The Road to Afghanistan - George Washington University

violating their sacred duty.”Osadchiy burst into laughter. Orlov-Morozov joined in. Volodya patted Valery on theshoulder. They heated more tea, and switched the discussion to wisdom from ancientliterature. “You remember the Ecclesiastes: ‘what has been will be again, what has beendone will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun,” Osadchiy rounded out theirtour through the depths of human wisdom before returning to the topic at hand. “I agreewith the pessimistic view that you’ve formulated, Valera. I also think Afghanistan is on theverge of war. It won’t be a civil war, with representatives of one social class fightingrepresentatives of another class. It won’t be a war where the exploited fight against theiroppressors. This will be a war of the majority of the people against the ruling regime. As theevent in Herat demonstrated, Khalqis will find it increasingly difficult to find sufficientsupport in the armed forces and police. I think that our task now is to provide informationthat would not shock the Moscow leadership, but that would carefully bring them tounderstand the absurdity of Taraki and Amin’s chimerical designs, as well as the stupidityof the analyses from some of our party advisers. In connection with this, we should preparea detailed analytical paper that would provide a foundation for this sort of prognosis in thenear future. It should not be classified Top Secret. The goal is to get as many people to readit as possible. Let’s educate our leadership before presenting them with an argument. Whattopic do you think we should select for this document?”“Taking into consideration that the Muslim clergy was the primary driving force inthe Herat uprising, I think we should address the influence of fundamental Islam and theMuslim clergy on the development of the situation in Afghanistan,” suggested Khotyaev.“Do we have enough information about that?” asked Orlov-Morozov cautiously.402