Originally posted by Sudo
Afghanistan has a long history of tribal conflict and fighting foreign powers. Iirc the current borders of Afghanistan include areas not conquered by the Mongols. It's definitely been overtaken many times but they've always had to keep a large occupying force, some empires even moving their capitals to Afghanistan so they can keep better watch on the ppl. Afghanistan is so ancient its had alot of people come through and conquer it but there have been an insane number of transitions of power.
No occupying force has really lasted along time and most importantly, have failed to exert political and cultural influence over the afghan people. The sassanids, Mongols, mughals, Georgians, Indians and a billion other ethnic groups may have managed to take Herat and/or Khandahar and set up some institutions, but as soon as they leave, they get burned to the ground and forgotten about. They blew up some big beautiful Buddha statues out of spite and have almost always fallen back on their tribal and native culture, even after generations of rule and assimilation. There are like 200 languages and 700 ethnic groups in Afghanistan thanks to all the foreign occupiers who aspired to sow seeds loyal to them and their way of life. Instead they just got more Afghans that kinda looked like them but acted like afghans.
Britain, Russia and India have all claimed to own elements of Afghanistan for periods but were left with nothing, and most importantly, no evidence of them being there. How many man made things in your city existed in the 80s? Statues, infrastructure, etc. In Afghanistan, there's basically nothing. They've got a ton of American military shit and infrastructure they spent billions on just to make itnlook like they've got something. It'll be ran into the ground in a few years and another force will try to take out the Taliban and it's back to square one.
I would Love to go so very much. Inshallah I will be able to go one day
Your claim that Afghanistan's border areas were unconquered is false, brother. Every Afghan was dominated by the Mongols--even those who are now living in modern-day Pakistan. Keep in mind, historically, West Pakistan used to be a part of Afghanistan until the British drew a line (which, by the way, was only possible because the Sikhs kicked those Afghans' asses).
Thing is, Afghans hate Pakistani Panjabis so I am just returning their favor; they have a misplaced sense of superiority which is false. This whole "we never got conquered" spiel is old and false. Seeing others play into it.. well, not a fan of that either, so I have to set the record straight. No offense to you, by the way---this is just a "fuck you" to Afghans.
To prove what I said earlier about the Mongols conquering ALL of Afghanistan, take a look at this map below which depicts the Mongol Empire at its peak in 1279. Note that even West Pakistan was a part of the Mongol which has been inhabited by Iranic people since the 11th century, after in-fighting among Afghans kept pushing them eastwards.
https://external-preview.redd.it/Z4IeXPIfp_C9v5q7kTuNTFYDYHObSii_9Jb-dL6Q-8g.png?auto=webp&s=f7e7533c45e538b7a1dfa91009e8356944e6cfc2This "we don't get along with each other despite being part of the same ethnic group" is nothing new, what you see in modern-day Afghanistan is just a repeat of what happened centuries before.
It's funny that Afghans think they are superior to Panjabis when 1) they were conquered by the Mongols, unlike the Panjabis, and 2) more recently, the Sikhs defeated them as well. Yet, instead of hating on "Indian" Panjabis, they hate on Pakistani Panjabis instead.
Have fun while you visit Afghanistan, I don't need to visit Afghanistan considering there are millions of Afghan refugees in Pakistan - even in the place where my family is from, near Islamabad. I would like to visit Nepal instead; the land of the Himalayas. After all, East Pakistan is located at the foothills of the Himalayas.
By the way, I say that Afghans look down on Panjabi Muslims but it is also the Iranic people of Pakistan that feel the same way. They share the same origins since they belong to the same ethnic group or a closely related ethnic group. I don't like these ethno-nationalists either, but overall I do not want to talk shit about them as an ethnic group because a lot of my family members have married Iranic individuals and I care about them as they are my family--so I am excluding those because there are still good people among them who do not discriminate, albeit they are rare to come by sadly! Even in Europe they carry on with their false sense of superiority and look down on Pakistani Panjabis.
I am explaining you all this so you can see where my dissatisfaction comes from. I have to mention that it doesn't matter whether or not foreigners invaded them and conquered them only temporarily, at the end of the day they got conquered and we cannot blame it on the conquerors' advanced weaponry but rather these Afghans had lost to these invaders because of the their superior warfare skills in those older times.
