war in Afghanistan, let’s see why we fought and what we have accomplished – at what cost. Let’s do so before we wreck another country. Remembering is the first step to learning. Learning is the first step to reform.

Memorial dedicated to the wars of the Afghans, in the Memory Park at Anapa, Russia.

Eventually, these will be erected across America.

An important anniversary went by unnoticed in America: the 40th anniversary of the start to our War in Afghanistan. The Soviet Union had installed a secular government in Afghanistan, by many measures one of the best it has had in modern times (a low bar). But irrespective of the effect on the Afghan people, America decided to destroy it for advantage in our misnamed “Cold War” – our mad “Great Game” with the USSR.

On 3 July 1979, President Carter signed a secret “Finding” which “Authorized CIA support for insurgent propaganda and other psychological operations … {and} America’s supplying of non-military aid …” As with Vietnam, a small beginning would grow into a long, vast war. President Reagan greatly expanded the CIA-run war (Operation Cyclone), with Texas Congressman Charlie Wilson as the salesman. Films starring Rambo and James Bond taught us about our glorious mujahideen allies. Years of celebration followed the withdrawal of Soviet forces (such as the WaPo’s “Anatomy of a Victory: CIA’s Covert Afghan War” in July 1992).

Eventually, we realized the obvious, that we had put into power a fundamentalist Islamic government far more hostile to us than the regime we overthrew. A new invasion was needed, this time with a long occupation to install a friendly puppet government. 9-11, one of the most successful military operations in history, provided the excuse. Executed mostly by men from al Qaeda’s cell in Hamburg Germany, they spent 2000 and 2001 preparing in California and Florida. So the Bush Jr. administration employed the Big Lie, blaming the Afghanistan government (later debunked by the 9/11 commission) and launched Operation Enduring Freedom. (Do the women in Afghanistan laugh at that name?) Our leaders often lie about such things, but we always believe them.

A wave of the usual propaganda supported the occupation. Such as a book recalling our past glorious involvement: Charlie Wilson’s War: The Extraordinary Story of How the Wildest Man in Congress and a Rogue CIA Agent Changed the History of Our Times (2003) – and the film version: Charlie Wilson’s War (2007).

It would cost at least 2,372 American dead, uncounted tens of thousands of Afghanistan deaths, and tens of billions of dollars. Fourteen US troops have been killed by hostile forces this year in Afghanistan, the highest in five years. A stream of videos shows US forces committing wars crimes (e.g., here and here). As the occupation nears the end of its second decade, it becomes more difficult to conceal the failure that so many of us predicted so long ago. Even the Congressional Research Service admits it in their August 1 status report.

“By many measures, the Taliban are in a stronger military position now than at any point since 2001, though at least some once-public metrics related to the conduct of the war have been classified or are no longer produced (including district-level territorial and population control assessments, as of the April 30, 2019, quarterly report from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction).”

Look at what we have done

“Once is an accident. Twice is a coincidence. Three times is enemy action.”

— James Bond in Goldfinger (1959) .

Understand that this is a long-term bipartisan US government policy, not an isolated mistake. America has helped overthrow three secular regimes — Afghanistan in the 1980s (Operation Cyclone), Operation Iraq Freedom in 2003, and Libya (Operation Unified Protector in 2011). Fundamentalist Islamic regimes replaced all (in Libya, with chaos as a co-partner). We attempted to do this again Syria (i.e., Operation Inherent Resolve, Timber Sycamore), but were stopped by the Russians.

On this anniversary, let’s look at what we have done to Afghanistan. It made great progress in the 1950s and 1960s. This continued (with ups and downs) in the turbulent 1970s, with a quiet coup in 1973 against the monarchy and the communist revolution in 1978. The communists accelerated the pace of modernization, with more rights for women. Afghanistan was not Heaven before our intervention, or even Buffalo NY. For details see “Women in Afghanistan” by Amnesty International, October 2013.

“Afghan women were first eligible to vote in 1919 – only a year after women in the UK were given voting rights, and a year before the women in the United States were allowed to vote. In the 1950s purdah (gendered separation) was abolished; in the 1960s a new constitution brought equality to many areas of life, including political participation.”

We helped end that. The following photos show a nation working to join the world’s civilization. The first photo shows the fantastic change from then to now, with women’s role in society rolled back several centuries. At the College of Medicine in Kabul, two Afghan medical students listen to their professor as they examine a plaster cast from a human body. Photo from The Atlantic: “Afghanistan in the 1950s and 60s“.

A scene in a Kabul record store, date unknown (probably late 1950s or early 1960s). From a photo essay by Mohammad Qayoumi in Foreign Policy.

A photo from Kabul in 1967 by Dr. Bill Podlich published in the Daily Mail: “Life before the Taliban“. Back then girls attended high school (shown here in their uniforms). See women at the park – in western clothes, with no male escort.

Here are photos of Kabul in the 1970s (validity, sources and dates are unknown).

For more photos of this troubled country see the “Once Upon a Time in Afghanistan” page at Facebook.

Afghanistan today

The Taliban enforce their version of Islamic Sharia law. Women and girls are tightly regulated. See some of the details in “Women in Afghanistan” by Amnesty International, October 2013.

Banned from going to school or studying.

Banned from working.

Banned from leaving the house without a male chaperone.

Banned from showing their skin in public.

Banned from accessing healthcare delivered by men (with women forbidden from working, healthcare was virtually inaccessible).

Banned from being involved in politics or speaking publicly.

“There were many other ways their rights were denied to them. Women were essentially invisible in public life, imprisoned in their home. In Kabul, residents were ordered to cover their ground and first-floor windows so women inside could not be seen from the street. If a woman left the house, it was in a full-body veil (burqa), accompanied by a male relative: she had no independence.

“If she disobeyed these discriminatory laws, punishments were harsh. A woman could be flogged for showing an inch or two of skin under her full-body burqa, beaten for attempting to study, stoned to death if she was found guilty of adultery.”

For a more vivid picture see this photo of Bibi Aisha, punished for fleeing her husband’s house in Kabul, Afghanistan. From TIME: “Women of Afghanistan“. Forcibly married at 14. Fled at 18 after years of abuse. She was caught and mutilated by her family as punishment. This is the Afghanistan we helped build. Remember that we were told that we fight in Afghanistan to help its women (see more about this bizarre lie here, here and here). Enjoy the bitter irony.

Conclusion

Afghanistan has had civil wars running since 1978. We did not start these wars, and they would have run without us. But our years of interference have contributed to Afghanistan’s problems. Nor can we claim bad luck, after making similar mistakes in Iraq and Libya. Interventionists talk about our Responsibility to Protect. If that is a valid reason for our help overthrowing those governments, we should be prosecuted for malpractice.

My second post, in 2003, said that the US government was lying about Afghanistan – and that the trend had turned against us. This is my 200th post about the Afghanistan War. The government had convinced Americans to believe their lies, and few care about the cost – about the blood of American or Afghanistan casualties.

For More Information

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Two enlightening books about the Afghanistan War.

Afghanistan: How the West Lost Its Way by Tim Bird and Alex Marshall (2011).

The Good War: Why We Couldn’t Win the War or the Peace in Afghanistan by Jack Fairweather (2014).