The Mighty: There is no greater historical example of an unstoppable force hitting an immovable object than the Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. Afghanistan is a mountainous, landlocked, harsh country that makes it very difficult for a great power to bring the full might of that power to bear against the locals. Naval forces are
Eisa Ayoobi via The Globe Post: Ashraf Ghani and Zalmay Khalilzad have been the most influential Afghan-Americans to impact U.S.-Afghanistan relations over the decades. Their education and Washington-based experience have earned them rhetoric sway and a vastly influential network of friends. However, their ethnonationalism-aspired Afghanistan “vision” has cost the U.S. thousands of lives and “trillions of
CJR: In 1985… [US] Congress approved a $500,000 grant for the United States Information Agency, a department devoted to “public diplomacy,” to establish a journalism school for Afghan rebels. According to Alvin Snyder, who worked for the agency at the time, arming guerrillas with minicams was a simple, cost-effective way to deliver press attention. “Imagine the
The Telegraph (UK): The treasure has come to light only because it was dug up illicitly in Afghanistan and smuggled to Britain. It dates from between about 2300 and 2000 BC when Afghanistan was closely connected by trade with the neighbouring Bronze Age civilisations in the Indus valley (Pakistan), eastern Iran and southwest Central Asia. Click here
Global Voices: In 2001, the Taliban infamously blew up a giant carved Buddha in Bamiyan, a region defined by its diverse archaeology, coruscating lakes, vivid panoramic valleys and rich-green meadows. If it is possible to muster a response to such devastating cultural loss, then the five-day Dambura Festival, which has now become a regular fixture in
Monadnock Ledger-Transcript: The National Museum of Afghanistan in Kabul had once been ranked one of the most important museums in Asia, home to over 100,000 objects excavated in Afghanistan. Over the years, however, stray bombs and looting had depleted about 70-percent of the collection and much of the museum building by the mid-1990s. Click here
Atas Obscura: Tajbeg Palace stands atop a knoll dominating Kabul as a concrete allegory to Afghanistan’s recent past. Rusting wheels that once supported the manually-operated cable car that transported Queen Soraya to her husband in the nearby Darul Aman Palace share faded opulence with ornate architraves, hacked marble, and grammatically incorrect Taliban graffiti. Click here to
MOSCOW, July 18 (Sputnik) – Afghanistan’s statement that Russia should apologize to the Afghan people for the decade-long Soviet military operation in Afghanistan “raises nothing but surprise and bewilderment,” Russian Foreign Ministry’s Second Asian Department Director Zamir Kabulov told Sputnik on Wednesday. Earlier in the day, Afghan Ambassador to Russia Abdul Qayyum Kochai said that
The Times (UK): Some were wounded and came to rely on their captors, others feared what would happen to them back in Russia. Their lives now are very different to how they thought they would turn out when Soviet tanks rolled in to Afghanistan 39 years ago. Click here to read more (external link).
TASS: A former Soviet pilot, who went missing in Afghanistan in 1987 and was tracked down fairly recently, may return to Russia within the next twelve months, a source at the Boyevoye Bratstvo [Combat Brotherhood] veterans charity international fund told TASS on Friday. Initial information suggests the pilot’s name is Alexander Mironov. Click here to