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Afghanistan: The Soviet Invasion and the Afghan Response, 1979-1982

Afghanistan: The Soviet Invasion and the Afghan Response, 1979-1982

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The story of Afghan genocide at the hands of the Soviets.
Review: A professor of history at the University of California at San Diego, Hassan Kakar's scholarly work on the dark days of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan reveals the horrors of the war for those not present to experience it first hand. Meticulously documented, the book provides a detailed account of genocide by the Soviets, and the unspeakable torture of Afghans by KhAD, the Afghan government's agency of terror. While the Soviets killed over one million Afghans one village at a time, KhAD tried to break the will of the resistance in Kabul, brutalizing the proud Afghans in the overcrowded dungeons of Pul-e-Charkhi prison. Kakar speaks from personal experience, since he spent many years there as a prisoner of conscience.

The author reviews the period prior to the Soviet invasion, recounts the events and forces at work immediately prior to it, and provides an analysis of why the invasion occurred. That Brezhnev and a handful of Kremlin leaders erred is indisputably a contributing factor to the Soviet implosion which was to follow little more than a decade later. The Afghan resistence to communist rule began on a small scale shortly after the April 1978 coup by Taraki. Nationalist resistance organizations and Islamic resistence efforts gathered momentum in the years after, succeeding eventually - to the astonishment of the world. Kakar documents the "scorched earth" military policy of the Soviet invaders throughout rural Afghanistan and in the areas around Kabul.

The Afghan tragedy continued after the last US-supplied Stinger missile had been fired by the uncommonly brave Afghan mujahideen. As the Soviets withdrew, political machinations within the Pakistan based resistence groups intensified, exacerbated by foreign interference. Kakar's epilogue examines the fratricidal period following the Soviet withdrawal, and creates the context for understanding the emergence of the Taliban movement of today.Political organizations, biographical sketches, data on refugees, and the text of a 1979 telephone conversation between Kosygin and Taraki are provided in the appendices. Detailed notes and bibliography provide writers and researchers tools for further elaboration of the Afghan tragedy, the holocaust of the 1980s.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: A Critique of the Title
Review: Although the writer has squeezed much information and research into this book, it can hardly be labeled as possessive of a neutral character when analyzing the socio-political and economic situations prevalent in the country. This book certainly is not sufficient and certainly not recommended for developing an assessment of Afghan history or socio-political structure and strata.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Afghanistan: The Soviet Invasion and the Afghan Response, 1
Review: Kakar is that rare and unhappy intellectual fated to an eventful life. An Afghan who studied and published in the West, then became a prominent professor of history at Kabul University, his opposition to the Soviet invasion got him arrested by the communist regime in 1982. Kakar spent the next five years in the notorious Pul-e-Charkhi prison, during which he had horrible experiences and witnessed even worse ones. Kakar�s own life was spared, perhaps because of the interest in his case generated by American colleagues and Amnesty International. Upon release, he fled to Pakistan; and in 1989 he immigrated to the United States, where he now lives (in San Diego).

Afghanistan is a monument of scholarship by an individual who lived closely through the events described (he tells of going onto his roof, for example, to watch the Soviet troops storm the presidential palace in 1979). Kakar kept a journal over the three years 1979-82 that exceeds one thousand pages; he also used his time in prison to interview a wide range of inmates. Much of his information is new and his interpretations fresh. At the same time, his is a work of unabashed passion. The author presents a fiercely partisan history of his country, for example justifying the increasingly close contacts with the Soviet Union from the 1950s on, while presenting the Russian invasion as a bitter act of betrayal. As for the United States, he believes Americans have a moral responsibility to the Afghans, and it is now time for them to assist in transforming the poisonous culture into a healthy one. Indeed, this is more a threat than an appeal, for Kakar ends his tome with a warning that the poisonous culture . . . may grow too great to ignore: in addition to the British graveyard in Afghanistan and the Soviet one, he warns there may also one day be an American one....

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Afghanistan: The Soviet Invasion and the Afghan Response, 1
Review: Kakar is that rare and unhappy intellectual fated to an eventful life. An Afghan who studied and published in the West, then became a prominent professor of history at Kabul University, his opposition to the Soviet invasion got him arrested by the communist regime in 1982. Kakar spent the next five years in the notorious Pul-e-Charkhi prison, during which he had horrible experiences and witnessed even worse ones. Kakar's own life was spared, perhaps because of the interest in his case generated by American colleagues and Amnesty International. Upon release, he fled to Pakistan; and in 1989 he immigrated to the United States, where he now lives (in San Diego).

Afghanistan is a monument of scholarship by an individual who lived closely through the events described (he tells of going onto his roof, for example, to watch the Soviet troops storm the presidential palace in 1979). Kakar kept a journal over the three years 1979-82 that exceeds one thousand pages; he also used his time in prison to interview a wide range of inmates. Much of his information is new and his interpretations fresh. At the same time, his is a work of unabashed passion. The author presents a fiercely partisan history of his country, for example justifying the increasingly close contacts with the Soviet Union from the 1950s on, while presenting the Russian invasion as a bitter act of betrayal. As for the United States, he believes Americans have a moral responsibility to the Afghans, and it is now time for them to assist in transforming the poisonous culture into a healthy one. Indeed, this is more a threat than an appeal, for Kakar ends his tome with a warning that the poisonous culture . . . may grow too great to ignore: in addition to the British graveyard in Afghanistan and the Soviet one, he warns there may also one day be an American one....


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