Afghanistan: no going back

Nick Downie

Aghanistan is, or rather was, a very beautiful country, and the road which leads to the Khyber pass from Kabul, the

capital city, twists through spectacular gorges and along precipitous cliffs. I first made the journey in 1964 as a teenage hitch- hiker, and was awed. Ten year later I travelled the same road, and was appalled. In 1964 1 had been a tourist, but by 19741 had spent six years as a professional soldier and was on my way home after three years of operational duty in the Dhaufar cam- paign in Oman. The fighting there had mostly been in rough mountain country, and eventually it required nearly 10,000 men to subdue a handful of ill-armed Marx- ist guerrillas. From Kabul I wrote to a friend in Oman, saying that Afghanistan made Dhaufar look like Salisbury Plain. In short, Afghanistan is a regular soldier's nightmare, and a guerrilla paradise. This is fairly obvious to anyone with a military background, including, I imagine, the Russian general staff. However, the official view of the US State Department and most Western governments is that the Soviet invasion was a monumental blunder, the implications of which are only now beginning to sink into the minds of Kremlin strategists. According to this theory, the Russians' aim is strictly limited and even- tually they will be forced to withdraw, which is a comforting idea. Unfortunately, it seems to have been formulated by men who have little practical experience of either Afghanistan or guerrilla warfare. The same shortcomings also apply to rather too many of the journalists who stag-

ger about with the Afghan mujahideen, for Periods ranging from three days to three Weeks. Their reports on the effectiveness of the resistance sometimes seem to bear a direct relationship to the number of blisters, collected en route. The overall reporting of the Afghan war has been rather misleading, and occasionally disgraceful.

The worst examples occurred just after the Russian invasion, when every newspaper and TV station was scrambling to get the most dramatic story. One headline read, `First Girl in the War Zone' which turned out to mean that an in- trepid young lady had taken a bus to the tourist observation point on the Pakistani side of the Afghan frontier. A TV report showed a tarmac road which purported to be in Afghanistan. In fact, the cameraman had filmed a main road in Pakistan. However, the most spectacular example was an ITN news item which told us that the Afghan way of dealing with the Russian tanks was to pour petrol over some dedicated man, who would then set light to himself and dive into the open liatch of a passing armoured vehicle. Not a shred of evidence was produced to support this claim, but that is hardly surprising since the feat is physically impossible. But the story was widely believed, and it set the seal on the Kiplingesque image of `fearless fighters' — a myth which persists to this day.

The misconception that all malodorous, uneducated tribesmen are natural soldiers is shared not only by diplomats and jour- nalists, but also by many army officers.. In Oman 1 lived with bedouin irregulars for two and a half years, and became deeply attached to their eccentricities. By the end, the only noticeable difference between us was that I stank worse than they did, which may explain why I was given instructions only at quarterly intervals. My orders were invariably short, and sometimes impossible to execute.

On one occasion I was hauled in front of the Brigadier, who calmly outlined his plan for dealing with the main enemy stronghold — a mountainous death-trap which went by the unfortunate, but' quite apt name of `Sheershitti'. He wanted me to collect 100 men and sort the place out. His final words are engraved on my memory — `I don't want to hear any requests for helicopters, or infantry companies in support. You are `My first feminist, a most interesting case.' to get in there, live like guerrillas, and kill the enemy.' The man had clearly. gone mad, but I saluted and set off for the souk to break these tidings to the bedouin. Their reaction was predictable, so I pretended to negotiate for a month before returning to the Brigadier with the news that he would have to find an alternative way of ending the war. Neither he nor his battalion com- manders ever really understood how to han- dle or employ the ragged, bloody-minded, Dhaufari tribesmen — which brings me back to Afghanistan.

The situation there was summed up by the cartoonist Giles with his customary acuity, a few days after the Russian inva- sion. His caption read, 'I see your old treacherous tribal riff-raff, enemies of the British Raj, are now your glorious allies, Colonel.' This switch of loyalties, combin- ed with the wish for a bit of romantic col- our, has tended to obscure the unpalatable truth — our new allies are still composed largely of treacherous riff-raff.

A few journalists have attempted to demonstrate the fact on film and in print, at the risk of a certain unpopularity with the pro-Afghan lobby. Similarly, this winter, a television reporter nearly wrecked his career by saying that the Zimbabwean guerrillas were devastatingly incompetent. Accusa- tions of 'racist' and 'fascist' rang round the corridors of my industry. However, a tac- tical, military judgment does not imply any sort of political sympathy, or lack of it, nor does it necessarily predict the eventual out- come.

Guerrilla warfare is a complicated busi- ness, and the ability to shoot straight is only a part of it. Thus, the Zimbabweans won, the Kurds (who were good soldiers) lost, Polisario (who are superb) are winning, and the Eritreans (also very good) are losing. None of this detracts from the idea that treacherous riff-raff are entitled to free and fair elections. Most Englishmen seem to subscribe to this view, the Americans do in Afghanistan and Poland but not in El Salvador or Chile, and the Russians never have, anywhere.

The official Western explanation for the Soviet invasion is that the Afghan govern- ment was collapsing and the Kremlin thought that it could stop the rot by mar- ching in with 85,000 men. This so irritated the populace that they set about the Rus- sians with a blind fury, killing and injuring some 10,000 of them: The Russians, it is further claimed, have now realised their error, but are not sure what to do next. It seems that their intentions are basically peaceful and, surprised by the sudden strength of the resistance and the inade- quacy of the Afghan army, they are desperately looking for a way out that will not leave the place in anarchy, or cost them too much 'face'. Anyway, this is the official blunder theory. I just wish I could believe it: It is best to forget the Czars, the Great Game, warm water ports, and Lieutenant Flashman, because this story began a mere 60 years ago. Throughout that time the Russians have been beavering away in

Afghanistan, building roads, running fac- tories, teaching in schools, training the soldiers, studying the people, and mapping the place in detail. In 1965 I spent ten weeks tramping round the Hindu Kush mountains with four Tadjik porters. We travelled all over an area called Nuristan, and part of it, the Ashkun, was so remote that in places we were the first outsiders ever to clamber along its tracks. However, in several of the Ashkun villages the first question I was ask- ed was whether I had a radio. Two Russians had been in there a couple of years earlier, and they were the first Europeans the peo- ple had ever seen. They had had a radio. It is often suggested that the Russians did not understand the Afghans before they invad- ed, 1 believe they knew the place and its people like the backs of their hands, and they still know exactly what they are doing. Eighteen years, almost to the day, before the Soviet invasion, an article appeared in the Daily Telegraph. It was written by a then Conservative MP, Neil McLean. A member of the wartime SOE, he fought in Albania alongside the resistance. Ever since then, guerrilla warfare has been one of his interests and he has spent time with active guerrilla armies in several far-off places, but 20 years ago he was writing about Afghanistan. His remarks were prophetic.

`The main external force pressing against Afghanistan to-day is the growing power of Russia in Asia .... Perhaps the most alarming result of Russian aid is that, although the Russians may at present have little direct political influence in Afghanistan, they will soon have establish- ed up-to-date air bases and road com- munications which they could take over with great ease whenever they might wish.

At this point, however, it seems un- necessary for the Russians to take over Afghanistan and, as one Russian diplomat put it, to become "responsible for looking after 12 million armed Afghans in smelly turbans" . ... But if Afghanistan were to disrupt in anarchy, Russia would surely in- tervene and Pakistan might be faced with the kussians on her own frontiers.'

This warning was totally ignored, which in 1961 was perhaps forgivable. Twenty years later, after two years of Soviet occupation, we are still ignoring all the evidence, preferring to believe that the Rus- sians will one day pack up and go home. It is no longer forgivable: it is irresponsible.

In 1979 I spent four months with the rnujahideen, in the foothills of the Hindu Kush. By sheer coincidence, I left Afghanistan four days before the Russians attacked, and I heard the news on the radio. I thought then that the Russians had arrived to do a thorough job, for which they would need at least 500,000 men. The first 85,000 I assumed to be a holding force. Eighteen months later it was still only 85,000 men and the reports which filtered out didn't quite make sense. So, very reluctantly, I decided to have another look.

I have just spent two months there — in Kandahar, the country's second largest

city, and in the mountains to the south-east of Kabul. The latter was useful because the area straddled several important supPlY routes, and I was able to spend hours chat- ting to men from all over Afghanistan, s° building up a picture of events elsewhere. Without trying to offend the citadels of academia, I will outline what I believe is actually happening in the place.

First the Russians are conducting a holding operation, at minimum cost to themselves in both casualties and cash. They are holding most, but not all, of the main towns, and their supply route north to the frontier, and they are holding a string of useful military bases.

Second, the Afghan army is doing most of the fighting, and then only when it absolutely has to. It has been seriously depleted, but does not yet seem on the point of collapse; and, judging by the number of garrisons that it occupies, it must consist of more than the 25,000 men that Washington would have us believe.

Third, the guerrilla resistance is still bad- ly fragmented by innumerable political and tribal divisions, which is an unmitigated disaster. It lacks effective leadership, and is very short on military expertise. It has neither the strength, the organisation nor the weapons seriously to affect the main garrisons or the Russian bases, but it can hold on to its mountainous territory in- definitely, particularly if no real effort is made to attack it.

Fourth, the cost to the Russians of trying to pacify the country would be enormous, because it is murderous terrain to fight in and they would be taking on almost the en- tire rural population. At the end of the war they would merely have gained one of the poorest countries in the world, whose only natural asset is gas, which they were buying anyway.

Fifth, the Russians are not military or political idiots. Unlike a large number of Western adventures, the Soviet moves seem to come off — Hungary, Czechoslovakia, South Yemen, Vietnam, Ethiopia (where they acted brilliantly in the Ogaden), Angola, and now Afghanistan. They are worried by Poland, but who isn't? They do not waste time on places like El Salvador.

Sixth, Afghanistan has absolutely no value whatsoever except as a strategic salient. It can be, and is being allowed to rot. So long as the Russians can hold on to

their bases and the main roads, they have all

they need. They should be able to do this for the next 20 years without any great dif- ficulty. In purely military and economic terms, the cost of their presence in Afghanistan is less to them than is the cost of Northern Ireland to the British.

As to their long-term objective, they now have so many options open that it is dif- ficult to pin down a single target. They can threaten Baluchistan, Pakistan, Iran, the Gulf, and the West's oil supply. A threat

may be all they want, or they could, if necessary, move forward whenever it suits them. One thing, however, seems certain — they do not intend to go back.