Pubdate: Sat, 22 Feb 2003
Source: Manila Times (Philippines)
Copyright: 2003, The Manila Times
Contact:  http://www.manilatimes.net/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/921
Author: Eric S. Margolis

DIJ' VU IN AFGHANISTAN

On the frigid night of Dec. 24, 1979, Soviet airborne forces seized Kabul 
airport. Elite Alpha Group commandos sped to the presidential palace, burst 
into the bedroom of Afghan President Hafizullah Amin, and gunned him down. 
Columns of Soviet armor crossed the border and raced south toward Kabul.

It took Soviet forces only a few days to occupy Afghanistan. They installed 
a puppet ruler, Babrak Karmal. Moscow proclaimed it had invaded Afghanistan 
to "liberate" it from "feudalism and Islamic extremism," and "nests of 
terrorists and bandits."

Soviet propaganda churned out films of Red Army soldiers playing with 
children, building schools, dispensing medical care. Afghan women were to 
be liberated from the veil and other backwards Islamic customs. The Soviet 
Union and its local communist allies would bring Afghanistan into the 20th 
Century.

Two years later, Afghans had risen against their Soviet "liberators" and 
were waging a low-intensity guerilla war. Unable to control the 
countryside, Moscow poured more troops into Afghanistan. The Soviet-run 
Afghan Army had poor morale and less fighting zeal. The KGB-run Afghan 
secret police, KhAD, jailed and savagely tortured tens of thousands of 
"Islamic terrorists," then called "freedom fighters" in the west.

Fast forward to December, 2002 and a disturbing sense of dij' vu. A new 
foreign army has easily occupied Afghanistan, overthrown "feudal" Taliban 
and installed a puppet regime in Kabul. Western media churns out the same 
rosy, agitprop stories the Soviets did about liberating Afghanistan, 
freeing women, educating children. The only real difference is that kids in 
today's TV clips are waving American instead of Soviet flags. Invaders have 
changed; the propaganda remains the same.

America's invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001, was billed as an epic 
military victory and the model of future imperial expeditions to pacify 
third world malefactors. Since then, news about this war-ravaged land has 
grown scarce. America's limited attention has turned elsewhere.

In fact, America's Afghan adventure has gotten off to as poor a start as 
that of the Soviet Union.

The US-installed ruler of Kabul, veteran CIA 'asset' Hamid Karzai, must be 
protected from his own people by up to 200 US body-guards. Much of 
Afghanistan is in chaos, fought over by feuding warlords and drug barons.

There are almost daily attacks on US occupation forces. My old mujihadin 
sources say US casual-ties and equipment losses in Afghanistan are far 
higher than Washington is reporting -- and rising.

American troops are operating from the old Soviet bases at Bagram and 
Shindand, retaliating, like the Soviets, against mujihadin attacks on US 
forces by heavily bombing nearby villages. CIA is trying to assassinate 
Afghan nationalist leaders opposed to the Karzai regime in Kabul, in 
particular my old acquaintance Gulbadin Hek-matyar.

Captured 'terrorists' are routinely tortured by Afghan security forces 
under America supervision. Last fall, US troops presided over the murder by 
Northern Alliance forces of some 3,000 captured Taliban soldiers, a major 
war crime at a time when the UN is trying Serb soldiers for similar grave 
offenses.

North of the Hindu Kush mountains, America's Afghan ally, the Tajik-Uzbek 
Northern Alliance, has long been a proxy of the Russians. The Chief of the 
Russian General Staff and head of intelligence directed the Alliance in its 
final attack on Taliban last fall. Russia then supplied Alliance forces 
with $100 million of arms, and is currently providing $85 milion of 
helicopters, tanks, artillery, spare parts, as well as military advisors 
and technicians. Russia now dominates much of northern Afghanistan.

Taliban, according to the United Nations drug agency, had almost shut down 
opium-morphine-heroin production. America's ally, the Northern Alliance has 
revived the illicit trade. Since the US overthrew Taliban, opium 
cultivation has soared from 185 tons a year to 2,700. The Northern 
Alliance, which dominates the Kabul regime, finances its arms buying and 
operations with drug money. President Bush's war on drugs collided with his 
war on terrorism -- and lost. The US is now colluding in the heroin trade.

Anti-American Afghan forces -- Taliban, al-Qaida, and others -- have 
grouped and are mounting ever larger attacks on US troops and, reports the 
UN, even re-opening training camps. Taliban mujihadin are using the same 
sophisticated early alert system they developed to monitor Soviet forces in 
the 1980s to warn of American search and destroy missions before they leave 
base. As a result, US troops keep chasing shadows.

Canadians fared no better. In the sole major battle since Taliban's 
overthrow, Operation Anaconda, US forces were bested by veteran Afghan 
mujihadin, losing dozens of casualties and two helicopters.

The ongoing cost of Afghan operations is a closely guarded secret. Earlier 
this year, the cost of stationing 8,000 US troops, backed by warplanes and 
naval units, was estimated at US$5 billion monthly!

CIA spends millions every month to bribe Pushtun warlords.

Costs will rise as the US expands bases in Afghanistan and neigh-boring 
Pakistan,Tajikistan, Kyrgystan and Uzbekistan -- all placed along the 
planned US owned pipeline that will bring Central Asian oil south through 
Afghanistan.

The UN reports Taliban and al-Qaida on the offensive, Afghan women remain 
veiled, and the country in a dangerous mess. Declaring victory in 
Afghanistan may have been premature.
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MAP posted-by: Beth