The Burial Ground of Empires.

"When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains, and the women come out to cut up what remains, jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains and go to your gawd like a soldier."

Rudyard Kipling.

My mother loved to read

and was a truly incurable romantic. She loved Rudyard Kipling's Kim, still in print more than a century after its first publication. She named my brother after the main character because she hoped he would enjoy travelling and seeing the world. This character, Kimball O'Hara, is actually a British agent, and surely one of the youngest agents in the field. It is a really good book, very enjoyable and surprisingly pertinent.
We have drained the proverbial swamp and are now up to our ass in alligators. (Good saying for Florida but not going to mean much in Pashto.) Let's look at this ancient land so rich in history and so front and center in our war on terror. Some back round and more on the book, Kim:

"Rudyard Kipling was the first to chronicle the treacherous and often clandestine exploits of the subcontinent's so-called Great Game. A century later, the West should heed his advice and exercise 'extreme caution before contemplating an extended plunge into the Afghan morass'
It was published exactly 100 years ago, in the fall of 1901, but it is hard to imagine any work of fiction as bitterly relevant today -- in the second half of September, 2001 -- as Kim, Rudyard Kipling's masterpiece. Too easily dismissed as an artifact of patronizing "Orientalism," Kim is not only "the finest novel in the English language with an Indian theme," according to Bengali scholar Nirad Chaudhuri, "but also one of the greatest of English novels in spite of the theme." But that theme could not be more contemporary: Kim tells of the Great Game, the secret war an otherwise peace-loving British raj conducted against sinister forces of disorder located across the northern passes -- in Afghanistan, to be precise. Equally contemporary -- almost heartbreaking in the aftermath of last week's terror -- is the Lahore-born author's brilliant portrayal of the precious Indian civilization that needs protection: a gloriously diverse, ecumenical society supported by deep traditions of religious and social tolerance, yet tragically vulnerable. Suddenly, Kipling's striking effort to imagine a humane imperialism -- to honour his beloved India in the name of the raj -- does not seem so quaint. Kim has always been more influential as a political, rather than a literary, work. Anti-imperialists will not be surprised to learn that Allen Dulles, director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency during the height of the Cold War, revered Kim and died with a well-thumbed copy at his bedside. The Great Game that Kipling immortalized, pitting Russia against Britain in an extraordinary clandestine struggle that swept across Central Asia throughout the 19th century, flowed seamlessly into the secret war that Dulles led, with all its geopolitical fallacies intact. The buoyant, archaically noble spirit of Kim transformed easily into the beau ideal of the early CIA."

http://www.sfu.ca/~burr/Afghanistan/John~Barber~re~Kipling.html.

Alexander of Macedon invaded Afghanistan after defeating and killing the Persian emperor, Darius, and assuming his crown in 330 BC. He fought his hardest campaigns in Afghanistan but met Rokhsana (Roxanne) there. She was the daughter of a local Afghan chief. From there Alexander went on to invade India, where he was injured. He died in Baluchistan on the way back to Afghanistan and Roxanne. Alexander was only 32 years old when he died. After his death Roxanne and her young son were murdered by insurgent Afghans.

In 1220 AD Genghis Khan, the megalomaniac formerly known as Timujin of the Mongols, invaded Afghanistan with an army of 220,000 warriors. Undeterred by the massive size of the invading army the locals fought him for five years. Finally, after the death in battle of one of his sons, Genghis Khan laid waste the land of the Afghans. Ironically, he ended a flourishing culture and erased many cities and monuments. Genghis Khan died at the age of 72 years in 1226 AD. His body was carried back to his homeland and buried in a hidden place. Recently archaeologists believe they may have found the grave.

Ahmad Shah Baba ruled Afghanistan as its first king selected by the elders and leaders of the Pashto speaking elements. He changed his name to Abdali Durrani. He ruled with the help of elders and chiefs until his death in 1772. His realm grew to be larger than present day Afghanistan.

In 1833 and again in 1839 the British fought in Afghanistan. There interests were primarily standing down Russia which was influencing Iran. This was hot war/cold war and it was termed The Great Game. Britain aimed at regime change. Britain expended large sums of money and tied up armies for decades.

The Afghans experimented with different forms of government always with the Loya Jirga or council of elders and chiefs. There were periods of liberalism and of crack down. Finally Marxists made inroads and on Christmas of 1979 Soviet troops invaded to install Babrak Karmal.

This effort went smoothly at first

but the Soviet army met furious resistance and the conflict soon developed into a Soviet version of America's Vietnam. The cost to the USSR was mammoth. Another grave for another empire.

In 1992 a former mujahid, village mullah and head of the local madrassa, Mullah Mohammad Omar, gathered mujahidin and former students around himself and formed the group who called themselves taliban, for seekers of knowledge. The Taliban began a series of attacks on notorious warlords and established their near mythic reputation. They had a target rich environment--lots of despicable warlords to attack and defeat. Pakistan recognized the rule of the Taliban as the legitimate government of the country in May, 1997. Saudi Arabia followed soon thereafter.

By the middle of 2000 Osama bin Laden

was the Taliban paymaster. His agents attacked Ahmad Shah Masood September 9, 2001, in a most cowardly way posing as newsmen with a bomb laden camera. Masood died September 10, 2001.
The following day Osama bin Laden's suicide pilots flew into the Twin Trade Towers in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, DC. A third target was either the Capitol Building or the White House but was foiled by courageous, unarmed passengers on the plane.

It is understandable that our president targeted Afghanistan in the War on Terror following the attacks on New York City and Washington, DC.

Why Iraq was chosen we might never know. It must have appeared worthwhile at the time.

The two theaters of war are going to cost us more than we can afford. We are no longer defending the homeland. We have effected regime change in both countries. We swore we would not engage in nation building, and could not have chosen two less auspicious countries for such a venture. There are now democratically elected governments in both nations and that is more than can be said for the Muslim world in general or the neighborhood in particular. Let's look at costs:

War costs may total $2.4 trillion

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By Ken Dilanian, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — The cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could total $2.4 trillion through the next decade, or nearly $8,000 per man, woman and child in the country, according to a Congressional Budget Office estimate scheduled for release Wednesday.
A previous CBO estimate put the wars' costs at more than $1.6 trillion. This one adds $705 billion in interest, taking into account that the conflicts are being funded with borrowed money.
The new estimate also includes President Bush's request Monday for another $46 billion in war funding, said Rep. John Spratt, D-S.C., budget committee chairman, who provided the CBO's new numbers to USA TODAY.
Assuming that Iraq accounts for about 80% of that total, the Iraq war would cost $1.9 trillion, including $564 billion in interest, said Thomas Kahn, Spratt's staff director. The committee holds a hearing on war costs this morning.
"The number is so big, it boggles the mind," said Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill.
Sean Kevelighan, a spokesman for the White House budget office, said, "Congress should stop playing politics with our troops by trying to artificially inflate war funding levels." He declined to provide a White House estimate.
The CBO estimates assume that 75,000 troops will remain in both countries through 2017, including roughly 50,000 in Iraq. That is a "very speculative" projection, though it's not entirely unreasonable, said Loren Thompson, a defense analyst at the non-partisan Lexington Institute.
As of Sept. 30, the two wars have cost $604 billion, the CBO says. Adjusted for inflation, that is higher than the costs of the Korea and Vietnam conflicts, according to the Washington-based Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.
Defense spending during those two wars accounted for a far larger share of the American economy.
In the months before the March 2003 Iraq invasion, the Bush administration estimated the Iraq war would cost no more than $50 billion.
S

http://www.usatoday.com/news/military/2007-10-23-wacosts_N.htm


Where to next for the USA in Afghanistan? The graveyard of empires is going to claim another victim, or so it would appear. Our courageous soldiers and dedicated generals and superior technology are not going to make a peaceful and productive nation of Afghanistan. Look closely at the history of this land. It would take a very brutal central rule fully accepted by the council of elders and chiefs, fully backed by the might of the US Armed Forces, and financed for the duration. Short answer: declare victory and leave with honor. The ugly rule of the Taliban is ended. A democratically elected government is in its place. The land is as pacified as it has ever been. Anyone who wishes to live in peace and harmony has already left or is planning on doing so soon. This is a graveyard and we should leave it before we are interred in it. Save our brave warriors for a more worthy cause. Save our treasury for a more fitting use. Save the Afghan people who fight much better than they govern or farm or manufacture.


Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
George Santayana