30 years after the Afghanistan war: Gorbachev has betrayed us

in 1979, marched the Red army in Afghanistan - ten years later they had to retreat after big losses. As a defeat, especially Russian military does not want to see the war but also today.

By Hermann Krause, ARD Studio in Moscow

The withdrawal from Afghanistan was anything other than heroic. The Soviet forces left after ten years of struggle, more like a defeated army, the country on the Hindu Kush. In the Soviet TV it was shown, however, different.

"dear Comrades. The Central Committee of the CPSU welcomes you warmly. Ye sons of the socialist homeland. You have to be honest and courageous in fulfilling your Patriotic duty. At the request of the legitimate government, you have the people in Afghanistan defended".

It was a proxy war that was conducted there. The Taliban were equipped by the USA with weapons. Again and again pictures were to be seen, on which the heavy Russian tanks in the mountains stuck with missiles from U.S. production were shot down. It is a guerrilla war, the Soviet soldiers could not win. In the official news but the withdrawal ceremony was celebrated with music

Jihad against the Communists

The Red army invaded in December 1979. A unit of the KGB stormed the presidential Palace and murdered ruler Hafizullah Amin. Babrak Karmal was installed as the new President. The result: a "Holy war" against the Communists. The Islamic groups have received money from Saudi Arabia and the United States.

One of the last Soviet tanks to leave Afghanistan.

at Least a Million Afghans died. The number of killed Soviet soldiers is officially stated at 14,000. Unofficially, there were injured and 50,000 people Dead and 180,000.

30 years later, the assessment of the war in Afghanistan is not easy. "From a military point of view, one cannot speak of a defeat. The soldiers have successfully fought terrorist groups. It was a purely political decision. Gorbachev's decision, the troops, must be seen in the context of its foreign policy," says the historian Yuri Niki Wolof.

Foreign policy

And the war had become too expensive in isolation. He devoured billions of rubles. In terms of foreign policy he isolated also the USSR. As so often in Russian history, be things, in retrospect, displayed differently.

"It was all done to our army and this war is not to demonize, in order to explain the war to a crime. How can it be that the army is fighting while the guide 'you are murderers' screams. The whole inventory foulness of the government of Gorbachev. He has betrayed everything," the writer Alexander Prochnow.

A Position represented by the then veterans of the Afghan war and today's military.

in 1989, had convicted the Supreme Soviet of the USSR at the Urging Gorbachev to the invasion, both politically and morally. The present Duma has rejected this in a draft on the occasion of the annual day strictly. It says: "The invasion came about on the basis of the friendship Treaty with Afghanistan. In the spirit of international understanding."

"Gorbachev has betrayed us"
Hermann Krause, ARD Moscow
15.02.2019 10:56 PM

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