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Time To Start Learning About Afghanistan. Especially About That First Afghan War of 1838.

October 7, 2008

Time To Start Learning About Afghanistan. Especially About That First Afghan War of 1838.(By Christopher Lee.) So, Brigadier Mark Carleton-Brown, the senior British commander in southern Afghanistan, says Taleban cannot be beaten militarily. There isn’t a British commander who hasn’t known this for some time and few who haven’t said it in private. Meanwhile, the Americans are sending another brigade to do what the brigadier says can’t be done. Maybe the Americans should remind themselves that this year marks the 170th anniversary of the start of the First Afghan War (1838-1842).

This is very briefly what had happened then: as part of the Great Game of who controlled that region and the troublesome tribal leaders, the British went into Afghanistan, installed a puppet leader and then found that they could not beat the tribesman by military means. The puppet fell off the British strings, the British were beaten and had to withdraw and, in doing so, were massacred.

Now the problem with learning from history is that most politicians don’t know any history and rarely know how to draw any lessons from the bits they do know. Also, when a US President gives an order to invade another country he does not really know about its history. Not to mention that his office and status provide him with a personal sense of invincibility. In other words, the buck does not really stop with him.

Now, let’s look at what is going to happen in Afghanistan. The Americans will increase their cross border raids into Pakistan and will, undoubtedly, unsettle the Taleban and Al Qaeda in the border regions. The US military knows full well that if they want to get at the insurgent leadership then they have to go even deeper during hot pursuit and cross border attacks. (So perhaps Washington really shouldn’t be criticising Syrian actions along the Lebanese border).

But, however successful the American assaults are, three conclusions arise: firstly, incursions will destabilise the Pakistani government. Although Islamabad knows that it has to tacitly accept the military logic behind the US attacks, it cannot say so publicly. Secondly, however disrupted the Taliban are, they will always be able to regroup. Thirdly, the British brigadier did not have to go to 1838 for his history lesson. He could have as well went to the 1990s and Northern Ireland: the IRA could not be defeated militarily so it had to be brought/forced to the negotiating table.

On the face of it, the circumstances in Afghanistan are quite different, but the logic is similar, if not the same. The American target is terrorism, by which the White House means nothing less (and not much more) than the defence of continental United States. Taleban doesn’t do terrorism in the US. Al Qaeda does. Al Qaeda is safer (for the moment) in Pakistan. So in a curious military and intelligence community way, the problem is not Afghanistan – in spite of the Intelligence Analysis of 2001.

Everyone in Afghanistan, from President Hamid Karzai down, knows this. The British military know this. Obama will come to know this. McCain will never know this.

The new Central Command chief, General David Petraeus, has already asked a hundred so-called experts to work out a new US strategy for Afghanistan. He might well be advised to include in that wise group a historian, who knows a thing or two about the 1838-42 First Afghan War.

And he sure would do well if he keeps an eye on this website.

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One Response to “Time To Start Learning About Afghanistan. Especially About That First Afghan War of 1838.”

  1. Vera Hatcher on October 7th, 2008 6:07 am

    “The {Afghan} campaign brought honours and promotion to many, but for me it had nothing but misfortune and disaster. I was removed from my brigade and attached to the Berkshires, with whom I served at the fatal battle of Maiwand. There I was struck on the shoulder by a Jezail bullet, which shattered the bone and grazed the subclavian artery. I should have fallen into the hands of the murderous ghazis had it not been for the devotion and courage shown by Murray, my orderly, who threw me across a pack-horse, and succeeded in bringing me safely to the British lines”

    (Conan Doyle, A Study in Scarlet)

    It was more than 100 years ago! I guess ghazis are today’s talibs? …The old lesson was never learnd…

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