Comments on: Remembering Ahmed Shah Massoud

By: gerone

gerone — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 15:56:08 +0000

yes it was hekmatyar who destoried everything along side with with the taliban and Dustom too. massoud stayed and fought for the people of kabul for the women and childeren, In persian we say if one dog lick the river it won’t make the river dirty! people can say what ever they like massoud is true hero for the world. now we are suffering from the terrorism which he was fighting for the world but not only afghanistan, we should have listen to him .

By: Ataman Rakin

Ataman Rakin — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 15:45:24 +0000

I agree with Farhad. The Kabul bombing was done by psychopats Hekmatyar and by PDPA-turncoat Dostum.

As for RAWA, a club of Marxist feminist fossils, it is not a reliable source.

By: farhad

farhad — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 19:04:21 +0000

i think you dont know massoud, there were no massacare in kabul, it is a make up by RAWA and the criminals who were srunding kabul, alies of golbuddin hekmatiar, bombarding kabul daily by thousends rockets… . he was defending the city.

By: Wahdat

Wahdat — Sun, 16 Sep 2007 01:11:21 +0000

I could not agree more with joshua, he is forgetting the iranian link, not to mention the chinese link as well. him+7 others were all common criminals who were involved in anti-Afghan activities long before soviets invaded Afghanistan.
thanks to soviet invasion that made leaders out of them there comes the cia link which i hope they will put right this time and realy practice what they preach. True democracy in Afghanistan will not flourish with a parlament full of war criminals.

By: Joshua Foust

Joshua Foust — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 19:58:49 +0000

That’s actually what I meant. When I wrote a review of Steve Coll’s “Ghost Wars,” I talked about how Massoud was totally justified in being resistant to the CIA’s efforts. When I call it “antipathy,” I don’t mean to say it in a pejorative sense, merely that he was wary (to say the least) of the American committment to his country… a wariness that history has born out.

By: Steve LeVine

Steve LeVine — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 19:40:15 +0000

Joshua, not sure what you refer to regarding Massoud’s antipathy toward the U.S., unless you mean the irritation you, too, would feel about a CIA that reserved almost all its weapons pie for the Peshawar-based Big 7 mujahedin leadership, with crumbs going to the most successful Afghan-based commander.
That aside, Massoud’s legacy is not simply that of a commander who tried and died, which is basically what you suggest. Nor was he simply a battlefield commander — Olivier Roy’s 1982 classic “Islam and Resistance,” as you recall, criticized Massoud as a wonderful political leader but a lousy general.
Massoud was a towering figure within the mujahedin and post-mujahedin leadership. There were many differences among the journalists and others who met the various commanders and political leaders at the time. Did Massoud connive with the Soviets during the 1980s? And why did he allow the massacre of the Hazaras in Kabul during the 1990s (the opium question was less important, since the north provides only about 2 percent of Afghanistan’s opium crop)?
Yet following the 1989 Jalalabad fiasco, precisely one commander remained on the ground fighting until Najibullah’s 1992 collapse. And following the 1996 Taliban capture of Kabul, again only Massoud still stood — until his assassination.
For most foreigners who met him, you simply could not help but be impressed. A cut far above the rest. So I understand why the northern-dominated Kabul leadership still festoons his photo around the capital. It’s not a case of mere sentimentality.