By Peter Galuszka
On Feb. 15, 1989, I was standing amid reporters and people waving red flags and holding flowers at the northern end of a metal bridge linking Uzbekistan with Afghanistan. A row of Soviet BTR armored personnel carriers streamed home as their crews waved and smiled.
These were the last troops to withdraw from Afghanistan, where the nearly 10-year war had killed about 15,000 Soviet troops and 2 million civilians. The Soviet Foreign Ministry badly wanted foreign correspondents to record the last of the withdrawals.
They chartered a plane to take us from Moscow to Tashkent, the Uzbek capital. From there we went to a Soviet Air Force base where tough looking men loaded flares on the sides of gigantic cargo planes. They would shoot off the flares to distract U.S.-made Stinger missiles as they corkscrewed into Kabul.
Next on our trip was the small town of Termez where Russian helicopter gunships buzzed overhead. Near the bridge, was a parade ground covered with locals. I spoke with a teenage girl who said: “They’ve taken us out of school four times to practice this.”
The lesson was that Afghanistan is always going to be a remote quagmire. The British and Russian empires found that out in the 19th century and now the Americans are after a seemingly endless 18-year-long war that has left about 2,400 U.S. troops and more than 58,000 civilians dead. Continue reading
By Peter Galuszka
