Soldiers of God : With Islamic Warriors in Afghanistan and Pakistan by Robert D. Kaplan (Vintage)

Robert K. Kaplan’s Soldiers of God was first published in 1990 with the subtitle “With the Mujahideen in Afghanistan”. He states that “it provides historical context for the emergence of the Taliban and Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network. His final chapter of the new edition titled “The Lawless Frontier” was first published as a long article in the Atlantic Monthly and provides a follow up to post-Taliban Afghanistan.

In 1979, the former Soviet Union with the backing of the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan, attacked the small Central Asian nation  without provocation and continued to occupy the country until their withdrawal in 1988. 

Kaplan was one of the first American journalists to travel with the Mujahideen, a collective name for the insurgents, that fought a nine-year guerilla war against one of the world’s most powerful nations and won. Without them, it would not have been possible for Kaplan to even set foot in Afghanistan. 

During the war, the Soviets heavily mined the land of Afghanistan. No one is sure of the actual numbers. Britain’s BBC stated “millions”. The Afghan resistance claimed five million. The U.S. government’s estimate was about three million. However, in 1988, a State Department spokesman said the figure was more likely “between ten and thirty million”. According to Kaplan, “that would be two mines for every Afghan who survived the war.” 

In order to report on the war, journalists first had to get to the war but this required more effort than it was worth for most of the media. Not only did the journalists have to contend with the dangers of stepping on a mine, they were faced with boredom, disease, and exhaustion. 

In the beginning, Kaplan reported the news from Peshawar, the closest city to Afghanistan but is located in Pakistan. He was determined to see for himself the realities of the war that virtually the whole world was unaware of. 

In one of his final journeys “inside”, and supposedly after the Mujahideen secured the nearest airport in Kandahar, a city located in the northern part of Afghanistan, Kaplan saw with his own eyes that the Soviets were sending some soldiers back to the city and were also using the airport. When he mentions this to an American diplomat, the government man responds by saying Inter-Services Intelligence, the intelligence agency of Pakistan, reassures the U.S. that this is not the case. 

Traveling with Kaplan and his Mujahideen companions makes this book read more like an Ian Fleming spy novel without the women or gadgets that help James Bond. It’s also very scary because it’s real. Americans don’t realize it but it was a proxy war between the Soviet Union and the U.S. with the U.S. government providing arms to the mujahideen to fight the communist forces. It was a veiled Vietnam War that wasn’t given national coverage so most Americans did not see the tragedy from the comforts of their home in their living rooms. 

Now, here in the 21st century, Russia has attacked a sovereign nation without cause for its own gain and is being condemned by the international community. It appears that the current president of Russia, Vladimir Putin, didn’t study up on the history of his nation. The Ukrainians are not going to willingly agree to the terms set by Putin’s government to end the current war. 

Putin’s demands are for the Ukraine to agree that the Crimea as part of Russia (another piece of land that was seized illegally by the Russians), to recognize to the two pro-Russian provinces in the Ukraine, Luhansk and Donetsk, as independent nations, and to promise not to try joining the NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization). Putin states his reasons for military action is to “deNazify” the Ukraine. I’m sorry, but the only Nazi in this scenerio is the current president of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin. And so once again, we see history repeating itself. ~Ernie Hoyt