Hi Raymond Duray; Re: "Ummm, CIA funding?" No, the reason the Taliban has so many tanks is because they got them from the Russians. It'd debatable whether the CIA had anything to do with the Taliban, but nice hit!
Re: "Oh, yeah, right. That went really well up above Anzio ..."
Last I heard the Nazis were unable to hold onto the mountains of Italy. In fact, I believe they were even eliminated from the Alps. Maybe their problem was that they didn't have logistical supply lines to a super power providing them with materiel to keep fighting on with. You know, if they had, I bet we would still be fighting them.
Re: "and in the Central Highlands in Viet Nam. We really kicked butt. Uh-huh."
Vietnam was a case of a proxy guerilla war between two (or three) super powers. Afghanistan is not. Here are a few examples of the United States cleaning an enemy out of mountainous (or unconventional) territory.
(1) Native American Indians in 1800s.
(2) The Civil War.
(3) The Philippines in 1898.
(4) Japanese in the Philippines and various islands.
(5) Germans all over mountains of Europe.
(6) North Koreans in South Korea.
While it's true that it took us until 1972 for the last Japanese to finally surrender in Guam, it's also true that he didn't cause a lot of trouble for his last quarter century there. Maybe that's because he didn't have a supply line to a super power providing him with materiel:
ns.gov.gu
Countries don't generally put a lot of effort into fighting in mountains because mountains have little value. While it's possible to live off of roots and berries in the jungles for 25 years, it is not possible to do this in the mountains. Not only is it not possible for wimps like me (and probably you), it isn't possible for anybody. That's why people don't live in the mountains, or if they do, they don't have any energy left over to make much in the way of war. Soldiers (even guerilla soldiers) in the mountains require food, and lots of it, just to stay alive. To make offensive operations they require massive amounts of stuff. And that means they need supply lines to friendly countries.
So instead of talking about the highlands of Vietnam, or for that matter, the much more common examples of mountain armies who were defeated such as Cochise in the Malpais of Arizona, let's talk about Afghanistan itself. Every nation has its little myths, and the myth the Afghans have is that they have eventually defeated every invader to their country. This is simply not factually true, except to the extent that all political regimes eventually fade away. Persia, the Macedonians (starting with Alexander), the Moslems and the Mongols all conquered Afghanistan and set up regimes controlled by foreigners that lasted centuries.
Their biggest claim to fame is fighting off the British, but Afghanistan was a bone between Russia and Britain. In other words, when they held off the British it wasn't because of some superhuman fighting ability of theirs. Instead they were simply a pawn in the ongoing fight between Britain and Russia. You can't read any history of the Anglo Afghan war without finding out that they were all proxy wars fought between Russia and Britain, and in that sense quite similar, in that way, to Vietnam. By contrast, this time in Afghanistan we have the assistance of both the British and the Russians.
It's not just a coincidence that the 3rd Afghan war began in 1919. For a while before then, Russia was an ally of Britain, so they were able to come to polite understandings over their South Asia differences:
Second Anglo-Afghan War 1878-80
Russian advances into central Asia after the Crimean War were seen in London and Calcutta as a threat to Britain's Indian possessions. The Tsar's armies had absorbed Tashkent, Samarkand and Khiva bringing the Russian presence close to Afghanistan and the traditional invasion route to India.
british-forces.com
Third Anglo-Afghan War 1919
The second Anglo-Afghan war (1878-79) had stopped Russian influence in Afghanistan, but Russian activity renewed around 1900. An Anglo-Afghan agreement on 21 Mar. 1905 re-affirmed earlier settlements. An Anglo-Russian entente on 31 Aug. 1907 established a compromise on British and Russian interests in Persia, and included Russia's recognition of Britain's predominant role in Afghanistan. Russia agreed once again to refrain from interference in Afghan affairs.
...
British regular forces in India consisted of only two cavalry regiments and eight infantry battalions. The rest of the British garrison were Territorial Army battalions which had been sent during the First World War to relieve regulars for the fighting on the Western Front. With the end of the war these were eager to return to civilian life, and the Commander-in-Chief India had to intervene directly to forestall the threat of mutiny. Afghan forces crossed the Indian border on 4 May 1919, occupying a few towns. British and Indian forces immediately mobilised and launched a massive land and air punitive campaign to reclaim the Indian towns and invade Afghanistan through the Khyber Pass. The force applied has been likened by some historians to hitting a mosquito with a sledgehammer. Amanullah sued for an armistice on 31 May 1919.
...
By the Treaty of Rawalpindi (8 Aug. 1919, amended 22 Nov. 1921) Britain recognised Afghan independence, assured that British Indian empire would never extend beyond Khyber Pass, and ceased British subsidies to Afghanistan. Afghanistan almost immediately signed a treaty of friendship with the new Bolshevik government in Russia (28 Feb. 1921), and upgraded this on 31 Aug. 1926 to a neutrality and nonaggression pact. This pact was renewed in 1931 and 1955, but Afghanistan did not again engage in war with British India and its independent successor states.
...
regiments.org
War is the most wasteful activity that humans ever participate in (in terms of both lives, production, destruction and money), and this truth applies through all time, from before recorded history right through to the present. Afghan guerillas are no exception to this. To destroy Russian helicopters they had to have US Stinger missiles. It was never possible for them to manufacture them while hiding in caves. Rocks were not enough to defeat the Russians; they beat the Russians because they were supplied from outside the country with large amounts of modern materiel.
In other words, the Afghan defeat of the Soviets, like the Vietnamese defeat of the Americans, were just parts of great power struggles. The local inhabitants were used as pawns. The only reason the Afghanis didn't roll over for the Russians is that they kept getting supplied through their neighbors. Just looking at a map you have to wonder what the Russians were thinking. The current situation is distinct because the neighboring countries are giving us assistance. Even the Iranians have offered help.
In Afghanistan now, there is no great power willing to stand up for the Taliban. To do so would invite the full economic, political and military power of the United States. There only real ally was Pakistan, and they've fallen in line nicely. All their other neighbors are already fighting them, the Paks were their only friends.
-- Carl |
