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Introduction:
Although not endowed with the prestige as “World War,” the Cold War and its offshoot conflicts have encompassed more countries than any war to date. One particular country defined the notion of a “Proxy War” during the 1980s. Afghanistan held one of the most brutal and violent wars in the 20th century. The war completely derailed the country which has been unable to reconcile its internal conflicts and effectively communicate with the outside world to this very day.
Interviews:
Mahmood Kakar (Ex-Afghani Mujahedeen):
Where and when were you born?
I was born in northern Afghanistan and I was born in 1958.
What is your ethnic background?
I was Pasthun but where we lived it was all minorities like Uzbeks, Tajiks and we were the only family in that area that was Pasthuns. We were from the majority but we lived in the minority. So we were the minority of that region. My mother is Uzbek and my father is Pasthun so I am kinda mixed Pasthun and I also speak all the languages in Afghanistan, Uzbek, Pasthun and Tajik, those are the three main languages that I speak. So the second language I learned was Uzbek, all my classmates were Uzbek minority.
When you were growing up did you fell like there was tension between the Pasthuns and the Uzbeks?
Yes, yes, it is very interesting, my father owned the majority of the land in that area so he is like, maybe Bill Gates here in Seattle that was the kind of family into which I was born and raised. I remember the first car that was bought in our area that belonged to our father, none one else had cars I that region except our family. And I also remember the first motorcycle in that region was mine that my father, my daddy bought it for me.
While you were growing up what was your everyday experience like?
Here’s what happened in our area while I was growing up like the 1st grade to the 4th grade (approx.1964-1969). Everyday when I was going to school I was passing the villagers, I had a guard with me all the time when I was going to school. So when I was passing the villagers they were shouting, screaming, that we should leave that area because we are Pasthuns and they didn’t like us. So there was a dislike and kind of a jealously towards me from the entire village and school; That why am I the descent of this person who has all this land and wealth? So then my father decided to move me to the center of the city so I could stay there and that was kind of a mixed population of Uzbek, Pasthun and Tajik. He thought that would be a better and more favorable environment for me to live in and continue my education. So you know I had an opportunity to have good schooling. My father told me that it would be a shame if I didn’t take over his land later, so there was always pressure on me to perform and do better than these other ethnic groups. So obviously that competition between ethnic groups made tension on me to study hard.
How old were you when the Soviets came and invaded your country?
Yeah, Yeah, I believe I was twenty years old in Kabul studying at the university of Kabul and I was studying agriculture. So one day I was walking from the dormitory where I used to live, walking toward our classes with some university students and a Russian solider stopped me, stopped all of us and said, he asked me the question. He said, “What’s going on with you guys and why are you guys not friendly with us?” This was from the Russian soldiers who were sitting inside the tanks and monitoring the situation. So I told him, I said, “You know we are just going to school.” And then he said, “When we were in Poland,” he was talking about the invasion of Poland by Russian soldiers. He said when they were there all the people brought flowers to them and then the girls came to the tanks with alcohol. And he asked us if we could find some girls for them so they can drink with them. So I said, “This is not Poland, this is Afghanistan, this is a different society.” So for him to ask us to do this is a bad thing, it is an insult to us. That moment triggered, I was young, that we need to teach these people a good lesson, it is not tolerable. So the entire group of students who were walking to class with me, we decided to do something about this. So that’s where it kind of pushed me to be on the opposite side and fight against the Russians.
When did you actually join the Mujahedeen?
Here’s what happened, the communists were either trying to put me in jail or have me join them, This was because my father was a well known land owner, who had a lot of land up north. And then what they did is they said I have two options. I have to join the communist party or I need to go to the mountains and fight against them. That’s what they told me. I decided to take the second option meaning go join the freedom fighters and that’s why I went and decided to fight. That was like in 1980, ’79 and ’80. And here’s what happened actually, the communist had a list of about 1,600 students at the university to put in jail. And one of my best friends, he came one evening probably around 6:30. I was studying in the library, he found me and he said, “Mahmood I have found a list of 1600 students and your name is on that list.” And I was laughing at him and he said, “Don’t laugh at me and I care about you. If you don’t leave this library in two to three hours they will come to get you.” Initially I though he was joking but he said, “no I swear they will come and take you.” He told me just go to the dormitory and pick up anything you can. Your money or any important stuff and then just go and tell your friends you are going to a friend’s house. That night I decided to go to a village. During the day I was hiding and during the night I was traveling to go north, where my family was. I walked all the way to my home in the north and it took me 23 days. We had a big piece of land and they (the communists) divided it up among farmers. And they put our family members, everyone including my 9 year-old daughter in jail. Then they came and looted everything in our house, we had you know antique rugs, all this good stuff we had in our families. They took everything away and then every week they came and rationed our own kitchen and refrigerator. They said for one week you have a certain amount of this and you cannot eat more than this, even with our kids they did this. And so all of those conditions made us to fight, and there were other people in that area whose relatives were in jail. So we all decided in our area to do something and we actually initiated the movement ourselves. So in Afghanistan it wasn’t like “The Mujahedeen”, it was like local. Each area fought their struggle against the Russians themselves. So we initiated this and we discussed with the elders and we decided to form teams and that’s what they called us later on, the mujahedeen. So it wasn’t like very organized, it was just that we were forced to do something against the Russians.
While in the Mujahedeen what was one of the most scary or significant experiences while fighting the Soviets?
Yeah, one day the Russians were coming to our area and they said they would come and take over our area after we had already drove them from our area. And I saw that the Russian tanks were coming towards us and I got the news and all the villagers said we will fight against the Russians. So we were looking at about 70-80 tanks and helicopters, they were coming towards us. My father had these weapons from WWII that we had buried under the ground, so I said lets get these weapons and see if they work. And believe it or not a lot of the weapons weren’t working, but I saw the villagers they had knifes, axes, just you know whatever they had, sticks. They were standing and they said we will fight against these Russians. And I was thinking about it how are we going to fight all these tanks. It is very interesting, the Russians saw all these villagers and that the villagers were shouting, standing in formation ready to fight. After firing shots from the tanks and after about 2 to 3 hours they retreated seeing that the villagers would not leave and would fight no matter what. But at the end we won, it was a very interesting victory. That even if you have helicopters and tanks if people don’t want you, you can’t do anything.
When did you leave Afghanistan to come to the US?
Actually what happened was our villagers later on, they made me kind of the leader of that area. The elders decided I was well educated and at that time they told me I was leader. Later on I found out we cannot fight the Russians without getting weapons and the only way for us to get weapons was to go to Pakistan. At that time the leadership of Mujahedeen was in Pakistan. And so they asked me to come to Pakistan and help the leaders get weapons. So I decided to come in 1983 and when I came to Pakistan they made me representative of northern Faryab, that’s were I’m from. So I was the representative and my job was to send weapons to Faryab and from’83 to ’87 we were training freedom fighters and sending logistics from Pakistan down to Afghanistan. In the meantime I was also trained by one of the surgeons in our area. When we had a lot of war injuries this old surgeon he asked me, to help him. So I became like a surgical assistant. My sister and brother then asked me to come to the US and enroll in medical school at the university of Washington. The plan was for me to get my education and go back to Afghanistan, so I came to the United States in 1987. I came to Seattle and went to the UW. Graduated as a surgical assistant and have been working here ever since.
Have you been back to Afghanistan and what was it like?
Yes many times, almost every two to three years. Well the US supported the Taliban and maybe their intention was to end the chaos and establish a centralized government. But al-Qaeda took over the Taliban and we saw what they did to our country. Obviously the country was going backwards when the Taliban were there and I am happy that they are gone. But you know the mistake happened when Bush decided to divert his attention from Afghanistan to Iraq, instead of helping Afghani people create a stabilized government. He decided to go to invade Iraq and just forgot about Afghanistan. All people in Afghanistan had a hope that the US would get rid of Taliban and al-Qaeda. That was the hope, to rebuild Afghanistan and make Afghanistan an example of democracy in that region. But instead of that he went to Iraq and I think we are loosing the war in Afghanistan too. We lost a good opportunity by going to Iraq and we were on the right path, to get rid of Taliban and al-Qaeda and bring democracy. Democracy is obviously a difficult subject, it cannot be injected overnight but there were a lot of issues we could have solved but the United States at that time did not focus on those issues.
Is there one unforgettable experience that you will never forget that happened to you while in Afghanistan?
Yes, one memory after we first got “Stingers” (heat-seeking land to air missiles) from the United States. But at that time no one was saying that we were getting these from the United States. The Russians had the upper hand, meaning on the ground they were not successful but they issued air raids with jets and helicopters. That was one of our weakest points during the war. On the day after we got the Stingers I went to a region in between Pakistan and Afghanistan where the freedom fighters had a base, it was around 1986. I saw a jet coming to bombard our area and suddenly after 4 or 5 minutes a Stinger was fired and I saw by my own eye that jet come down. And that was the time I said was the tipping point for the Russians and they cannot move anymore. We were eventually able to disable their air power. That was a moment I remember every time. When I look at the sky I remember that jet coming down.
Matthew Martin (US Army Surgeon):
Where and when where you born?
I was born in 1968 in Pittsburgh, PA.
When and where did you travel to the Afghanistan?
I arrived in Afghanistan in May 2010. I am deployed with the 555th Forward Surgical Team to a small outpost called FOB Bostick. It is in northeast Afghanistan, very close to the Pakistani border. It is right outside the town of Naray.
What did/do you do there?
I am a general/trauma surgeon here. Our unit is designed to deliver medical and surgical care as close to the front lines as possible. We are designed to do emergency surgery to stabilize wounded soldiers. But we end up doing all kinds of medical and surgical care for soldiers and for locals.
Although we provide direct medical care for things like wounds and injuries, another important part of our mission is improving the local public health and health care system. Our aid station works with whatever local medical practitioners are available to assist them and provide education. One of the more interesting things we do is a weekly radio show that is broadcast throughout this area. It is hosted by a local Afghani named Rahim, and is basically a question and answer format for medical issues. The locals send in written questions to Rahim, and he passes them along to us. Someone from our unit writes up some answers and then our interpreter translates them. We then go to the radio station and record a 60-90 minute show. In addition to reading the prepared answers, the host asks us questions to clarify anything that's confusing. The show really focuses on basic public health issues, like how to decontaminate their water safely for consumption, and basic medical problems like rashes, joint problems, etc. According to Rahim it is one of the most popular of his radio shows in the area. In medical school I never thought I would be doing was a medical radio show in Afghanistan!
What were the most difficult and most rewarding parts of your work there?
The most difficult parts are the boredom and the constant threat of people wanting to kill you. You are confined to a small base and get into the same limited routine day after day. We may go for days without seeing a patient, and then get very busy. So you go from boredom to crazy and then back to boredom. Every once in a while we get hit by mortars or rockets, so there is always a risk that if you are in the wrong place at the wrong time, you might not make it home. There is also always the threat of insurgents directly attacking the base, so that is always in the back of your mind.
The most rewarding parts are: 1) being able to save the life of a wounded soldier who might not have made it if our unit wasn't here, and 2) bringing health care to some of the locals who otherwise wouldn't have it. Some of the simple things that we have the capability to do can have an enormous impact on the life of these people, especially the children.
Did you feel hostility while there and if so from whom (do you feel like your presence is appreciated or looked down upon)?
You feel both the hostility and the gratitude. Particularly in a medical unit, the local population greatly appreciates anything we do for them. But as part of the military, a large part of the Afghani population looks at us as simply foreign invaders, and they do not have a history of giving in to foreign invaders.
However one thing that I have found in Afghanistan is how incredibly hospitable the local people are. People have a lot of misconceptions about Islam, but one of their core values is treating all guests with open arms. Even if they have nothing to spare, they will insist on you coming in, making you comfortable, and offering food and drink. They treat guests and strangers much better than I would say our custom is in the U.S.
Did you sense indifference and hostility between different groups of Afghans?
There are significant religious and regional divisions between Afghanis, similar to the Shia/Sunni split in Iraq. They are a tribal people, so their first loyalty is always to their local population over the region or the national government. Outsiders are not trusted. One of the biggest areas of hostility is between those who support or work with the U.S. forces and those who support or actively work with the insurgents. We have a lot of local nationals who work on the base doing support functions or interpreting, and they are at constant risk of being kidnapped/killed or having their families harmed by those who want us gone.
If you could generalize everyday life of an Afghan citizen, what would their everyday experiences and routines be like?
We do not get a lot of opportunity to leave the base and directly observe the local population, but there is a village right outside of the wire of our base that we can see. They live in pretty simple stone and wood structures built into the side of the mountain. It is primarily a farming community, and they spend the day working their fields and now preparing for the wheat harvest. Many of them come here to our base to work.
If you could change any part of the US’s foreign intervention in the Middle East what would you do differently?
I would get the troops out of here and make this solely a diplomatic mission with limited military support. I think we are only breeding more support for the insurgency and anti-U.S. sentiment the longer we are here.
Mahri Haider (Afghan civilian & returning NGO volunteer)
Where and when were you born?
I was born in 1981 in Kabul, Afghanistan. This was a couple years after the invasion of Kabul by the Soviet Union.
What years did you live in Afghanistan and have you gone back to visit?
I lived in Afghanistan until I was three years old. My father had already fled Kabul to go to Pakistan and claim asylum at the US Embassy. He was given asylum and allowed to come to the US as a refugee because when he was younger he had been given a scholarship by the US government to come and study in the US for one year. He spent his senior year of high school in Longview, Washington. He returned to Kabul and majored in Agriculture at the University of Kabul, thinking that he would eventually go back to his family farm in Southern Afghanistan. However, with his English skills he was able to get a job working with American businessman in Kabul. Since he had this relationship with foreigners and it was during the Cold War, he was advised by friends and family to leave Kabul when the Soviet Union invaded, as all people with ties to the West were being rounded up and imprisoned. We were lucky because the fact that he had been given a scholarship by the US, which led to this relationship, ended up qualifying him and eventually our whole family for political asylum. Not all Afghans who were trying to flee Afghanistan were able and many were forced to stay in refugee camps on the Pakistan/Afghan border for many years. When they asked him where he wanted to come to in the US, he said Washington State because this is where he had previously studied. However, he didn't consider that most other Afghans were moving to the D.C. and Bay Area, which meant the Afghan community in Seattle would be small.
After Sept 11th and the subsequent fall of the Taliban, I really wanted to go back to Afghanistan. At the time I was applying to medical school and had one more year of undergraduate education. I still had family living there and I was worried that if the Taliban were to return, I may never be able to return. I learned about an American woman who ran a non-profit in Kabul, mostly focused on widows and orphans. After contacting her, she agreed that I could come in the summer of 2002 to start an English language program for teachers who would eventually be teaching English in schools. I was in Kabul for three months and it was a very exciting time, particularly for women and girls. They were able to go outside for the first time in many years without being obligated to wear the burqa (the big blue cape that covers the entire body), and girls were able to go to school for the first time since the Taliban came to power. Most Afghans were excited and welcoming towards Americans. I was able to walk around Kabul and feel relatively safe. It was an exciting and hopeful time.
I returned to Afghanistan in June 2008 and stayed for 10 months. I was working on a maternal health and contraception project with Management Sciences for Health, a non-governmental organization that works with Ministries of Health across the world. I was working with two Afghan physicians and a midwife, in three different areas to increase awareness of contraceptions and improve access. The idea was that Afghanistan is often ranked first or second in terms of maternal mortality in the world. It will likely take many years for obstetrics care to improve as well as cultural change to take place (many deaths are attributable to very young girls getting married off at a young age, 8 or 9, then becoming obstructed during labor as their bodies are just too small to deliver safely). Therefore, a relatively inexpensive way to decrease the number of deaths during childbirth is to not get pregnant. This is a country where the average woman gives birth 6 times during her lifetime, with each one exposing herself to high risk of mortality. We did education about contraception and dispelled misconceptions (i.e. that birth control would cause infertility or that the West was just trying to cause infertility to decrease the number of Muslims in the world). I wrote a brief article on the topic here:
http://www.thelancetstudent.com/2008/02/11/more-than-a-number-maternal-mortality-in-afghanistan/
While you were growing up where did you live and what do remember happening in Afghanistan?
My father had moved to Seattle by the time I was two years old. My mother, sister and I were still in Kabul at the time. From what I understand, the plan was for us to get to Pakistan and from there my dad would be able to complete the papers necessary to apply for us to come to the US. Unfortunately, my mother couldn't tell anyone we were leaving, including her family for fear that the Russians would find out. She took us in the middle of the night overland in a car to Pakistan, leaving almost all her belongings behind, except for her wedding pictures and some pictures of us as babies. Her sister later told me that she came to our house the next morning and sat crying on the front porch for hours when she realized why no one was answering the door. I have no memories of being in the refugee camp in Pakistan, it was less than a year until we boarded a plane and came to Seattle. In Seattle, we lived on Capitol Hill initially, but my parents were eager to move to the suburbs so that we could go to better schools. We moved to Kenmore when I was in elementary school and my parents still live there.
Did you support the mujahedeen’s motives while they were fighting the Russian occupation?
I was very young and honestly knew very little of what was going on in Afghanistan. There was little Afghan community in Seattle and I was very much focused on being a normal American kid. In particular, my parents were anxious for us to go to Islamic school and learn Arabic. However, I found my parents to be too strict and rejected much of my culture and religion from a young age. I didn't really understand for a long time why my family even had to leave. My parents never spoke of their time in Afghanistan and didn't explain what had happened. Looking back, I think they felt guilty for leaving. Because of his connection my family got asylum, however his other family members struggled to get out and many did not. The same for my mom's family. Some eventually left for Iran, Canada, and Denmark, but we were the only ones who left early and got to come to the US.
Could you sense that the Mujahedeen would become the basis of organizations like al-Qaeda and the Taliban?
I had no idea that the US was supporting the Mujahedeen and would not have been able to predict that they would evolve into the Taliban. By the time I learned about the Taliban in high school, I was blown away by their extremism and the idea that I could have been raised in that society.
If you could change any part of the US’s foreign intervention in the Middle East what would you do differently?
I think the issue of civilian casualties has come up many times during the US involvement in Afghanistan and I would have wanted to take greater efforts to minimize this. Not only to decrease the numbers, but also because I think this has created many angry Afghans. I also think that the strategic decision to invade Iraq took precious resources away from Afghanistan and was distracting to the overall mission. While I was there in 2002, the Afghans were excited, and welcoming. When we got distracted, lost focus, and security started worsening, they started to question our intentions there. A great opportunity slipped away and conditions in the south continue to deteriorate. While I was there in 2008 security in Kabul was completely different. I felt unsafe walking between my gated/secure house and the armed car. I understand the local language and could hear people on the streets threatening foreigners. Lastly, I think that their needed to be more thought placed into what to do about the border areas with Pakistan and the fact that the Taliban are truly based there, and will continue to thrive there despite what happens in Afghanistan.
Is there any thing else memorable or unforgettable you experienced while in the Middle East?
Afghanistan is a beautiful, diverse place, with some of the most welcoming, gracious people in the world. Here's a link to my blog with some pictures:
http://mazoha.blogspot.com/
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