The USSR suffered 14,453 fatalities during its brutal, 1979-1988 occupation of the country, and squandered a fortune in materiel and money. The Soviet Union’s misadventure in Afghanistan was more damaging. Far from being interred, the British Empire would reach its zenith in 1920, extending its reign more than 13.7 million square miles, or more than one-quarter of the Earth’s land mass. Britain would return to stomp Afghanistan in the Second Anglo-Afghan War, which ended in 1880. Less frequently mentioned in recollections of Gandamak is that Britain sent an “army of retribution” into Afghanistan a few months later, one that crushed every Afghan army sent against it, looted and razed numerous towns and villages in its path, and finally sacked Kabul - burning the dazzling Char-Chatta Bazaar there in a final spasm of vengeance. (They also played into the racist, Western fascination, one that lasted throughout the 19th century and beyond, with the idea of a gallant band of doomed, white warriors fighting to the last while helplessly outnumbered by “savages”: the Afghans in Gandamak or the Sioux and Cheyenne at the Little Bighorn, the Turks at Balaclava, the Zulus at Isandlwana.) #Grave yard tv#Much like the tabloids and instant TV news of today, their reports and images served to horrify and enrage audiences at home. It also came at a moment when England’s penny dreadfuls and its narrators of the travails and glories of empire were hitting their stride. The debacle was a major scandal back in London. An army of 4,700 British and Indian soldiers retreating from Kabul was slaughtered nearly to a man near the village of Gandamak, along with at least 12,000 civilians traveling with the army. The idea that Afghanistan was some kind of geopolitical quicksand for empires seems to have started with the First Anglo-Afghan War, which ended in 1842. Most of them stayed for decades, even centuries. So did numerous empires, peoples and tyrants you’ve probably never heard of: the Greco-Bactrians, the Indo-Scythians, the Kushans, the Sassanian Empire, the Maurys Empire, the Gahznavids, the Uzbeks, the Safavids and the Hotak dynasty. So did the Turks and the Huns, the Hindus and Islamic Arabs, the Persians and the Parthians. So did Timur, better known as Tamerlane, and his descendant Babur. But he ultimately smashed that resistance, founded what became the modern city of Kandahar and pushed on to India - leaving behind the Seleucid Empire, which lasted for 250 years. Alexander the Great faced fierce opposition from locals when he invaded around 330 B.C., and received a nasty leg wound from an arrow. It is also vital in acknowledging how much more likely smaller powers like Afghanistan are to suffer lasting trauma than any of their larger, more powerful invaders.Ĭertainly, the peoples living in what is Afghanistan today have resisted mightily one haughty conqueror after another who swaggered down the Hindu Kush. Understanding this historical reality is critical to grasping why the United States is unlikely to suffer serious long-term effects from its long and wasteful occupation of Afghanistan - or from the bloody, bumbling withdrawal. Afghanistan, in its long existence, has sadly been more like the roadkill of empires - a victim to their ambitions. The only trouble is that it doesn’t have much to do with actual history.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |