The ‘Afghan Fierce Fighters’ Myth

While the ‘graveyard of empires’ myth uses historical analogy and is situated on a more general level, the ‘fierce fighter’ myth is productive in giving an explanation of why fights, if taking place, are interpreted to end with defeat for the superior power rather than the opposite.

Dominant historiography is not a good guide for evaluating Afghans’ qualities as fighters. Robert Johnson explains in his book The Afghan way of war (2011) how the fighter myth developed. By all accounts, even from contemporary trainers for the Afghan National Army (ANA), there is no natural talent for Afghans to be fierce fighters. According to Johnson, one of the reasons why Afghans came to be seen as particularly tough fighters is that most accounts were written by those who lost against them. The Anglo-Afghan wars produced a huge overhang of British accounts and very little to no reports of the mostly orally conveyed Afghan recounts of the story.

The British expedition corps suffered a shock facing under-equipped opponents relentlessly attacking the well-armed British; as a seemingly vastly superior force, they had to explain why they were beaten by those who were seen to be bearded, ‘shameless cruel savages’ (Elphinstone quoted in Johnson 2011, 23). Regardless of exaggerations, Afghans killed and looted many—at times a whole expedition—such as in 1842. The brutal and total defeat of Lord Elphinstone’s army was, of course, an exception. The failure was explained by individual mistakes by offi­cers, but overwhelmingly by pointing to the bloodthirsty rage of Afghan fighters. Johnson, instead, puts against this interpretation that clans, who lived nearby but were not party to the agreement, on a retreat of the British started attacking them—attempting to secure plunder from the British, which were held to be famously rich, while initially not intending to destroy them wholesale (Johnson 2011, 70-74). The seeds for a second Anglo-Afghan war, which was to take place in late 1878 to 1881 and in which the British Empire sought to restore its prestige and reputation, were planted (Barfield 2010, 140; cf. Lebow 2008, 326-327).

Quite regularly, attacks occurred but were contingent upon opportu­nity opening up. There were skirmishes, hardly coordinated, but tests, anyway, of the resolve of the British soldiers, which informed the Afghans of the British reaction. But only after British morale was broken (to which Afghans often tried to contribute by withholding supplies), and when loot was expected to be made easily, did otherwise fragmented groups join to form a full-fledged attack and overwhelm the British—to loot, not neces­sarily to annihilate.

The mainly British myth of fierce fighters, adapted to the Soviet and post-Taliban situations, is paralleled and presumably strengthened by traditional poetry and songs stressing male bravery. Tales of resistance against the Soviets resolve around the theme that ‘Afghan resistance fight­ers prided themselves in their toughness.

Especially in Pashtun culture, being a poet and a fighter brings fame to a male. To prove oneself in battle is essential for young males, which helps explain why insurgents found it easy recruiting young villagers to plant IEDs (Giustozzi 2008, 37-43, 70; cf. Jones 2010, 292-4). The war against the Western military proved to be one big adventure park for these youths, risks were limited (mainly as direct attacks were tactically avoided), while adventure and fame were guaranteed. Few of those youngsters were actually affiliates of the Taliban, let alone al-Qaida, but their acts exagger­ated the sense of attack for Western forces (for details see Carter 2011).

The public myth of Afghan bravery certainly shaped expectations of young men to engage in some sort of resistance to the overwhelming US force. Referring to jihad, which is an undisputed reality in Afghan narra­tives, helped lend a lot of legitimacy to such actions: hitting a Westerner wherever one meets him (as Bin Laden famously propagated) is one thing, but driving the sole superpower out of one’s front yard is quite another, and a lot more noble, thing. Driven by the ‘graveyard of empires’ myth, it is safe to say, Afghans were happy to support the Taliban (and other, more locally acting militants) in their quest to liberate Afghanistan (Thruelsen 2010, 267)—trusting that in the long run they would succeed, as they had always, according to the myth. This requires explanation, since they are weaker on all measurable indicators.

The weaker part in an armed confrontation may feel inclined to adapt the way of fighting to include outwaiting the stronger party (Daase 1999, 96-7; Callwell 1996 [1896]).

An illustration of this is that the Taliban, who cannot and should not be viewed as a unified force, waited a few years before they slowly and crouch- ingly started testing the resolve of the Afghan state and Western forces. With few forces in the country, they more openly sought direct confronta­tion, which, however, resulted in little gains Western military would count as success. After having given ISAF or Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) forces a hard time, they dissolved—and mostly claimed ground when westerners had withdrawn. After 2009, direct attacks decreased as a result of the mainly US troop surge, and practices shifted to lEDs and hit- and-run attacks (Strick van Linschoten and Kuehn 2012, 247-52, 291­2). Later, until early 2013, Afghan forces increasingly engaged in what was called green-on-blue attacks, at the time often shooting unarmed western­ers in the camps.

The question ‘Who can you trust?’ was exploited masterly in these incidents (resembling reports form the Anglo-Afghan wars, when the same people who would have supplied food to a garrison would later engage in slaughtering the expedition force, including women on their way out in a convoy). The significance of this narrative for the myth lies in the evocation of historical ‘knowledge’ to underscore the primordial traitor behaviour, which deems all efforts to help Afghans fruitless and prone to being undermined by Afghans themselves. Reasoning by anal­ogy fails to take into account context, historically decontextualising anecdotes, and neglects strategic and personal considerations behind such behaviour.

During the surge, also, targeting changed to attacks on influential Afghan figures and state representatives. Not only high-ranking politi­cians—Ahmad Wali Karzai, President Karzai’s brother and governor of Kandahar; Burhanuddin Rabbani, who headed the peace council; and the governors of Logar, Abdullah Wardak, and Kunduz, Mohammad Omar— were assassinated. The police chief of Farah and many other police chiefs were also directly targeted and killed, along with many local and regional police commanders and politicians. A former intelligence analyst describ­ing patterns of violence in Afghanistan reported that in the northern areas of Afghanistan, with the exception of Kunduz proper, in the course of three years there was no single district which had not lost a district police chief or vice-police chief.⁷ Some districts saw the third or fourth police chief during this period. In other words, one of the main strategic goals, to make life miserable for one’s opponents, now also applies to those aligned with the foreigners (Strick van Linschoten and Kuehn 2012, 309-10).