-Caveat Lector-
Russian Military Veterans
Warn US - 'Don't Go
Into Afghanistan'
By Richard Balmforth
9-20-1
"Despite the fact that the Soviet force had hundreds of
thousands
of men, powerful weaponry and held the main transport arteries,
it
had to deal with a well-prepared and well-trained enemy," said
Gromov.
And while U.S. society was "sensitive to loss of life", human
losses in Muslim Afghanistan were viewed differently. "What
Allah has given, so Allah takes, they believe. A person who is
killed in battle for his motherland and faith passes straight to
paradise," he said.
MOSCOW (Reuters) - U.S. plans for military operations in
Afghanistan have triggered an outpouring of advice from Russia's
Afghan veterans who say a full-scale war there would be folly.
With painful memories of Moscow's costly 10-year Afghan
adventure still etched in their minds, they are issuing a single
message to their old Cold War enemy: "Don't do it."
"We lost 15,000 men in 10 years of war in Afghanistan -- I don't
think the Americans could escape that either," said Boris
Gromov,
the Soviet general who led the retreat of Moscow's defeated
forces from Afghanistan in 1989.
"They (the Americans) are getting ready to repeat our mistakes.
It
is just not possible to conquer or pacify Afghanistan by
military
means," General Makhmut Gareyev, a former military adviser to
the late Afghan President Najibullah, wrote in a newspaper
interview on Thursday.
The historical irony has not been lost on the Russian military
establishment as it now lectures the United States on the
dangers
of drawn-out involvement in Afghanistan.
When the late Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev ordered "a limited
military contingent" into Afghanistan in December 1979 it
plunged
East and West into a new Cold War crisis.
The United States led the West in angrily condemning the Soviet
intervention and called on the Kremlin to pull its forces out
and
leave the Afghan people to determine their own fate.
As Soviet forces slipped into the quagmire of combat with Afghan
mujahideen forces, turning it into Russia's Vietnam, the word
from
the West was: "We told you so."
By the time they left, besides the Soviet losses, an estimated
one
million Afghans had been killed and another eight million had
been
exiled or displaced.
OLD SOLDIER'S ADVICE
Gromov, the last Soviet soldier out of Afghanistan in February
1989, told Moskovsky Komsomolets newspaper that mountain
fighting against hardy and elusive guerrillas had proved a
bitter
experience.
"Despite the fact that the Soviet force had hundreds of
thousands
of men, powerful weaponry and held the main transport arteries,
it
had to deal with a well-prepared and well-trained enemy," said
Gromov, now governor of the Moscow region.
"Intelligence of all kinds will play the most important role,
especially in the form of intelligence agents. Don't worry about
spending money on them, because there can't be success without
them."
Gareyev, writing in Obshaya Gazeta, said Afghanistan's lack of
real infrastructure meant there was little of value to be
destroyed
by an air campaign.
And while U.S. society was "sensitive to loss of life", human
losses
in Muslim Afghanistan were viewed differently. "What Allah has
given, so Allah takes, they believe. A person who is killed in
battle
for his motherland and faith passes straight to paradise," he
said.
Communications and supply lines in the rugged, mountainous
terrain would be key for any ground operation.
"We had 100,000 men and five divisions in Afghanistan. But we
could use only 15,000 troops in combat operations. The rest had
to guard roads, bases, headquarters, communication junctions
and other military infrastructure," said Gareyev.
BEWARE TALIBAN'S MILITARY STRENGTH
Colonel-General Vladimir Kulakov, deputy chairman of the defence
and security committee of Russia's upper house Federation
Council, told Interfax that "certain failure awaits the
Americans"
The United States and its allies must avoid a large-scale war
and
target clearly defined "terrorist" bases.
Referring to Saudi-born dissident Osama bin Laden, whom the
United States sees as the prime suspect in the U.S. attacks,
Kulakov said: "They will have to work out where bin Laden and
the
leaders of the guerrilla fighters are and seize them in a
special
services operation."
Lieutenant-General Boris Agapov, a former deputy commander of
Soviet border forces, said the problem would not end with bin
Laden's capture. "We need to wage a strongly-founded and
merciless fight against terrorists. Either we finish with this
endless
evil or it will not only exist but spread," he told the Novaya
Gazeta
newspaper.
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