{"id":965,"date":"2021-09-02T16:43:05","date_gmt":"2021-09-02T15:43:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/crosstownservices.co.uk\/malcolminthemiddle\/?page_id=965"},"modified":"2025-07-26T10:48:18","modified_gmt":"2025-07-26T09:48:18","slug":"afghanistan","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/crosstownservices.co.uk\/malcolminthemiddle\/afghanistan\/","title":{"rendered":"Afghanistan"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Tribalism, sectarianism and why Afghans were and are not ready to enter the “modern era”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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You’d think we’d learn from history!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cartoon in Punch<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SECOND AFGHAN WAR, 1878. Save Me From My Friends!<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amir Sher Ali of Afghanistan endeavors to stand between the Russian bear and the British lion as each eyes the other with suspicion. English cartoon by Sir John Tenniel, 1878, shortly after the outbreak of the Second Afghan War.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

What happened in August 2021 with the withdrawal of U.N forces from Afghanistan has to go down as one of the worst military and human disasters of modern times. As I write this early in September 2021 there are rumours that the abandoned military hardware is already on its way to Iran. That to put it mildly cannot be good. Then there is the question of who will be killed because of their association with what was regarded as an occupying force.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The real mistake was to put troops on the ground in the first place 20 years ago. At the time it seemed that if the Taliban could be removed from power then a democratic westernised open society would suddenly arise as if by magic. The western mind assumed that democracy was what everyone wants and longs for. But the Americans might just as well have got into time machines and travelled back to Europe in the “dark ages” and try to impose the “modern era”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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For any resident of Reading Afghanistan <\/strong>should hold a special place. Many of our lads died out there, and for what exactly?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The “Maiwand Lion” in the Forbury Gardens seems to be the only British memorial “commemorating” the battles at Maiwand (July 1880) and Kandahar (September 1880) see below ……<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

A quick look at history, including the Battle of Maiwand which we lost with 1000 dead! And just before the end he comments that reinstating the Afghani leader after the 2nd Afghan war was rather like if the Americans today put the Taliban back in charge. Ironically prophetic or what?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In short it is Islam that rules Afghanistan. It is a religion that seems to work best in a medieval rural economy, it does not lend itself to modernisation. The “west” is decadent, oppressed by the “Great Satan” that is America. It might well be that residents of Kabul have welcomed western ways, but in the country it is a different story. Sadly between 1929 and 1979 Afghanistan experienced a time of peace, almost a “Shangrila”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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