Afghanistan: Human Cost of Armed Conflict since the Soviet Invasion

Abstract

The Afghan wars present a good example of contemporary conflicts, often described as “complex political emergencies” CPEs . These are the offshoots of diverse factors related to ethno-national, ethno-geographic, ethnoeconomic, ethno-religious and ethno-sectarian manifestations. In order to comprehend these conflicts in entirety, one needs to examine Afghanistan’s historico-cultural and linguistic dynamics, socio-economic structure, religiotribal ideologies, and geo-strategic and geopolitical stereotypes. The aim of the article is to furnish a comprehensive record of the impact on the country’s human capital from the Soviet occupation up to the US invasion. The US invasion in the post-9/11 environment, however, brought no let up to the miseries of the Afghan people. Importantly, the current Afghan conflict embodies horrendous consequences for the country’s survival on the one hand, and regional and global security on the other. The article examines how civilians have increasingly borne the brunt of the US and NATO air war against the Taliban and other insurgent groups. It examines air strike and casualty data to analyse trends and identify problems that cause civilian casualties in US air operations In addition, the social and psychological effects and violations of human rights associated with assassinations are more devastating than a body count. Moreover, the lack of security, economic development, effective rule of law, and coordination of effort stand in the way of sustainable progress in the country. Against the failing socio-economic system, opium cultivation has developed as an alternative to country’s poor economic base and quite limited sources of proper food, clothing, housing, and employment.

Keywords

• Al-Qaeda,Taliban, Shura, Durrani, Jihad, Afghan, Capitalist Bloc, villages.

References

1. Anwar Raja, The Tragedy of Afghanistan, London, Verso, 1988, p. 7.
2. It was not until 1747 that long years of scheming, warfare and slaughter came to an end with the ascent of Ahmad Shah Durrani who welded most notorious tribes into one single confederacy. Thus most of the Afghanistan was governed by unbroken Durrani rule till the Soviet invasion of the country in 1979; Larry P. Goodson, Afghanistan’s Endless War: State Failure, Regional Politics, and the Rise of the Taliban, Seattle and London, University of Washington Press, 2001, p. 26.
3. Sir Percy Sykes, A History of Afghanistan-Vol. 2, New Delhi, Macmillan, 1981, pp. 55-57.
4. In one of the intense battles during the Second Anglo-Afghan War some 5,000 Afghans suffered considerably, including women, and children; see, Martin Ewans, Conflict in Afghanistan: Studies in Asymmetric Warfare, London, Taylor and Francis Group, 2005, pp. 76, 83.
5. Maqsudul Hassan Nuri, “Peace in Afghanistan: The Problems and Prospects”, Perceptions: Journal of International Affairs, Vol. 5, No. 4 (December 2000-February 2001), pp. 50-51.
6. Andre Velter, “Lifting the Veil”, in Isabelle Delloye and Marjoljn de Jager (eds.), Women of Afghanistan, California, Ruminator Books, 2003, p. xi; “Afghanistan: Is There Hope for Peace”, Hearings, Subcommittee on Near Eastern and South Asian Affairs of the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, 104th Congress, Second Session, Washington, US Government Printing Press, 1996, p. 27.
7. Based on interview with Afghan nationals in New Delhi on 30 January 2008. 8 Goodson
8. William Maley, “Afghanistan: An Historical and Geographical Appraisal”, International Review of the Red Cross, Vol. 92, No. 880 (2010), p. 869.

9. Barnett Rubin, The Fragmentation of Afghanistan, 2nd edition, London, Yale University Press, 2002, p. x.
10. Stuart J.D. Schwartzstein, “Chemical Warfare in Afghanistan: An Independent Assessment”, World Affairs, Vol. 145, Issue 3 (1982), p. 267.
11. Barnett Rubin, “A Blue Print for Afghanistan”, Current History, Vol. 101, No. 654 (April 2002), p. 153.
12. UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Refugees, Vol. 2, No. 108 (1997), p. 7.
13. UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Refugees, Vol. 4, No. 133 (2003), p. 17.
14. Saif R. Samady, Education and Afghan Society in the Twentieth Century, Paris, UNESCO, 2001, p. 18; for somewhat lower estimates, see, Rubin, The Fragmentation of Afghanistan, p. 1.
15. Nake M. Jamrany, Soviet War Liabilities: Measuring Economic Damages in Afghanistan, Universitiy of Southern California, 1991; see also,“Afghanistan: Is There Hope for Peace”, p. 172.
16. Ralph H. Magnus and Eden Naby, Afghanistan: Mullah, Marx, and Mujahid, Boulder, Westview Press, 2002, p. 9; Rubin, The Fragmentation of Afghanistan, p. 32.
17. Noor Ahmad Khalidi, “Afghanistan: Demographic Consequences of War, 1978-1987”, Central Asian Survey, Vol. 10, No. 3 (1991), p. 106.
18. Ewans, Conflict in Afghanistan, p. 151; Marek Sliwinski, “Afghanistan: Decimation of a People”, Orbis, Vol. 33, No. 1 (1989), pp. 39-56.
19. M. Siddieq Noorzoy, “Some Observations on an Assessment of the Population in Afghanistan”, Journal of the Writers Union of Free Afghanistan, Vol. 3, No. 3 (1988), pp. 6-14.
20. Jamrany, “Soviet War Liabilities”, in Afghanistan: Is There Hope for Peace, p. 173.
21. Goodson, Afghanistan’s Endless War, p.93.
22. Human Rights Watch, “Fuelling Afghanistan’s War”, at http://www.hrw.org/legacy/ backgrounder/asia/afghanistan/afghbk.htm [last visited 20 January 2013].
23. ICRC, “People on War”, Country Report Afghanistan, Greenberg Research, p. ii, at http:// www.icrc.org [last visited 12 December 2012].
24. Human Rights Watch, “Afghanistan: the Massacre in Mazar-i-Sharif”, at http://www.hrw. org/reports/1998/11/01/afghanistan-massacre-mazar-i-sharif [last visited 22 January 2013].
25. Maliha Zulfacar, “The Pendulum of Gender Politics in Afghanistan”, Central Asian Survey, Vol. 25, No. 1-2 (March- June 2006), p. 41.
26. Rais Rasul Baksh, War Without Winners, Karachi, Oxford Press, 1994, p. 20.
27. Ahmad Rashid, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia, New Haven, Yale University Press, 2001, p. 55.
28. David H. Kuhns, “Doctors Without Borders”, in Afghanistan: Is There Hope for Peace, p. 47.
29. Gayle Mertz, “Civil War in Afghanistan”, Social Education, Vol. 65, No. 7 (2001), p. 429.
30. UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Refugees, Vol. 2, No. 108 (1997), pp. 3-10.
31. Mertz, “Civil War in Afghanistan”, p. 429.
32. Carl Connetta, “Strange Victory: A Critical Appraisal of Operation Enduring Freedom and the Afghanistan War”, Project on Defense Alternatives Research Monograph 6, 30 January 2002, pp. 7-8.
33. Andrew Koch, “USA’s Strategy Takes Shape”, Jane’s Defence Weekly, Vol. 36, No. 16 (17 October 2001), p. 2.
34. On 9/11, a catastrophe occurred which signalled unprecedented transformations in world order. So far, the confirmed death toll appears to be just under 3,000.
35. Jonathan Steele, “Forgotten Victims”, Guardian, 20 May 2002.
36. Nafeez Mosaddeq, The War on Freedom: How and Why America Was Attacked, California, Tree of Life Publications, 2002, p. 17.
37. Ewans, Conflict in Afghanistan, p. xxx.
38. A local cartel of Afghan governors-cum-warlords as well as Islamic radicals were looking to regroup for an assault on the United States and its allies. The border areas alongside Pakistan are the hotbed of these activities, notably around Pakistan’s South and North Waziristan belts and the Chaman area; see, Syed Saleem Shahzad, “Afghanistan, Once More the Melting Pot”, Asia Times Online, at http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/EE01Ag03.html [last visited 29 January 2013].
39. Sharad Gupta, “Kabul the Sigh of the Prodigal”, The Sunday Indian, 4-10 December 2006, pp. 24-27; Mondira Dutta (ed.), Emerging Afghanistan in the Third Millennium, New Delhi, Pentagon Press, 2009, p. 42.
40. Thomas H. Johnson, “Afghanistan’s Post-Taliban Transition: The State of State-Building after War”, Central Asian Survey, Vol. 25, Issue 1-2 (March-June 2006), p. 22.
41. Marc W. Herold, “The Matrix of Death: (Im)Precision of US Bombing and the (Under) Valuation of an Afghan Life”, Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, at http://www.rawa.org/temp/runews/2008/10/06/the-imprecision-ofus-bombing-and-the- under-valuation-of-an-afghan-life.html [last visited 18 February 2013].
42. Sami Yousafzai and Ron Moreau, “Face to Face with the Taliban’s New Favourite Weapon in the Afghan War: Human Bombs”, News Week, 14-21 May 2007, p. 38; Swapna Kona, “Afghanistan The Spring Offensive”, Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, No. 44 (April 2007), p. 1, at http://www.ipcs.org/pdf_file/issue/1505221362IPCS-IssueBrief-No44.pdf [last visited 15 November 2012].
43. Yousafzai and Moreau, “Face to Face with the Taliban’s New Favourite Weapon in the Afghan War”, p. 38.
44. Darah Hansen, “Canadian Soldier killed in Afghan Blast”, Vancouver Sun, 26 December 2008.
45. Dexeter Filkins, “09 Deadliest Year for Afghans”, New York Times, 13 January 2010; United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, Afghanistan: Annual Report on Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict, 2009.
46. United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, Afghanistan: Annual Report on Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict 2010, p. i, at http://unama.unmissions.org/Portals/UNAMA/ human%20rights/March%20PoC%20Annual%20Report%20Final.pdf [last visited 10 January 2013].
47. Damien Pearse, “Afghan Civilians Death Toll Reaches High”, Guardian, 4 February 2012.
48. The Soviets believed that all evil comes from the villages, so they decided to cut off the town from the countryside by destroying the villages surrounding the urban regions and forcing the inhabitants to flee. By reducing the number of inhabitants in the rural areas, they realised that there would be less shelter and support for the resistance; see, Syed Bahaouddin Majrooh and Syed Mohammad Yusuf Elmi, The Sovietization of Afghanistan, Peshawar, 1985, p. 152.
49. Jeffery J. Roberts, The Origins of Conflict in Afghanistan, Westport CT, Praeger, 2003, p. xi.
50. Jamrany, “Soviet War Liabilities”, in Afghanistan: Is There Hope for Peace, p. 180. However, Ewan reports that there were some 35,000 villages; Ewan, Conflict in Afghanistan, pp. 132- 133; another Western scholar appropriately likened the country to 25,000 village states: Anthony Arnold, The Soviet Invasion in Perspective, Stanford CA, Hoover Institution Press, 1986, p. 97.
51. These mines, often shaped to appear as toys or other innocuous items, were spread by air and whirled down to earth like maple seeds, and have maimed thousands of curious children, adults, and livestock. It is reported that 50% of Afghanistan’s total livestock (horses, cows, bulls, donkeys, goats, and lambs) have been decimated; Jamrany, “Soviet War Liabilities”, in Afghanistan: Is There Hope for Peace, p. 180; Paul Overby, Holy Blood: An Inside View of the Afghan War, Westport CT, Praeger, 1993, p. 45; Roberts, The Origins of Conflict in Afghanistan, p. xvi.
52. Barnet R. Rubin, “The Fragmentation of Afghanistan”, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 68, No. 5 (Winter 1989-1990), pp. 150-168; Roberts, The Origins of Conflict in Afghanistan, p. xvi.
53. Kuhn, “Doctors Without Borders”, p. 49.
54. Gary R. Shaye, “Save the Children”, in Afghanistan: Is There Hope for Peace, p. 36.
55. “Rebuilding Afghanistan: A Little Less Talk, a Lot More Action”, CARE International, at http://www.careusa.org/newsroom/specialreports/afghanistan/09302002_policybrief.pdf [last visited 16 December 2012].
56. Herold, “The Matrix of Death”.
57. Goodson, Afghanistan’s Endless War, pp. 95-96.
58. Barnet R. Rubin, “The Political Economy of War and Peace in Afghanistan”, World Development, Vol. 28, No. 10 (2000), p. 1795.
59. Goodson, Afghanistan’s Endless War, p. 96.
60. Rubin, “The Political Economy of War and Peace in Afghanistan”, p. 1796. 63 Ibid., p.1798.
61. Shaye, “Save the Children”, Afghanistan: Is There Hope for Peace, p. 36; Goodson, Afghanistan’s Endless War, p. 96.
62. Taimor Shah and Alissa Rubin, “A Suicide Attack Targets Police in Kandahar”, New York Times, 5 February 2012.
63. Noor Ul Haq, “Post-withdrawal Scenario in Afghanistan”, IPRI Factfile, 27 September 2011, p.2; “Afghan Attack Kills 8 CIA Men”, The Times of India, 1 January 2010.
64. Rajat Pandit, “Why Does Pakistan Need to Fight F-16s to Fight Taliban”, Sunday Times of India, 17 January 2010; A recent report prepared by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies estimated US $20 billion in aid since 9/11; Malou Innocent, “U.S. Policy Towards Afghanistan and Pakistan”, Cato Handbook for Policymakers, 7th Edition, CATO Institute, 2011, p. 532.