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PAS : KE ARAH PEMERINTAHAN ISLAM YANG ADIL
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Soviet veterans have an advice for US
MOSCOW: The prospect of a U.S. attack on Afghanistan
brings an ominous message from veterans of the Soviet
Union's decade-long war with Afghan guerrillas: You'll
never win.
"You can occupy it, you can put troops there and keep
bombing, but you cannot win," said Lt. Gen. Ruslan
Aushev, who was decorated for bravery during the
1979-89 war.
The brutal conflict in the mountainous land helped
bring about the superpower's collapse. The Soviet
Union said it lost 15,000 troops in Afghanistan, and
unofficial estimates are much higher.
Moscow sent troops to the country to back a fledgling
Communist government against Islamic rebels supported
by the United States. The Taliban militia who now rule
most of Afghanistan have sheltered Osama bin Laden,
whom the United States suspects of masterminding last
week's terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and
the Pentagon.
Any nation sheltering bin Laden faces "the full wrath"
of the United States, Vice President Dick Cheney said
Sunday.
But even if U.S. officials are certain bin Laden is in
Afghanistan, it may be impossible to find him there,
Aushev said in a telephone interview Tuesday from the
Russian region of Ingushetia, of which he is
president.
"It's as easy to lose yourself in the mountains as in
the jungle," he said. "They'll find him only if
they're ready to go over 500,000 square kilometres
rock by rock."
Renowned warriors, the people of Afghanistan have
staved off many a foreign enemy. Like the Soviet Union
and Britain, which attempted to conquer the country in
the 19th century, the United States is destined to
fail, Aushev said.
"America doesn't want to kill 20 million Afghans," he
said, implying that nothing short of genocide could
win a war in Afghanistan.
"No matter how they prepare for a ground operation, it
is hopeless," said Yevgeny Zelenov, a member of the
Russian parliament and a veteran of the Soviet war.
U.S. troops would be facing a people who have learned
to "sleep and live with their weapons," he said.
After the Soviet occupation, violence among rival
factions killed more than 50,000 people. And fighting
between the Taliban, who preach the idea of holy war,
and the northern-based opposition alliance has
continued since the Islamic fundamentalist militia
took power in 1996.
But Alexei Arbatov, deputy chairman of the Russian
parliament's defense committee, said U.S. officials
have the advantage of Soviet experience as they plan
their campaign.
Moscow has amassed in-depth knowledge of Afghanistan's
terrain and may still have valuable intelligence
contacts that it could share with Washington. But the
United States may be able to learn the most from
Soviet mistakes, Arbatov said.
"At a minimum, the experience of Russia in Afghanistan
is already influencing the U.S. in the sense that the
United States is not planning - and I am convinced
will never plan - to bring in a big contingent of
ground troops with the goal of occupying Afghanistan,"
he said at a news conference.
But because of the abundance of hiding places, missile
strikes without a ground operation are destined to be
nothing but "noise, aimed at showing the government is
doing something," Zelenov said.
Khulkar Yusupov, who covered the Soviet war for the
newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda, said he doubted the
United States could pinpoint military targets and
avoid heavy civilian casualties.
During the Soviet war, Yusupov was most disturbed by
the suffering among the already impoverished civilian
population. "You can't just pinpoint one gorge there.
If you hit one gorge, you hit all the nearby
villages," he said.
( AP )
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