The
Clarion
The ‘Welcome Back
Edition’
Volume 75, Issue 14
SERVING BREVARD COLLEGE SINCE 1935
Jan. 22, 2010
The Complexity of Afghanistan
Understanding the situation faced by ground troops in the War on
Terror
by John Climer
Managing Editor
Last year’s announcement by President
Obama that an additional 30,000 US troops
are being sent to Afghanistan to join the on
going “war on terrof ’ has left many people
wondering, why is it so difficult to end the
conflict in Afghanistan?
To understand the hardships our troops
face in Afghanistan, one needs to examine
the country’s turbulent history, complex
ethnic make-up and rugged geography.
In this issue...
NEWS:
Afghanistan continued
?
Coltrane reopens for luncli
?
Student Q'N'A
3
Boolstore Survey
4
OPINION:
Illegal Immigration
4
Bookstore Survey
4
Internet Problems?
5
Comic
5
ARTS & LIFE/MISC.:
IVILK Challenge
fi
Avatar review
7
SPORTS:
Women's Basketball
6
ODDS AND ENDS:
American Hero
R
Your Horoscope
8
Afghanistan was officially founded by
unified Pashtun tribes in 1747 and served
as a buffer state between Great Britain and
Russia, until it won it’s independence from
Great Britain in 1919.
Over roughly the next 50 years,
Afghanistan established a tremulous
democratic government, which was
overthrown by military coup in 1973.
This coup was then again overthrown by
the Soviet invasion in 1978.
Over the next 11 years, Afghan freedom
fighters, known as the Mujahedin were
armed and trained by the US military in
a Cold-War effort to halt the spread of
communism. The Mujahedin and the
US saw this goal accomphshed when the
Soviets withdrew their forces in 1989.
After defeating the Soviets, the
Mujahedin fighters were left with no
funding to estabhsh infrastructural stability
and the common enemy that they united
to fight against was now gone, leaving a
large group of well-trained, well-armed.
uneducated young men, with nothing to
occupy them anymore. This resulted in the
weapons and training they received from
the US being turned against one-another,
resulting in a chaotic set civil wars that
lasted until 1996.
In 1996, Mullah Mohammed Omar,
disgusted with the atrocities of the on-going
civil war within Afghanistan, estabhshed
the Taliban (Pashto for “studenf ’ or “seeker
of knowledge”), using 50 madrassah
students as his soldiers in an effort to stop
the brutal violence.
From 1996 to 2001, Omar and the
increasing number of Talib soldiers traveled
from region to region across Afghanistan,
announcing their presence as they traveled,
disarming the Mujahedin and estabhshing
themselves as the de-facto government
within Afghanistan.
Upon the launch of Operation Enduring
Freedom in 2001, Omar and the Taliban
see Afghanistan p. 2
Below: A map of Afghanistan’s provincial borders
HILMANO