Time trip - Afghanistan - Brief Article

0 Comments | Current Events, Nov 9, 2001

* Afghanistan has staved off invasions from more powerful nations before. In 1979, the Soviet Union, a former Communist nation made up of Russia and 14 neighboring republics, invaded Afghanistan to help squash a rebellion against the Communist leadership there. The rebels, who called themselves mujahadeen, or holy warriors, believed the Communist government's policies clashed with the teachings of Islam. On December 25, 1979, thousands of Soviet forces invaded Afghanistan to help the government put down the rebellion. Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev said the war would last only a few months, He was wrong.

* Six years later, in 1986, about 118,000 Soviet troops and 50,000 Afghan government troops were fighting against 130,000 rebels. At the time, the Soviet Union was a world superpower with far more advanced weaponry than the rebels had. The fierce guerrilla warfare of the mujahadeen, however, rendered much Soviet technology useless. "They use ambushes or military diversion to attack," recalled retired Col. Vladimir Pesterev. "There is no `front.'... They can shoot from any bush, or any building, and you cannot tell where the fire is coming from" Pesterev told Newsweek. "If they are in a cave, you cannot get at them. Planes and helicopters won't help."

* The United States opposed the Soviet invasion and supplied the rebels with millions of dollars' worth of weapons. A turning point came in 1986, when the United States supplied the mujahadeen with shoulder-fired Stinger missiles capable of downing Soviet helicopters. (See triumphant rebels on downed Soviet helicopter above.)

* By 1988, the Soviet Union had started to withdraw its troops from Afghanistan. Soviet Gen. Boris Gromov, who led that withdrawal, doubts that the United States will have a better chance in Afghanistan. "We lost 15,000 servicemen in Afghanistan.... I do not think the Americans can avoid that."

* Colonel Pesterev, however, said he thinks American troops can learn from Soviet mistakes and fare better in Afghanistan, but only if U.S. troops "learn to fight like the Afghans do," he said.

* Even though American weapons helped the mujahadeen defeat the Soviets, Russia today is an ally of the United States in its war against terrorism. "Terrorism ... is not just America's problem," said Colonel Pesterev.

* The Soviet Union (page 2). The empire that, from 1922 to 1991, covered much of Eurasia. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.), as it was formally named, arose after the Russian Revolution of 1917. A highly centralized and authoritarian government controlled the political and economic systems in the U.S.S.R. From the late 1940s through the 1980s, the Soviet Union was one of the two world superpowers--the other being the United States. In 1991, the U.S.S.R. government collapsed after a failed attempt by conservatives to overthrow Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the Soviet president.

* Communism (page 2). A system of political or economic organization in which private property is forcefully eliminated and all goods are owned in common. German philosopher Karl Marx was the founder of modern communism. Marx claimed that economic factors shape the character of society. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 was a blow to the communist system. However, forms of communism are practiced in places such as Cuba and China.