[Rich]

No, the Soviets were not the problem - it was Amin and his merry band of Khalq fanatics who caused the present instability in Afghanistan by trying to brutally modernise (which of course means westernise) Afghan society. Thousands of tribal elders were tortured and murdered by Amin (and his figurehead Taraki) just for resisting these reforms. The Soviets kept telling Amin what a mistake this was (Brezhnev even told him, "the people will not forgive this"), but he refused to listen. Killing Taraki was the final straw.

But the situation in Afghanistan was not really that different to the early Soviet Union. The Bolsheviks faced a large backward, religious, rural population. I think people underestimate just how effective terror can be. You can reconstruct the culture of a place in a remarkably short space of time, as long as you're willing to apply enough terror. This is why I find the British occupation of Ireland so sickening, how in God's name did we let it remain Catholic. The Papists gave us Protestants no mercy in Spain or France, why were we obliged to let them practice their Papist terrorist religion. My motto is "Do unto terrorists what they would do unto you, before they get a chance to do it unto you."

The key thing in Afghanistan was the Muslim rebel safe havens in Pakistan. This was similar to South Vietnam and North Vietnam. And of course the Khmer Rouge and Vietnam. Without the Vietnamese intervention the Khmer Rouge could have ruled Cambodia indefinitely. After the early years of the Russian Civil war, no neighbouring country to the Soviet Union was willing give the Whites permanent safe havens form which to operate. So the Soviet rulers were free to reconstruct the country's culture as they wanted.

[QatzelOk]

I meant maybe it would be better to divide Afghanistation along ethnic lines.

What about the UK? Do you support independence for Scotland and Wales? What about the USA? Do you support breaking the USA into anglo, hispanic, and african american states?

If you want to do this to Afghanistan, then you want to do it to all large countries with different ethnicities.

I'm not disagreeing with you, I'm just trying to determine if your idea (divide the country by ethnicity) is a "perfect harmony among nations" strategy, or just another way of destroying nations by making them smaller and easier to attack.

[Potemkin]

But the situation in Afghanistan was not really that different to the early Soviet Union. The Bolsheviks faced a large backward, religious, rural population. I think people underestimate just how effective terror can be. You can reconstruct the culture of a place in a remarkably short space of time, as long as you're willing to apply enough terror. This is why I find the British occupation of Ireland so sickening, how in God's name did we let it remain Catholic. The Papists gave us Protestants no mercy in Spain or France, why were we obliged to let them practice their Papist terrorist religion. My motto is "Do unto terrorists what they would do unto you, before they get a chance to do it unto you."

The key thing in Afghanistan was the Muslim rebel safe havens in Pakistan. This was similar to South Vietnam and North Vietnam. And of course the Khmer Rouge and Vietnam. Without the Vietnamese intervention the Khmer Rouge could have ruled Cambodia indefinitely. After the early years of the Russian Civil war, no neighbouring country to the Soviet Union was willing give the Whites permanent safe havens form which to operate. So the Soviet rulers were free to reconstruct the country's culture as they wanted.

The problem was not Amin's use of mass terror and political repression - all governments use those methods to rule, especially in their early years in power and especially if nation-building (and nation-building is always and necessarily a violent process). No, the problem was Amin's use of mass terror and political repression in circumstances in which it was bound to fail. This what the Soviet leaders (who were far more experienced than he was in such matters) kept trying to tell him. As you yourself have pointed out, the Khalq in 1978 were in a very different position from the Bolsheviks in 1921. Amin's hero Stalin only applied his ferocious mass terror to modernise Russia after the Bolsheviks had won an overwhelming victory in the Russian Civil War. Amin tried to impose his ferocious mass terror to modernise Afghanistan before fighting a brutal civil war to determine who actually controlled Afghan society. Wrong fucking order, asshole. Lol.

[Tainari88]

The problem was not Amin's use of mass terror and political repression - all governments use those methods to rule, especially in their early years in power and especially if nation-building (and nation-building is always and necessarily a violent process). No, the problem was Amin's use of mass terror and political repression in circumstances in which it was bound to fail. This what the Soviet leaders (who were far more experienced than he was in such matters) kept trying to tell him. As you yourself have pointed out, the Khalq in 1978 were in a very different position from the Bolsheviks in 1921. Amin's hero Stalin only applied his ferocious mass terror to modernise Russia after the Bolsheviks had won an overwhelming victory in the Russian Civil War. Amin tried to impose his ferocious mass terror to modernise Afghanistan before fighting a brutal civil war to determine who actually controlled Afghan society. Wrong fucking order, asshole. Lol.

Are you going to allow some mass terror go out of control and then be upset about the order it was done in? Now now Potemkin. Modernizing Russia is tough. Afghanistan modernizing is also brutal. I say, if some people don't want to modernize let them stay unmodernized. They seem to do well living in the past. Amish folks and many Native tribes don't like modernizing. I say dump the modern crapola and let them be free to be as tribal as they want.

You avoid bloodshed and anger in a big way.

Necessarily violent to make them bend to the modern. I don't like what you are proposing Potemkin!

I say let people choose their century and level of technology and the most peaceful and happy of the unmodernized win!

[Potemkin]

Are you going to allow some mass terror go out of control and then be upset about the order it was done in? Now now Potemkin. Modernizing Russia is tough. Afghanistan modernizing is also brutal. I say, if some people don't want to modernize let them stay unmodernized. They seem to do well living in the past. Amish folks and many Native tribes don't like modernizing. I say dump the modern crapola and let them be free to be as tribal as they want.

You avoid bloodshed and anger in a big way.

Necessarily violent to make them bend to the modern. I don't like what you are proposing Potemkin!

I say let people choose their century and level of technology and the most peaceful and happy of the unmodernized win!

It would be better for humanity if people could just be left alone. After all, the tribal elders saw no benefit for themselves or the people they represented in modernising or westernising Afghan society. In fact, any such modernisation would necessarily involve departing from the essential tenets of their religious faith. They therefore saw resisting the Khalq's attempted modernisation of Afghan society as their religious and moral duty. This is what the Taliban is all about, and why it exists in the first place, and why its adherents are willing to keep fighting against overwhelming odds forever until they win. In that sense, Amin created the Taliban by imposing his brutal modernisation process, as the dialectical opposite of the Khalq, its dark shadow which eventually replaced it.

But we live in a world in which people are almost never just left alone. As a bare minimum, there are always tax collectors and priests, and at worst there are imperialist invasions and occupations. How can people resist imperialism, if they remain backward and undeveloped? If one nation modernises, then eventually all must modernise, if they are to survive.

[ckaihatsu]

Working Women In Afghanistan Are Beginning To Navigate Life Under Taliban Rule

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ni ... al-taliban

[QatzelOk]

...if some people don't want to modernize let them stay unmodernized.

I agree totally with you here, Tainari88. Imagine thinking that Afghans driving giant SUVs to shopping malls that are 60 km from their homes... is an "improvement" over their traditional lives.

Only commercial interests like car companies and big pharma are still pushing the "newest technologies will make our lives heaven-like" narrative. Most technology has proven poison, but commercial entities are unable to learn from mistakes - they were only created to make money, not to empathize with the victims of their past technologies. So like psychos, they promote past failures with no self-awareness because self-awareness is a human trait, and not an institutional trait.

The USA, in invading virtually all resource-rich parts of the world that don't possess nukes, has proven that it serves commercial interests and not humanity in any way.

...nation-building is always and necessarily a violent process...

It's violent the same way as human-building is (Frankenstein was a famous example of this).

[Skynet]

The best dictator of Afghanistan would be a Saddam/Pablo Escobar guy from Helmand.

Both ISIS and Taliban want to ban the narco trade... In the last years they learned how to produce meth as cheap as chewing gums, the narcoterrorists from Helmand.

[ckaihatsu]

still pushing the "newest technologies will make our lives heaven-like" narrative. Most technology has proven poison,

Okay, primitivist.

[Political Interest]

Amin was almost single-handedly responsible for creating the 40 year long corpse-strewn mess which is modern Afghanistan. It would have been better by far for Afghanistan, for the Soviet Union, and for the United States too, if Hafizullah Amin had never been born. And I say that as a Communist myself.

Amin was unfortunately a killer, and he had to removed. The Soviets did Afghanistan a service by removing him from power. However they did this while the children were at the Tajbeg Palace and his son was killed. The daughter survived. Perhaps Amin could have been taken alive, but the children should never have had to undergo such a traumatic experience.

Amin apparently said when questioned about his ruthlessness that Stalin never built socialism with velvet gloves. I wonder if Brezhnev and the other Politburo members were offended by this considering they themselves had lived through Stalinist terror. They might have thought he was being both offensive and pretentious.

The Soviets were class traitors at this point, as Mao correctly recognized.

I never understood this accusation. The Chinese communists were already unorthodox even by Stalinist standards because they went in for a peasant revolution. Then Mao Zedong pursued insane agrarian policies that led to famines. Cultural Revolutions were not part of orthodox Stalinism. Wasn't it Mao and his colleagues who were the revisionists in this case?

Khruschev once reportedly said in response to Chinese socialist policies that if you can only offer people a permanent revolution they may as well just stay at home and eat ghoulash.

[Potemkin]

Amin was unfortunately a killer, and he had to removed. The Soviets did Afghanistan a service by removing him from power. However they did this while the children were at the Tajbeg Palace and his son was killed. The daughter survived. Perhaps Amin could have been taken alive, but the children should never have had to undergo such a traumatic experience.

The Soviets initially tried to poison him. Rather comically, this failed because doctors at the Soviet embassy didn't know about the decision to kill Amin and saved his life. Amin still didn't take the hint, and still thought the Soviets were there to help him against the Mujahideen. Amin completely misread the Soviets. He kept sending the wrong signals to them and he kept offending them, without even realising it.

Amin apparently said when questioned about his ruthlessness that Stalin never built socialism with velvet gloves. I wonder if Brezhnev and the other Politburo members were offended by this considering they themselves had lived through Stalinist terror. They might have thought he was being both offensive and pretentious.

Exactly. The Stalinist terror was incredibly traumatic for the Soviet people. Even the Soviet leaders who supported it and collaborated with it were traumatised by it. And Amin was making light of it, as though it's nothing. Again, he was offending the Soviet leaders without even realising it. The final straw came when he phoned Brezhnev after his coup d'etat against Taraki and said: "I have Taraki here. What should I do with him?" Brezhnev replied that this was up to Amin himself, which Amin took to be permission to kill Taraki. In fact, Brezhnev was deeply offended by the killing of Taraki, whom he had liked and had sworn to protect. It was this which led directly to Brezhnev's decision to invade Afghanistan, to kill Amin. I repeat: the Soviet Union did not invade Afghanistan to fight the Mujahideen (though they ended up doing so) - the main purpose of the Soviet invasion was to kill Hafizullah Amin.

I never understood this accusation. The Chinese communists were already unorthodox even by Stalinist standards because they went in for a peasant revolution. Then Mao Zedong pursued insane agrarian policies that led to famines. Cultural Revolutions were not part of orthodox Stalinism. Wasn't it Mao and his colleagues who were the revisionists in this case?

Khruschev once reportedly said in response to Chinese socialist policies that if you can only offer people a permanent revolution they may as well just stay at home and eat ghoulash.

...which they decided to do in the end anyway. Lol.

[Political Interest]

The Soviets initially tried to poison him. Rather comically, this failed because doctors at the Soviet embassy didn't know about the decision to kill Amin and saved his life. Amin still didn't take the hint, and still thought the Soviets were there to help him against the Mujahideen. Amin completely misread the Soviets. He kept sending the wrong signals to them and he kept offending them, without even realising it.

And this is the problem, some people just don't understand when they're being offensive and others are too polite to tell them directly. It's very easy to offend someone as well.

Exactly. The Stalinist terror was incredibly traumatic for the Soviet people. Even the Soviet leaders who supported it and collaborated with it were traumatised by it. And Amin was making light of it, as though it's nothing. Again, he was offending the Soviet leaders without even realising it. The final straw came when he phoned Brezhnev after his coup d'etat against Taraki and said: "I have Taraki here. What should I do with him?" Brezhnev replied that this was up to Amin himself, which Amin took to be permission to kill Taraki. In fact, Brezhnev was deeply offended by the killing of Taraki, whom he had liked and had sworn to protect. It was this which led directly to Brezhnev's decision to invade Afghanistan, to kill Amin. I repeat: the Soviet Union did not invade Afghanistan to fight the Mujahideen (though they ended up doing so) - the main purpose of the Soviet invasion was to kill Hafizullah Amin.

It is also interesting to note that when Brezhnev took power from Khruschev the coup was entirely bloodless. Khruschev and his allies were not harmed, in fact I think Khruschev was even allowed to publish his memoirs and he got an apartment to live in through retirement. The Khruschevite political culture ended the practice of executing political opponents.

Surely Brezhnev must have realised that Amin was going to kill Taraki. But then Brezhnev's answer was probably a quiet way of saying he probably shouldn't, well at least that would be how someone with common sense would interpret it. I think Brezhnev was a decent sort.

That's very interesting about Brezhnev's motivation for invading Afghanistan. I never knew that.

...which they decided to do in the end anyway. Lol.

True.

[Potemkin]

And this is the problem, some people just don't understand when they're being offensive and others are too polite to tell them directly. It's very easy to offend someone as well.

Indeed, though there is no excuse for Amin's ignorance of Soviet history or for his complete misreading of the Soviet leaders' intentions and wishes.

It is also interesting to note that when Brezhnev took power from Khruschev the coup was entirely bloodless. Khruschev and his allies were not harmed, in fact I think Khruschev was even allowed to publish his memoirs and he got an apartment to live in through retirement. The Khruschevite political culture ended the practice of executing political opponents.

Surely Brezhnev must have realised that Amin was going to kill Taraki. But then Brezhnev's answer was probably a quiet way of saying he probably shouldn't, well at least that would be how someone with common sense would interpret it. I think Brezhnev was a decent sort.

Precisely, and Amin was too obtuse to take the hint. Unlike Stalin or Hafizullah Amin, Brezhev was not a natural born killer. However, he was a bit of a dullard who favoured the bureaucracy rather too much, at the expense of the Soviet people in general. And he made little or no attempt to reform the Soviet system, which badly needed reforming. Gorbachev later regarded the Brezhnev years as twenty wasted years.

That's very interesting about Brezhnev's motivation for invading Afghanistan. I never knew that.

It doesn't fit the West's narrative of those events, just as the Vietnamese Communists' ousting of the Khmer Rouge doesn't fit the West's narrative. Anything which doesn't fit that narrative gets quietly suppressed.

[late]

"Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carter’s national security advisor, describes similar concerns in a 1997 interview. He tells the Nouvel Observateur: “Indeed, it was July 3, 1979, that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul.” He adds: “That very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.”

That's the cleaned up version, my interpretation is Zbiggy wanted Russia to invade. We started helping 6 months before the invasion.

This goes beyond what this forum can prob handle. Not that there isn't enough information, but digging it out, and making sense of it, is more than anyone here is willing to do. But from what I've read, we played a significant role in suckering Russia. "In the same 1997 interview, he (Zbiggy) speaks of “drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap.”

https://www.ellsworthamerican.com/opinions/commentary/commentary-the-war-in-afghanistan-began-much-earlier/

[ckaihatsu]

Split U.N. Security Council urges Taliban to allow travel, aid

https://www.politico.com/news/2021/08/3 ... cil-507833

[Potemkin]

"Zbigniew Brzezinski, Carter’s national security advisor, describes similar concerns in a 1997 interview. He tells the Nouvel Observateur: “Indeed, it was July 3, 1979, that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul.” He adds: “That very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.”

That's the cleaned up version, my interpretation is Zbiggy wanted Russia to invade. We started helping 6 months before the invasion.

This goes beyond what this forum can prob handle. Not that there isn't enough information, but digging it out, and making sense of it, is more than anyone here is willing to do. But from what I've read, we played a significant role in suckering Russia. "In the same 1997 interview, he (Zbiggy) speaks of “drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap.”

https://www.ellsworthamerican.com/opinions/commentary/commentary-the-war-in-afghanistan-began-much-earlier/

There was a list of reasons why the Soviet Union eventually invaded Afghanistan after more than a year of ignoring the Khalq government's repeated demands for Soviet military assistance, but Western support for the Mujahideen was not high up on that list as far as the Soviet leadership was concerned. It was Hafizullah Amin's coup d'etat against and murder of his boss Taraki which triggered it - the Soviet forces crossed the border, attacked his fortified palace, and killed Amin. They replaced him with their own Parcham puppet ruler Babrak Karmal (whom the Khalq had been trying to kill for years and who had been driven into exile by them), and they remained to prop him up and keep Afghanistan as an obedient client state in the Soviet sphere of influence.

[late]

There was a list of reasons...

"Among the real motivations, the cable and other documents suggest, was a fear that Afghanistan might switch loyalties to the West."

“We have been receiving information about Amin’s behind-the-scenes activities which might mean his political reorientation to the West,” Yuri V. Andropov, the K.G.B. chief, told the Soviet leader Leonid I. Brezhnev in a handwritten memo in December 1979. “He keeps his contacts with the American chargé d’affaires secret from us.”

"Rodric Braithwaite, the last British ambassador to the Soviet Union and the author of “Afgantsy: The Russians in Afghanistan, 1979-89,” said on Monday that it had long been known that the Kremlin worried that Mr. Amin was turning to the United States, but said Soviet leaders had multiple motives for the invasion."

“It’s difficult to weight all the considerations,” he said, “but the Russians’ main concern was to ensure that a country on their vulnerable southern border, which they had cultivated for decades, didn’t become hostile.”

Here's the weird part, the Brits invaded 3 times, and said the same thing each time, they were worried Afghanistan liked Russia better than the Brits. After the first invasion, they were prob right.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/29/us/politics/afghanistan-trump-soviet-union.html

[QatzelOk]

Okay, primitivist.

The best times of my childhood were spent in the forest camping, with as little technology as possible.

Instead, we had uninterupted occasions for socialization and shared labor.

Contrast that to all the wasted time spent in front of the latest-technology television, and all the brain damage that caused kids of my generation.

Seriously, do you think these TV-damaged suburban isolation-victims have things to "teach" other cultures about living their lives? All we have is MONEY, and we got this by stealing from other people for our psychopath leaders.

[ckaihatsu]

The best times of my childhood were spent in the forest camping, with as little technology as possible.

Instead, we had uninterupted occasions for socialization and shared labor.

Contrast that to all the wasted time spent in front of the latest-technology television, and all the brain damage that caused kids of my generation.

Seriously, do you think these TV-damaged suburban isolation-victims have things to "teach" other cultures about living their lives? All we have is MONEY, and we got this by stealing from other people for our psychopath leaders.

I don't dispute your autobiography or your cultural critique, Qatzel.

It's just that sometimes it's a little *too* glass-half-empty, albeit while capitalist-incrementalist consumer technology *has been* notoriously expensive and un-user-friendly for decades -- it's only *lately* that computer-based consumer items (smartphones) are truly mass-market and commonly useful, finally making it over to the 'plus' column for most people.

And what about all of the rest of civilization, particularly physical infrastructure, for modern cities and urban life -- ? (Etc.)

[QatzelOk]

I don't dispute your autobiography or your cultural critique, Qatzel.

Good, I ask that it be taken seriously because human agency is so limited regarding "which technologies or social structures" we can use. The norms are mandatory, and all older lifestyles are killed by us.

It's just that sometimes it's a little *too* glass-half-empty, albeit while capitalist-incrementalist consumer technology *has been* notoriously expensive and un-user-friendly for decades -- it's only *lately* that computer-based consumer items (smartphones) are truly mass-market and commonly useful, finally making it over to the 'plus' column for most people.

People who stare at their phones all day will have much less fulfilling lives because of the reduction in opportunities for social sharing and spontaneous experiences. This is a social disaster waiting to happen. All the "joy of using" smartphones is bullshit. We are now FORCED to use them whether we like to or not. And the damage to our societies is severe.

And what about all of the rest of civilization, particularly physical infrastructure, for modern cities and urban life -- ? (Etc.)

Like with any steroids, we get addicted to these techs, and then our natural ability to produce something (like hormones) dries up and we're less well off than before.

The West's attempt to control the world using our amazing technologies and maxxed out VISA cards in Afghanistan... is a perfect metaphor for what we do to ourselves with modern technologies. We're all just a few antidepressants away from joining our own Talibans just to escape the rat race, and all the rat tech.