Afghanistan: Once Again a Pawn Between Two World Powers

by Jon Phillips

RESTREPO chronicles the deployment of a platoon of US soldiers at one of the most dangerous outposts in Afghanistan. This amazing documentary depicts a sad microcosm of that never ending struggle and how it effected a small group of US soldiers and their loved ones. Taking a 100,000-foot view is philosophical, but seeing the brutal reality of it grinding away at ground level is not.

We are still struggling in Afghanistan and now it increasingly appears that Russia may be arming the Taliban against the most recent quasi-stable government in Kabul -- one that we have supported since the US Invasion deposed the Taliban -- just as we armed the Mujaheddin against the Soviets and the regime they supported during the Soviet Invasion in late 1979.

The US has been at war in Afghanistan for 16 years and counting (the longest running war in US history by a wide margin — now under a third US President) with no end in sight. With the exception of the brief and brutal period of Taliban fundamentalist Islamic government following the Soviet withdrawal and the end of a brutal civil war that filled the power vacuum, Afghanistan has continually been at war since the 1978 communist coup. But the roots go back 5 more years to 1973 (I was 11 years old when this started) when Daoud Khan overthrew the feudal Monarch (his older cousin) in a bloodless coup and declared himself President of a Democratic Republic.

The feudal system created order by recognizing legitimacy of minor war lords (tribal chieftains more correctly) and their mountainous territories and strongholds, in exchange for homage and fealty to the Crown in Kabul. They met in a Loya Jirga to debate and decide the fate of their system and to endorse succession in the Monarchy (no divine right of Kings). Old fashioned, but effective, given the primitive circumstances on the ground in that complex geography.

Zahir Shah was, by common telling, a “good King”. Daoud was idealistic and thought he could drag Afghanistan into modernism. The sudden alienation of vassals and traditions, immediately resulted in a breakdown of the fragile order the Monarchy had managed, and within a few years, Daoud was overthrown and assassinated during a coup by a conjoined communist party (that also proposed to drag Afghanistan into modernity through Stalinistic methods). This provoked insurgency by the spurned vassals who entirely rejected the new regime and the never ending modern nightmare of Afghanistan began.

Two generations of men have been born and raised under arms. A third generation is starting. They know nothing but war. War without end. War funded by others and by opium cultivation. A few million people (the total figure is uncertain by plus or minus one million) have died in conflict since then, the majority of them have been non-combatants. Afghanistan is a small and extremely mountainous country that is sparsely populated mostly by traditional Islamic tribes. They have genes, religion and usually language in common. They are tough and self-directing people, befitting their rigorous geography. Their geography enhances their tribal sentiments by providing a natural maze of territories. In Europe, the closest topography is the region of the Alps, the high center of which is Switzerland. A country that even Hitler bypassed as too troublesome to take on.

Switzerland is divided into a Confederacy of many Cantons that are the remnants of small feudal lords (Germanic tribal chieftains). They’ve outlasted and fought off empires (the Romans, the Holy Roman Empire, the Hapsburgs, the Napoleonic Empire). Switzerland has been conquered several times, but never held for long by a central, let alone foreign, power. Only the Confederacy of geographically based Cantons has persisted (each one “democratizing” with modern development).

Unlike Switzerland, which has lots of water and related natural wealth, Afghanistan is arid and austere. It seems unlikely that a central federal or a foreign power can gain and maintain control very long under such conditions. It may be that feudalism is the natural course through which Afghanistan might find enough peace to develop its way out of endless war. But now it threatens to head back into the abyss of a geo-strategic contest between great powers.

I wonder if I will live long enough to see peace restored in Afghanistan and how that might happen. I can’t imagine the horror of being born and raised in the midst of perpetual warfare. Humans are even capable of “normalizing” continuous combat and others seem happy to use their country and its people as a battle ground in a proxy war.
___________________________________
Jon Phillips is a Senior Nuclear Technology Expert at the International Atomic Energy Agency and Director, Sustainable Nuclear Power Initiative at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. The opinions expressed here are his own.

The Aral Sea Disappears in a Cloud of Toxic Dust

The Aral Sea is located in the lowlands of Turan occupying land in the Republics of Kazakstan and Uzbekistan. From ancient times it was known as an oasis. Traders, hunters, fishers, and merchants populated this fertile site littered with lagoons and shallow straits that characterised the Aral landscape. The word “aral” in Kazakh is translated “island”, over a thousand of which were scattered throughout this region which made up part of the Silk Road, the highway between Europe and Asia.

During the former Soviet Union's hay day of central planning a major project was undertaken to turn the Central Asian plain between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan into the Soviet Union's own version of the Fertile Crescent by diverting the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, the two rivers that fed the Aral Sea. At the time, early 1960s, the Aral Sea was the World's fourth largest lake.

From a report on NASA's Earth Observatory web site:

Beginning in the 1960s, farmers and state offices in Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Central Asian states opened significant diversions from the rivers that supply water to the lake, thus siphoning off millions of gallons to irrigate cotton fields and rice paddies. As recently as 1965, the Aral Sea received about 50 cubic kilometers of fresh water per year—a number that fell to zero by the early 1980s. Consequently, concentrations of salts and minerals began to rise in the shrinking body of water. That change in chemistry has led to staggering alterations in the lake's ecology, causing precipitous drops in the Aral Sea’s fish population.

The Aral Sea supported a thriving commercial fishing industry employing roughly 60,000 people in the early 1960s. By 1977, the fish harvest was reduced by 75 percent, and by the early 1980s the commercial fishing industry had been eliminated. The shrinking Aral Sea has also had a noticeable affect on the region's climate. The growing season there is now shorter, causing many farmers to switch from cotton to rice, which demands even more diverted water.

A secondary effect of the reduction in the Aral Sea’s overall size is the rapid exposure of the lake bed. Strong winds that blow across this part of Asia routinely pick up and deposit tens of thousands of tons of now exposed soil every year. This process has not only contributed to significant reduction in breathable air quality for nearby residents, but has also appreciably affected crop yields due to those heavily salt-laden particles falling on arable land.

It is no exaggeration to say that the case of the Aral Sea is one of the greatest environmental catastrophes ever recorded. For more information, see Philip P. Mickin, 1988, and The Aral Sea Crisis, Thompson, 2008.