Beautiful! Really though, it could be used for many more countries than just Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, WoC has photos from Afghanistan’s new military academy and Blackfive has photos of the troops out and about in the heavy snows that have hit recently.
Dodge County, Wisconsin Sheriff Tod Nehls, a colonel in the Wisconsin National Guard, is in Afghanistan, commenting on the snow and the ANA recruits.
A recent survey has provided a snapshot of the average ANA soldier. He is 22 years old, with a life expectancy of 43 years and no formal education. He comes from a farming village, has seven living siblings and two that have already died. He has lived through tuberculosis, polio, typhoid fever, diphtheria, hepatitis and meningitis having never received immunizations. He has never seen a dentist, rarely a doctor, suffers from malnutrition, and does not understand basic personal hygiene. With that being said, I am impressed daily with the drive and commitment of these warriors.
As I wrote before, a soldier makes around $70 U.S. per month, a two-star general around $650. Yet, these wages have created a backlog in accessions as many want to join the new Army faster than they can be trained. Many left better paying jobs to be a part of securing their new democracy.
And lest we forget, today is the 16th anniversary of the withdrawal of the last Soviet troops from Afghanistan. From the NYT‘s report from Termez back in 1989:
Lieut. Gen. Boris V. Gromov, the commander of the Soviet forces in Afghanistan, walked across the steel Friendship Bridge to the border city of Termez, in Uzbekistan, at 11:55 A.M. local time (1:55 A.M., Eastern time), 9 years and 50 days after Soviet troops intervened to support a coup by a Marxist ally. ‘Our Stay Ends’
“There is not a single Soviet soldier or officer left behind me,” General Gromov told a Soviet television reporter waiting on the bridge. “Our nine-year stay ends with this.”
…
This morning, as the last armored troop carriers rumbled home across the border, a Soviet newspaper carried the first report of atrocities committed in the war by the nation’s military forces. Massacre and Cover-UpThe weekly Literaturnaya Gazeta described the killing of a carload of Afghan civilians, including women and children, and the order by a commander to cover it up.
The article was a foretaste of recriminations expected in the months ahead.
…
Western reporters flown to Termez to witness the finale said the ceremony at the border was one of festive relief at the homecoming. Today, there were no obvious second thoughts expressed about the venture.“The day that millions of Soviet people have waited for has come,” General Gromov said to an army rally in Termez, Reuters reported. “In spite of our sacrifices and losses, we have totally fulfilled our internationalist duty.” Token of Official Esteem
The official press agency Tass said the Defense Ministry presented all of the returning soldiers with wristwatches.
Yet in contrast with the joy at leaving Afghanistan, Soviet press reports told of insurgents massing outside Kabul, the Afghan capital, and other major cities, and of Afghan Army regulars deserting in droves. The reports seemed intended to brace the public for the possibility that defeat would follow retreat.
Vadim Perfilyev, a Soviet Foreign Ministry spokesman, described the situation in Kabul today as “relatively calm” but said the guerrillas continued to gather reinforcements around the main cities and along the highway to the Soviet Union.
And here’s a translation of an excerpt of the Soviet military command’s statement on the withdrawal:
It is important to note that some people are trying to create an analogy between the presence of Soviet troops in Afghanistan and the American actions in Vietnam. It is not only unfair but even absurd to draw such parallels. There cannot be any comparison here, because these two missions are diametrically opposite both in their objectives and tasks as well as in their content and results. Starting with the fact that nobody had invited the Americans in Vietnam, whereas the Soviet troops were sent to Afghanistan after numerous requests from the legitimate Afghan government. Completely different forms and methods were used [in Afghanistan]. We came in not with the goal to occupy and split the country, as it happened as a result of American actions, not with the goal capturing foreign territory, but with the goal of providing internationalist assistance in the defense of sovereignty and territorial integrity of Afghanistan. We never pursued any selfish goals or set any conditions.
Withdrawal of Soviet forces, precisely withdrawal, not flight, as was the case with the American troops in Vietnam, is carried out according to the plan, in strict accordance with the Geneva Agreements on Afghanistan, and according to the will of the Afghan and Soviet people, with the support from the world community. It demonstrated once again that the Soviet Union is true to the principles of new political thinking, its political statements and positions. In the process of withdrawal, we transferred objects and property to the Afghan people with overall value of over 830 million rubles.
At the same time, we did everything we could not to allow the withdrawal of the last Soviet soldier form Afghanistan to become the beginning of a civil war in this country. In the future we will continue to undertake all necessary measures to help the political settlement [in Afghanistan] in the name of bringing peace and security to the Afghan people.
This post was written by...
Nathan Hamm – author of 2973 posts on Registan.net.
Nathan is the Founding Editor and Publisher of Registan.net, which he launched in 2003. He was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Uzbekistan 2000-2001 and received his MA in Central Asian Studies from the University of Washington in 2007. Since 2007, he has worked full-time as an analyst, consulting with private and government clients on Central Asian affairs, specializing in how socio-cultural and political factors shape risks and opportunities and how organizations can adjust their strategic and operational plans to account for these variables. Nathan is currently seeking research, analysis, and consulting opportunities. He can be contacted via Twitter or email.
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