The Foreign Service Journal, December 2005

D E C E M B E R 2 0 0 5 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 51 n the introduction to one of his engrossing histo- ries of relations between Russia and the West, George Kennan suggested that the reader was in a better position to understand the complexity of the events he was describing — the actions and reactions of the key actors — than they them- selves were at the time. The reader, after all, could benefit from detailed studies of what had happened and why, written from the perspectives of all the parties involved. I had reason to reflect on Kennan’s observation while reading Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan and Bin Laden from the Soviet Invasion to Sept. 10, 2001 by Steven Coll (Penguin Books, 2004). It is an insightful analysis of events in that part of the world over the last quarter-century: invasion and occupation by the Soviet Union, followed by civil war, rule by the Taliban, the presence of al-Qaida and the U.S. invasion in the fall of 2001. Near the end of his book, Coll writes: “The pollsters’ fever charts from America, Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia depict an impassioned, sharply divided world, in which, among other things, the standing of the U.S. in popular opinion has plummeted in a very short time. Holding their flag-draped ceremonies in secret, American military transport crews unload dead and wounded in twos and threes from Iraq and Afghanistan. In such a tempestuous present, an examination of the past seems a relative luxury.” Speaking as someone who has served in the region and who continues to follow developments there, I would respectfully submit that, far from being a luxury, examining Afghanistan’s history is a necessity. Few countries have suf- fered as much, or as visibly, as it has in the last quarter-cen- tury. The toll in lives and materiel is staggering: one million dead, six million displaced (one-third of the population at the time), and an infrastructure — dams, roads, irrigation systems — largely bombed into rubble. Mines are every- where. The International Red Cross estimates that 200,000 Afghans have been killed by explosive devices since 1979, and that Soviet mines, along with unexploded ordnance from the U.S. invasion, kill or injure hundreds every month, including American soldiers. So it comes as no surprise that the 2003 United Nations’ Human Development Index, based on such factors as liter- acy, health services, malnutrition and access to potable water, ranks Afghanistan 173rd out of 175 countries sur- veyed. Life expectancy for males there is 46 years. The infant mortality rate, roughly 160 per thousand live births, is exceeded only by Angola’s. And to compound the diffi- A FGHANISTAN ’ S T ROUBLED P AST AND U NCERTAIN F UTURE T O UNDERSTAND HOW A FGHANISTAN WAS TRANSFORMED INTO A BREEDING GROUND FOR TERRORIST ATTACKS ON THE W EST , AND TO HELP IT GET BACK ON ITS FEET , WE NEED TO KNOW SOMETHING OF ITS BLOODY HISTORY . B Y A RTHUR L EZIN Arthur Lezin was a USAID Foreign Service officer from 1962 to 1988, serving in Central America, South America, Asia and Africa. Over the years he has contributed a num- ber of articles and photographs to the Foreign Service Journal and the Washington Post . In addition to writing, he skis with the “Over the Hill Gang” in Bend, Ore. I