Afghanistan: A Forgotten Chapter

By John Ryan
Canadian Dimension
November/December 2001

I was in Afghanistan on an agricultural research project in
October and November of 1978. Through Kabul University I
conducted my research project with the assistance of an
agriculture professor. A Marxist government had come to
power only six months before, so I was there at a
significant period in the country's history.

The bulk of Afghanistan's people in the 1970s were farmers,
but the landholding system hadn't changed much since the
feudal period. More than three quarters of the land was
owned by landlords who comprised only three per cent of the
rural population. The king was deposed in 1973, but no land
reform came about and the new government was autocratic,
corrupt and unpopular.  On April 27, 1978, to prevent the
police from attacking a huge demonstration in front of the
presidential palace, the army intervened, and after firing a
single shot from a tank at the palace, the government
resigned. The military officers then invited the Marxist
party to form the government, under the leadership of Noor
Mohammed Taraki, a university professor.

This is how a Marxist government came into office -- it was
a totally indigenous happening -- not even the CIA blamed
the U.S.S.R. for this. The government began to bring in
much-needed reforms, but with restraint and prudence. Labour
unions were legalized, a minimum wage was established, a
progressive income tax was introduced, men and women were
given equal rights, and girls were encouraged to go to
school. On September 1,

1978, there was an abolition of all debts owed by farmers. A
program was being developed for major land reform, and it
was expected that all farm families (including landlords)
would be given the equivalent of equal amounts of land.

Everywhere life seemed peaceful and there were few police
and soldiers on the scene. This was a genuinely popular
government and people looked forward to the future with
great hope. Admittedly, the issue of women's rights and
education for girls was controversial, and fundamentalist
mullahs conducted campaigns against this. It was these
people and their converts, along with landlords, who
migrated to Pakistan, as refugees.

But there was a much more powerful opponent to the
government -- that was the U.S., which objected to it
because it was Marxist. The CIA, along with Pakistan and
Saudi Arabia, almost immediately began to provide military
aid and training to the Muslim extremists.

Afghan Marxists have claimed that one of their countrymen,
Hafizullah Amin, while on visits to the U.S., had been
"converted" by the CIA and became their agent in the Taraki
government. He worked his way to the top, and, as defence
minister, in September, 1979, carried out a coup, took over
the government, and had Taraki killed. All his loyal
supporters were killed, jailed, or exiled. He then proceeded
to undermine and discredit the Marxist government. He
enacted draconian laws against the Muslim clergy, to
purposefully further alienate them. Progressive reforms were
halted and thousands of people were jailed.

Meanwhile, the CIA's trained and armed mujahedeen came in by
the thousands to attack parts of the country. In a matter of
three months, Amin had essentially destroyed the Marxist
government and had planned to surrender to the mujahedeen,
and become the president of a fundamentalist Islamic
state. But at the end of December, 1979, Amin was overthrown
by the remnants of Taraki supporters, and, under the
leadership of Babrak Karmal (who had been in exile in the
U.S.S.R.), they invited the U.S.S.R. to send in a contingent
of troops to help ward off the well-armed mujahedeen
invaders, many being foreign mercenaries.

The advent of Soviet troops on Afghan soil tragically set
the stage for the eventual destruction of the
country. President Carter's national security advisor,
Zbigniew Brzezinske, saw this as a golden opportunity to
fire up the zeal of the most reactionary Muslim fanatics --
to have them declare a jihad on the atheist infidels who
defiled Afghan soil -- and to not only expel them but to
pursue them and "liberate" the Muslim-majority areas of the
U.S.S.R. And for the next ten years, with an expenditure of
about 40 billion dollars from the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, and
with the recruitment of 30,000 non- Afghan Muslims into the
jihad (including Osama bin Laden), this army of religious
zealots laid waste to the land and people of Afghanistan.

The Soviets succumbed to their Vietnam and withdrew their
troops in February, 1989, but the war raged on.  Somehow it
is generally thought that the Afghan Marxist government
collapsed as soon as the Soviets left, but that's not
true. Seeing the viciousness of the mujahedeen, the bulk of
the Afghan population, especially the women, supported the
Marxist government, and without a single Soviet soldier on
their territory, they fought on for another three years. (In
fact, their government outlasted the U.S.S.R. itself, which
collapsed in December of 1991.) But they couldn't match the
unending supply of superior American weapons, and after the
Marxist defeat in April, 1992, the mujahedeen fought amongst
themselves until the Taliban captured Kabul in September,
1996.

During the years of war, Kabul was totally destroyed, as
were most other cities -- with the greatest damage occurring
after the Marxist defeat during the internecine fratricidal
conflict. The Taliban introduced a horrific reactionary
regime. The landlords came back, and a virtual war was
declared on women, who were not allowed to work or have
doctors treat them, and girls were forbidden to go to
school. Terror, in all its forms, became the basis of the
regime -- a regime of fascist Muslims.

So, who is to blame for this? Both the USA and the
USSR. What stupidity for the Soviets to send in troops to
try to salvage a Marxist regime that was under attack by
hordes of religious fanatics. Their mere presence on Afghan
soil intensified American resolve and mujahedeen
fanaticism. If the Soviets had simply provided weapons for
the Afghan Marxist government, they may have survived the
"barbarians at the gates" -- because ordinary Afghan people
were not fanatics and they had supported the government's
progressive reforms. And even if they lost to the
mujahedeen, in time they might have prevailed and restored a
progressive secular government. But now, because of the
protracted war and the complete destruction of the country,
and a Nazi-type regime in control, ordinary Afghan people
are indeed defeated S and without hope.

But if the Soviets are to blame, how about the U.S., Saudi
Arabia and Pakistan? The U.S. "Communist paranoia" was such
that they supported and recruited the most reactionary
fanatic religious zealots on the earth -- and used them as a
proxy army to fight Communism and the U.S.S.R. -- in the
course of which Afghanistan and its people were
destroyed. As for the mujahedeen that this conflict created,
they took on a life of their own, and have now spread
throughout the Muslim world and are apparently in cells
everywhere.  Having defeated what they called Soviet
imperialism, they have now turned their sights on what they
perceive to be American imperialism.

For decades the U.S. has interfered in the affairs of
countless countries in the world -- Afghanistan is only a
case in point. And all the while, U.S. foreign policy makers
felt that they could act without any adverse consequences to
the U.S. land and its people. They were a superpower, and
they felt invulnerable. But now, ironically, a creation of
their own making has turned on them -- and despite America's
overwhelming technological, economic and military power,
this force has shown that America is vulnerable. So, foreign
policy decisions do have consequences S but despite what has
happened, it may still take a while for this truism to sink
in.

If we are to learn anything from this, it is important to
understand that if the U.S. had left the Marxist Taraki
government alone (in the same way that they should have left
Iran alone in 1953), there would have been no army of
mujahedeen, no Soviet intervention, no war that destroyed
Afghanistan, no Osama bin Laden, and no September 11 tragedy
in the U.S.

John Ryan is a retired professor of geography and senior
scholar at the University of Winnipeg.