Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Afghanistan: 'Graveyard of empires' - 01 Dec 09
Afghanistan has been called the 'graveyard of empires' - a land that has never been conquered by a foreign force.
Russia's red army spent a decade there and returned to the Soviet Union broken and defeated.
As the US sends more troops to Afghanistan, it could learn from the former Soviet Union's experience there.
Al Jazeera's Neave Barker reports from Moscow on the lessons to be learned.
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Graveyard of Empires may be a nifty headline, but is actually not true.
ReplyDeleteBut in fact, these are only two isolated examples. Since Alexander the Great, plenty of conquerors have subdued Afghanistan. In the early 13th century, Genghis Khan’s Mongol hordes ravaged the country’s two major cities. And in 1504, Babur, the founder of the Mughal Empire in India, easily took the throne in Kabul. Even the humiliation of 1842 did not last. Three and a half decades later, the British initiated a punitive invasion and ultimately won the second Anglo-Afghan war, which gave them the right to determine Afghanistan’s foreign policy.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/28/opinion/28bergen.html
<span style="">Genghis Khan, the guy that massacred half the world’s population and set back human civilization 1000 years, is that your new role model? Anyway so what if he "ravaged the country's two major cities" the Americans and Soviets could have done that within minutes. The cities have always been easy game for any invader. The graveyard of empires is not the cities, it is the natural guerrilla territory of the afghan hinterland. </span>
ReplyDelete"Babur, the founder of the Mughal Empire in India, easily took the throne in Kabul."
ReplyDeleteThe fact that he was a Muslim might have had something to do with that, hello!
Genghis Khan, the guy that massacred half the world’s population and set back human civilization 1000 years, is that your new role model?
ReplyDelete<span><span></span></span>
:-D I have disagreed with you a lot, but I have never thought anything you wrote was dumb. But this one takes the prize. My comment was all about the easy little slogan that is often used as a preface to what passes for an analysis of the situation in Afghanistan. "The graveyard of Empires" is quite simply inaccurate. Genghis Khan managed to conquer Afghanistan. That is an historical fact and I do not recall expressing approval of Khan's methods of conquest!
The slaughter of the British in 1842 did not mean the demise of the British Empire. In fact, the British Empire continued on for another 100 years. Graveyard of Empires is wrong. This guy says it better than I:
The term refers to the military adventures of Alexander the Great, the British Empire and the Soviet Union, all of whom fought campaigns in Afghanistan. As the “graveyard” analogy goes, all tried and failed to bring Afghanistan under their control, and this failure then somehow led to the collapse of their respective “empires,” serving as a pretty powerful lesson from history. <span></span><span></span>
It’s also a pile of rubbish.
http://www.mantlethought.org/content/time-bury-graveyard-empires
For the most part all of these are "sack and run" contingencies, the rot begins when you remain. There is no complete colonization without almost complete extermination, and it would seem that some want to follow this costly path.
ReplyDelete<span>Genghis Khan, the guy that massacred half the world’s population and set back human civilization 1000 years, is that your new role model?
ReplyDelete<span><span></span></span>
:-D I have disagreed with you a lot, but I have never thought anything you wrote was dumb. But this one takes the prize. My comment was all about the easy little slogan that is often used as a preface to what passes for an analysis of the situation in Afghanistan. "The graveyard of empires" is quite simply inaccurate. Genghis Khan managed to conquer Afghanistan. That is an historical fact and I do not recall expressing approval of Khan's methods of conquest!
The slaughter of the British in 1842 did not mean the demise of the British Empire. In fact, the British Empire continued on for another 100 years. Graveyard of empires is wrong. This guy says it better than I:
The term refers to the military adventures of Alexander the Great, the British Empire and the Soviet Union, all of whom fought campaigns in Afghanistan. As the “graveyard” analogy goes, all tried and failed to bring Afghanistan under their control, and this failure then somehow led to the collapse of their respective “empires,” serving as a pretty powerful lesson from history. <span></span><span></span>
It’s also a pile of rubbish.
http://www.mantlethought.org/content/time-bury-graveyard-empires</span>
"Three and a half decades later, the British initiated a punitive invasion and ultimately won the second Anglo-Afghan war, which gave them the right to determine Afghanistan’s foreign policy."
ReplyDeleteUntil the third Anglo-Afgahn war in 1917.
"I have disagreed with you a lot, but I have never thought anything you wrote was dumb."
ReplyDeleteToo bad I can't say the same LOL
=-O I'm crushed!
ReplyDelete<span> "the rot begins when you remain." </span>
ReplyDelete<span></span>
<span>Exactly</span>
<span><span style="">For example, in the first Anglo-Afghan war of 1838, the British captured all the major cities with little resistance, but their heavy handed rule soon resulted in a popular uprising by the people which resulted in the massacre of the entire British army of 15,000, save one. </span></span>
ReplyDelete<span><span style="">In the second round of 1878, again they were able to occupy all of the major cities, but unlike the last time, the British got wind of an impending rebellion against their occupation, and brutally crushed it in a pre-emptive move. They did subsequently withdraw, but not before setting up a puppet government that</span></span><span><span style=""> lasted until 1917, when Afghanistan declared war on Great Britain. After a period of border skirmishes, and the bombing of Kabul by the Royal Air Force, Britain conceded Afghanistan’s independence. </span></span>
<span><span style="">The point is that the British could not stay in Afghanistan. Had their army attempted to remain for extended periods of time they would have suffered enormous casualties. As V said "There is no complete colonization without almost complete extermination."</span></span>
If not the graveyard of empires then the graveyard of imperialists? My old grandad was wounded fighting the "Wily Pathan" in the 1890s. "Those who forget the past ..."
ReplyDeleteare condemned to repeat it.
ReplyDelete