Genghis Khan And Afghanistan
June 5th, 2007
Question: why is everyone trying to invade afghanistan???
what does it have? be specific, dont just type $$$ :/
Alexander the Great
Arab Islam
Mahmud of Ghazni and the Ghaznavids
Genghis Khan
Tamerlaine
The Turks
The Moghuls
The British Empire
The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics 1979-1989
NATO
Answer: Afghanistan was once treated as an en-route country; you had to go through it to get anywhere valuable and well-endowed with natural resources. The Greeks, Arabs/Moghuls, Turks and British saw it as the route to India and conquered it to secure "safe" transport for travellers and for goods. The same was true for the Mongols from the East.
In the 19th century, Afghanistan became a buffer state in "The Great Game" between the British Empire in India and Russian Empire. On 19 August , 1919, following the third Anglo-Afghan war, the country regained full independence from the United Kingdom. For the rest of 20th century, the British had an additional reason to continue to work in Afghanistan: as a spying post on the Soviet Union, but that was not a military occupation. When the British moved out finally after about 1975, a vacuum existed between Afghanistan and the rest of the region, and USSR invaded to prevent the numerous incursions into their territory. The Russians' Afghan experience was not successful and collapsed completely after perestroika 1985, when Red Army funding was reduced.
NATO is there now as a front for the USA in its so-called War on Terror, which included the overthrow of the Taliban regime. The official belief is that Bin Laden is holed up in Afghanistan (or maybe Pakistan, or maybe Iran, or maybe Yemen, or maybe Libya, etc) and, anyway, Americans want to control the opium trade which is centred on the country. Since USA invaded Afghanistan in 2001, opium output has increased by an estimated 22 per cent in value; Bin Laden has not been found; Taliban seems to have more adherents than before; army atrocities (war crimes?) are reported regularly; and about 2000 non-Afghans have died violently. No one knows how many Afghans have died violently.
There may be other reasons for American and other western involvement: Afghanistan's natural resources include gold, silver, copper, zinc and iron ore; precious and semi-precious stones such as lapislazuli, emerald and azure; and potentially massive petroleum and natural gas reserves as yet untapped. The country also has uranium, coal, chromite, barites, sulphur, lead, and salt. Quite a good place to occupy and invest billions of dollars to keep control of production, don't you think?
The country seems set for another century of civil war or occupation by unfriendly powers. The wiki below is interesting but not totally accurate: it presents the current situation as progressive and encouraging but very few Afghans would agree, so read it with caution.
CNN Student News Transcript: February 17, 2010
February 17, 2010
Afghanistan (HerStory)
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