Original subtitles

NARRATOR: Afghanistan.

A war which cost the lives

of nearly 15,000 young Soviet conscripts

and an estimated one million Afghans.

[speaking Russian ]

It was the Soviet Union's Vietnam syndrome,

so to speak.

It was impossible for a great superpower

to run away from this wild country.

The United States supplied billions of dollars

of weapons to unlikely allies --

Islamic Fundamentalists.

It is entirely true that this was a war

that was fought with our gold

but with their blood.

D ♪

NARRATION: The Panjshir Valley

in the Hindu Kush mountains of Afghanistan --

a rural, traditionally Islamic country

of 15 million people.

Foreign nations had tried to conquer it for centuries.

None succeeded.

But civil war and years of Cold War Conflict

would bring the people of Afghanistan

a terrible toll of death and destruction.

In the 1970s,

Afghanistan became a focus

for superpower rivalry.

Close to the Persian Gulfs oil

and the Indian Ocean ports,

it bordered Iran in the West

and Pakistan in the South and East.

In the North,

it shared a border with the Muslims

of the Soviet Union's Central Asian republics.

To Moscow,

a friendly Afghanistan was vital.

Kabul, Afghanistan,

April 1978.

A military coup brings a left-wing regime to power.

Soviet cameras portray it

as a romantic popular revolution.

Crowds were organized

to celebrate the change of power.

Nur Mohammad Taraki,

Afghanistan's new leader,

looked to the Soviet Union for support.

Moscow sent hundreds of Soviet advisers

to advance socialism.

[speaking Afghan ]

The vast majority of Afghan people had no jobs.

Afghanistan was an agricultural country.

We thought it was best to introduce land reforms

and give land to the landless.

It would enable them to work their own land

and raise their standard of living.

NARRATION: The left-wing regime set about

reforming Afghanistan by decree.

Land was taken from large owners

and handed to the peasants who worked it.

Women were encouraged to stop wearing veils

and were put into literacy classes

alongside men.

[chanting in Afghan]

In the countryside, the reforms were seen

to threaten ancient customs

and the authority of the Islamic priests,

the mullahs.

[chanting continues]

[speaking Afghan ]

The Communists were trying to change

the law of God.

They wanted to destroy Islamic traditions --

to rid Afghanistan of poverty

and make everyone equal.

This is against the law of Islam.

God has decided who is rich and who is poor.

It can't be changed by communists.

It's beyond imagination.

NARRATION: To counter Communists' efforts

to spread their new doctrine,

opponents of the reforms burnt down schools

and universities.

Thousands of Afghans fled to Pakistan

to avoid the revolutionary turmoil.

Resistance was growing throughout the country.

[speaking Russian ]

Brezhnev and the Politburo tried

to talk sense into Kabul.

We couldn't understand how they could build socialism

in just five years.

We said, "You can't do that.

We've been building socialism for 6O years

and we're still not finished."

But they thought it was us

that had got it wrong.

Naivete' was coming out of their every orifice.

It was in their every word.

[crowds chanting ]

NARRATION: In neighboring Iran,

crowds joined the call of the Afghan resistance

for a jihad, or holy war,

against the godless Communists.

Other Islamic countries took up the cry.

[ Chanting ]

In Washington,

National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brezezinski

was convinced the left-wing regime in Afghanistan

was a major threat.

Yeah.

And that will deal first with Iran,

then with Afghanistan

and the regional implications.

NARRATION: Brzezinski told President Carter that

Moscow might use the Afghan crisis to move south

and seize the oil of the Persian Gulf.

BRZEZINSKI: Well, I have essentially four items

I'd like to go over with you.

[ Shouting ]

BrzezinskPs fears for the stability of the region

gained weight when mass demonstrations in Tehran

led to the overthrow of the Shah of Iran.

The Shah's fall lost America

its most important ally in the region.

BRZEZINSKI: We were faced with the possibility

that one way or another,

before too long, we may have

either a hostile Iran

on the northern shore of the Persian Gulf facing us,

or we might even have the Soviets there.

[ Overlapping conversations ]

NARRATION: The Islamic groups fighting the Communists

received covert American aid

for the first time in July 1979.

President Carter began by sending

communications equipment.

The rebels called themselves the Mujahedin,

the Soldiers of God.

They were mostly peasants

organized by village mullahs and landowners.

Many of their weapons were captured

from the Communist regime.

From the refugee camps in Pakistan,

recruits for the jihad

walked for days across the mountains

to reach the fighting.

Ranged against the Mujahedin

was a mechanized, Soviet-trained Afghan army.

Soviet film depicted

a highly motivated fighting force.

In fact, each month,

thousands of soldiers deserted.

Kabul pleaded with Moscow to send Soviet troops.

In the Kremlin,

Soviet leaders repeatedly met

to discuss the Afghan crisis.

After mobs massacred Soviet advisers

and their families in Her at,

Kabuts request for Soviet troops

moved up the agenda.

[speaking Russian ]

The Afghans wanted us to introduce

a limited contingent of Soviet troops

to guard military bases.

They just couldn't cope with the Mujahedin themselves.

At first they spoke about a battalion,

then about a brigade.

They kept insisting and pushing for Soviet troops

but we kept refusing and refusing and refusing.

NARRATION: President Taraki had an apparently devoted

Prime Minister, Hafizullah Amin.

Amin was the regime's strong man.

In spite of the unrest

he was determined to drive on with the reforms.

Amin launched a campaign of terror.

He had opponents arrested and shot.

[speaking Russian ]

I said to Amih that his policies were too harsh,

that they were turning the Muslim population

against him.

Like the land reforms which did not

take into account Afghan traditions.

But he used to reply

"Did Stalin make the revolution

in white gloves?

NARRATION: Afghan President Taraki flew to Moscow

to discuss with Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev

how to curb AmirTs excesses.

They decided to oust him,

hoping the Kabul government

could get popular support by slowing the reforms

and ending the terror.

Moscow's secret plans leaked out.

When President Taraki returned to Kabul,

Amin had him seized and executed.

Amin realized the Soviets wanted him out.

He began to seek better ties with the West.

The KGB even imagined Amin might be

a CIA agent.

[speaking Russian ]

Andropov, the head of the KGB,

became very concerned about Amin

flirting with the Americans.

Andropov felt that if we didn't introduce Soviet troops,

Amin would claim that

Moscow hadn't fulfilled its obligations.

He would then turn to the Americans for help

and they would put their own troops in.

NARRATION: In Moscow the arguments were mounting

in favor of using an invasion to remove Amin.

In the past, Soviet military action

to topple troublesome foreign leaders

had worked in Hungary and Czechoslovakia.

In Europe,

the nuclear arms race was gathering speed.

NATO wanted to counter the Soviet Union's

mobile missiles.

On December 12, 1979

the West announced it would deploy

hundreds of cruise missiles in response.

Moscow now felt it had little to lose internationally

by intervening in Afghanistan with troops.

That evening the Politburo held an emergency meeting.

[speaking Russian ]

Our major concern

was the security of the southern borders

of the Soviet Union.

We also feared the spread of Islamic fundamentalism

into Afghanistan from Iran.

[speaking Russian ]

I said that military intervention in Afghanistan

would be very difficult for our army.

It would not necessarily lead to success.

One only has to consider the conditions in Afghanistan,

its geography, its history

and especially the independent nature

of the Afghans.

[speaking Russian ]

We also felt

that if we didn't go into Afghanistan

then some other countries would.

The intervention of these states could

destabilize the situation on the Soviet-Afghan border

and in the region as a whole.

NARRATION: The Politburo took its fateful decision.

By December 25, 1979,

tens of thousands of men in tanks and trucks

started to trundle across the border.

Moscow hoped they could complete their mission

within weeks.

The old royal palace on the edge of Kabul

was Prime Minister Amirfs favorite residence.

KGB special forces stormed the building.

Amin tried to hide,

but they shot him dead.

Moscow replaced Amin with a more manageable leader,

Babrak Karmal.

Since the Cold War started,

the Soviet Union had never invaded a country

beyond the borders of the Warsaw Pact.

Now Soviet forces were stepping across the line.

The implications

of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan

could pose a more serious threat to the peace

since the second World War.

The vast majority of nations on earth

have condemned this latest Soviet attempt

to extend its colonial domination of others.

[ Applause ]

CARTER: I had to put restraints on the Soviet Union.

One of them was to issue a public statement

that if the Soviets did invade

either Pakistan or Iran

or Iran out of Afghanistan,

that I would consider this a personal threat

to the security of the United States of America

and I would take whatever action I desired

or considered appropriate to respond.

And I let it be known that this would not exclude

a nuclear reaction.

MAN: The military intervention of the Soviet Union

cannot be justified.

There can be no question of any country

other than the Soviet Union having interfered

in Afghanistan's internal affairs.

NARRATION: At the United Nations

the Soviet invasion was widely condemned.

President Carter blocked grain deliveries

to the Soviet Union,

launched a boycott of the Olympic games in Moscow,

and stepped up US spending on arms.

Détente was over.

US National Security Adviser Brzezinski

flew to Pakistan

to set about rallying resistance.

He wanted to arm the Mujahedin

without revealing America's role.

On the Afghan border near the Khyber pass,

he urged the Soldiers of God

to redouble their efforts.

BRZEZINSKI: We know of their deep belief in God.

And we are confident

that their struggle will succeed.

[man speaking Afghan]

That land over there is yours.

You will go back to it one day

because your fight will prevail

and you'll have your homes and your mosques back again

because your cause is right

and God is on your side.

[ Applause ]

BRZEZINSKI: The purpose of coordinating with the Pakistanis

would be to make the Soviets bleed

for as much and as long as is possible.

Do we know if any Soviet units have reached the border?

They're holding back? - They are holding back.

BRZEZINSKI: We started providing weapons to the Mujahedin,

from various sources again.

Some, for example, some Soviet arms

from the Egyptians and the Chinese.

We even got Soviet arms

from the Czechoslovak Communist government,

since it was obviously susceptible

to material incentives,

and at some point we started buying arms for the Mujahedin

from the Soviet army in Afghanistan,

because that army was increasingly corrupt.

NARRATION: Brzezinski sought the help of General Zia-ul-Haq,

Pakistan's military ruler.

Pakistan always had a keen interest

in Afghanistan.

Pakistan wanted a friendly and strongly Islamic neighbor.

The US Congress had earlier out

US military aid to Pakistan.

General Zia had a bad human rights record.

He was developing a nuclear bomb.

He had failed to curb drugs trading.

Now, the Americans set aside their displeasure.

I think we had a double standard

with respect to the Pakistanis.

And we knew that there were big problems with drugs,

and that there were big problems with nukes

and we were prepared in various ways,

in any way that we had to,

to turn Nelson's eye to those problems,

as long as the Afghan resistance was being supported

via the government of Pakistan --

and that's what we did.

NARRATION: In Afghanistan,

the Red Army guarded cities, roads, and airports,

leaving the Afghan army free for combat.

By 1980, almost 100,000 Soviet troops

would be deployed around the country.

It was a civil war,

but many of the Soviet conscripts were told

they were coming to Afghanistan to confront Americans.

[ Man speaking Russian ]

After we took our first Afghan prisoners,

we started to realize that the Americans were hot there.

We said, "Americans? What Americans?

They're not here."

But the KGB officers said, "Oh, they're in the rear.

They are advising Mujahedin,

just like we advised in Cuba.

Maybe they are teaching them how to fight."

But the more operations we carried out,

the more we realized that the Americans were not there.

NARRATION: Against their wishes,

the Soviets were soon sucked into combat.

They started with textbook sweep offensives

devised to defeat NATO in Europe,

and Chinese troops on the plains of Manchuria.

In mountainous terrain

against guerilla fighters,

their approach was a disaster.

Well, I would say 99% of all the battles

that we fought in Afghanistan

were won by the Soviet side.

But the problem is that the next morning

we had the same old situation

as if there was no battle --

Mujahedin were again in that village

where they were --

we thought we destroyed them just the other day.

So it was an absolutely useless war.

ARCHIVE - RONALD REAGAN: I, Ronald Reagan, do solemnly swear...

...that I will faithfully execute the office

of President of the United States.

...that I will faithfully execute the office

of President of the United States.

NARRATION: A fervent anti-Communist,

Ronald Reagan won the 1980 election

with an image of forceful leadership

and a promise to re-build US military might.

To many Americans,

Carter's foreign policy had seemed weak.

Reagan stepped up aid to the Afghan rebels.

The Mujahedin were made up of numerous factions.

They were split on tribal and ethnic lines.

When the Mujahedin weren't fighting the Soviets,

they sometimes fought each other.

[speaking Afghan ]

The Mujahedin often captured military equipment

in working order,

but were so disorganized that within hours

it would be made useless by looting.

[ Overlapping conversations ]

ANDERSON: I made the comment that gratitude

in the Afghan dictionary

is gonna be found somewhere after "gimme" and "gotcha."

[ Gunshots ]

On the other hand, there was a constant

undercurrent of understanding

that while we were providing the means

to wage this war,

they were waging it

and that it is entirely true that this was a war

that was fought with our gold but with their blood.

NARRATION: The Reagan administration increased

its covert military supplies to the Mujahedin.

Money and arms were channeled

through camps in Pakistan.

By controlling the way aid was distributed,

the Pakistanis hoped to install a fundamentalist regime

in Afghanistan.

They favored the extremist Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.

ELIE KRAKOWSKI: The Pakistanis -- they needed to have people

that they could manipulate.

It is for that reason that American aid,

whatever it was,

and in the early period it was minimal,

later it became more significant,

was essentially directed by the Pakistanis

to Gulbuddin at the expense of other groups.

[speaking Afghan ]

The arms were not distributed fairly.

Despite our military successes,

Pakistan only gave us eight missiles.

For two years, they out all aid to my group.

The Pakistanis had their own agenda.

They gave the lion's share of weapons

to the hard-liner, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.

NARRATION: Inside Afghanistan,

the ferocity of the civil war increased.

[ Gunfire, explosions]

After heavy casualties,

the Red Army changed tactics.

They abandoned massive armored sweeps

and took to the air.

Soviet commandos would be dropped in

by helicopters

to out the Mujahedirfs escape routes.

While more weapons poured into Afghanistan,

the United Nations sought a diplomatic solution.

Under-Secretary Diego Cordovez

tried to broker a deal

for the Soviet Union to withdraw

if military aid to the Mujahedin was stopped.

His shuttle diplomacy made little headway

with Afghan President, Babrak Karmal.

Moscow. November 1982.

After 18 years in power,

Brezhnev is dead.

The state funeral was used

for a new Afghan initiative.

After the ceremony,

Yuri Andropov, the new Soviet President,

told Pakistan's foreign minister

that he might accept the United nations plan.

But the Americans didn't trust Andropov.

We never considered that the Soviets would

actually back out of Afghanistan

and negotiate their way out.

It didn't seem a credible thing

for them to do because we didn't think

that they were at all disposed to do that.

So naturally when we talked with the Pakistanis,

we pressed them always

to continue the pressure.

ARCHIVE - RONALD REAGAN: The Bible tells us there will be a time for peace

but so far in this century,

mankind has failed to find it.

In these times...

NARRATION: The United States and Pakistan were not ready

for a deal with Moscow.

For Washington, the UN's peace plan

was a sideshow.

REAGAN: The peace-loving nations of the world

must condemn aggression.

Throughout Afghanistan,

Soviet aircraft were now bombing indiscriminately.

They pummeled village after village

into oblivion.

In a typical attack on April 8, 1985,

the villages of Kats and Mindrawar

on the Kabul-Jalalabad highway were bombed,

then overrun by Soviet troops.

[woman speaking Afghan ]

INTERPRETER: The Soviets destroyed the whole village.

It's impossible to count how many they killed.

The men were dragged out of their houses

and sent off to the Afghan army.

Those who refused were taken aside and gunned down --

butchered.

[man speaking Afghan]

INTERPRETER: The Russians took 14 of us

and made us stand in a line near this wall.

Two Russian soldiers stood in front of us

with machine guns.

We began reciting the Holy Kalima

from the Holy Koran,

because we knew we were about to die.

They machine-gunned every one of us.

I fell.

There was a pile of bodies,

all on top of me.

The bullets missed me.

The soldiers searched us and took our money.

They moved me, but I just pretended to be dead.

[speaking Afghan ]

The rockets were falling all around us

like leaves off a tree.

My daughter's head was smashed open,

Her brains were hanging from a branch.

I lost everything --

my cousins, my nephews --

everybody was killed --

my wife, my four children.

[soldier speaking Russian ]

INTERPRETER: There was no such thing as a "peaceful population."

They were all guerrilla fighters.

I remember how we once rounded up

all the women and children,

poured kerosene over them

and set fire to them.

Yes, it was cruel.

Yes, we did it,

but those kids were torturing our wounded soldiers

with knives.

[speaking Russian ]

When you kill, you don't feel calm.

You just feel indifferent.

You're paranoid. You lose your morality.

You become very cold-blooded.

Your soul grows cold

because you're confronted with something

you don't like doing.

[speaking Russian ]

A young soldier might kill just to test his gun,

or if he's curious to see

what the inside of a human being looks like,

or what's inside a smashed head.

But there is also the fact that if you don't kill,

you'll get killed.

It's a feeling of being drunk on blood.

Often you kill out of boredom

or because you just feel like doing it.

It's like hunting rabbits.

[man speaking Afghan]

INTERPRETER: We have cried so much

that we can no longer cry.

Even if we do cry,

who will wipe away our tears?

So, you see, there's nobody to turn to anyway.

We can only pray to God

to take our revenge for us

because we are helpless.

NARRATION: Thousands of civilians were killed

in similar Soviet atrocities

throughout Afghanistan.

The Mujahedin committed their own war crimes,

often executing Soviet and Afghan prisoners

in cold blood.

[gunfire]

NARRATION: With increasing ruthlessness and daring,

the Mujahedin attacked Soviet convoys --

the lifeline bringing oil and weapons

to the Red Army.

[gunfire]

[ explosion ]

[gunfire continues]

NARRATION: The toll of Soviet dead rose

to as much as 2,000 a year.

D ♪

Many Soviet conscripts were raw recruits.

Sent to Afghanistan after only three months

of basic training.

Sickness, drunkenness and drug abuse

sapped the army's strength.

The wounded got minimal care.

The war seemed pointless.

[ Man speaking Russian ]

You don't know what you're doing.

You don't know what's gonna happen tomorrow.

Perhaps you're gonna die and for the sake of what?

For the sake of a system that lies to you?

For the sake of a system that turned my father

and all of our parents into alcoholics?

You suddenly realized

that you have been brought up in a system

which only creates evil.

You just want to escape from it,

but you don't know where to run.

You have only got one hope --

to eat half a kilo of opium,

go to sleep and never wake up.

[ Narration in Russian ]

NARRATION: The propaganda was repeated daily

in the Soviet press.

Returning veterans began to reveal

the Soviet troops true role.

But Soviet newspaper readers searched in vain

for accurate reports.

Basically, it was total disinformation

of the Soviet public.

Soviet soldiers were not fighting a war.

The propaganda said they were building schools,

kindergartens, roads,

and guarding caravans with food.

That's it.

NARRATION: In cemeteries across the Soviet Union,

the cost of the invasion became impossible to hide.

Many Russian mothers lost their only child.

[woman speaking Russian ]

INTERPRETER: A military officer came to me.

He said, "Try to be brave.

Your son has died."

I couldn't believe it.

No.

I had only received a letter from him

the day before.

I didn't try to open the coffin myself.

My brother wanted to but we were not allowed.

The funeral was very quick.

They buried him

and that was it.

It's very hard.

I wasn't allowed to write on his gravestone

that he'd died in Afghanistan.

I could only write in small letters at the bottom

that he'd died

"while fulfilling his internationalist duty."

I didn't see him dead,

so to me he's still alive.

At every doorbell I think my son has come back.

I don't believe he died.

NARRATION: In March 1985,

an energetic new leader

took power in the Kremlin.

As Mikhail Gorbachev met crowds of Russians

on tours around the country,

opposition to the war could finally be

expressed in public.

[speaking Russian ]

NARRATION: Thousands of protest letters poured in

to Gorbachevs office each week.

[speaking Russian ]

We had to finish this war,

but in such a way

that the Russian people would understand

why tens of thousands had died,

and tens of thousands had become invalids.

We had to explain what it was all for.

We couldn't just run away from there in shame.

No.

We needed to find a process.

[speaking Russian ]

There was an obstacle, an ideological one.

It was our Vietnam syndrome.

It was impossible for a great superpower

to run away from this wild country,

like the Americans in Vietnam.

It would damage our prestige.

NARRATION: The United Nations envoy, Diego Cordovez,

was told by Gorbachev

that the Soviet Union would consider withdrawing

under a UN agreement.

The emerging issue was

what kind of government would run Afghanistan

if the Soviets left.

Hoping the US and Pakistan would accept

a coalition friendly to Moscow,

Gorbachev chose a new Afghan leader,

Mohammad Najibullah.

Gorbachev instructed Najibullah

to offer talks with the Mujahedin

about forming an Afghan government

of national reconciliation.

Gorbachev and his peace initiatives

were applauded in Moscow,

but not yet accepted in Washington.

WEINBERGER: He was KGB and he was all the old school

and he had some very dubious associations

and all the rest.

He was trying to persuade the old line Communists

that he was with them

and he would appoint them to various positions,

and he would not make major changes in the economy

or in the economic policies

or in the military policies.

NARRATION: On return from his first summit with Gorbachev,

Reagan sensed Moscow wanted a deal

to get out of Afghanistan.

But American hard-liners wanted revenge

for Vietnam.

Pressed by Congress,

Reagan urged the Mujahedin to go for victory.

ANDERSON: It wasn't until really

between about '83 to '85

that the forces in Washington,

who asked the question,

"Well, maybe we can win this."

Let's not put in

$100 million a year worth of weapons,

let's put in a billion dollars a year

worth of weapons.

NARRATION: To combat Soviet air supremacy,

the United States decided to try out its latest missile,

the Stinger.

Field trials like this looked impressive

as the shoulder-fired missile locked onto its target.

By sending state-of-the-art, American-made Stingers

to the Mujahedin,

Washington was making plain that America

was directly involved in the Afghan war.

Spurred on by the increased American aid,

the Mujahedin opposed a UN-brokered peace agreement

that would enable the withdrawal of Soviet troops,

but leave the Kabul regime in place.

Signed in Geneva,

the 1988 peace agreement barred

further military aid to either side

in Afghanistan.

Both superpowers ignored the ban.

The supply of weapons went on.

The Geneva accords did not bring peace.

WEIN BERGER: Our basic feeling was that

what the Russians were talking about

was a way to get the resistance

and the opposition of the West

off their backs, so to speak,

and that they then would be free to pursue

other methods of dominating Afghanistan,

and that's what we did not want to have happen.

[speaking Russian ]

The Americans didn't want

a trace of Marxism left.

They wanted to install an anti-Soviet puppet regime

they could control.

The bleeders or the hawks finally won.

Our reason was very simple,

"If you carry on giving aid,

we'll carry on giving aid."

NARRATIONI In 1988,

under the terms of the Geneva agreement,

Soviet troops started pulling out.

But instead of peace,

Afghanistan was to endure more years of bloodshed.

Fighting among rival groups of Islamic fundamentalists

continued to destroy the country

long after the Cold War was over.

Since 1979,

five million Afghans were wounded

or forced to flee their homes.

Almost 15,000 Soviet soldiers were killed.

One million Afghans perished.

ANDERSON: I haven't had a bad night.

|t's not because I am without feeling for --

or without understanding of how much agony

goes along with war.

It's just that this was such a contribution

to the end of what was otherwise an evil

that inflicted other kinds of pain

on so many other people

that on balance, it was worth it.

[speaking Russian ]

The Afghan people have become the main victims.

The Afghans are now fighting each other.

Of course they have plenty of internal reasons for that.

But at the same time,

it's because of a legacy which started in the 1970s

that they are now fighting each other

with American and Soviet weapons.

[chanting in Afghan]