More than 620 thousand troops went through this none-year war. According to the official statistics, irrecoverable losses totaled 14,453. About 470 thousand people became handicapped persons due to injuries and diseases. 298 men are MIA. And God knows how many “Afghan veterans” returned from that undeclared war mentally sick, or lost themselves in our peaceful life.
And how much lie was told and flat-out hatred was vented by many politicians and pseudo-pacifists of that time on the Afghan veterans who fairly fulfilled their military duty and Military Oath. It was February 1989 when they launched massed propaganda campaign fomenting hostile feelings to the army, inspiring the opinion in the Russian society that this institution is needless for preservation of Russian integrity and provision of national security.
Russia needed about twenty years to recover from this national-army-abuse disease called “an Afghan syndrome”.
Chitchat and flat speculations about the war in Afghanistan in Russia stopped only after the start of US-led coalition military operation “Enduring Freedom” in October 2001, that was approved by the UN Security Council.
Since that tine, the strength of the US troops in Afghanistan has decreased approximately 5-6-fold, and as of today it is about 25,000. Of them 11,000 soldiers and officers from various special forces make up the Special Operations Forces (SOF) of the US Army. First of all they fulfill special, raid and reconnaissance missions to exterminate Islamic Taliban formations, search and neutralize Al-Qaeda terrorist leaders, and destroy Al-Qaeda control centers and infrastructure objects.
Other American troops (14,000) provide for the operations, or alongside with other troops of the coalition (5-6,000) from 37 countries make up the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and mainly operate as military experts to train commanders and enlisted men of the Afghan National Army (ANA), local police and security units.
Practically immediately after termination of massed air raids against Taliban combatants in 2001 and commencement of Pentagon preparation for the military operation against Iraq, Americans radically reduced the strength of their troops in Afghanistan (Afghans yet have no crude oil there). In so doing, the USA requested their allies initially to increase their national contingents and then transfer them under the control of NATO.
To date, Pentagon insistently pushes its partners mainly from Europe not only to increase their troops in Afghanistan but also to redistribute assignments. It wants to get them involved in active combat operations within the SOF units against Taliban combatants all over the country.
In so doing, the US Administration employs all accessible means. Americans make appeals in the UN and NATO HQ, play on the potential interest of certain countries in membership in NATO “to bind them with blood”. Otherwise, why did Ukraine, Georgia and Rumania send their troops to Afghanistan or Iraq? Prior to membership in NATO, the troops of Czechia, Slovakia, Poland, Hunjgary, Latvia and Estonia were engaged in all flashpoints of “the US strategic interest”.
The pro-American Government of Hamid Karzai freeloads in the conditions of foreign military presence and is mostly concerned with internal struggle for power and its tidbits. By the way, the same happened also during the Soviet military presence in this country. The actual Afghan rulers understand well that they will be overthrown as soon as Americans and their Western allies live Afghanistan.
Therefore Hamid Karzai is self-contradictory to claim that it is necessary to additionally increase the strength of the foreign troops in Afghanistan by 80 thousand men on the one hand, and that the armed formations of Taliban have been destroyed in March 2007 on the other hand…
The closest US allies start understanding that the war in Afghanistan more and more looks like a campaign that meets the interests only of a small group of American politicians. Therefore, skepticism of the NATO European allies is growing. It is caused not only by the increasing death toll and financial expenditures, but also lack of real positive results of the use of force against Afghan Islamistes. However, as the saying is: The most important is not a real war but exercises… That is to say that the troops should practice and gain military experience. About five hundred thousand US and NATO troops already have gained combat experience in Afghanistan and Iraq. What for, against whom?
Apparently, the White House and Pentagon forgot about the national disgrace of America in Vietnam, they forgot that Usama Ben Laden and his Al-Qaeda were raised under the wing of the CIA. And it seems that they together with their NATO allies are deeply bogged down in the Afghan swamp.
The “Afghan syndrome” in American establishment is followed by the “Iraqi syndrome” that loosens the American society inside and undermines the moral and political authority of the USA in the eyes of the whole world.
As you sow, so shall you reap.
