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
An' go to your Gawd like a soldier.
- Rudyard Kipling, The Young British Soldier
There were twice as many American airstrikes in Afghanistan during the past three months than there were in Iraq.
Kind of hard to believe considering the almost complete lack of news media coverage in America. The Afghan government is so helpless in its fight against the Taleban that they are arming southern warlords in the hope that they will turn their guns on the Taleban rather than the even more unpopular coalition forces.
Meanwhile, British soldiers are pushing into territory that hasn't been under government control in 30 years. They are also repeating 126-year old history. The same history that still haunts Britain and Afghanistan today.
The British Empire attempted to subdue Afghanistan
three different times between 1838 and 1919. Quite simply, Afghanistan was just a minor player in
the Great Game - a political battle played out between Russia and Britain over border states. When Russia supported Iran's seizure of Herat, Britain decided that they needed a puppet government in Afghanistan to protect their Indian colony border.
They didn't know what they were getting into.
The British army easily deposed Afghanistan's ruler Dost Mohammad, and supplanted him with Shah Shuja in 1838. Shah Shuja had been deposed in 1809 and attempted to retake his throne by force in 1833. He had failed, but when Dost Mohammad began negotiations with Russia, Britain decided that Shah Shuja was their man.
If this all sounds vaguely familiar, its because America has tried to do the same thing in Afghanistan. King Mohammed Zahir Shah was the last king of Afghanistan (rule: 1933 to 1973). His rule was best remembered by how he built castles and bought palaces in Italy while thousands of his people starved in famines. No new roads, highways, dams and other infrastructures were built during his entire rule. After the Taleban were kicked out, the Bush Administration installed him as a figurehead king and granted him the title of 'Father of the Nation'.
You might also remember that Bush-installed, Afghan President Hamid Karzai, used American bodyguards rather than Afghani bodyguards until just a couple months ago. The fact that it took five years just to find a couple native bodyguards he could trust speaks volumes.
Meanwhile, back in 1839, the British had quickly learned that their puppet Shuja required the British army to maintain his rule.
The occupation dragged on.
Disgruntled Afghan tribal leaders began flocking to Dost Mohammad's son, Mohammad Akbar Khan. When rioters killed a British officer and his aides in Kabul the British army sent their official envoy, Sir William Hay Macnaghten, to negotiate with Khan. Khan instead decided to throw Macnaghten in prison. However, Macnaghten never spent a day in prison because an angry mob intercepted him first and removed his head. Virtually under seige, General William Elphinstone then made the fateful decision to retreat to Peshawar rather than defend his position.
On January 5, 1842, about 4,500 military personnel and 12,000 camp followers set out for Jalalabad, 30 miles away. Treacherous gorges, deep snow, and high passes lay between them and safety. More importantly, tens of thousands of Afghan warriors were waiting for them.
It was a massacre. Only a single survivor, Dr William Brydon, himself wounded and on a dying horse, managed to reach Jalabad. Thus the western world was introduced to Afghanistan's already present reputation as "the Graveyard for Foreign Invaders."
Without the British to protect him, Shuja failed to live to see spring. That fall the British invaded Afghanistan and rescued 95 prisoners in Kabul, then burned down the citadel and the central bazaar.
After which there was nothing left to prove and the British withdrew, and then proceeded to ignore Afghanistan for more than a decade.
Since this has taken far longer than I expected, I'll have to put the history of the Second Anglo-Afghan War in a seperate diary. The actions and results of that war echo in today's news even more than the First Anglo-Afghan War.
