You know that we all claim to learn from our mistakes. Indeed, there are thise who believe that we must make mistakes in order to learn.
However, mankind has made many mistakes and history would suggest that we are incapable of learning. But, perhaps Darwin has the answer with his theory of evolution.
Only the fittest will survive and those who refuse to stand up for themselves will perish.
We have fought many wars over the years and the perplexed onlooker cannot surmise the reason for the fight.
Other animals fight for survival and the best feeding grounds. And yes, I suppose humans do exactly the same. Albeit the onlooker is still perplexed.
We all want to take care of our families and ensure that we can provide for them.
However, in modern society, we don’t fight for scraps with cudgels. We fight to snare the best jobs. By doing so we will earn the money to buy the best food and a comfortable lifestyle.
The fighting arena has changed but, it is still a race to the top where only the fittest will survive. And, for the most part, we don’t kill our competitors.
We are seeing a real-life fight for survival on our High Streets during the covid pandemic. With so many retail outlets, bars, restaurants and holiday resorts being forced to close to limit the spread of the virus. Only the fittest businesses have been able to adapt in order to weather the storm.
It is a real-life soap opera and I’m afraid many of our favourite characters will not see it through to the end.
Take the struggle in Afghanistan, for example. The Afghans have been fighting for years and well-meaning neighbours have intervened on countless occasions.
But, this well-intended interference has backfired. The Afghans don’t like foreign powers interfering in their personal matters. The British have ent troops in, as have the Russians.
However, the Afghanistan terrain is not conducive to unfamiliar fighters and both the British and the Russians have failed to secure any lasting peace.
As the Soviets tried to maintain the illusion that Afghanistan was a largely peaceful mission. Dead bodies were returned to Russia, sealed in unopenable zinc coffins and delivered to their families at night.
Finally, Mikhail Gorbachev, who became General Secretary in 1985, made the decision to withdraw. It was the right decision and the courageous one. The Russian Climbdown was the end to a failed invasion, with peaceful intent or not.
General Muslim lead the Afghan resistance, against the Soviet forces, in this part of the Panjshir Valley.
Now, the Soviets faced not just the popular resistance, but a guerrilla army equipped with the latest in military hardware. And when America started supplying Stinger and, later, anti-aircraft missiles to the Mujahideen, they started bringing down Soviet helicopters. But it was the mines, or what we would call today IED’s, that the Soviets remember. And Afghans had become the specialists in mines they still are today.
For more information on the Afghan struggle read: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-56860781
