Afghanistan Opium World Leader

The story of the United States involvement in Afghanistan is an almost unbelievable one.

If it weren’t so tragic for the long suffering people of Afghanistan and US citizens, especially the US military, it would be almost funny in it’s circular what goes around comes around implications.

In 1979, Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan. Since the cold war between the Soviet Union and the US was still very much underway naturally the US opposed the Soviet’s efforts to control the country.

The US backed Islamic fighters were known as mujaheddin, including an Islamic leader from Saudi Arabia known as Osama Bin Laden. The US supported mujaheddin, “solders of God”, fought the Soviets and the country became a Cold War proxy battleground.

By 1989 the Soviets had suffered enough in the hostile unforgiving terrain of Afghanistan. They withdrew after transporting more than 15,000 dead Soviet troops back to their homeland in coffins. The Soviets left behind hundreds of thousands of dead Afghans as a testament to the brutally of war.

Now get this.

The Soviets began to take heavy losses only after the US began supplying the mujaheddin with sophisticated weapons, including stinger missiles. The stingers proved to be highly effective in bringing down Soviet fighter jets and attack helicopters. The missiles indeed took the sting out of the Soviet military machine which had relied on air power to kill the mujaheddin.

What goes around comes around. Now the US is confronted with sophisticated weapons, especially IED’s, which are finding their way into Iraq.

After the withdrawal of the Soviet Union forces the US made a huge mistake. Instead of helping Afghanistan recover from the devastation of war we basically patted ourselves on the back and said “mission accomplished”. The US also withdrew from active involvement in the region.

This left a bitterness in Afghanistan and in Pakistan.  During the war Pakistan had allowed the US to ship arms, men, and supplies to the mujaheddin through their territory.

The mujaheddin were also bitter towards the US as they felt that they were used to fight the Soviets and then once they had prevailed had been cast aside by the United States. One of the bitter mujaheddin leaders was Osama bin Laden.

The withdrawal of the Soviet forces left a power vacuum in Afghanistan that was eventually filled by the Taliban. The Taliban were a creation of the Pakistani madrasas. Pakistan wanted to see some stability in the neighboring country and thought the Taliban were better bets than depending upon the rule of warlords.

The Islamic Republic of Pakistan thought that a strict religious Islamic fundamentalist group controlling  Afghanistan would be better for stability than anarchy. Soon Pakistan found that they could not control their religious Taliban friends.

The Taliban considered Osama bin Laden a friend and allowed him to train his Al-Qaeda forces in Afghanistan. After the war against the Soviets ended Osama was embittered by his experience with the Americans. After American troops were stationed in Saudi Arabia in 1991 during the Gulf War Osama pledged to seek his revenge.

After a series of attacks against American interests, mainly in Africa, Osama bin Laden successfully had Al-Qaeda launch the terrorist attack against the World Trade Center in New York City. The US and the world was shocked and horrified that such an audacious suicide attack had been carried out against American interests on American soil.

Welcome to World War Three.

Soon after the infamous 9/11 attack in 2001 the US, with the understanding and full support of most of the world, launched attacks against Taliban training camps in Afghanistan.

Unfortunately, before the Taliban were truly defeated, and before Osama bin Laden, was captured or killed, the President of the United States, George W. Bush, made one of the greatest strategic mistakes in history by diverting American forces to fight a totally unnecessary war in Iraq.

So what does all of this leave us today?

Five years after the 9/11 attack and the air attacks and ground invasion of Afghanistan the Taliban are stronger than ever. Even with Nato and British troops fighting with the Americans things are not going well for the coalition forces.

The US supported weak Karzai government has lost the confidence of the Afghan people. Karzai is almost a prisoner in his own land, seldom leaving his palace in Kabul out of fear for his life.

So who has benefited the most from this strange story of war, betrayal, and confusion?

It looks like the various warlords have cashed in big time. They are at the heart of corruption in Afghanistan as billions of dollars of foreign aid funds are skimmed off into their coffers.

More than a few consultants have made big scores. They go to Kabul for a few months, stay in five star hotels, write up a few reports and pocket mega bucks paid by the UN, the US, the British, or whoever. Very sweet.

The aid donor nations benefit as well. Well, more correctly some of their contracting firms benefit. Rather than employ desperate Afghans in many cases the contributing nations make sure that their own contractors furnish the supplies, manpower, engineering, and planning functions that go into large scale projects.

Thus a large part of the “aid” funds are in fact recycled back to the contributing nation while a large percentage of the Afghans remain unemployed.

And oh yes, let’s not forget the poppy farmers and the warlords who control much of the poppy production. Since the US invasion poppy production has exploded. Afghanistan now produces about 90% of the world’s poppy crop.

Now how is that for an Afghanistan success story?

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!