“This was their graveyard”, says Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, speaking of the Soviet invasion of Aghanistan. “As it will be for the Americans”.
So to today’s antagonists, the Soviet war in Afghanistan is ancient history. Yet its remainders are scattered across the Afghan landscape.
The rusting hulks of Soviet aircraft and armor lie crumpled in valleys and on hills. Soviet land mines linger in the soil, even after years of mine-clearing efforts. Soviet-era infrastructure dots the country, including a strange metal runway that commercial planes still land on. The biggest U.S.-run air base, at Bagram, north of the capital, was once a key Soviet staging ground.
And history twists back on itself. In the Soviets’ war, the United States armed and aided the mujahedin; in this one, Russia is increasingly cooperating with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Moscow agreed this month to let the Western military alliance take armored vehicles through its territory. Last month, Russian counternarcotics agents went along on a joint NATO-Afghan drug raid.
Today, the US nervously awaits another document dump from Wikileaks that is expected to cover unflattering correspondence between US diplomatic missions abroad and the state department. The state department has been running damage control and has written a letter to Wikileaks founder, Julian Assange, fearing revealing candid US officials’ views about their EU allies may cost lives.
The reverse argument can be made, of course, that keeping the public in the dark can and does cost lives.
