Veterans of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan predict failure in Iraq

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http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/world/16707815.htm

MOSCOW - Eighteen years after the Soviet army pulled out of Afghanistan in a humiliating defeat that hastened the collapse of an empire, many soldiers who fought there believe they're seeing history repeat itself.

The United States - then the force behind the Afghan resistance - now appears trapped in a similar downward spiral in Iraq, besieged by a collection of forces not unlike those it trained and equipped to cripple the Soviets two decades ago.

For many, the similarities go beyond the symbolic. Retired Capt. Vladimir Vshivtsev was blinded by an improvised roadside bomb 20 years ago in Afghanistan. He shudders every time he hears about a U.S. soldier killed or wounded by a similar device in Iraq or Afghanistan, he said.

"They're fighting the same war again," he said. "Sure, the political stuff is different, but the military result is going to be the same: failure." snip

But Russian soldiers, officers and experts point to many parallels. The Soviets also arrived to flowers and smiles, fought with a similar sized force (by the mid-1980s) of about 120,000 men and lost about 1,300 dead each year. They arrived a superpower, full of hubris, and departed humbled. Their political leaders never really understood the war.

The Soviet invasion also resonates today because of its unintended consequences. The United States and Saudi Arabia funded the Afghan resistance as a means to curb Soviet expansionism, and volunteer fighters flocked to the scene from around the Islamic world. One volunteer, Osama bin Laden, stayed to found al-Qaida and declare his own jihad, this time against the United States and Saudi Arabia.

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