[Peace-discuss] The Russians in Afghanistan

[C. G. Estabrook]

  What did our boys die for? Ever the Afghan question
Obama could learn from Gorbachev, says the author of an acclaimed account of the 
Soviet debacle
By Victor Sebestyen
LAST UPDATED 6:58 AM, AUGUST 16, 2010

Recent reports of women suffering in Afghanistan have raised concern about what 
will happen when Western troops leave the country. The First Post told the story 
last week of Bibi Sanubar, flogged and shot to death because of her supposed 
'adultery'. Earlier this month, Time magazine published a cover photo of 
18-year-old Aisha, her nose and ears cut off by her husband because she ran away 
from her in-laws.

Many who were delighted when President Obama pledged to begin withdrawing troops 
by next July are asking for a rethink. Crucially, they include General David 
Petraeus, Obama's new commander in the region, who believes his men have too 
little time to crack down on the Taliban. The word is that he will try to 
persuade Obama to give him a six-month extension.

And so the debate - should we go, or should we stay? - will continue to rage. 
Before final decisions are made, it's worth heeding these words:

"We've been in for years… but how to get out racks one's brains. Our boys have 
been fighting bravely in Afghanistan... but if we don't start changing our 
approach we will be there another 20 years, or 30. We have not learned how to 
wage war there. We had a clearly defined goal - to get a friendly regime in 
Afghanistan... Now we must end this process as quickly as we can."

This might be Obama talking today with his military advisors, or over the phone 
to David Cameron. In fact they are the words of Mikhail Gorbachev, the leader of 
the former Soviet Union, spoken on November 13, 1986.

By then the Red Army had been fighting a guerrilla war in Afghanistan for seven 
years and had lost about 7,000 troops dead and many times that number wounded. 
More than a million Afghans, mostly civilians, had been killed and three million 
made homeless.

The debates in the Kremlin then and the discussion now in Britain and the US are 
eerily similar.

I trawled through the archives of Communist-era Politburo and military records 
for my book about the fall of the Soviet empire. It is a task I would recommend 
to the aides of President Obama and Prime Minister Cameron.

Even the places our troops are fighting the Taliban – for example, in Helmand 
Province – are exactly the same towns and villages where Soviet soldiers were 
dying in the struggle against the Mujahideen (Army of God) just two decades ago.

When Gorbachev came to power in the spring of 1985 he inherited an unpopular 
war, as Obama and Cameron have done. In private the Soviet leader called it "our 
bleeding wound" and "our Vietnam". He made a decision quickly to pull out Soviet 
troops and try to enable the Afghan government, then run by Communists, to carry 
on the fight against the Mujahideen.

But leaving was a slow and agonising process. It took four years and the Soviets 
suffered around the same number of casualties after the political decision "top 
priority for us", as Gorbachev said repeatedly, he could not easily do so 
without losing face.

"We could just leave quickly, not thinking about anything else, but that would 
be a blow to (our) authority," he said in despair to his Politburo colleagues in 
mid-1987. "Over the years a million of our troops have fought in Afghanistan. 
All in vain, it turns out. They would say: you've forgotten about the sacrifices 
they made. The people will ask: what did these boys die for?"

Gorbachev dithered, looking for something he could spin into 'victory' or - that 
other elusive prize of armies in trouble - 'peace with honour'.

He was haunted by the image of the last Americans leaving Saigon in humiliating 
panic at the end of the Vietnam war. "We cannot leave in our underpants... or 
without any," he told his senior aides. "We must say that our people did not 
lose their lives in vain."

By the time the long slow retreat was complete in February 1989, about 15,000 
Soviet troops had died. Despite all of Gorbachev's brilliant public relations 
skills there was no way it could be spun into anything except defeat.

For the USSR it was worse than losing a war. Their disaster in Afghanistan 
marked the beginning of the end for the entire Soviet empire as revolution swept 
through Eastern Europe in 1989, and of the Soviet Union itself two years later.

Obama and Cameron should reflect on Gorbachev's experience.

Victor Sebestyen is the author of ‘Revolution 1989: The Fall of The Soviet 
Empire’, just published in paperback by Phoenix at £12.99.

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