In The Graveyard of Empires

IN THE GRAVEYARD OF EMPIRES

The book «In the Graveyard of Empires» is devoted to one of the last wars of the newest history – campaign of the USA and their allies against the Afghan Taliban, which began in September 2001, in the framework of the General strategy of the fight against terrorism.
«In the Graveyard of Empires» chronologically traces the stages of gradual destruction of the state power, which began in the late 60's and continued throughout the 70's. The culmination of this process was the Soviet invasion in 1979, which led a band of Americans such as USA Congressman Charlie Wilson to increase USA assistance to the Afghan mujahideen as they drove the Red Army out of the country. In June 1993, CIA Director James Woolsey told a small gathering at CIA headquarters that honored Charlie Wilson. This book continues with an examination of CIA and other USA gove
ment assessments of the bloody Afghan civil war in the early 1990s, the rise of the Taliban regime in the late 1990s, and the Taliban’s fateful alliance with Osama bin Laden and al Qa’ida.
With the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, the story transitions to the overthrow of the Taliban regime that year by an eclectic mixture of Northe
Alliance forces, CIA operatives, Special Forces, and staggering USA airpower. It follows the discussions in the USA gove
ment about establishing a “light footprint” in Afghanistan, as Pentagon, State Department, CIA, and White House officials debated whether or not to engage in nation-building. It also tracks the exodus of Taliban and al Qa’ida fighters into neighboring Pakistan, and the establishment of a sanctuary for many of these fighters in Pakistan’s Baluchistan Province, Federally Administered Tribal Areas, and North West Frontier Province.
The book then moves to the rise of Afghanistan’s insurgency and the collapse of Afghan gove
ance. It outlines Afghan difficulties in establishing law and order in rural areas as well as challenges in...

Afghanistan was a place where much of the planning and training for the September 11 attacks took place and, at least initially, it was the central front of America’s «war on terror».
Since 1996 the capital and most of the territory of Afghanistan controlled by the Taliban. The only exception was a small sliver of land northeast of Kabul in the Panjshir Valley, where Ahmed Shah Massoud and his Northe
Alliance forces had retreated. The center of the movement «Taliban» has become Kandahar in the South-East of Afghanistan.
During the Taliban era, the Afghan Army was an assortment of armed groups with varying degrees of loyalties and professional skills.
Already wanted by USA authorities terrorist Osama bin Laden, was granted asylum in Afghanistan. The Taliban refused to extradite bin Laden and after the bombings of the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998. After the terrorist attacks in September 2001, USA President George Bush has put forward an ultimatum to the Taliban: as soon as possible to give the American justice bin Laden and the entire leadership of al-Qaeda. On September 21st, the Taliban refused, claiming that the USA has not provided sufficient proof of involvement of the organization to the attacks in New York and Washington.
After September 11, 2001, when the USA and its allies declared war on Islamic terrorism and launched operation enduring freedom, the citadel which was named Afghanistan. USA forces entered the military contingent in Afghanistan, the Northe
Alliance on the counteroffensive.
Operations were conducted directly in the areas of civilians, causing people to suffer the direct consequences crossfire, air strikes, terrorist attacks involving suicide bombers and improvised explosive devices.

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