#8
Novaya Gazeta
No. 87
November 29-December 2, 2001
AT ALL COSTS
The United States has bought its victory in Afghanistan. For Russia it is always easier to pay in lives
Author: Valery Shiryaev
[from WPS Monitoring Agency, www.wps.ru/e_index.html]

THE CAMPAIGN IN AFGHANISTAN WAS EXPENSIVE, NICE, AND FAST. AN EXAMPLE WAS SET FOR FUTURE CAMPAIGNS. AN EXAMPLE FOR EVERYONE, RUSSIA INCLUDED. IT NOW SEEMS TO BE OVER, BUT THE MAJOR PROBLEM, THAT OF ROOTING OUT TERRORISM, HAS NOT BEEN SOLVED. IT HASN'T REALLY BEEN A WAR.

Military results disappointing, political results staggering

The season of hostilities in Afghanistan is drawing to its end. Wars are not fought there in winter. Summing-up time has come. As I suspected ever since the beginning of the counter-terrorism operation, it was not a war. The Americans bombed the Taliban from high altitudes, at night, and landed forces in Afghanistan on only two occasions: in order to get out again half an hour later. American TV companies ran 24-hour updates on how the enemy was getting the worst of it. There were just a few killed or wounded (discounting civilians, of course). The campaign was expensive, nice, and fast. An example was set for future campaigns. An example for everyone, Russia included.

It was not a military fiasco because it was not a war as such. On the other hand, political results are staggering. General public was brainwashed by propaganda into thinking that they were results of the military campaign. The number of armed criminals (aka "patriots" if Tajiks and their allies aka "terrorists" in Pushtu) has not changed. It could not have undergone any dramatic changes in two months only. This figure has remained stable since 1978: 25,000 - 45,000 in summer and 15,000 - 25,000 in winter. Just under 50% population (and warriors) are nomads, drifting across Afghanistan and Pakistan with the seasons. The amount of weapons wielded by them has not changed. The same can be said about tribal detachments. The number of poppy fields and heroin laboratories must have even increased.

Has anything changed? The Taliban has disappeared. A great deal of new Pushtu appeared. Several commanders and thousands Arabs, Pakistanis, Chechens, and Uzbeks have failed to prove that they are Pushtu too. They are forced to remain the Taliban. All of them amassed in Kunduz and Kandahar, but they are no longer a factor that will amend the correlation of forces in Afghanistan. This correlation has held in Afghanistan for centuries.

The Americans understand the necessity of conquering all of the Afghanis in order to root out terrorism in Afghanistan. And that is not what can or should be expected from modern armies. Instead of fighting the Afghani peoples, the Americans bought them. It was as simple as that. It is only in Russia that buying managers without paying employees is considered Boris Berezovsky's invention. In Oriental politics these methods have been used since the time of the pharaohs. $600 million to Pakistan in the first two weeks are only a curtain-raiser. Journalists do not know - cannot know - how much was paid to tribal leaders and how much was promised. Results are what counts and results are impressive - total retreat from cities, new authorities, new names...

This is the most impressive non-military solution of a military problem in the new century. Hail the Americans who bought their soldiers' lives in the war that never took place. A lot may change yet, for worse as well, but let this war remain a war that will have never taken place.

There is, however, the question of how thoroughly the Americans took into account the tragic British and Soviet experience of fighting in Afghanistan. So far, the United States has landed less than a regiment in the Afghani plains to guard the airfield. If the American army gets carried away by what it might have mistaken for its victory and moves out to the mountains, it will be made pay for it and pay dearly. The Pentagon has chosen the only correct strategy there is and should stick to it.

What is to become of Afghanistan? Will it become a heroin desert roamed by armed and uncontrollable tribes under the fake government recognized by the UN? Are we about to discover on the map of Afghanistan two ethnic states with the capitals in Kabul and Kandahar (states living on heroin export too)? It doesn't matter really because the United States, and Russia too, is still facing the major problem - evolution of global terrorism. The latest developments in Afghanistan have made a great propagandistic effect of course, but the real problem is beyond the sphere of propaganda. The quiet war on terrorism is underway. The general public is unlikely to be informed of its details.