by Eric Margolis
As Santayana observed, those who forget history are doomed to relive it. However overused, his maxim is as true today as when he made it.
On 15 February, 1989, the 40th Soviet Army pulled out of Afghanistan, marking the end of Moscow’s bloody and disastrous occupation. Its able commander, Gen. Boris Gromov, was the last Soviet solider to leave Afghanistan, leading his men over a bridge spanning the Amu Darya River (Oxus, in Greek) – which Alexander the Great had crossed on his ill-fated invasion of Afghanistan (327–325 BC).
In a decade of savage fighting, the Red Army and its Afghan Communist allies killed at least 1.5 million Afghans and drove 2.5 million into exile in Pakistan and Iran.
The new Soviet chairman, Mikhail Gorbachev, determined the Afghan war, that was begun by his dimwitted predecessor, Leonid Brezhnev, and a cabal of party and KGB hardliners, could not be won.
Fortunately for the world, Gorbachev, proved a leader of profound humanity, decency, and intellect. Gorbachev courageously accepted defeat and brought his soldiers home. Soon after, the Soviet Union, a bankrupt empire held together by fear and repression, began to crumble. To his eternal credit, Gorbachev refused to employ force to hold the Soviet Empire together.
Many Russians detest Gorbachev to this day, blaming him for the end of the Soviet Union. But using the Red Army to crush rebellion in the Baltic republics and East Germany could easily have ignited World War III. The world owes Gorbachev an enormous debt for averting this horror. He put humanism ahead of nationalism and imperialism.
The new president of the bankrupt American imperium should heed Gorbachev’s wisdom. Barack Obama’s inauguration offered a perfect opportunity to pause the US-led Afghan War, and open talks with Afghan groups resisting foreign occupation (both the Soviets and US branded them "terrorists"). Instead, Obama vowed to intensify the eight-year war which has so far cost the US $ 62 billion.
As Santayana observed, those who forget history are doomed to relive it. However overused, his maxim is as true today as when he made it.
On 15 February, 1989, the 40th Soviet Army pulled out of Afghanistan, marking the end of Moscow’s bloody and disastrous occupation. Its able commander, Gen. Boris Gromov, was the last Soviet solider to leave Afghanistan, leading his men over a bridge spanning the Amu Darya River (Oxus, in Greek) – which Alexander the Great had crossed on his ill-fated invasion of Afghanistan (327–325 BC).
In a decade of savage fighting, the Red Army and its Afghan Communist allies killed at least 1.5 million Afghans and drove 2.5 million into exile in Pakistan and Iran.
The new Soviet chairman, Mikhail Gorbachev, determined the Afghan war, that was begun by his dimwitted predecessor, Leonid Brezhnev, and a cabal of party and KGB hardliners, could not be won.
Fortunately for the world, Gorbachev, proved a leader of profound humanity, decency, and intellect. Gorbachev courageously accepted defeat and brought his soldiers home. Soon after, the Soviet Union, a bankrupt empire held together by fear and repression, began to crumble. To his eternal credit, Gorbachev refused to employ force to hold the Soviet Empire together.
Many Russians detest Gorbachev to this day, blaming him for the end of the Soviet Union. But using the Red Army to crush rebellion in the Baltic republics and East Germany could easily have ignited World War III. The world owes Gorbachev an enormous debt for averting this horror. He put humanism ahead of nationalism and imperialism.
The new president of the bankrupt American imperium should heed Gorbachev’s wisdom. Barack Obama’s inauguration offered a perfect opportunity to pause the US-led Afghan War, and open talks with Afghan groups resisting foreign occupation (both the Soviets and US branded them "terrorists"). Instead, Obama vowed to intensify the eight-year war which has so far cost the US $ 62 billion.
punditman says...
President Obama is a smart guy, or so we thought. Surely he knows that the Taliban did not attack the US on 9-11; surely he knows the plot was hatched in Germany and Spain, allegedly by Saudis and Pakistanis.
How long before Obama learns that all his own assumptions were wrong and that the Afghanistan catastrophe has no military solution? Even Stephen Harper apparently now knows this. Unfortunately, many stand to die while the President gets up to speed.
PS: maybe he should call up Gorbachev for some tutoring?
