The Road to Afghanistan - George Washington University

Chapter 8:Death Sentence“The city of Kabul is sun and bullets…”The Nobel laureate Rudyard Kipling probably did not foresee these lines as beingrelevant one hundred years after he wrote them.As before, a blinding sun shines over Kabul. It rolls out from behind the mountainsearly, promising the blue of the sky, sudden warmth, and a certain intrinsic andindescribable joy that the morning brings.As always, it is a rare day without gunshots. The whistle of bullets is less surprisingto the ear than hearing a birdsong in the Afghan capital.Time in Afghanistan seems to have stopped according to some unknown will.Widespread poverty and calls for prayer have not changed for centuries. The royal regimewas replaced by a republican regime. Then came the local communists, backed by theSoviets. Then the Mujahadeen, followed by the Talibs. Then a puppet government,controlled by the Americans. All around there remained the same hopeless poverty,medieval darkness, and backwardness.The overthrow and assassination of Taraki did not come as a particular shock toAfghan society. Residents of the country, who were more or less familiar with Afghanistan’sbloody history, seemed to have grown accustomed to the fact that their rulers would beeither violently overthrown or cruelly murdered. Since the early twentieth century, not oneleader retired voluntarily.598