What we can learn (belatedly) from Soviet invasion of Afghanistan
By Dave
January 8th, 2009 | Leave a comment
Thirty years after the fact, Soviet tanks still litter the countryside in Afghanistan. Now, with U.S. troops battling resurgent enemies in Afghanistan and bordering Pakistan, NPR’s Gregory Feifer has written a new history of the Soviet incursion in Afghanistan, The Great Gamble.
It turns out that the “invasion” was the result of a series of bungled attempts to bolster the local Afghan communist government by, curiously enough, getting rid of the Afghan leader.
In the ensuing three decades, a local resistance became a player in the Cold War and gave rise to the Taliban, which aided and abetted al-Qaida in its terrorist attacks on the United States.
“The common view of the war was that it was a Soviet territorial grab. But the truth was much more confused,” Feifer tells NPR’s Renee Montagne.
Eight years after their own invasion in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, U.S. troops find themselves with a difficult challenge.
“We have to do, essentially, the opposite of what the Soviets did,” Feifer says. “We have to be incredibly sensitive to the needs of the local population. And our mission is to rebuild the society so that the government can be sustainable.”
To read (or hear) the NPR report, CLICK HERE.
