Monday, February 16, 2009

OUR GREATEST SHAME

I nodded my head in agreement with Nicholas Kristof as I read his piece in the NY Times today (February 16th 2009): He states in the first paragraph:“I thought health care is this country’s greatest shame". Yes! I agreed. I'm well aware of the fact that the US health care system is ranked at the top in glitzy technology, but down at the bottom among its peer nations for over-all results and delivery of care as measured by health and longevity of its citizens. It is a staggering fact that too many of us do not realize. Kristof went on to note that “although we spend twice as much on medical care as many European Nations , yet American children are twice as likely to die before age 5 as Czech children. And American women are 11 times as likely to die in childbirth than Irish women.” See: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/opinion/15kristof.html?

Right on! I agreed. But from there Mr. Kristof proceeded to focus not on the health care system but the educational system. He concludes that although the health care shame is bad, an even more egregious failure is the education system, where he estimates that more than half a million teaching positions may be lost due to the recession. My eyes scanned over the number and passed on. With so many huge numbers in the press and media these days a five followed by only five zeros after it didn’t seem so impressive.

That us until I read a piece in a local paper. I read with dismay a short AP piece run in the St. Augustine Record (February 15, 2009) noting that the Ocala School District in near-by Marion County, in Florida, reported it is sending out letters of dismissal to 522 teachers. See: http://www.news4jax.com/mostpopular/18714039/detail.html.

Now that was a number I could clearly envision. Over five hundred letters! That’s twelve thousand students who would find a classroom with no teacher next semester. They would be crammed into other probably already crowded classrooms. Their educational needs and myriad questions would go unanswered and their educations suffer at the most critical time in their lives. Then too there would be more than 500 heads of households or families, perhaps more than 2000 individuals, facing unemployment and severe or catastrophic reduction in their family income. One could easily envision how that could have an economic impact--the ripple effect--on the local community.

But taking this to the national scale the numbers (as Kristof underscores) become staggering. Yes Mr. Kristof the impact to our educational system may be our greatest shame as a nation! Yet it is something we could have so easily avoided. We could have easily afforded to be the best in the world in education. Our future could have been assured. However education was not a priority or even a blip in past government spending plans. Even now President Obama’s stimulus package will allocate only 100 billion dollars to education. To some on the right even that number is too much! But no one from that side complained while we spend 12 billion dollars a month to prosecute a war in Iraq for reasons no one in government could then or now adequately explain. A war that looks like it will cost well over a trillion dollars (that's a thousand times a billion) when we finally close the books on it. Looking back to those expenditures and others in our past national budgets, these educational investments seem a bargain. But as Kristof characterizes them they are welcomed but are "only a wobbly step" toward improvement.

Friday, February 13, 2009

THE BIG FLORIDA FROST

It has been a generally cold winter here in sunny Florida. But it was the recent hard frost on January 22, 2009 which caused a lot disruption and for heads to turn. Many of the cold-sensitive plants people unwisely plant too early in their home gardens, like poinsettias, and pansies died on that day. Several hotels along Beach Boulevard stripped bed sheets off their clients beds to cove their outdoor beds of pansies on nights with frosts predicted. The graceful and frost-sensitive larger plant is the banana. They grow tall and green and are popular in gardens. Most winters they loose only a few outer leaves which turn brown and drab, but by March, new green and vibrant growth is back again. But this winter many of the older banana plants, some tall enough to have little bananas hanging among their leaves, froze that cold morning in January and then by the next day, the entire plant had turned an ugly brown.
A few weeks after the freeze, I was driving in a friends car when he committed a very minor traffic infraction. My friend had to submit a traffic report to a policeman. Involved only as an observant passenger I had time to snoop around. After the preliminaries, while we were standing near the patrol car waiting for the officer to complete a report he had clipped to his clipboard, I noticed that the windshield on his vehicle had many prominent scratches on the glass of the driver's side. They were enough to obscure the driver's view. I asked him about them. (After all, I once had to pay a sizable fine for having a similar vision-obscuring crack across my driver's window.)
The office paused and explained that he had to scrape away a thick layer of ice on the morning of the "big frost." By way of excuse, he added," I never have had a frost on my windshield before."
"But, he said, pointing to the scratches and then to his clipboard, "now I know I shouldn't use a metal clipboard to scrape ice off glass--I won't do that again," he laughed.
"No, no no clipboards, 'at's no good," said m friend, who hearing the conversation turn to ice, and who comes from New Hampshire and who knows a lot about ice...but less about Florida traffic laws, felt the need to offer his opinion. He added, "Your best bet fer that kind of ice is a plastic credit card." The officer nodded appreciatively.
"What about those plastic ice scrapers for cars," I asked, my eyes closing down into narrow slits, "didn't you have one of them?" I persisted, my mind still focused on that old ticket I had to pay.
"Oh!, them things?" he snickered, "folks down here, when someone gives them one, they jest bring 'em inside and use 'em to clean out their cat's litter box! We just never have any experience of real ice, before this."

Well, today the temperature was in the low 80s (F) and Home Depot in St Augustine put out a giant display of frost-sensitive plants..like tomatoes, herbs, poinsettias, and and succulent flowers.
I don't think we will see any ice more down here again-- not this year. Finally, it has warmed up and the weather is pleasant. But that 28 degree (F) "great Florida frost" has taught a lot of people a lesson. Perhaps change is really on the way. That Florida frost might be just one sign that the earth is on the cusp of some drastic climatic disruption. But we can't tell now for sure by just a few observations---only time will tell. A big Florida frost in sure to get people thinking though.

Tuesday, February 3, 2009

TWO STORIES POINT TO A NEW WAY OF THINKING

TWO INTERESTING STORIES RELATED TO GLOBAL WARMING
I happened on two interesting reports today. The first was that “2008 will be coolest year of the decade” http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/dec/05/climate-change-weather. Yes it did seem cooler this year. More snow, more cold weather even here in Florida, some normally hardy plants are freeze-browned. But one year does not a climate trend make!

The graph of global air temperatures (attributed to Climatic Assessment Inc.) was striking. It showed earth temperatures from 1850 to 2008. The departures from the global average (the zero point of the graph was set from the average temperatures of the years 1961-1990 which is 14C or 57.2F*) shows that the years between 1850 to the late 1880s as fluctuating somewhat but averaged about 0.4 C below the graph zero level. After that period, temperatures cooled reaching a low of nearly 0.6C below average in 1910. But from that cool point in 1910 the global temperatures have climbed steadily to the present time, with the exception of the decade between 1940-1950 when temperature actually fell nearly 0.2 degrees C. After leveling off at a somewhat lower level, from 2000 onward they resumed rising again at approximately the same rate as they had earlier.

Putting some personal history into these numbers, I could see that from the year of my father’s birth in 1909 to the present time, global temperatures have shown a near-steady rise (with the exception of the cooling 1940-50 decade noted above) to about 1 degree Celsius, or almost 2 degrees on the Fahrenheit scale warmer than the 1909 level. That is an average of nearly one degree change over one-hundred years, or 1/100th degree per year. That does not seem like much…one degree Celsius. But when you consider how much volume of matter we are speaking about, i.e. a layer of gases 100 km (or 62 miles) deep which surrounds the earth rising a whole degree! That is a great amount. The oceans and the atmosphere are very conservative; that is they change very little with normal additions or subtractions of heat. The volumes are so enormous…in effect the heat has so much matter to spread out into-- that generally we would expect to see change at all. It’s analogous to spilling a bottle of ink into a big swimming pool. Pour the ink in on one end and the water near-by may looks blue for a short time where it was spilled. But in a matter of minutes, the blue disappears. There is so much water relative to the ink that it would be near impossible to detect ink on the far side of the pool. The same explanation goes for heat absorbed into the atmosphere. So to raise the whole volume of air a whole degree must mean that enormous quantities of heat are being added each year.
This fact of the rising temperature during my father’s life tends to verify the accounts he and his brother’s often related to me, about how cold it was when they were kids. They told harrowing tales of mighty cold winters, rivers froze solid, water pipes bursting and persistent snow cover. They told tales of having to walk to school in chest high winter snow! I often attributed these remembrances to exaggeration…but ---considering these data above--they may have been true. Thus for all of my dad’s life and mine too, in a general way global temperatures have been rising steadily.

The second was from Yahoo News, See: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081205/ap_on_bi_ge/farm_scene_cow_tax_2 which had an interesting story on a “cow tax”. What is a cow tax? Answer: a proposal by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to impose a fee on cow and hog farms. Why? Because belching and flatulent cows and hogs cause air pollution which help to heat the atmosphere! That seemed hard to believe. How much gas could these critters produce?
Ron Sparks, Alabama’s Agricultural Commissioner seemed to agree: “This is one of the most ridiculous things the federal government has tried to do.” But Nick Butterfield of the EPA explained that the proposal would affect only those farms that emit more than 100 tons of carbon emissions per year. Butterfield indicated that level of pollution would trigger provisions of the Clean Air Act.

As an animal lover and former small farmer myself (I once cultivated a three acre farm in east-central LI) with pleasant memories of the earthy smells around a barn, it is difficult for me to believe that farm animals might be causing pollution. Our inner vision is that of the clear, cold water of grandpa’s farm-house well, slipping your hand under the warm breast of a Rhode Island Red hen for a real fresh egg, and taking a furtive sip from the warm foamy milk bucket on a cold spring morning…after milking Bessy, grandpa’s lovely old Guernsey cow. But in my experience sometimes it is our most cherished and most strongly held impressions that color our thoughts so well that we literally can’t see the forest for the trees.

That’s when I came across the NYT piece by Elizabeth Rosenthal, entitled “As more people eat meat, a bid to cut emssions. (See:.http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/04/science/earth/04meat.html?_r=1&hp which tied the two together.) Rosenthal states: “The cows and pigs dotting the landscape in southern Netherlands create a bucolic landscape. But looked at through the lens of green house gas accounting, they are living smokestacks, spewing methane emissions into the air.”
Unlike power production, transportation and cement making all of which are facing tremendous scrutiny and political pressures for regulation, farming is just now beginning to come under scrutiny. “Every step of producing meat creates emissions,” says Rosenthal.

Even grandpa’s cow Bessy, who spent much of her life in a windswept upland pasture as she grazed she removed and consumed the long green grasses which were (conveniently for us), converting CO2 into oxygen. Thus her seemingly innocuous grazing reduced the capacity for that meadow to absorb CO2 from the air. To add insult to injury, Bessy’s digestive system converted a lot of the tough cellulose in the grass she ingested into waste gases such as methane and CO2 (both potent greenhouse gases ) and her natural tendency to flatulence, which no one hardly noticed, adds more CO2 and methane. Finally, the fecal wastes she so nonchalantly, deposited in our meadow (smothering and killing more grass) decayed in the warm sun and added further CO2 and methane.

When Bessy and critters like her are finally slaughtered (let’s assume they are killed humanely on the farm --or else we would have to add the carbon burden of their transport to a distant abattoir) the meat products will require immediate refrigeration (where a leaky tank could add noxious CCl4 and CF4 refrigerant as well as other additional green house gases to the burden in the air). Finally, more energy (with its resultant carbon burden on the atmosphere) must be used to run the refrigeration systems where meat is stored and aged, more for packaging and then add in the carbon burden for meat’s generally long transportation distances to get it to the us the consumers. Then at its final destination meat is prepared by cooking which causes further additions to the atmosphere. That is why for each pound of beef produced, twenty pounds of carbon are added to the atmosphere. Thus there is no “free lunch” in the economy of the earth. Every action has its consequences and on a densely populated earth each action is multiplied by a factor of nearly 7 billion (The earth population is estimated at nearly 6.7 billion in 2008).

Rosenthal’s report includes data that indicates that livestock generate about 18% of the worlds green house gas emissions. Furthermore, a more pressing problem is that that healthful cereals, and root and tuber consumption in developing countries is falling, while milk and meat consumption is growing world-wide by 60% and nearly 200% respectively. Meat production in the developed countries has nearly stabilized at about 140 million tons annually (See Livestock’s long shadow by UN Food and Agricultural Organization, 2006) while the amount produced in undeveloped countries (2006) has topped 150 million tons and is predicted to rise rapidly from that level in the coming decades.

An interesting graph which accompanies her report indicates (as stated above) that to produce one pound of beef 20 pounds of carbon dioxide is generated and accumulates in the atmosphere. While one pound of shrimp produces just 12 pounds of CO2, one pound of salmon six pounds of the gas, one pound pork generates five pounds, one pound of chicken nearly 2 pounds, one pound of milk only one pound of CO2, but one pound of cheese nearly 11 pounds of carbon dioxide! While grains, such as oats and wheat produce less carbon dioxide than their weight i.e.: one pound of oats produces only 0.7 pounds of carbon, wheat only 0.5 pounds and carrots only 0.2 pounds per pound of that by-product. On the other hand, greenhouse tomatoes produce nearly three pounds of carbon for each pound of product produced.

*Figure on global average See: http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/corporate/pressoffice/2008/pr20080103.html

Sunday, February 1, 2009

MORE TROOPS FOR AFGHANISTAN?

More American troops for Afghanistan?
(Rough transcript of a recent conversation I overheard.)

A: More troops for Afghanistan?

B: Smart?


A: I don’t think so.


B: What have we accomplished? After eight years and having have spent over 100 billion dollars there, in a country that has a GDP of about $35 billion dollars annually? With what we have spent we could have bought the whole economy three times over. What will we get out of it?

A:The refrain we constantly hear is Iraq was the wrong war but..Afghanistan was the right war. Right?

B:I disagree.

A: Wasn’t it the Taliban who were the ones that actually attacked us and so we are responding to that attack. Right?


B:Well not so. The Taliban did NOT attack us in 2001. They were about as guilty as the Mexicans or …or Saddam Hussein. (He had nothing to do with 9-11 either.) It was Al Qaida who happened to be active in Afghanistan—but then they were in Florida and Texas too.

A:But the Taliban protected them, didn’t they?

B: Not really. But as a weak military force they didn't have the resources to evict them from their country. Just as we don’t seem to have the resources now to evict the Taliban. Afghanistan is a tough piece of landscape. As we will see.

B (continues): So what I'm saying is that it's not so clear cut. This may not the "the right war" either. Many questions remain. For one, after toppling the Taliban, why did we stay?

A: Well the security-stakes there are high the place is vital for...for US security.

B: How is it?

A:If we leave, we let the Taliban come back in and we would be handing a victory to the Taliban and Al Quiada and if they kick the US and NATO out, we might have to fight them on the Jersey Shore.

B: Come on! This is a rag tag army of native insurgents who fight with paper bags on their feet when it’s cold. They just want us out of there, like the Iraqis want to get rid of us too.
A: No you come on.

B: I'll give you this. We can't sit in our comfy bases in Kabul and let the Taliban wander over the countryside at will. But it’s going to cost money and blood for us to go out there and fight them. All I'm asking is it worth it?

To answer these questions we must have some knowledge of Afghanistan. The following summary may help.

Map of Afghanistanhttp://geography.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?zi=1/XJ&sdn=geography&cdn=education&tm=20&gps=187_311_960_613&f=11&su=p897.3.336.ip_&tt=0&bt=0&bts=0&zu=http%3A//www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/middle_east_and_asia/afghanistan_rel_2003.jpg
Summary History .http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0107264.html


RJK's SUMMARY HISTORY OF AFGHANISTAN

Afghanistan is a mountainous country in south-central Asia situated between Iran and Pakistan. It encompasses a southwest-trending highland plateau and south trending spurs of the Himalaya mountains, and a well known mountain range, the Hindu Kush (The latter mountains were first described by the 14th century Arab explorer, Ibn Battuta who claimed the name "Hindu Kush" means “slayer of Indians” because the slave boys and girls who are brought up from India die there (on the mountains) as a result of the extreme cold" in the highland passes.)

The up-thrust of the Himalaya mountains and the associated Hindu Kush is the consequence of the a great collision or earth continental plates(Himalaya means "abode of snow" in Sanskrit). The mountains formed when the Indian continental plate crashed into the Eurasian Plate—it was moving at about 16cm/year speed (about six times faster than your fingernails grow)! The event began in the Eocene Epoch about 50 million years ago and continues even today as is evidenced by the large number of earthquakes in the region. The collision resulted in the earth's most impressive mountain range and many superlatives: the fastest uplift rate (1cm/year), the highest peaks (nearly 8,848m or 29,198 ft) and the highest concentration of glaciers outside of the polar regions. The Himalaya glaciers are the source of some of world's greatest rivers which in turn provide fresh water to 20% of the world's population.

The Hindu Kush mountains are part of a “knot"or juncture of several mountain chains including the Tam Shan, Karakoram, Kunlun, and Pamir Ranges in the western end of the Himalaya chain. The Hindu Kush spur shoots off from the main mountain knot toward the southwest, to form the central highland core of Afghanistan.

Afghanistan with an outline that resembles a ragged maple leaf has a long axis of about 770 miles, and a maximum width of about 630 miles. It is about the size of Texas (not counting the nearly two-hundred-mile long narrow "leaf-stem" which pokes northeastward toward the Chinese border). The "stem" of the leaf and its "central vein" formed by the Hindu Kush mountains, is oriented in a SW-NE direction. The shape and location suggest the look of a leaf fluttering out of the highlands of China's Sinkiang Province. The short base of the long narrow "stem" (where a leaf would attach to a branch is short--about 40 miles wide and forms a border with China's Sinkiang Province, while the eastern side of the "stem" runs along Pakistan's mountainous and disputed Kashmir Province. The northeastern side of the leaf "blade" continues down the rugged Northern Frontier of Pakistan and thence southward to join the border with Iran. The boundary here turns north to form the western side of the nation where is courses along a common border with Iran for a distance of approximately 585 miles. On the northwest, it borders Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan for a distance of 550 miles. At this point it continues northeast along the border with Tajikistan and ends at China's boundary.
See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki /Geography_of_Afghanistan

The terrane of Afghanistan is extremely high and rugged acting as a daunting boundary separating east from west. About half of its land area rises to an elevation of more than 6,600 feet (or about one and a quarter miles above sea level). In such rugged regions human passage is restricted, travel is arduous and long and populations, separated by high impassable mountain peaks have limited opportunity for interchange, as a consequence they tend to form closed and tight-knit groups which characteristically resent intruders. Think of our own Appalachia. (One of my former professors, a Dr. A. Spock of New York University, Geology Department --who retired in the mid 1960s-- had a pet theory concerning the relationship between geomorphology and behavior and perceptions of people who live in rugged mountains. The terrane confines these people and they often intermarry with close relatives, they have little experience with outsiders. According to Spock such people were often mean, aggressive and hard, tough, fighters who resented any foreigners. Spock’s field-experiences were in wide-open central Asia and in Mongolia and I wonder now if he had ever visited Afghanistan. However, it seems his theory would be well supported by Afghanistan and its people.) The ragged Afghan terrane naturally resists easy transit and the landscape forces local traffic (and invaders) to seek passage only through restricted mountain passes. Afghanistan has two prominent and well-known passes which have played an important role its history. They are the well-know Khyber Pass (3,517 ft). on the east and on the west the Kashan Pass(14,340 ft) .


[In 330 BC Alexander the Great on his march east into India passed through Afghanistan on a three year campaign through western Afghanistan, south and central Afghanistan and north and central Afghanistan. He initially entered the country through the Kashan Pass trasited Afghanistan and entered India by way of the Khyber Pass During his exploits in that land he refounded the city of Herat, the third largest city in the nation (in the southwest plain) and built a citadel there, the ruins of which dominate the modern city. He also founded several new cities called "Alexandria", one in the southeast corner of the modern state is now called Kandahar (a possible Pashtun corruption of its founder's name) is now the second largest city in Afghanistan. Other invaders, and there were many, including Babur the Mughal Emperor (1483-1530) a descendant of Tamerlane and of course Genghis Khan invaded from Uzbekistan taking the city of Kaboul and establishing himself by conquest in northern India. The Soviets invaded through the passes (and a tunnel they helped construct in 1964 the Hindu Kush) in 1979 and the Americans invaded but mostly by air to topple the Taliban in 2001.]

An interesting recent example of the difficulty of travel and of supporting an army in such highland regions is a recent AP story entitled: “US supply line threatened by Pakistan truck halt.” In a story that suggests the Pakistanis may be attempting to use the access to the Khyber pass as a way to object to recent US bombings of civilians in Pakistan the authors reveal that trucks carrying US military supplies were halted and remained stalled along the road leading from Peshawar, Pakistan via the Khyber Pass to enter Afghanistan where US troops are engaged in fighting the Taliban and other insurgents. The Pakistanis closed the border after an attack on a similar convoy by armed militants at the Khyber Pass. The difficult route of the heavy war materiel arrives by ship in Karachi, Pakistan then is trans-loaded onto trucks that carry the supplies north for over 1200 miles to staging areas in northern Pakistan near Peshawar and thence through the narrow Khyber Pass, and then additional several hundred miles over a single lane, narrow road to Kabul.
November 16, 2006, (See:http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=2008-11-16_D94G02200&show_article=1&cat=breaking) A

In its southern areas Afghanistan has significant areas of barren low-lying desert, and enclosed drainages (known as endorheic basins). These latter zones have no outlet to the sea and rivers and streams which drain into them degrade into braided streams which simply disappear into the sand to seep away underground. These lowlands on the margins of the mountains often consist of sparsely vegetated, gently sloping zones underlain with thick deposits of alluvium carried down from the surrounding highlands. These regions occur at lower elevations in the southeast in Kandahar and Helmand Provinces at elevations of 2-3000 feet, while similar areas occur in the northwest and the north of the country at elevations of from less than 1000-2000 feet. Provinces of Faryab, Jowzjan, Kondoz and Balkh in the border lands with Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan,and parts of Tajikistan all have these lowland regions. The western areas receive more rainfall during the Monsoon season and are thus more frequently seen to have agricultural potential.


There are three major rivers in Afghanistan the Amu Darya, Helmand and a smaller strean known as the Farah Rod (or Rud). The great Amu Darya or Oxus River (called by the Greeks "Oxiana palus" the name perhaps derived from a tributary stream called the "Vakhsh") is the longest river in Central Asia and is navigable to the borders of Afghanistan. The river extends about 1500 miles from its source in the Pamir Mountains, courses along the border of Afghanistan, and ends near to the former shores of the distant Aral Sea. In its northern regions the river discharges about 100 cubic kilometers of water annually as a result of snow melt in the Pamirs. Due to high rate of summer evaporation, and its extensive use for irrigation over its course through Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, none of this great volume reaches the Aral Sea. In the present day the Amu Darya does not reach the Aral Sea but sinks into desert sands before reaching that shrinking and devastated shoreline. In Afghanistan Amu Darya forms the international boundary with parts of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan,and Tazjikistan. Two smaller interior rivers are the Helmand and the Farah Rod The Helmand arises in the Hindu Kush west of Kabul and flows southwest @ 715 miles through the desert and into the Seistan marshes near the Afghan-Iran border. The Farah Rod River flows along a similar path west of the Helmand and drains into the desert sands near the Iran border. The lower courses of both rivers increasingly suffer from high salinity that limits their use for human consumption and for irrigation.


Afghanistan has a subarctic mountain climate with dry and bitterly cold winters, (this is partly as a result of great heights of most of Afghanistan and the normal or ambient lapse rate -since it is the earth surface which heats the air and the farther away from the heat source the cooler it gets--of air which cools at a rate of 3.6 F /1000 feet most of Afghanistan's central area would normally experience temperature on average twenty four (24 F) cooler than surrounding areas at approximately sea level elevations. In addition Afghanistan is close to the great source of winter cold air the central Eurasian continent. Such massive continents form masses of cold air which flows outward during winter. Thus for these two reasons the "bitterly' cold designation is well taken. On the other hand in summer Afghanistan is very hot. For the one of the same reasons it is cold in winter it is recipient of hot air formed in the central Eurasians continent. Although it is about the same latitude as Texas and it is more than "Texas hot" in the summer and much colder in winter. In summer temperatures in the northern valleys have been recorded as high as 49C (120F). While mid-winter temperatures of 15 F (-9 C) are common at the 6,600 ft level. Of course, it is much colder at higher elevations. As is typical in many desert areas, daily temperatures range widely..from a low of 0 C (32F)at dawn desert temperatures may rise in to the upper 30s C (@100 F) by noon.

In terms of rainfall, deserts in the south and east get less than 4"/year while the mountains receive as much as 40"/year but mostly as snow. In the spring the snow melts and ablates rapidly in the dry air and the streams flow for a short time then dry to a trickle in the dry season.


Due to its varied geology Afghanistan has diverse sources of minerals and gems. The northwestern region has known reserves of petroleum and coal, while significant deposits of copper, iron, uranium, and other heavy metal ores occur in the more rugged central highlands. Afghanistan has been known from antiquity as a source of emerald, ruby and lapis lazuli, all of which have been of great value in trade (particularly the blue lapis lasuli) even from prehistoric times.


People have lived in what is now Afghanistan for at least 50,000 years. Evidences of agriculture and pastoralism are among the earliest in the world. And certain domesticated fruits, especially almonds, pistachios as well as species of domestic livestock particularly sheep, may have been first domesticated from wild animals native to Afghanistan. In Afghanistan the first evidence of urban civilization is evidenced by aspects of the Indus Valley Civilization (IVC) centered in modern day Pakistan but with well known aspects of a phase of the IVC known as the mature Bronze Age Harappan civilization (@ 2500BC known from site locations in Harappa Pakistan) are found in Harappa Pakistan and river adjacent river valley sites in Afghanistan. The Harappa are known to have traded with people of Afghanistan and some river valley sites in Afghanistan are considered sattelite settlements of the Harappa civilization. See http://www.thenagain.info/webchron/india/Harappa.html


Afghanistan's past and present history has been in part determined by its position at a natural crossing between east and west. Alexander the Great, Ibn Battuta, Marco Polo and others have used Afghanistan as a "roundabout of the ancient world" (as stated by the historian Arnold Toynbee). In the early 20th century Abdur Rahman Kahn the "Iron" Emir of Afghanistan who reigned from 1880-1901 as a military dictator and who, though under the influence the British (and taking their pay), never-the-less, he described his nation as "like a goat between these two lions" of Britain and Tsarist Russia. That description could be said of Afghanistan today as well.

Early History
Between 10,000 and 11,000 years ago, in the Karakadag Mountains of southeast Turkey, just across the Iranian plateau to the west of Afghanistan and in the Fertile Crescent (Turkey Syria Iraq) prehistoric inhabitants began to cultivate a variety of einkorn wheat (Triticum boeoticum) and emmer wheat (Triticum dicoccoides). The domestication of these native grains from wild species was probably the result of the simple means of human harvesters selecting stalks more laden with grains (they consumed most but stored others for replanting next season) while leaving for birds to eat the grains that broke from stalks with the more brittle stalks (rakis). Repeated harvesting would select for mutations in the einkorn stands that would create plumper more nutritious grains, denser clusters, that would more likely to cling to the stem until ripe instead of scattering before they could be harvested (See: Jared Diamond "Guns, Germs, Steel" 1997, Norton) As noted above, recent investigations of pre historic sites indicate that humans were living in Afghanistan 50,000 years ago and it is also well established that pastoralism and agriculture developed early in this region. Diamond suggests that people rapidly spread along an east-west axis (particularly easy to do in Eurasia which is oriented that way) moving from the Fertile Crescent where the first evidences of domestication of grains occurred east along the shores of the Caspian and across the Iranian plateau toward Afghanistan and Pakistan since that corridor permitted them to move along a line where crops and animals domesticated in the west would encounter similar conditions of weather, climate, day-lengths and animal and plant disease (See: Jared Diamond, "Guns Germs and Steel" 1997, Norton). Thus, he presents one reason for the early emergence of agriculture in the lowlands of Afghanistan.


Evidences of urbanization have been documented for Afghanistan as early as 3000 BC near the city of Kandahar in the southeast where the ancient urban site known as "Mundigak" has been suggested as a colony, tied by trade or culture to the near-by Indus Valley Civilization (as its “mature phase” or Harappan stage at 2600-1900BC). The IVC Mature Harappan Culture was sophisticated and technologically advanced and was characterized by an established municipal government, advanced town planning, high level of hygiene, individual water wells, waste water control, sewerage, communal granaries, advance art-technology, statuary, mathematics, use of a decimal system, advanced metallurgy which produced copper, lead, bronze and tin, and used a touchstone to estimate gold purity, and as well, was noted for the practice of the first dentistry (i.e. drilling of teeth in vivo) and used touchstone to measure purity of gold, They had sophisticated pottery, gold-jewelery, terracotta, bronze and steatite, bead making. In transportation they used bullock carts, had boats, built docks and canals. They grew domesticated wheat and barley. They had a writing system with over 400 symbols which were inscribed on seals and small clay tablets. The Indus inscriptions are generally no more the four or five characters in length causing some to suggest that the Indus civilization may not have been literate since symbols may not have encoded language but simply served as a non-linguistic sign-system. The IVC encompassed most of present day Pakistan in a wide band along the coast and then north, inland along a wide band that followed the course of the Indus River. Evidence of extensive trade with Afghanistan for Lapis lazuli is well documented.
Archeology of Afghanistan See:http://archaeology.about.com/od/afghanistan/Afghanistan_Culture_History_and_Archaeology.htm
The Medean Empire 728-559 BC.
The Medes
In the early 6th century Afghanistan was engulfed by invaders. The Medes an ancient people arrived in the first wave of Iranian tribes in the late second millennium and by the 6th c BC had established an empire which stretched from the Black Sea east to include parts of Turkey, Iran, the western "stans", as well as all of Afghanistan and the northern part of Pakistan.

Achaemenid Persian Empire.
The Medean Empire was overthrown by a vassal Persian state under Cyrus the Great (559-529) who united the separate kingdoms and, as the head of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, forged a nation that would eventually span three continents and include the modern states of Libya, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and to the east Iraq, Iran as well as Afghanistan and Pakistan. When Cyrus marched in triumph into ancient Babylon in present-day Iraq, he issued a statement denouncing the previous king (Nabonidus)and as any politician touted himself as a beneficent leader. He used the occasion to issue a proclamation and had it copied on a clay cylinder called the "Cyrus Cylinder". The cylinder was discovered in 1879 buried in the foundation ruins of the "Esagila" the main temple in Babylon, by Hormuzd Rassam. The cylinder reveals that Cyrus broke with tradition of the times by not slaughtering and enslaving the inhabitants of the captured Babylon. His beneficence is viewed by scholars as a means of attempting to legitimize his rule. Some have touted the seal as the first "Magna Carta" however, it was not the “first charter of human rights” but more of a political polemic. Cyrus was killed in battle in 530BC and his son Cambyses II acceded to the throne. Cambyses expanded the Empire by annexation of powerful Egypt. But the empire reached its greatest extent under Darius I, who led conquering armies into the Indus River valley, and by way of Thrace entered Europe. After the Athens inspired revolt of Ionian Greek cities on the coast of modern-day Turkey in 499-494 BC he sent a punitive expeditionary force against the Athenians which ended at the battle of Marathon (490 BC).

Since Afghans were probably part of Darius I expeditionary force against the Athenians, I use that excuse to add this interesting and all-worthy side-light to the history of Afghanistan. The pre-cursor events to the battle at Marathon follow: In 492BC a Persian army was sent overland to Thrace (present day Bulgaria, Macedonia, and European Turkey) to re-pacify it (Thrace) and subjugate Macedon. Thrace and Macedon fell obediently into line and the Persians left, but with both recalcitrant Sparta and Athens as now isolated (Athens in the hard to reach tip of Attica and the other in the central Peloponnesus) and still to be subjugated. Two years later, in 490BC, two Persian generals, Datis and Artaphernes, were sent by sea to punish Eretria (located on the the long narrow island of Euboea, opposite Attica. Eretria fell after being besieged and then the Persian army turned on Athens landing on the north end of the Attic peninsula about 26 miles from the city at a place called Marathon. The intention of Datis and Artaphernes was to move down the coast and attack Athens.

However, guided by stratagems of Miltiades, the Athenians and a small force from Plataea (about 1600 hoplites) confronted the much larger Persian force ( estimated 60,000) on the shore of Boetia. The battle site is situated between the drainages of two streams with swampy, low lying banks. The overwhelmingly larger Persian force had the sea at their backs. To the surprise of the Persians (who saw the small Greek force as inadequate) the Greeks attacked first, and as they closed on the enemy form 1500 meters yelling the Greek war cry "Eleu Eleu" As the closed with the Persians their front ranks slowed and thinned encouraging the Persians into an attack at that point...and a double envelopment. The Greek flanks closed in on the enemy's flank and confusion and chaos ensued. The Persians with the sea at their backs broke in panic toward the swamps where many died and when others raced to their ships to escape, the Greeks followed and fought on the shore in hand to hand combat. The battle ended in a rout for the Persian attackers. The Persian army withdrew to Asia. Darius I began a new campaign against the Greeks, but a revolt in Egypt in 486BC caused him to postpone the Greek punitve expedition. Darius died in 486 as he prepared to march on Egypt. Xerxes, Darius' son inherited the throne of Persia, as well as the task of punishing the Athenians and their allies the Spartans, Eretians and Naxians. Xerxes was methodical and he first crushed the Egyptian revolt, then beginning in 483 BC he initiated the conscription and massive preparations for the Greek expedition. In preparation Xerxes cut a channel across the isthmus of Mt Athos to ease the passage of his supply barges, he had provisions stored in caches all along the Royal road through Thrace, and built two floating bridges across the Hellespont.

Xerxes set out in the spring of 480BC from Sardis (in western Turkey) with an army claimed by Herodotus to be two million in number. Reaching the coast of Greece Xerxes sailed his fleet north where at the Straight of Artemesium he split his fleet into two groups. A major force was to sail south along the coast of Euboea and the other half was to continue west through the Straight of Artemesium between Euboea and the Bay of Volos to head toward a landing in the Gulf of Malis where they could safely off-load their army. The plan was a double-pronged attack. The land force under Xerxes was to cross the northern reaches of Attica by way of the pass at Thermopylae and then attack Athens from the north while the fleet would round the tip of Attica at S----- and enter the Saronic Gulf. It was a fine well-thought out and methodically executed plan. But several things went wrong. The fleet sent south along the eastern coast of Euboea toward Athens was struck by a great storm that wrecked many ships.

Secondly the Spartans under King Leonidas with three hundred men (hand picked men who had living sons, since he knew they were going to certain death) were poised in the upper reaches of the pass at Thermopylae. This force did not having adequate numbers for victory, but it was reinforced as it marched north by others so that when they arrived at the Middle Gate there were 5,000 defenders. The Persians unloaded their vessels and began their climb through the narrow pass. They were met by a phalanx of determined Spartans and were easily repulsed. When Xerxes made an offer of terms, which Leonidas quickly refused, then Xerxes more forcefully demanded Leonidas and his men lay down their weapons or they would be annihilated. The Spartan leaders response was "Molon lave!" or "Come and get them!" Eventually, the Persians learned of a back trail that would outflank the defenders and using it they attacked and killed all the defenders to a man. The sacrifice of the Spartan 300 held up the Persions for several days. During this time the Athenians were abandoning Athens and sailing accross to the Island of Salamis in the Gulf. There they were safe with their Navy as protection. Xerxes again split up his forces, so that the main land force marched down Attica toward Thebes and then Athens while the remaining fleet under Xerxes continued down the inner sea way between Euboea and Attica, rounded the Cape Sounion and entered the Saronic Gulf.
The land force attacked, looted and burned the abandoned Athens, while the Persian fleet aligned itself against the much smaller Athenian fleet in the narrow confines of the seaway between the coast of Attica and the shores of Salamis.

In the confined body of water the smaller and well trained and captained Greek fleet had the advantage, and using the prows of their triremes to puncture and shatter the hulls of their adversaries, they decisively defeated the Persian fleet. However, the Persian army was still intact.

After observing the rout of his fleet from a vantage point overlooking the bay at Salamis, Xerxes realizing the battle was lost but the war was yet to be won, returned to Asia, leaving Mardonius his best general and half of his army to complete the defeat of the Greeks. Mardonius overwintered in Thessaly in 479BC, and in the spring of that year marched south to Athens. Again the Athenians had to abandon their city, this time vacating only partly re-constructed buildings and poorly built shacks. But Mardonius returned again to burn and sack the ruins, then unable to punish the Greeks further, he retreated north to Thebes. The final battle of the war took place near the city of Plataea.

In the final battle of the Persian War the Spartans and their confederated forces under King Pausanius marched north to seek the Persian army in Boetia. In the foothills of Mount Cithaeron the encountered a detachment of Persian cavalry after a brief skirmish which the Persian cavalry commander the Greeks descended into the plain and took up a strong position on a series of ridges above the River Asopus. The two armies lined up there the Greeks unwilling to move out into the open and the Persians unable to attack with their cavalry among the ridges. Skirmishes continued for eight days. After their water supply was polluted and a quarrel broke out among the Greeks over the circumstances of a night withdrawal to a better location. It was as the withdrawal took place that Mardonius attacked. Pausanius turned his men and faced the attackers. Pausanius held his troops on the ridge while the Persian archers rained down volleys of arrows on them. The highly disciplined Spartan center protected by their shields held on. However the Tegeans on the left could resist no longer and began to march down hill toward the Persians. Pausanius decided to go too. With their long spears directed forward they pushed through the center of the Persian line. On the right the Athenas overpowerd the Thebans who had been forced into the fight. Finally Mardonius fell with a spear thrust and the Persians lost heart and broke toward their camp. The Greeks pursued then and many Persians died in their own camp. With the Persian army defeated decisively the Persians had been repulsed from Europe for the last time.

Alexandrian Empire
The enmity engendered during the Greco-Persian wars was to have it effects nearly a century and a half later when Alexander III of Macedon (Alexander the Great) having assumed the throne of Macedonia after his father's death, and at the head of the League of Corinth, set out toward the east to conquer and wreak vengeance on the Achaemenid Persian Empire. After Alexander conquered the hated Persians, emboldened and driven by perhaps curiosity and some form of megalomania he continued east into Turkey (Anatolia) Syria, Phonecia, Judea, Gaza, Egypt, Bactria, Meospotamia, Afghanistan, Uzbekistand Tajikistan, Pakistan and India. After twelve years of combat and conflict he and his Greek and Macedonians had welded together a huge Empire which extended from Greece to the Punjab of India. Then suddenly at the pinnacle of his career and life, he died in Babylon (Iraq) on June 323BC, aged 32 years.

At Alexander's death his generals divided up the Alexandrian Empire at a conference known as the Partition of Babylon which took place promptly after Alexander's untimely demise. But very soon, the former comrads-in-arms quarreled over the spoils. And by 320BC one of Alexander’s generals, Selucus, who had been a senior camp commander under Alexander, emerged as the most effective and most ruthless. By means of subterfuge and assassination, he eliminated or divided up his rivals and established himself in Babylon in 312 BC as the head of a the vast eastern section of the conquered area subsequently known as the Seleucid Empire. While Selucus established his headquarters in Babylon, in Iraq, his empire included all of the eastern portions of Alexander's conquests "as far as the river Indus". Selucus and his heirs were reasonably capable managers and leaders, holding the reins of power over this vast region for nearly two-hundred years. However as we will see the Seleucid Empire as its antecedents and successors, slowly disintegrated, and by 129 BC, when Antiochus VII (an heir of Selucid) was killed in battle with the Parthians, the last major foothold of the Selucid dynasty in Iraq was lost when they had to abandon Babylon. Remnants of the Selucid clan held on in parts of the area and the last Seleucid emperor was Philip II who reigned for a short period over parts of Syria between 65BC-63BC.

Parthian Empire
At that time, most of Afghanistan had been already been absorbed into the Parthian Empire (238-226BC). From the time of the collapse of the Parthians to the invasion of the Muslims in the 7th century, Afghanistan was controlled by a series of weak rulers. These lands were soon to be engulfed by a new wave of invaders, guided by a religious revolution, Islam and the advancing Muslims.


Muslin Invasion
By the time of Muhammad's death in 632AD most of what is now Arabia was united by the new religion of Islam. Mohammad's first successor, Abu Bakr, the first caliph, launched religious-motivated wars against the states of Syria and Palestine. Then under the Patriarchal Caliphate of Abu Bakr (632-661) they expanded the region controlled by Islam to include modern-day Syria, eastern Turkey, Iraq, Iran and the western parts of Afghanistan. In 652AD the Muslims captured the city of Herat in western Afghanistan. At the time of its invasion, Afghanistan had a multi-religious population of Buddhists, Zoroastrians, Hindus, Jews, and others. However, though the Arab invaders took the cities, they had difficulty in converting the dispersed and fiercely independent mountain tribes , and it wasn't until 870 AD that Yaqub as Saffar finally conquered most of the actual territory of Afghanistan in the name of Islam. But still some pockets of Hindus and Kaffirs remained. Most were eventually converted to Sunni Islam. Finally, between, 661 and 750 the caliphate had extended east to the Indus River and then turned west to engulf parts of northwestern Africa and most of Spain.

Turkic Invaders

The Ghaznavid-Ghorid Empire was an invasion of peoples of turkic ethnicity and the first Islamic empire of the region. It held sway over Afghanistan from the end of the 9th century to their defeat by the Mongols in 1220.


Mongol Invasions
Following years of conquest in China an central Asia, the Mongols turned west and overran the Islamic lands of Central Asia in 1220, when the great Genghis Kahn (1155-1227) came to Afghanistan and Persia. The Mongols cut a swath of death across Afghanistan. In some places such as at Herat and Balkh the Mongols exterminated every human being. The resulting depopulation from extermination and from flight from resulted in a dispersed population. Afghans were forced to revert to a simple agrarian way of life. The Mongol invasions devastated Afghanistan cities and the people turned to cattle breeding and also learned horseback riding from the Mongols. Genghis Kahn had no impact on the Muslim religion of the local inhabitants and in fact by the end of the 13th C most of the Mongol descendants had become Muslims themselves. Some believe that the Hazaras of Afghanistan (a Persian speaking people who live in the central region of Afghanistan and northwest Pakistan) are descendents of the Mongols. The Hasaras are one of the few Shia Muslim and the third largest ethnic group in Afghanistan. Genetic testing of Hazara which means "thousand" a term used by Mongol military to denote a military unit--have shown that the Hazara males carry the Y "Genghis Kahn" chromosome, a genetic trait that is virtually absent outside the limits of the Mongol Empire.

Turkic Invasions and the Mughal Empire
After the death of Genghis Kahn in 1227 the region of central Asia fragmented until the rise of Tamerlane (@1380) a product of Turkish and Mongol descent, Tamerlane (Timur Lenk) was born in Samarkand (located on Silk Road) in neighboring eastern Uzbekistan. He eventually forged an empire that extended from northern India to eastern Turkey. Mongol rulers were overthrown in 1504 by Babur, from Samarkand a descendent of Tamerlane and Genghis Kahn. Babur then occupied Kabul. He invaded India in 1526 and established the Mughal Empire which would incorporate all of India, present day Pakistan and most of Afghanistan. The Empire centered in India would last until 1747. Though nominally part of the Mughal Empire during this period Afghanistan was hotly contested by the Sfavids (a Shia dynasty centered in Azerbaijan region) in Iran and as well the wild and independent Pashtun tribesmen in central Afghanistan who resisted their rule. Under the Mughals Afghanistan took on the role of a frontier province (Peshawar in Pakistan means "City of the Frontier" in Persian). In addition, the Sfavids held Herat during this period while the Mughals held Kabul, Kandhar and Peshawar. Since Kabul dominates the high road from central asis into India, and Kahdahar commands the only approach toward India that skirts the Hindu Kush, so control of the strategically important Kabul-Kandahar axis was a point of sharp contention by the Sfavids and the Mughals. The Mughals sought to block the western invasion routes into India and also control the fiercely independent Pashtun tribes in their mountain strongholds between the Kabul-Kandahar axis and the Indus River. The Pashtun exploited the situation by extracting concessions from both sides

Brief Pashtun Take-over and Reign of Persian Nadir Shah
Toward the end of the 17thC a clan of native Afghani Pashtuns took over, and ruled as the Hotaki dynasty, until 1738 when they were evicted by a Persian invader, Nadir Shah who some called the Persian Napoleaon. Shah conquered Kandahar and Kabul in 1738, defeated a formidable Mughal army and plundered Deli. He returned to Kabul his base with vast treasures including the Peacock Throne which thereafter served as the symbol of Iranian imperial might. See:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_conquest_of_Afghanistan#Overview. Shah surrounded himself with Sunni Muslim of Turkic and Pastun background. One of these was Ahmad Shah Durrani a Pastun who would be prominent in Afghan history after the end of Nadir Shah's reighn in 1747. Also See Pashtun Peoplehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pashtun

First Pastun Afghan Empire 1747
Ahmed Shah Durrani establised a Pashtun-Afghan empire with a capital in Kandahar which is considered to be the first modern state of Afghanistan and which at that time included parts of Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. (See: Durrani 1747 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durrani_Empire). Upon the death of Ahmad Shah Durrani, the successor emirs governed so ineptly that much of the territory conquered by Ahmad Shah fell to others. By 1818 the successor rulers of Durrani controlled little more than Kabul and its surrounding countryside.


In 1826 Dost Mohammad Khan took over the throne in Kabul and proclaimed himself king. It was about this time that events in neighboring India would prove troublesome for the new king. In northern India, Rangjit Singh, the head of a new religion, the Sikhs, drove the Afghan settlers out of western Punjab, and established a powerful secular and heavily armed nation which was the only part of India not controlled by the British. Singh brought law and order to his domain, employed no death penalty, treated Hindus and Muslims equally and banned discriminatory taxes on Hindus and Sikhs. Thus, in 1834 while Dost Khan was involved in defeating an invasion by the son of a former ruler, Shuja Shah Durrani, the Sikhs under Rangit Singh were expanding westward taking areas formerly of Afghanistan particularly along the highlands west of the Indus to protect his domain from incursions from the west and former Pashtun areas east of the Khyber Pass. Khan sent his Pashtun forces under his son, to this area where the Pashtuns defeated an advance force of Sikhs about nine miles west of Peshawar, but rather than follow up the retreating Sikhs he halted his advance and called on the British for assistance. This gave the British an opening for intervention.


The British
The British had been a major power in India since after the Treaty of Paris in 1763 (which ended the French Indian War in America, and the Seven Years War in Europe) at which the signatories: France, Spain, Britain and Portugal divided up the spoils of their war and their colonies. Britain was the major winner and as a consequence it turned its interests toward dominance outside of Europe and particularly in India. The British interests in the Central Asia clashed with those of Russia which considered this area part of her near-by sphere of influence and feared the expansion of the British into Pujab, Sindh and Kashmir an area on their doorstep. For their part the Russians curried influence in the Persian court as well as the court of Dost Mohammad Khan.


The 19th c Battleground of British and Russia ImperialismAnglo-Aghan Wars
The long, painful, costly and inconclusive British experience in Afghanistan during the 19th century during the height of British imperialism seemed to have been washed out of the memory banks of modern players, Russians, Americans so that they are doomed to have to repeat the mistakes of the past. Thus it is worthwhile to review briefly the past.

1839-42, Fearing Russia gaining a foothold in western Afghanistan in Herat with the aid of the Persians. Emir Dost Mohammad appeared to be siding with the Russians and they demanded Dost sever contacts with the Russians and give up Peshawar and the British promised they would ask Singh to retreat from Peshawar. When Gen Aukland the British general would not put the agreement in writing Dost refused and negotiated with the Russians for help. Then the British advised Aukland to turn to Shuja who was ready to accept the Sikh rule of the eastern provinces for a guarantee at the throne and with British support. The British now had a figurehead they could control. The British papered over this overt take-over with a manifesto that claimed that they had not invaded Afghanistan, they simply needed a “trustworthy” ally on the western side of India and they were only “helping” Shuja Shah retain “his” throne. Shuja’s reign depened only on British arms and troops. Foreign intervention is unpopular where-ever it raises its head and so in Kabul. British troops were sniped at and beleagued in their flimsy compounds as insurrections flared up around the country and in Kabul. In November 1841 a massacre in Kabul incited an insurrection which deposed Shuja Shah. The British trapped in the snow and cold of a Kabul winter were isolated and cut off from help. Muhammad Akbar Khan, son of Dost Muhammad Khan, arrived and intervened with the tribal leaders whom the British had called in probably to bribe. Akbar Khan took over leadership of the chieftains. At a conference with them, Sir William MacNaughten was killed. Chaos ensued and of the 16,000 Indo-British troops and camp followers attempted to withdraw in winter. Nearly all were massacred as they battled Ghilzai tribesmen in snowy western passes. Only one English man a Dr. Brydon reached Jalalabad out of the entire 44th Regiment.

War of 1878-80 (End of Independence)
Dost Mohammad Khan returned to the throne and a second Afghan-Sikh war in 1848-1849 failed to return Peshawar. Akbar Khan died in 1845 preceeding his father. The British attempted to renew relations with Dost Mohammad and in 1855 the Treaty of Peshawar repopened diplomatic relations. In 1863 Dost Mohammad retook Herat from the Persians with British help. A few months later Dost died and his surviving sons fought among themselves for the throne. Sher Ali eventually established control over Kabul and in 1868 the British were amenable to support his regime with arms and funds. In 1873 Russian incursions south into Afghan territory drove Ali to seek British help but tensions in Europe prevented their taking part. But by 1878 when Russia sent a diplomatic mission to Afghanistan the British demanded that they be invited too. Emir Ali—perhaps annoyed at the British--declined and warned that were a mission sent it would be stopped and turned back. In response the British sent a contingent of 40,000 troops. Emir attempted to appeal to the Tzar but it was too late. The anxiety and strain was too much for Emir Ali and he died on his way out of Kabul in 1879. Now with British forces occupying much of the country, Sher Ali’s son and successor Mohammad Yaqub Khan signed a treaty with the British which avoided further invasion, provided for an annual subsidy and assurances of help in case of foreign invasion.


In effect Yaqub Khan had signed over control of Afghan foreign policy and affairs to the British. After the signing the British forces withdrew. But they hadn’t gone long when the British Resident advisor in Kabul was Sir Pierre Cavagnari, his guards and staff were all slain. The British returned in force to occupy Kabul. They forced Yaqub Khan to abdicate. The British now considered who they could trust and control best, and passing over Yaqub’s younger brother Ayub Khan they chose a pliant cousin Abdur Rahman Khan as emir in stead and installed him in 1880 . Ayub Khan, officially next in line, had been serving as governor of Herat Province rose up in indignant revolt and besieged Kandahar. Ayub Khan was decisively defeated when the main British force cornered him outside of Kandahar. Having achieved all their objectives the British withdrew.

Abdur Rahman (the Iron Emir) 1880-1901
Emir Abdur Rahman was the first British Emir. He gladly accepted limitations on his power in the field of foreign affairs, willing to take the role of “buffer state” for Afghanistan next to Britian’s “jewel in the crown” which was it neighbor to the east--- and accept his annual British subsidy in sterling quietly. There was some good gained for the Afghan people during this man’s twenty-one year rule, which ushered in a long period of peace, but his reign was ruthless and heavy-handed and as a consequence there was a great deal of hardship and loss. Abdur was an intelligent capable and strong leader, but his as an agent of his own survival his primary interests were to retain power and to do that he must keep the British happy with his rule. Rhaman ruthlessly suppressed any rebellion with harsh punishment (i.e. minor brigandage might be punished by being stripped naked and enclosed in an iron cage which was hung from a high pole. Within, the tiny space, the condemned would slowly die from exposure, dehydration and starvation—depending on the season of the year and the weather), executions by beheadings, and deportations. He forcibly transplanted the Pashtun tribes from their southern lands to the harsh areas north of the Hindu Kush mixing them there with non Pashtun native populations. The transfers effectively depopulated the more habitable southern regions. He forced conversion to Islam on the last non-Muslim populations north of Kabul in Kafiristan. He subverted tribal unity and cohesion by creating a system of provincial governments which cut across natural tribal boundaries to divide and weaken tribal relationships. The provincial governors, rather than tribal chieftains, were given power in local matters and given the military power in the form of a local army to enforce their decisions, and to effect efficient tax collection and suppress dissent. He developed a powerful state secret police and spy system to keep control of his constituents and especially the governors. He forged together with British aid a strong national army which was under his and the royal family’s direct control. In a word he was a tyrant and dictator.

Rhaman’s period of tenure was punctuated by a number of frontier disputes (with Russia in 1885 at the Merv Oasis—he was force to take over the sovereignty of the Kyrgyz tribal lands by the British, and in 1896 another joint Anglo-Russian boundary commission decided on the Afghan-Chinese boundary, and the Duran line in 1893 which the Britiish established as the boundary between Pakistan and Afghanistan) which in each case the British and Russians or British alone decided the outcome. All such decisions were made in London on his and for the Afghan people with no input from Afghanistan.


The Durand Line
In 1893 during a period of peace with Britain an unofficial border with British India (modern Pakistan) was established called the "Duran Line". Since it trimmed off large areas of what was then Afghanistan and gave it to Pakistan it is not accepted by the present-day Afghanistan government.

“The Durand line cut through tribal lands and across topography with no relationship to demography of military strategy. The line laid the foundation not for peace between border regions , but fore heated disagreements between the governments of Afghanistan and British India and later, Afghanistan and Pakistan over what came to be know as the issue of Pashtunistan or the Land of the Pashtuns. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_influence_in_Afghanistan#First_Anglo-Afghan_War.2C_1838.E2.80.931842

On his death in 1901, Habibullah Khan, Rhaman’s son from a liason with a slave girl, and whom he (Rhaman) had groomed for the job assumed the throne. Habbiulla was assinated on a hunting trip in 1919. While he had not assigned a successor his third son Amanullah Khan had been left in charger of the treasury and army in Kabul while Habibullah was away and was thus in a good position to seize power. Amanullah quickly imprisoned his senior siblings and other relatives who would not support him and with the army at his back he established control over the cities and got the support from the tribal leaders.

Amanullah Khan 1919-1929 and Independence
Amanuallah Khan was Afghanistan’s first progressive leader who had turned toward Europe as his model for leadership. Amanullah wore western dress and encouraged his people to do so as well. Since his marriage to Sorya Tarzi he fell under the excellent influence of his father-in-law, Mahmud Tarzi, who was a well educated, well-travelled and sophisticated man, a poet, journalist and diplomat. Upon taking the throne as King Amanullah Khan (dropping the Emir tittle) he installed Mahmud Tarzi as Foreign Minister.

King Khan fought for progressive social, political and domestic and economic reforms, such as a free press, educational rights, and woman’s rights. Amanullah created new schools for both boys and girls, overturned strict dress codes for women, he increased trade with Europe and Asia, advanced a modern constitution which incorporated equal rights and individual freedoms. He adoped a solar calendar and the metric system, abolished slavery, imposed anit smuggling laws, eduction for nomads,established first National Bank and introduced the afghani as the basis of currency in 1923. In the same year Amanulla proposed a new constitution which included national registry for citizens, a legislative assembly, court system, prohibition of blood money, and abolition of privileges for the tribal chiefs and royal family. In addition the law of Sharia (Islamic Law) would have now only an underlying residual impact under the new reforms.

Though he was popular and well-received in Great Britain even receiving honorary degrees from Oxfor University when he attempted to move his nation toward independence in foreign affairs his actions sparked the third Anglo-Afghan war.

War of 1919 with Great Britain
When Amanullah had come into power the relationship of cooperation between Russian and Britain had broken down following the Russian Revolution of 1917. The world was a new place and in May of 1919 when the British rebuffed Amanulla’s requests for independence, he attacked existing Bristish forces in Afghanistan. Pashtun tribes on both sides of the border, attacked with the Afghan army. The British were routed at first then returned with force and the war reached a stalemate. Then the British forces used aerial bombing of civilian targets for the first time in Afghanistan when they flew over the King’s palace in Kabul and bombed it. The attacks were widely criticized. The King wrote a letter of rebuke to the English which finally led to the armistice of 1919 and the proposed withdrawal of forces as well as Afghanistan’s independence in 1921 but well before that Afghanistan had new relationships with the Soviet Government in 1919 and by 1920 had established diplomatic relationships nearly world-wide.

In 1921 Amanullah established an Afghan air-force…with a few Soviet biplanes. Afghan pilots later received training in France and Italy. In his attempts to modernize the army King Amanulah sought advice from some of his senior military advisors some of whom were Turkish. The Afghan senior generals opposed the changes and what they saw as Turkish foreigners in positions of power. In 1924 one of the king’s former advisors, General Muhammad Nadir Khan who opposed the modernization and advised the King accordingly, however the advice was rejected, and as a consequence, Nadir left the government to become an ambassador to France.

The reforms proposed by the young king would have brought Afghanistan into the modern world, however, the King had managed to alienate the religious leaders, and the army. In 1928 a revolt of Pashtun tribesmen in Jalalabad led to a march on the capital. Amadullah’s army deserted and the King abdicated to his younger brother. Who abdicated a few days later. King Khan went into exile in Italy and died in 1960.

King Mohammed Nadir Shah 1929-1933
Mohammad Nadir Khan, who had been a minister in Amadullah’s government was proclaimed King Nadir Shah in October 1929. He immediately went to Kabul and plundered the city since he found that the treasury was empty.

King Shah quickly abolished most of Amadullah’s reforms and he named a ten member cabinet consisting mostly of his family members. After having a loya jirga of 286 Pashtuns tribal leaders confirm his accession in 1931 he promulgated a a new constitution which abrogated most of Amadullah’s reforms and established a royal oligarchy of Shah’s family and friends. The constitution elevated male Pashtuns and incorporated laws which was detrimental to minority rights.


He did encourage the banking system and improved the roads and created a 40,000 man strong army. Nadir Shah was assassinated by a man whose family had been oppressed by the King since his accession to the throne.

Mohammed Zahir Shah 1933-1973 Last King.
Zahir Shah was a young man when he assumed the throne and his uncles (brothers of the last king) excercized a great deal of control over his decisions.

The objectives of the Shah dynsty was strengthening the army and shoreing up the economy and improving transport and communications. Wary of the British and the Soviets the Shah brothers turned to Germany for assistance. By 1935 German investors were involved in hydroelectric plants and factories at the invitation of the Afghan government. Another objective of the Shah oligarchy was the Pastunization of Afghanistan. The King and his uncles began distributing northern lands to to Pashtuns who supported Nadir Khan. The schools were forced to teach Pashto. Government employees had to learn Pashto or their salaries would be cut. The King and his advisors peledged to join the League of Nations in 1934 and formulated treaties with Iran, Iraq and Turkey in 1937.

At the outbreak of the WWII in 1940, Afghanistan proclaimed its neutrality. But the Allies were not satisfied since therE were a large population of German advisors in Afghanistan at the time. The King demanded that all belligerents leave Afghanistan. The war improved markets and prices for Afghan agricultural produce. After the war the problem of the Pashtun areas between Afghanistan and Pakistan surfaced again. Skirmishes across the border caused the loya jirga to hold that Afghanistan does not recognize “the imaginary Durand Line nor any similar line” As a result of the dispute Pakistan cut off oil supplies going to Afghanistan, the Afghan government increasingly turned toward the Soviet Union for oil, textiles and manufactured goods. In addition the Soviets offered construction aid for petroleum storage facilities, to explore for oil and gas, and to increase trade.

From 1953-1963
By 1953 the government dominated by the old uncles was challenged by the younger members of the family. Finally the rift broke out into the open when Mohammed Daoud Khan became prime minister. Daoud was young western educated and the king’s cousin and brother-in-law. But through this period Daoud kept a steady but firm hand on the tiller of state cleaving a course between the major powers (US and Soviets) during the Cold War to play one off against the other and making few changes that would alter the power of the royal family or improve the life of the Afghans. Daoud sought military aid from the US but since it had turned down an offer to join the Bagdad Pact (A US sponsored anti-Soviet grouping of nations) it was rebuffed. It turned to the Soviets and received 25million in aid. The Soviets also began construction of bases and airfield in Bagram, MazariSharif and Shindand. Daoud’s main preoccupation at this time was the Pashtunistan issue. He attempted to pay tribesmen on both sides of the border to subvert the Pakistani government as well as disseminate hostile propaganda. But the conflict remained dormant. At one point Daoud sent troops across into Pakistan held area of Pashtunistan to stir things up but the troops were routed by Pakistani forces. Early in the sixties when the two contries severed relations in 1961 the matter began to hurt the economy of Afghanistan. The royal family thought it now time for Daoud to go. Daoud resigned and a young non-Pashtun Muhammad Yousuf took over from Daoud.

The new government, an experiment in constitutional democracy, reached a diplomatic and trade agreement with Pakistan and promulgated a new more liberal constitution (but certainly not as progressive as that of Amadullah Shah’s constitution.) Inflamatory speeches in parliament and organized street gatherings that were interpreted as “riots” to the royal family all prevented the King from ever signing a law that would permit political parties to exist. So the nation had some structures of democracy, the whetted appitite for democracy but there was no democracy forthcoming and so there was much discontent on both sides of the political spectrum. The liberalization of a even a limited democracy and loosening of political power bred a backlash among the conservative wing of the citizenry and between 1969-1973 it was instability which ruled Afghan politics. Claiming “anarchy and antinational attitude of the regime” Daoud and a small group of military conspirators sprung a bloodless coup when the King was out of the country for medical treatment. The coup ended the monarchy Ahmad Shah Durrani had established in 1747.

Republic of 1973
Mahammed Daoud Shah was greeted warmly by a population unhappy with the past ten or more years of monarchy. Daoud’s comeback was areturn to the traditional strongman rule that Afghanistan perhaps was best used to. He was appealing to the military, he had built up the army with aid from the Soviets. In October 1977 Daoud got the loya jirga to approve his one party presidential system. Daoud’s relationship with the Soviets and the Afghan communists deteriorated during his five year presidency. Daoud gradually shifted to the right but he regularly voted with the Soviet block in the Un…perhaps fearful of the USSR’s response. Though he distanced himself from the USSR for military aid. He turned to oil rich Muslim nations for financial assistance. The Soviets learned of and complaine of the influx of anitcaommunists in Doud’s new cabinet and of his criticism of Cuba’s role in the non-aligned nations movement. Daoud had accomplished little and had antagonized the military, the communits, the youth and the progressives without improving the living standards of the Afghans. On April 27th 1978 Afghan troops moved out of the military base at Kabul International airport and converged on the palace, battles ensued between units loyal to Daoud in and around the capital. But Daoud and his family were caught in the Palace where they were shot.

Communist Afghanistan 1978-1992
Political power was vested in the 58 member Revolutionary Council. When the council was not in session, the three man Presidium exercised power. The Revolutionary Council was presided over by the President . The first President of the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (DRA) was Nur Muhammad Taraki who was also leader of Peoples Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA). The DRA was immediately recognized by the USSR and international recognition came rapidly. Many of the political elite and middle class of the previous regime were either executed or they fled. So many of the nearly 100,000 or so who had been at the head of thr previous government and active in cultural life had abandoned Kabul. The PDPA moved quickly to implement a socialist agenda. It replaced traditional Islamic sharia laws with secular ones. Mennot not obliged to wear beards, or women to wear a burqa and mosques were off limits. It instituted land reform, waiving farmers debrs, abolishing usury and releasing farmers from debt peopage, . Free medical care was introduced, a mass literacy campaign begun, the built 600 new schools in the first two years, working hours were reduced higher wages introduces and trade unions were legalized. Decree #7 promulgated by the Revolutionary Council aimed at eliminating the traditional monetary basi for the marriage arrangement and promoting more equality between the sexes. It also banned forced marriages, gave women the right to vote and hold political positions. Many of these radical changes were opposed by the mullahs and the head men and the mostly deeply religious populace of the countryside. There were frequent demonstrations and other manifestations of opposition. Many of these people were arrested and imprisoned. Afghan communists executed and estimated 27,000 political prisoners between April 1978 and December 1979.


Enter the Americans
In the US the Carter Administration saw the situation in Afghanistan as an opportunity to weaken the Soviet Union. “This will be their Vietnam!” is a statement attributed to Zbigniew Brzezubzki, Carter’s National Security Advisor. Accordingly the US began a covert operation to fund and arm the Mujahideen (holy Muslim warrior) forces by way of the Pakistan secret service known as the Inter Service Intelligence (ISI). If enough disrutption and chaos could be generated the USSR could be provoked to intervene inAfghanistan where they “would be ground up and spat’ out by the weather, terrane and the indefatigable Afghan natives.


By March 1979 President Taraki requested ground troops. Alexei Kosygin, Premier of the USSR from 1964-1980 responded that “it would be a fatal mistake to commit ground troops” if our troops went in the situation in your country would get worse.” Taraki persisted and got 300,000 tons of wheat, and 500 “advisors’ helicopter gunships and their pilots and 700 paratroopers to guard the wheat which was all described as “humanitarian” aid. Brezhnev is quoted at the time as saying, that full Soviet intervention would only play into the hands of our enemies—both your and ours.” President Taraki was quietly disposed of by a rival faction in the Afghan Revolutionary Council. Some say he was smothered by a pillow while he slept. His death was described a “long illness”. His adversary and successor was Hafizullah Amin. Some characterize the Taraki assassination as a CIA operation. Amin made some attempts to moderate the anit-islamic aspects of the communist regime. He promised more religious freedom and declared that the regime would follow the “principles of Islam.” In the USSR the worried over what seemed to be an unstable regime and leader. Soviet spies reported that Amin was purging Soviet sympathizers and his loyalty to Moscow was a ruse. He was secretly seeking ties with Pakistan and China.

USSR Topples Amin Government. December 1979
The USSR organized a massive air lift of more than 25,000 men in 280 air transports. Within two days Kabul had been secured and Hafizulla Amin had been killed as he resisted the take-over and died with his loyal contingenet of troops in a hail of bullets in the Darul Aman Palace. Babrak Karmal an exiled communist leader of another PDPA faction became head of the new government.

Why did Brezhnev attack? One theory offered was that the USSR policy was a “cordon sanitaire” of friendly or neutral states on its frontiers. When he became alarmed at the unstable character of the Amin government and its unlikely ability to survive the pressure on it from the US backed forces in Pakistan and Iran, he decided to go in.

The government of Babrak Karmal faced several hurdles, it was illegitimate in the eyes of the Afghans, and it was associated with the anti-islam Marxist forces which had so recently decimated the Afghan population. Furthermore it was the Afghan army that was to “pacify” the countryside and crush resistance only with the help and materiel of the Soviets. But the Afghan army under Karmal performed poorly and the USSR miscalculated and the war of pacification dragged on for ten years.

As the Afghan insurgency and the Soviet response became more destructive refugees flocked to Kabul and the larger cities. Kabul’s population swelled to more than 2 million during the period of the late 1980s. Communist party affiliation and internal rivalries, and factionalism within the party grew in accordance with this trend toward urbanization and party expansion. The Soviet controllers in Moscow viewed the fractured, divisive situation in Kabul with anxiety. Their goal was a stable Afghanistan polity from which they could withdraw their forces. Late in the 1980s they began to think of replacing Brabak Karmal with Mohammad Najibulla had previously headed the Afghan secret service and had the confidence of Moscow.

Mohammad Najibullah, 1986-1992
Karmal retained the presidency but real power shifted to Moscow’s new man in Kabul in 1986. Najibullah who was a secret police “apparatchik” had all the skills needed—he was a good mediator among factions and an effective diplomat as well as a resourceful administrator who had to deal with changing and shifting circumstances of the war over the six years he served. In addition Najibullah belonged to the Ghilzais Pashtun tribe of southeastern Afghanistan. They traditionally have opposed the northern Durrani. Thus Najibullah’s choice as a replacement for Karmal was also related to his ability to help disengage the Ghilzai tribe and eastern Pashtuns from the resistance. These events and circumstances were interpreted in the west as sure signs that the Soviets had made the actual decion to withdraw. But now how to accomplish that and save face?

Russian withdrawl 1986-1988
The largest and most successful campaigns against the Mujahedin came between 1985-1986. This coincided with the greatest increase in military support from the US and included (late in 86) the introduction of the FIM-92 shoulder-fired “stinger” missile by the US which caused a steep rise in the loss of helicopters and their pilots. For nearly a year the USSR and Afghan were denied effective use of air power. The new government in Moscow under Mikhail Gorbachev now saw the war as a “misuse of Soviet political and military capital” ( See Dem Rep Afghan. Wikipedia). In Kabul Najibullah moved toward reconciliation and matching Moscow’s moves toward Soviet withdrawal. He began a campaign of apparent national reconciliation, he replaced Karmal who held the ceremonial role of president with Mohammad Samkanai a non-communist, he proposed a program that would allow “resistance fighters” to retain areas under their control. In effect he was preparing for the time when the Soviets had withdrawn and the country would be engulfed in civil war.

Geneva Accords 1989
Faced with the toll in casualties, cost in rubles, and loss of political support at home, Moscow (remember that Gorbachev takes over leadership in 1985) wanted two things, one—that its client communist state survive as such on its borders, and two—that Soviet troops leave. But also they were faced with larger issues of the Cold War with the west and their own internal reforms. The goals were clear Moscow must find a face saving way of retreat from Afghanistan.

The war was costly—on both sides—as many as five million Afghans (about ¼ of the population) had fled to Pakistan and Iran where they formed guerrilla groups. One such group was that formed by Ahmed Shah Massoud.

A formula was available for minimizing the humiliation of reversing a policy in which enormous political, material and human capital had been expended. It consisted of a UN proposal ostensibly between the DRA and Pakistan..the nominal adversaries…in which the two parties agreed to issues such as humanitarian issues, return of expatriates and refugees and “withdrawal of foreign troops” from both sides of the Afghan-Pakistan line. The agreement was signed by the two parties in April 1988. In ten months, by February 1989, the last Soviets had left Afghanistan.

No Soviets but no peace either.
The Kabul government held on and the insurgency continued. Najibullah continued to make conciliatory moves to encourage a joint government. He offered the resistance twenty seats in the State Council (no longer the Revolutionary Council) twelve ministries and a change of national status to an Islamic non-aligned state. But he got no takers. In 1987 he presented a new constitution and a state with a new name..Republic of Afghanistan as well as a National Assembly and Mir Hussein Sharq a non-communist—was named prime minister.

Stalemate Civil War 1989-1992
From Moscow’s point of view, as well as the Afghan’s government was too factionalized to survive. They expected almost imminent defeat soon after their winter departure on a cold day in February 1989. They waited. In Washington and Pakistan they anticipated a mujahedeen victory. By April, prime spring fighting season in Afghanistan, the mujahedeen had been repulsed decisively from an attack on Jalalabad. An initial surprise assault on the city (east of Kabul) had penetrated the city’s defenses and reached the airport. But the Afghans counterattacked and used artillery and air power effectively to drive the mujahedeen back. The repeated uncoordinated attacks from the hills on all sides of the city failed. The city and the road to Kabul were held by the government. The failure at Jalalabad exposed the weaknesses of the insurgents, they could not coordinate their actions nor could they maintain political cohesion. They were in effect an armed mob. They fell back on what they knew, guerilla tactics, terror acts, and exchanges of rocket fire with the government which caused terrible losses to the civilian population…and prevented the refugees from returning. On the side of Kabul’s government their morale was high. Their army proved it could survive and defections from the resistance grew so much so that they could afford to send 30,000 troops to Herat for its defense. Najibullah didn’t need the “shared government” and reconciliation ploys he removed any non-communists and sought aid from Moscow, who responded with massive military equipment they were pulling out of East Europe. With new tactics that avoided “stinger” missile fire their air force could protect against mass attacks on the cities. They had plety of SCUD rockets which could be launched from Kabul to defend other cities. Soviet support remained at about $3 billion (dollars) a year in 1990. Stalemate if not checkmate ensued.


Disaster for Najibullah—Soviet Collapse of 1991
The collapse of the Soviet empire occurred when communist hardliners in Moscow failed to take over th government in August 1991. That was the end for Najibullah too. His Afghan government was cut adrift-no political support and no military hardware. Nyet! Moscow had secretly agreed with the US for a mutual cut of all military aid. Cut off date January 1992.

Najibullah’s early training in the secret service held heim in good stead during the three years of independently holding out against the mujahideen. He had feelers out for information, and also developed useful connections with his adversaries. He could arrange cease fires, free passages, agree to keep certain critical roads open, and even permitted certain unarmed mujahideen reentry into some cities for personal or family reasons. These contacts grew into political “understandings” as the stalemate progressed. Then from understanding they progressed to collaboration. Najibullah used the collaboration as a defense strategy buying off mujahideen groups with guns or money to become local defense militias employed to defend small towns or roads. The process worked both ways however and the biggest victory for the mujahideen came during the war in March 1990 when they took Khost a large city in mountainous eastern Afghanistan as a result of the collusion of the Khost garrison with the mujahideen.
In March 1990 Gulbuddin Hekmatyar a Pashtun mujahideen plotted with defense minister: Shaw Nawas Tanai against the Afghan government. The plan was for Hekmatyar’s forces to attack Kabul as Tanai moved government forces away. The plot failed due to lack of communication. Tanai, exposed as a traitor, escaped by helicopter to Pakistan where he was greeted as an ally by Hekmatyar. For Najibulah the process lost its usefulness when his political support from Moscow and its supplies and money dried up. His allegiances crumbled and his government followed.

Kabul falls April 1992
With a fragmented leadership, no aid and allegiances crumbling Najibullah announded that he was ready to resign. It was clear that he had lost control over his army commanders. The government broke into several factions and as Najibulla attempted to fly out of Kabul he was stopped by Babrak Karmal’s brother. He sought refuge in the UN mission where he remained for four years unable to escape. An interim government headed by a Afghan generals handed over the government to the forces of Ahmed Shah Massoud on April 18, 1992.

Collapse into Anarchy
After several months of squabbling Burhanuddin Rabbani assumed control of the Leadership Council and Rabbani was elected President. Fighting broke out immediately with those loyal to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. By January 1994 the forces of Rabbani and Masood, both Tajiks, controlled Kabul and the northeast, while local war lords exerted power over the rest of the country.


Rise of the Taliban
In 1994 the Tajik warlord who controlled the city of Kandahar in the southeast was thrown out of power by a group of Pashtun young men who called themselves “Taliban”.
Taliban is a Pashto word meaning “students”. The Taiban were from mostly rural pashtun background who had been displaced by the war as children and raised in Pakistan as refugees where they attended madrassas together. They were determined to remove the warlords, and provide law and order. The law that they ascribed to was strict Sharia. In the circumstances a group of youngsters who stood for something other than fighting and killing must have been appealing to the local populace. From their success in Kandahar they expanded to Herat in September 1995, and by 1996 (the 17th year of war in Afghanistan) they had taken Kabul at which time they declared the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. In 1997 Pakistan recognized them as the legitimate rulers of Afghanistan, and by 2000 they controlled all of Afghanistan except the extreme northeast hold out of mostly Tajik and Uzbek tirbes in Badakshan Province the mountainous “stem” of the leaf which borders China.

At the time of the takeover by the Taliban, the country was a disaster area in its 17th year of unending war, covered by an estimated 10million land mines, with the world’s highest infant mortality, highest child mortality, highest maternal mortality and two million people living in fetid refugee camps. What the Taliban offered was some hope.


The Taliban were of course were young, enthusiastic, energetic, well-meaning perhaps—but surely religious fanatics. They wanted to impose an extreme interpretation of islam colored largely by their own rural conservative Pashtun traditions upon the whole country. In the process they committed some serious atrocities. Men were required to wear full beards, women could not work outside the home, or pursue education, or any profession. Out of the home they had to be accompanied by a male relative and were required to wear a traditional burqa. Arranged marriages were reintroduced. Child brides were allowed. Politically they were a disaster. They attacked the Iranian embassy in Kabul killing eight diplomats, they broke into the UN compound and hung former president Najibullah, they attacked and killed a television reporter claiming he was a spy. In 2001 as part of an iconoclastic drive against Afghanistan’s pre-Islamic past they destroyed all statuary in the nation including all the iconic holdings in the Kabul Museum and the twin monumental (120-180 foot high) statues of the Buddha from the sixth century into a high cliff in the Bamyan valley in Hazarajat Province about 140 miles northwest of Kabul. The cliff had been a pilgrimage center up until the 11th century.

In 1998 a series of earthquakes killed thousands of Afghans in Fadakshan Province. The civil strife, widespread poverty, drought, disrupted agriculture, lack of infrastructure, and about a million Afghans facing starvation.

Since their earliest period of control the Taliban had provided sanctuary to Osama bin Laden a Saudi national who had fought with them against the Soviets. Bin lLaden provided both financial and political support for the Taliban. Gin aden and his group bombed the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar Es Salaam in 1998. In 1998 the US launched a cruise missile attack against Bin Laden in Afghanistan. In September 11 2001 Bin Laden responded with the attack on the Twin Towers in NYC.

US Invasion of Afghanistan October 7, 2001
The US invasion of Afghanistan is where this history ends for now. Perhaps I’ll get to add some comments about the US invasion at some later date.


January 2009: A new American Administration, but few new ideas

President Obama with Secretary Gates at his shoulder (the same Mr. Gates who presided over the nearly eight years of failed war policy in Afghanistan so far)appears to be continuing in the long line of failed invaders in Afghanistan. George Santayana (1863-1953) said, "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." In this case Herodotus' statement that "The only good is knowledge, and the only evil is ignorance". For it certainly must be ignorance of Afghanistan's past or simple hubris that would permit such thoughts. History tells us that the Soviets with more than 100,000 troops, much shorted and more secure lines of supply, better cooperation from the local Pastuns (at first) and a long history of intervention in the area could not subdue Afghanistan after eight years of desperate war. What makes President Obama and Mr. Gates so sure of themselves? Ignorance, pride or belief in American exceptionalism is that what drives them? Let's hope Mr. Obama reads other histories than that of Mr. Lincoln and the US Civil War.