David Loyn: 5 Afghan History Lessons for Obama's New General
[David Loyn is the BBC's developing world correspondent.]
Afghanistan is a country of deserts crossed by a right-angled wall of mountains -- the Hindu Kush to the north, and the frontier with Pakistan to the east. The frontier range is 200 miles long and 600 miles wide, with peaks topping 15,000 feet, and only a handful of major passes crossing it -- the most famous being the Khyber Pass.
In the 19th century, the British, trying to secure a western frontier for their Indian Empire, drew a border down the middle of these mountains after a sapping series of conflicts. Pashtun tribes simply ignored the line and continued to move along mountain tracks that they knew.
Four years after the border was drawn, the British faced their biggest frontier war, which broke out in the very same areas that today shelter the Taliban and are the heart of the insurgency against Pakistan -- Swat, Buner, Bajaur, and Waziristan. This is natural guerrilla territory that has defeated every invader since Alexander the Great....
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Afghanistan is a country of deserts crossed by a right-angled wall of mountains -- the Hindu Kush to the north, and the frontier with Pakistan to the east. The frontier range is 200 miles long and 600 miles wide, with peaks topping 15,000 feet, and only a handful of major passes crossing it -- the most famous being the Khyber Pass.
In the 19th century, the British, trying to secure a western frontier for their Indian Empire, drew a border down the middle of these mountains after a sapping series of conflicts. Pashtun tribes simply ignored the line and continued to move along mountain tracks that they knew.
Four years after the border was drawn, the British faced their biggest frontier war, which broke out in the very same areas that today shelter the Taliban and are the heart of the insurgency against Pakistan -- Swat, Buner, Bajaur, and Waziristan. This is natural guerrilla territory that has defeated every invader since Alexander the Great....