Everything Afghanistan • way to be extremely biased on your last post. grave yard of empires? so your point is?

Q:way to be extremely biased on your last post. grave yard of empires? so your point is?

Biased? I think not.

First of all that was the original title of the post incase you didn’t bother to check out the source link.

As mike malloy says, “Afghanistan where empires go to die”.

In the past two centuries, both Soviet and British invaders have been forced to beat bloody retreats from Afghanistan, deprived of victories that, on paper, looked easy, but ultimately proved futile.

Do you think its coincidence that in the wake of their Afghan disasters both the British and Soviet empires — like that of Alexander the Great’s, which extended over the region more than two millennia earlier — crumbled? Almost immediately, in the case of the Soviets, a century later for Britain. They repeatedly defeated the British during the 19th century when Britain was the world’s dominant military power. They routed the Soviets during the 1980s when the Soviet Union was the world’s second most dominant military power. As the first US bombs were falling on Afghanistan after 9/11, a CIA chief warned, “The US must proceed with caution — or end up on the ash heap of Afghan history.” and now they face the same fate.

Afghanistan remains as impervious to today’s military adventurers as it was to yesterday’s.

“It’s a hard place to fight, to conquer and rule,” says Patrick Porter, a lecturer in defense studies at the Joint Services Command and Staff College, Kings College London.

“The geography is very hard: It is a country of mountains and deserts, of quite severe winters and that makes it difficult not only to fight in, but also to operate logistically. It limits your mobility and it is difficult to project power.” No wonder, he says, that the country’s “graveyard” legend dies hard.

Afghanistan is a mountainous country with a very complex tribal system and a variety of ethnicities — and therefore a very complex country to try to manage. which contributes to its reputation as graveyard of empires.

If you know the famous Babur, the founder of the Mughal empire that ruled much of the central Asia in the 1500s, he said “Afghanistan has not been and never will be conquered, and will never surrender to anyone.”

Here is a brief history

329-326BCE
After conquering Persia, Afghanistan was invaded by Alexander the Great. Alexander conquers Afghanistan, but fails to subdue its people, Alexander sends a letter to his mother, which says”I am involved in the land of a Leonine (lion-like) and brave people, where every foot of the ground is like a wall of steel, confronting my soldiers. You have brought only one Alexander into this world, but everyone in this land can be called an Alexander!” stressing to his mother how everyone in Afghanistan is a great warrior.

Alexander the Great sent his supply trains through the Khyber, then skirted northward with his army to the Konar Valley on his campaign in 327 bc. There he ran into fierce resistance and, struck by an Afghan archer’s arrow, barely made it to the Indus River with his life. Afghanistan remained undefeated, the people remained united.

1219AD

Genghis Khan and the great Mughal emperors began passing through the Khyber a millennium later and ultimately established the greatest of empires — but only after reaching painful accommodations with the Afghans. It is said that his destruction would leave mountain high piles of skulls of the Afghan people, yet when he realizes that the Afghans re-group no matter what, to fight him back again and again he assembles his troops and leaves to conquer India, fearing a defeat if he stays to fight. From Michni Point, a trained eye can still see the ruins of the Mughal signal towers used to relay complex torch-light messages 1,500 miles from Calcutta to Bukhara.

Between 1839AD and 1919AD
The British empire engaged in three wars in Afghanistan. These wars were part of the struggle for influence in central Asia between Britain and Russia that was known as the “Great Game”.

The first Anglo war was utter disaster and one of the worst defeats for the British empire. The second war lasted from 1878 to 1880, it was at best tactical success for the British who were unable to gain sovereignty over them, but managed to gain control of the Afghan foreign affairs.

In the third Anglo war of 1919, Afghanistan regained control despite the general technical superiority of the British military forces at the time, they were barely able to hold their own, in fighting against the afghans.

I quote “Slaughter in the Mountain Passes” A magazine based in Boston, the North American Review, published a remarkably extensive and timely account titled “The English in Afghanistan” six months later, in July 1842. It contained this vivid description (some antiquated spellings have been left intact):

On the 6th of January, 1842, the Caboul forces commenced their retreat through the dismal pass, destined to be their grave. On the third day they were attacked by the mountaineers from all points, and a fearful slaughter ensued…

The troops kept on, and awful scenes ensued. Without food, mangled and cut to pieces, each one caring only for himself, all subordination had fled; and the soldiers of the forty-fourth English regiment are reported to have knocked down their officers with the butts of their muskets.

On the 13th of January, just seven days after the retreat commenced, one man, bloody and torn, mounted on a miserable pony, and pursued by horsemen, was seen riding furiously across the plains to Jellalabad. That was Dr. Brydon, the sole person to tell the tale of the passage of Khourd Caboul.

More than 16,000 people had set out on the retreat from Kabul, and in the end only one man, Dr. William Brydon, a British Army surgeon, had made it alive to Jalalabad. The garrison there lit signal fires and sounded bugles to guide other British survivors to safety, but after several days they realized that Brydon would be the only one. It was believed the Afghans let him live so he could tell the grisly story.

What ever the causalities and losses, the Afghans remained undefeated.

In 1979 when the soviet union invaded Afghanistan they thought they were in for an easy victory. They underestimated the power of resistance. It began on Christmas eve 1979 and finished when the last soviet troops retreated into Uzbekistan just over 9 years later.

The war also caused the economic collapse of the soviet union. Not to mention the humiliation of losing to Afghans. This was the downfall of the Russian empire, at that point they were the super power of the day.

Think about it, Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan were 2 of the only 4 people to ever rule the world. Yet they could not successfully conquer or defeat Afghanistan. The British empire ruled one fourth of the whole world, they they failed to conquer Afghanistan. Russian empire the same.

Now the USA face the same fate, retreating after 10 year of invasion, with its technology and its power losing to afghans. It is only matter of time until the history books repeat the same thing for the US too.

Is my point clear enough now?

And last, if you just Google “super powers’ graveyard”, The first answer you will get is “Afghanistan”.