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Afghanistan: the graveyard of foreign invaders
The commander of the British Army marching on the Afghan Capital Kabul in 1839, General Sir John Keane, wrote in a private letter to a friend, mark my words there will be a signal catastrophe.
The commander of the British Army marching on the Afghan Capital Kabul in 1839, General Sir John Keane, wrote in a private letter to a friend, mark my words there will be a signal catastrophe.
As Washington prepares to punish Afghanistan for providing shelter to Islamic extremist leader Osama bin Laden, it would do well to remember the lessons of the past about the ferocity of Afghan resistance to invaders.
If the United States does not, it would not be the first to fall into the trap.
Had the Soviet Union in 1979 remembered Britain's unhappy experiences in Afghanistan, then it might not have fallen into the same terrible trap, says historian Peter Hopkirk in his book the great game. The British Army first entered the inhospitable landlocked country of waterless deserts and mountain barriers in the hope of installing an obedient ruler to help thwart advances by Britain's imperial rival, Russia, into Central Asia. The first Anglo-Afghan war ended in humiliation with the massacre of some 16,000 British soldiers and their helpers as the column retreated over the snow-filled passes of the Hindu Kush in 1842.
Bureau Report
If the United States does not, it would not be the first to fall into the trap.
Had the Soviet Union in 1979 remembered Britain's unhappy experiences in Afghanistan, then it might not have fallen into the same terrible trap, says historian Peter Hopkirk in his book the great game. The British Army first entered the inhospitable landlocked country of waterless deserts and mountain barriers in the hope of installing an obedient ruler to help thwart advances by Britain's imperial rival, Russia, into Central Asia. The first Anglo-Afghan war ended in humiliation with the massacre of some 16,000 British soldiers and their helpers as the column retreated over the snow-filled passes of the Hindu Kush in 1842.
Bureau Report