ESSENTIAL review of Afghanistan's last 35 years. Malloy read it on air. Everyone should read it!

[ConsAreLiars]

Some Real History

Since feudal times the landholding system in Afghanistan had remained unchanged, with more than 75 percent of the land owned by big landlords who comprised only 3 percent of the rural population. In the mid-1960s, democratic revolutionary elements coalesced to form the People’s Democratic Party (PDP). In 1973, the king was deposed, but the government that replaced him proved to be autocratic, mismanaged, and unpopular. It in turn was forced out in 1978 after a massive demonstration in front of the presidential palace, and after factions of the army intervened on the side of the demonstrators.

The military officers who took charge invited the PDP to form a new government under the leadership of Noor Mohammed Taraki, a poet and novelist. This is how a Marxist-led coalition of national democratic forces came into office. “It was a totally indigenous happening. Not even the CIA blamed the USSR for it,” writes John Ryan, a retired professor at the University of Winnipeg, who was conducting an agricultural research project in Afghanistan at about that time.

The Taraki government proceeded to legalize labor unions, and set up a minimum wage, a progressive income tax, a literacy campaign, and programs that gave ordinary people greater access to health care, housing, and public sanitation. Fledgling peasant cooperatives were started and price reductions on some key foods were imposed.

The government also continued a campaign begun by the king to emancipate women from their age-old tribal bondage. It provided public education for girls and for the children of various tribes.
A report in the San Francisco Chronicle (17 November 2001) noted that under the Taraki regime Kabul had been “a cosmopolitan city. Artists and hippies flocked to the capital. Women studied agriculture, engineering and business at the city’s university. Afghan women held government jobs—-in the 1980s, there were seven female members of parliament. Women drove cars, traveled and went on dates. Fifty percent of university students were women.”

...

But serious opposition arose from several quarters. The feudal landlords opposed the land reform program that infringed on their holdings. And tribesmen and fundamentalist mullahs vehemently opposed the government’s dedication to gender equality and the education of women and children.

Because of its egalitarian and collectivist economic policies the Taraki government also incurred the opposition of the US national security state. Almost immediately after the PDP coalition came to power, the CIA, assisted by Saudi and Pakistani military, launched a large scale intervention into Afghanistan on the side of the ousted feudal lords, reactionary tribal chieftains, mullahs, and opium traffickers.

...

It should be noted that all this happened before the Soviet military intervention. National security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski publicly admitted--months before Soviet troops entered the country--that the Carter administration was providing huge sums to Muslim extremists to subvert the reformist government. Part of that effort involved brutal attacks by the CIA-backed mujahideen against schools and teachers in rural areas.

(Much more that few here in the US have ever been told is at the link - http://michaelparenti.org/afghanistan%20story%20untold.html )

(edit tiny typo)

[PDJane]

1. Absolutely EVERYTHING that you've been told

about Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, Palestine, Russia, and Iraq is WRONG. ABSOLUTELY WRONG.

[elleng]

4. ???

NOTHING we've been told is wrong???

[ConsAreLiars]

6. I suspect an accidental case of mangled syntax.

Or maybe intentional sarcasm.

[PDJane]

11. Lack of sleep. mea culpa.........

I've been awake since five am yesterday. It ruins one's congnitive capabilities.

[leftstreet]

2. Excellent photos/commentary at this blog...

http://www.lukepowell.com/

[tabatha]

3. Looking at those photos, it is sad to realize

how, thanks to the Bush admin, respect for those ancient cultures has been replaced with ridicule, hatred and a sense of superiority by the west.

Thanks - bookmarked them.

I have an enormous respect for cultures that lived with the land, and for the most part were not too destructive.

[bertman]

15. I think you're being overly sentimental, tabatha. It's not just the Bush administration

that has ridiculed these ancient cultures, but most of OUR modern U.S. administrations. Of course, BushCo was better at it than most.

As far as living on the land without being too destructive, most of the photos I saw showed areas that once were forested but now are DEforested by the humans who have inhabited them for millenia. It might be more appropriate to say that these people have learned to live on the land despite the fact that they have altered it severely from its original condition. Of course, this has been the hallmark of almost every, if not every, organized, large-scale human society.

But it is a beautiful and enlightening photo journal, to be sure.

[ConsAreLiars]

16. Luke Powell addresses that in his prologue to the gallery.

"It is important for those living in the industrial world to develop an appreciation for cultures that are sustainable, to learn to see beauty and survival in a world where people walk, live in daily contact with animals, raise their own food, pray, and live in families. Such people have as much to teach us as we have to teach them."

When I was there in a couple of late summers it looked like the most barren and inhospitable place imaginable, but in an anti-butchery rally opposing killing the people of Afghanistan, I heard a young women from Afghanistan describe her country as beautiful. So I looked around the web to find what I had missed and found that gallery.

Keep looking through the photos. Much of Afghanistan is high desert, much is mountain terrain far above the tree line. And keep reading the comments. And thanks for looking and please pass it on to others.

[bertman]

26. Yes, I agree that Powell explains his photos very descriptively. My point was that the

region's landscape would look far different if it had not been denuded by millenia of humans scouring it for wood for building and for fires.

It is a breathtakingly beautiful place, as his photos show.

No doubt the Afghanis feel their homeland is beautiful in its own way. It is.

[tabatha]

23. sad = overly sentimental?

[bertman]

27. I apologize if my comment was too harsh. It's just that looking at the landscape and

imagining what it must have been like when there were trees instead of barren hills and mountain slopes, made me overreact to your statement.

[tabatha]

28. I actually did not notice the barrenness in the picture.

I was thinking about a RWer acquaintance who disparages the fact that some countries are not at the same "level of sophistication" as the US.

There were many groups of people who lived in harmony with their environment - and while none could be said to be totally non-destructive, they were far less than the US.

Where there is a barrenness in that photo - one could imagine that that hill would be covered in concrete and belching factories here (i.e. where people are living, not reserves).

[ConsAreLiars]

5. I agree. That site is also essential for anyone who wants to try to

get any sort of feeling for land and people. (See my sigline.) The comments that the photographer provides with many of the images, as one goes through them gradually, bit by bit, scrape away some of our false beliefs and give us tiny peeks into a world that is very unfamiliar to us.

(edit typo)

[leftstreet]

7. ..

:hi:

I always forget you were the one who first pointed me to that blog.
And it's in your sigline!

Excellent!

[ConsAreLiars]

8. Thank you for helping share that link with others!

:yourock:

We here in the US only get a picture of stuff being blown up and horror stories about EVIL DOERS, and nothing about the real lives of the real people there. Those images do a lot to help counter the deceptions of the Corporatist Media.

[Turborama]

18. Thanks for sharing this and the photos

Have you seen this thread about development in Afghanistan yet? I'd be interested to hear your thoughts...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x3744341


(edit to fix silly typo)

[ConsAreLiars]

21. Missed that, but thanks for posting it.

RAWA is way beyond admirable. Too late tonight to read and respond coherently, but thanks for that additional information.

[Mojorabbit]

9. Marking to read in am. Thanks. nt

[underpants]

24. Marking too

[Lydia Leftcoast]

10. The Taraki revolution received no coverage in the U.S. press

so the Soviet entrance into Afghanistan was portrayed in the West as an unprovoked invasion, something the Soviets did just because they were mean old Soviets.

On the other hand, I was in Japan in March 1978, so I heard actual news reports from Afghanistan, and after returning to the States, I knew people at Yale who followed world affairs closely and told me about the resistance to the modernization programs.

[ConsAreLiars]

12. A kick for more readers and a "Thank you" for the recs (nt)

[slipslidingaway]

13. Thanks for posting K&R n/t

[ConsAreLiars]

14. Thank you. I think this is important information.

(And also thanks for your posts on other threads. You have a good heart and a good mind.)

[slipslidingaway]

22. I think the information is important as well.....

thank you for your posts on Afghanistan and for sharing the story of your travels.

:) :blush:



'Sustained' Push Seen in Afghanistan
U.S. Commander Says Troop Level of 60,000 Is Needed for at Least Three to Four Years

By Ann Scott Tyson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, February 19, 2009; A11

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/18/AR2009021803373_pf.html

"The United States will have to keep about 60,000 troops in Afghanistan for at least the next three to four years to combat an increasingly violent insurgency, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan said yesterday, warning that 2009 will be "a tough year."

At least 10,000 additional U.S. troops are required in Afghanistan beyond the 17,000 that President Obama announced Tuesday would go to Afghanistan this spring or summer, with decisions on two additional brigades -- one focused on training and one on combat -- expected later this year, said Gen. David D. McKiernan, the commander of international forces in Afghanistan..."

[seemslikeadream]

17. Parenti - Terrorism, Globalism & Conspiracy

Michael Parenti - Terrorism, Globalism & Conspiracy

"Coincidence Theory: By sheer chance things just happen repeatedly and coincidentally to benefit their interests without any conscious connivance by them, which is most uncanny. There is also: Stupidity Theory, Innocence Theory, Momentary Aberration Theory, Incompetence Theory, Unintended Consequences Theory and Innocent Cultural Proclivities Theory."

- Michael Parenti

[G_j]

20. all to avoid the deadliest theory of all

the conspiracy theory!

[G_j]

19. 20 yrs ago Feb 15, Soviet troops began withdrawal from Afghanistan

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB272/index.htm

Washington D.C., February 15, 2009 – Twenty years ago today, the commander of the Soviet Limited Contingent in Afghanistan Boris Gromov crossed the Termez Bridge out of Afghanistan, thus marking the end of the Soviet war which lasted almost ten years and cost tens of thousands of Soviet and Afghan lives.

As a tribute and memorial to the late Russian historian, General Alexander Antonovich Lyakhovsky, the National Security Archive today posted on the Web (www.nsarchive.org) a series of previously secret Soviet documents including Politburo and diary notes published here in English for the first time. The documents suggest that the Soviet decision to withdraw occurred as early as 1985, but the process of implementing that decision was excruciatingly slow, in part because the Soviet-backed Afghan regime was never able to achieve the necessary domestic support and legitimacy – a key problem even today for the current U.S. and NATO-supported government in Kabul.

The Soviet documents show that ending the war in Afghanistan, which Soviet general secretary Mikhail Gorbachev called “the bleeding wound,” was among his highest priorities from the moment he assumed power in 1985 – a point he made clear to then-Afghan Communist leader Babrak Karmal in their first conversation on March 14, 1985. Already in 1985, according to the documents, the Soviet Politburo was discussing ways of disengaging from Afghanistan, and actually reached the decision in principle on October 17, 1985.

But the road from Gorbachev’s decision to the actual withdrawal was long and painful. The documents show the Soviet leaders did not come up with an actual timetable until the fall of 1987. Gorbachev made the public announcement on February 8, 1988, and the first troops started coming out in May 1988, with complete withdrawal on February 15, 1989. Gorbachev himself, in his recent book (Mikhail Gorbachev, Ponyat’ perestroiku … Pochemu eto vazhno seichas. (Moscow: Alpina Books 2006)), cites at least two factors to explain why it took the reformers so long to withdraw the troops. According to Gorbachev, the Cold War frame held back the Soviet leaders from making more timely and rational moves, because of fear of the international perception that any such withdrawal would be a humiliating retreat. In addition to saving face, the Soviet leaders kept trying against all odds to ensure the existence of a stable and friendly Afghanistan with some semblance of a national reconciliation process in place before they left.

The documents detail the Soviet leadership’s preoccupation that, before withdrawal of troops could be carried out, the Afghan internal situation had to be stabilized and a new government should be able to rely on its domestic power base and a trained and equipped army able to deal with the mujahadeen opposition. The Soviets sought to secure the Afghan borders through some kind of compromise with the two other most important outside players—Pakistan, through which weapons and aid reached the opposition, and the United States, provider of the bulk of that aid. In the process of Geneva negotiations on Afghanistan, which were initiated by the United Nations in 1982, the United States, in the view of the Soviet reformers, was dragging its feet, unwilling to stop arms supplies to the rebels and hoping and planning for the fall of the pro-Soviet Najibullah regime after the Soviet withdrawal.

Internally, the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan did everything possible to prevent or slow down the Soviet withdrawal, putting pressure on the Soviet military and government representatives to expand military operations against the rebels.

..more..
~~~~~~~
The CIA in Afghanistan: Operation Cyclone,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cyclone
~~~~~~~

[anonymous171]

25. Imperialism is only bad when America does it. nt