Lessons Learned & Unlearned

Some nations learn from their mistakes early on; some do so later; and others unlearn what they learned belatedly. The now-defunct Soviet Union ordered a massive military airlift into Afghanistan’s capital Kabul toward the midnight this week in1979 (of December 24). Three days later, Moscow brought in from exile Babrak Karmal, leader of the Marxist People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), and installed him as Afghanistan’s executive head.

The Soviet-Afghan Friendship Treaty of 1978 was cited as a ruse for the invasion. The blatant military aggression of one of the world’s poorest nations rubbed a raw nerve of much of the international community. 

As the foreign troops entered the landlocked country’s capital, the international media warned that Afghans were a formidable fighting force that would be extremely difficult to defeat conclusively. Afghan history of previous armed conflicts established this firmly. 

Nevertheless, the world’s first communist country mounted the aggression on its non-aligned neighbour. Western and other media warnings sounded irrelevant to Moscow. Days, months and years went by—contrary to Moscow’s assessment that opposition to its puppet government would die down and the Mujahedeen guerrillas would fade away in exhaustion. 

At one time with a strength of 125,000 troops, the foreign power could not find any breakthrough while its casualty figures mounted, which was promptly detailed and reported in the international media. A determined people that Afghans proved, Moscow began wavering over its initial expectations of the war to be brief. 

Uncertainty creeps

South Asian nations, including Nepal, generally protested the Soviet invasion. India was perceived to be reticent. Its special treaty signed a few months before the 1971 India-Pakistan war over Pakistan’s eastern wing that eventually became independent as Bangladesh.

Within a year or two, no less than a dozen Mujahedeen groups emerged as fierce fighters who interpreted the foreign invasion of their land as an attempt at erasing their independent identity and indigenous culture by foreign influence and communist practices.

The Mujahedeen gradually held large parts of the country under their control. Kabul’s writ did not operate in these areas, despite the massive presence of Soviet troops. During the decade-long co conflict, the Soviet troops suffered 15,000 casualties. 

Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev finally recalled his troops after concluding that his country’s military involvement was a bleeding wound. The last soldiers returned home in 1990, a year before the dissolution of the Soviet communist edifice, creating 15 independent states as a result.

The Mohammad Najibullah Ahmadzai government in Kabul had its fate written large on the political wall. A former Director of the State Intelligence Agency (1980–1986), Dr. Najibullah, had Moscow’s blessings to be anointed president in 1987—a post he held until 1992. When government security forces fled, surrendered or defected to the guerrilla camp as the Taliban arrived near Kabul’s gates, Najibullah desperately searched for safe shelter.

Taliban fighters later forced their way through the gates of the local United Nations’ premises, where he was taking refuge. They hanged him after much humiliation and horrific torture. 

Many in the media boasted of their “we-told-you-so” analyses.

However, thirteen years after the Soviets pulled out of Afghanistan in a demoralised state and derided by commentators for failing to withdraw early on, the United States and some two dozen others jointly invaded Afghanistan in 2001. Their ostensible objective was to capture Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden who was suspected to be taking shelter on the Afghan border. Washington wanted him in connection with the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the US.

A special US squad in ultimately traced and killed Ben Laden at Abbottabad in Pakistani in 2011. More than 100,000 Afghans are estimated to have been killed during the war that dragged on for more than ten years even after the banned organisation’s chief was killed. In addition to what its allies spent in the war, the US spent some $1.25 trillion.

The height of irony was that the arrival of the foreign troops at the gates of Kabul witnessed the ruling Taliban to shift base from the capital to other regions in the country, fighting and awaiting the day for return to the seat of power. Two decades later, however, the Taliban returned to Kabul’s seat of power as soon as the last batch of foreign troops left Afghan soil.  

Tragic irony 

It is easier to engineer a military coup or orchestrate mass protests on some pretexts but an enormously huge task to restore stability, let alone achieve economic prosperity. Some powers get either indifferent to local people’s sufferings or consign history to the back burner to wear blinkers when launching military intervention in another country. 

The media, too, lose credibility by saying one thing against a particular side but looking the other way when the invading side happens to be the one they back. Call it partisan or patriotic interests but not professional principles.

Otherwise, how can one explain the Vietnam war and horrendous results for especially the local people. War crimes were committed frequently and for years. These included rape, terrorism, bombing of civilian settlements, torture, use of banned poisonous gas and the like were committed.

The US lost more than 58,000 troops and 150,000 of its forces were wounded. Though officially known as Vietnam war stretching from 1955 to 1975, it involved armed conflicts in Laos and Cambodia as well. It also accounted for 1.9 million casualties, including 1.4 million civilian deaths.

By the time the American public realised the grave error in the US action in Vietnam, the shocking tragedy had taken an enormous toll. In deference to public sentiments, one of the first major decisions that the US President Jimmy Carter made was to issue an unconditional pardon, in 1977, to draft dodgers.

The Vietnam war ended only after the militarily most powerful nation could not accomplish any decisive victory for years amidst growing public protests at home and in other countries.

Wars cause great pains. The cause for immense despair is that military powers and other forces with reach and big influence do not learn from past errors and the sufferings armed conflicts inflicted upon especially innocent civilians.  

(Professor Kharel specialises in political communication.)