In the Graveyard of Empires: America's War in Afghanistan (44 page)

Introduction

1.
Central Intelligence Agency,
CIA World Factbook 2007
(Washington, DC: Central Intelligence Agency, 2006).

2.
Edward Walsh, “Staff Sgt. Robert J. Paul Killed Sept. 8 in Afghanistan,”
The Oregonian,
September 12, 2006, p. B1.

3.
Cecilia Rasmussen, “Army Reserve Sgt. 1st Class Merideth Howard, 52, Alameda, Killed in Blast,”
Los Angeles Times,
October 1, 2006, p. 14.

4.
Alexander Downer, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Australia, Address to the 61st Session of the United Nations General Assembly, September 21, 2006 (New York: Australian Mission to the United Nations, 2006).

5.
President Karzai Calls the Terrorist Attack on the Funeral Ceremony of Hakim Taniwal an Animosity Against Islam and the People of Afghanistan (Kabul: Office of the President, Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, September 11, 2006).

6.
President George W. Bush, Address to a Joint Session of Congress and the American People, United States Capitol, Washington, DC, September 20, 2001 (Washington, DC: White House Press Office, 2001).

7.
David M. Walker,
Global War on Terrorism: Observations on Funding, Costs, and Future Commitments
(Washington, DC: U.S. Government Accountability Office, 2006), p. 7.

8.
Central Intelligence Agency,
CIA World Factbook 2007
(Washington, DC: Central Intelligence Agency, 2006). Figures were in purchasing-power parity. Only 27 out of 229 countries had a gross domestic product over $430 billion.

9.
Transcript of Combatant Status Review Tribunal Hearing for ISN 10024 (Khalid Sheikh Muhammad), March 10, 2007, U.S. Naval Base Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, pp. 17–18.

10.
On the overthrow of the Taliban regime, see Gary Schroen,
First In: An
I
nsider’s Account of How the CIA Spearheaded the War on Terror in Afghanistan
(New York: Ballantine Books, 2005); Stephen Biddle,
Afghanistan and the Future of Warfare: Implications for Army and Defense Policy
(Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, November 2002); Gary Berntsen and Ralph Pezzullo,
Jawbreaker: The Attack on Bin Laden and Al Qa’ida
(New York: Crown Publishers, 2005); Bob Woodward,
Bush at War
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 2002).

11.
Henry A. Crumpton, “Intelligence and War: Afghanistan 2001–2002,” Jennifer E. Sims and Burton Gerber, eds.,
Transforming U.S. Intelligence
(Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2005), p. 177.

12.
Berntsen and Pezzullo,
Jawbreaker,
p. 312.

13.
On the definition of insurgency, see Central Intelligence Agency,
Guide to the Analysis of Insurgency
(Washington, DC: Central Intelligence Agency, n.d.), p. 2;
Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Terms,
Joint Publication 1–02 (Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Defense, 2001), p. 266.

14.
I use
insurgency
as roughly synonymous with what is often called
civil war,
which can be defined as “armed conflict that pits the government and national army of an internationally recognized state against one or more armed opposition groups able to mount effective resistance against the state.” Michael W. Doyle and Nicholas Sambanis,
Making War and Building Peace
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006), p. 31. Also see, for example, Stathis N. Kalyvas,
The Logic of Violence in Civil War
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 5; James D. Fearon and David D. Laitin, “Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War,”
American Political Science Review,
vol. 97, no. 1, February 2003, pp. 75–90.

15.
RAND-MIPT Terrorism Incident Database. Following are the yearly figures on insurgent-initiated attacks in Afghanistan: 2002 (65 attacks); 2003 (148 attacks); 2004 (146 attacks); 2005 (207 attacks); 2006 (353 attacks). Following are the fatalities during the same period: 2002 (79 deaths); 2003 (133 deaths); 2004 (230 deaths); 2005 (288 deaths); 2006 (755 deaths). A comparison of the RAND-MIPT data with U.S. and European government data shows that the RAND-MIPT data significantly understate the number of attacks and deaths, since most improvised-explosive-device and armed attacks were never reported in the press. Nevertheless, the trend in the RAND-MIPT data is consistent with U.S. and European government data.

16.
Pamela Constable, “Gates Visits Kabul, Cites Rise in Cross-Border Attacks,”
Washington Post,
January 17, 2007, p. A10.

17.
The data come from Admiral Michael Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. See, for example, Ed Johnson, “Gates Wants NATO to Reorganize Afghanistan Mission,”
Bloomberg News,
December 12, 2007.

18.
Sarah Chayes,
The Punishment of Virtue: Inside Afghanistan After the Taliban
(New York: Penguin Press, 2006), pp. 105–6.

19.
Amrullah Saleh,
Strategy of Insurgents and Terrorists in Afghanistan
(Kabul, Afghanistan: National Directorate of Security, 2006), p. 4.

20.
Rudyard Kipling,
Rudyard Kipling’s Verse: Inclusive Edition, 1885–1926
(New York: Doubleday, 1931), p. 479.

21.
Winston S. Churchill,
The Story of the Malakand Field Force: An Episode of Frontier War,
2nd ed. (London: Longmans, Green, 1901), p. 274.

22.
Ahmed Rashid,
Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000), p. 13; Barnett R. Rubin,
The Search for Peace in Afghanistan: From Buffer State to Failed State
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1995), p. 7; Lester Grau, ed.,
The Bear Went Over the Mountain: Soviet Combat Tactics in Afghanistan
(Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 1996), p. xix.

23.
Ann Scott Tyson, “British Troops, Taliban in a Tug of War over Afghan Province,”
Washington Post,
March 30, 2008, p. A1.

24.
General Tommy Franks,
American Soldier
(New York: Regan Books, 2004), p. 324.

25.
Author interview with senior U.S. cabinet official, January 15, 2008.

26.
United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime,
Afghanistan Opium Survey 2007: Executive Summary
(Kabul: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2007), p. iv.

27.
For other variants of the weak-state argument, see Antonio Giustozzi,
Koran, Kalashnikov, and Laptop: The Neo-Taliban Insurgency in Afghanistan
(London: Hurst & Company, 2007), pp. 7, 15–21.

28.
Amartya Sen,
Development as Freedom
(New York: Anchor Books, 2000), p. 11.

29.
James Michener,
Caravans
(New York: Fawcett Crest, 1963), p. 7.

30.
See, for example, Saleh,
Strategy of Insurgents and Terrorists in Afghanistan;
Afghanistan National Security Council,
National Threat Assessment
(Kabul: Afghanistan National Security Council, 2005); Afghanistan Ministry of Defense,
The National Military Strategy
(Kabul: Afghanistan Ministry of Defense, October 2005).

31.
George Crile,
Charlie Wilson’s War: The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert Operation in History
(New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2003), p. 4.

32.
Mohammad Yousaf and Mark Adkin,
Afghanistan—The Bear Trap: The Defeat of a Superpower
(Havertown, PA: Casemate, 1992), p. 1.

Chapter One

1.
Stephen Tanner,
Afghanistan: A Military History from Alexander the Great to the Fall of the Taliban
(Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2002), pp. 17–18.

2.
Quintus Curtius Rufus,
History of Alexander,
book 2, vol. 6, translated by John C. Rolfe (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1946), pp. 25–29.

3.
Rufus,
History of Alexander,
book 2, vol. 6, p. 29.

4.
Rufus,
History of Alexander,
book 2, vol. 7, p. 147. Also see, for example, Lewis V. Cummings,
Alexander the Great
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1940), pp. 280–81.

5.
Eric Newby,
A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush
(London: Martin Secker, 1958), p. 243.

6.
See, for example, Frank L. Holt,
Into the Land of Bones: Alexander the Great in Afghanistan
(Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2005).

7.
Marco Polo,
The Travels of Marco Polo,
translated by Ronald Latham (New York: Penguin Books, 1958), p. 77.

8.
Sir George Lawrence,
Reminiscences of Forty-Three Years in India
(Lahore, Pakistan: Sang-e-Meel Publications, 1981), pp. 308–9. The appendix includes a copy of William Brydon’s account, provided on arrival in Jalalabad in 1842.

9.
Holt,
Into the Land of Bones,
p. 4.

10.
Holt,
Into the Land of Bones,
pp. 4–5.

11.
Author interview with Ambassador Ronald Neumann, April 16, 2008.

12.
Rory Stewart,
The Places in Between
(Orlando, FL: Harcourt, 2006).

13.
Marco Polo,
Travels of Marco Polo,
p. 80.

14.
Author interview with Ambassador Ronald Neumann, March 25, 2008.

15.
Henry Kissinger, Memorandum for the President, “Private Conversations with the King and Prime Minister of Afghanistan,” January 26, 1970. Released by the National Security Archive.

16.
U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Intelligence and Research, Research Study, “Afghanistan: Both Government and Political System Face Trial,” March 30, 1973. Also see U.S. Embassy Kabul to Department of State, Airgram A-90, “King Zahir’s Experiment: Some End-of-Tour Observaions,” August 1, 1970. Released by the National Security Archive.

17.
U.S. Embassy Kabul to Department of State, Cable 4745, August 2, 1971, “Audience with King Zahir.” Released by the National Security Archive.

18.
U.S. Embassy Kabul to Department of State, Airgram A-77, “Afghanistan’s Clerical Unrest: A Tentative Assessment,” June 24, 1970. Released by the National Security Archive.

19.
Ambassador Ronald Neumann, Airgram A-90, “King Zahir’s Experiment: Some End-of-Tour Observations,” August 1, 1970. Released by the National Security Archive.

20.
U.S. Embassy Kabul to Department of State, Cable 1806, March 21, 1972, “Afghanistan—Political Uncertainties.” Released by the National Security Archive.

21.
Department of State to U.S. Embassy Kabul, Cable 74767, April 29, 1972, Political Situation.” Also see, for example, Memorandum from Robert A. Flaten, NEA/PAB (Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, Office for Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh), to Bruce Laingen, Office Director, NEA/
PAB, “Afghan Politics—the Creeping Crisis,” May 21, 1972. Released by the National Security Archive.

22.
The KGB in Afghanistan—Geographical Volume 1, Vasili Mitrokhin Archive. Released by the Cold War International History Project.

23.
U.S. Embassy Kabul to Department of State, Cable 4728, “King Zaher Travel to London for Medical Therapy,” June 26, 1973. Released by the National Security Archive.

24.
Memorandum, Harold H. Saunders and Henry A. Appelbaum, National Security Council Staff, to Dr. Kissinger, “Coup in Afghanistan,” July 17, 1973. Released by the National Security Archive.

25.
Author interview with Graham Fuller, August 19, 2008.

26.
Decree of the Secretariat of the CC CPSU—An Appeal to the Leaders of the PDPA Groups “Parcham” and “Khalq,” January 8, 1974; CC CPSU Information for the Leaders of the Progressive Afghan Political Organizations “Parcham” and “Khalq” Concerning the Results of the Visit of Mohammed Daud to the USSR, June 21, 1974. Released by the Cold War International History Project.

27.
Barnett R. Rubin,
The Fragmentation of Afghanistan: State Formation and Collapse in the International System,
2nd ed. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002), p. 115.

28.
The Delivery of Special Equipment to the DRA, CC CPSU Politburo meeting, April 21, 1978. Released by the Cold War International History Project.