Open and Disguised Invaders of Afghanistan

By: Jan Qarabaghi

During its tortured history of the last 26 years, Afghanistan has been invaded by multiple powers multiple times in multiple forms. Two of these invasions, i.e., that of the Red Army and that of the U.S. Forces, were open and naked: Both unfolded in front of the astonished eyes of a mesmerized world public. In both events, the invaders offered geo-strategic-political reasons aimed at rationalizing and legitimizing, at least in the eyes of their own nations, their military actions against Afghanistan. Both open invasions were accompanied by deafening promises of liberty, freedom, and prosperity for the people of Afghanistan. Both invading powers installed in the principality of Kabul regimes that were headed and run by quislings they had courted and nurtured for many years in the past.

After ten long years of conducting a vicious, unforgiving war in the mountains and deserts of Afghanistan, as a result of which the Afghan nation was disseminated into ethnic/linguistic particles, and which brought tremendous loss of men, materiel, and prestige to the invader, the first open invasion ended in the miserable failure to fulfill the promise upon which it was predicated: A liberated, progressive, prosperous Afghanistan. One reason for the colossal failure of the first open invader was that the promise it had made was itself fake and untrue. How could a regime that had made slaves of its own people, could liberate another nation that was freer than its own?

Now, since October 2001, we are witnessing the unfolding events of the second open invasion of Afghanistan. The relentless work continues and no end is at sight. The question one would want to ask at this point is the following: Is the second open invasion going to achieve what its name, Operation Enduring Freedom, was designed to convey? Is it going to rout out terrorism in the region and liberate the people of Afghanistan from the shackles of tyrannical warlords? Is it going to rebuild the devastated nation, and is it going to change its “abject poverty” to “dignified poverty” (to use the timid words of the present finance minister, Ashraf Ghani)? Despite the official hoopla and photo-ops in Kabul and Washington, the ground realities of Afghanistan and its surroundings, as pictured by the media, do not bode well for providing a positive answer to this important question.

Contrary to the above-mentioned open invasions, other invasions of Afghanistan were more subtle and of a disguised nature, camouflaged with brotherly, humanitarian, Islamic motives, and strung to less brazen claims. No political-military reasons were given by those engaged in these subtle, camouflaged invasions, because, under the guise of helping a fellow Muslim country or a historically friendly nation, none was needed and none was asked for. The subtle, camouflaged invasions were, and still are, the result of pure ill-will, ignorance, hubris, or greed on the part of those involved in it.

The list of the disguised invaders of Afghanistan is long; it includes, but is not limited to, countries such as Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia, countries of the Central Asia, China, and India. Although both open and disguised invasions have inflicted great pain and misery on the people of Afghanistan, the effects and consequences of disguised invasions seem to have been far more serious and devastating for the long-run survival of the country. This is so, because camouflaged invasions have cost Afghans their feel for unity, nationhood, culture, history, tradition, and even religion. This type of invasion has darkened the souls of the Afghans against each other, created distrust among them, and robbed them off of their spirit of oneness and cooperation. What kills Afghans and ills Afghanistan today are the epidemic diseases of disunity, localism, militarism, and sectarian mentality that were brought to their country by the camouflaged invaders.