Okay, welcome back to the show.
This is Anti-War Radio.
I'm Zoe Greif.
I'm going to conduct this next interview here with our next guest.
He wrote a book called Afghan Boomerang.
I had the pleasure of reading it.
It was very informative.
His name is Oleg Leonidovich Novinkov, and Mr. Novinkov was born in 1953 in Saratov, USSR.
He graduated from the Saratov State Medical Institute, the Department of Military Medicine as a physician with a specialty in aviation medicine.
He served in Afghanistan, immigrated to the U.S., has some patents as a consultant to NASA and a judo instructor and all kinds of other stuff.
Welcome to the show, Oleg.
How are you doing today?
Good afternoon.
Doing well, thank you.
Okay, well, it's really great to have you.
It's really great to interview you, and I really enjoyed your book.
Let me ask you about the title, first of all.
Why did you name your book Afghan Boomerang?
Yeah, Afghan Boomerang, in my opinion, the Soviet-Afghan war contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union, because a lot of economical sources were sucked into that war, and also the morality of the Soviet population after the Soviet-Afghan war was different if compared with previous to the war years.
So, from my perspective, it is a boomerang principle.
It returns to the person who threw it.
So, the same tendency of the historical development I see in the case of the United States participating in the longer-lasting war against Afghanistan.
I think that Afghan boomerang flying and approaching the United States is my kind of warning to this country.
Okay, well, we'll get to that part a little bit later in the interview, but I'd like for you to talk just a little bit about Afghanistan itself.
I already knew it was the size of Texas, and might as well be the Rocky Mountains as far as being mountainous, and that there's not much in the way of infrastructure as far as roads go, and that you have all these tribesmen who are blood enemies, and it's just a big hairy mess.
I already knew something about that, but what I didn't know that your book, Afghan Boomerang, told me about was the dirt and the dust and the sandstorms.
Can you tell the listeners something about that?
Yeah, I put a couple of words about this in the book.
I said that I forgot many things about Afghanistan, but probably I will never forget about the dust of Afghanistan because it's like a liquid.
Everywhere where you go, especially in rural areas, on rural roads, you can avoid not breathing this liquid dust.
It's everywhere, and since I was an Air Force flight surgeon in our medical station, sometimes we did small surgeries, sometimes big surgeries, and every time when we opened, let's say, an instrument like a scalpel or other needles, even on them, we were able to see like a layer of dust.
So dust was everywhere, on the food, inside of us, and we were breathing this.
So it's just kind of, I guess, speciality of Afghanistan.
It sounds pretty miserable, especially with inadequate bathing and hygiene facilities, as you describe in the book.
Sure.
Okay, well, the first chapter of your book talks about a movie and a book called Charlie Wilson's War.
I have seen the movie, I have not read the book, but you take some issue with that movie and some of the information and attitudes portrayed in that first chapter of your book.
Why don't you tell the listeners what you think of that movie and its factualness or lack thereof?
Right.
Yeah, probably, in 2007, I read this book, Charlie Wilson's War, and probably it was the main, like, a scheme for writing this book, my book, Afghan Boomerang, because from my perspective, when I finished Charlie Wilson's War book, I understood it was a one-way Western propaganda.
So from my perspective, I'm trying to be neutral and be independent from any propaganda, Soviet or Western or doesn't matter.
But again, when I started reading that book, I counted about 58 times when my heroes of that book, they say, kill Russians, kill Soviet soldiers, kill, kill, kill.
So I said, wow, this is 2003 published book, we are not enemy.
I mean, Soviet Union is already didn't exist.
So why they also continue to use this kind of, I don't know, if it would be Germany, Germany, somewhere in 1940s, I would understand that.
Yeah.
People can use this word.
But at this time, I guess it was not appropriate.
So I was like, very upset.
So that's why I started to write my book.
All right.
Well, I got to tell you, Oleg, I was born in the 1970s.
And so I was just a little kid when the war was happening.
And growing up in Texas, my best memories are watching 60 minutes of the described holy warriors and freedom fighters, the guys who were had had one leg blown off maybe by an anti personnel mine, and we're hopping back with the recoil of their Kalashnikov as they were fighting the Soviets.
And these people were described as, you know, heroic freedom fighters, like I said, but that's maybe not necessarily the whole story that I was getting on 60 minutes.
What's your take on that, Oleg?
Yeah, you're right.
Again, I just spent a couple of pages and describe it.
It's so funny to watch terminology change.
When militants, they were fighting Soviet soldiers, Western countries, they call them freedom fighters.
And they supply them with ammunition and weapon and finance them and train them.
Even in Texas, it's so funny when I when I didn't know about this.
But when I start searching information about the book, I found many interesting things.
Yeah, you have involvement in that.
So we have again, war, and I put some couple of warnings in this, I said, Hey, this is United States fought in Afghanistan by hands of So, but what I'm saying is, let me finish my thought that at that time in 1980s, when militants were fighting Soviet soldiers, they were freedom fighters.
And they use them provided by Western country and other wealthy countries, weapons.
But in this century, when the same people, the same militant guys, they turn the same weapon against United States and NATO troops in Afghanistan, immediately in media, they start calling them terrorists.
So I do not agree with it.
This is like, double standard.
Oh, yeah, most definitely, though, the West is pretty good at double standards these days.
Anyway.
Well, let's talk about the actual occupation, as you describe in your book.
Let me ask you, would you call it an occupation?
Would you call it military assistance?
How would you characterize the Soviet military involvement in Afghanistan?
Yeah.
It's interesting question.
Because again, I feel myself like I'm schizophrenic.
On one part, I'm like former Soviet Union president.
And for the last 15 years, I've been United States.
And so you can imagine that I have like a different opinion on this issue.
So from from Soviet perspective, it was not occupation.
And I even had a kind of very difficult conversation with two generals, maybe two, three years ago.
I mean, former Soviet generals, they were like so upset that I used the word occupation.
No, it was occupation.
It was assistance.
But again, this is general's words.
But my words is the following.
I think that Soviet Union was called by Afghan government.
It was about 20 attempts by Afghan government to invite Soviet militaries to help them to stabilize internal situation in Afghanistan.
And again, it was Soviet Union.
And it was police bureau.
And it was like me or other guys, it was like a few people who decided that yes, we should send Soviet troops into Afghanistan.
But in newspapers, and what we were talking at that time, I mean, in 1980s, it was international help to our southern border friend, like Afghanistan.
Okay, Oleg, I'm sorry to interrupt you.
But there's the music indicating that we're gonna have to go to the commercial break pretty soon.
But when on the other side, I want to pick it back up talking more about your experiences with Soviet military in Afghanistan.
And then we can hopefully compare and contrast the Soviet experience there and the US experience and even maybe talk about the future of the Afghan boomerang.
All right, more on the other side antiwar radio.
Okay, welcome back to the show, everybody.
It's antiwar radio.
I'm Zoe Greif and I'm interviewing Oleg Novinkov about his book Afghan boomerang that I enjoyed reading.
And before we were rudely interrupted by the break, we were talking about this notion of the Soviet involvement in Afghanistan.
And it reminded me of what you wrote in your book again and again about how information was so tightly controlled within the Soviet Union.
And the Soviet citizens were not told much of the truth, if anything at all.
And there wasn't much interest anyway, in the war across the river, I think you described it.
But yeah, you kind of made the point that, you know, you guys were just soldiers and the Politburo and the politicians were saying, oh, you know, you're helping the government at their request.
But in actuality, maybe it actually was a de facto occupation, no matter what the politicians said.
But maybe you could talk a little bit about the tight control of information and the attitude of the Soviet people about the war during that time.
Yeah, sure.
Actually, at the time, it was a civil war among groups of some Afghan groups for power.
So they just used the Soviet Union and they used the words that were pleasant for Soviet ideologies.
Yeah, we will build people, democracy, country, we will do this for people.
So it was very pleasant to hear for Soviet leadership.
And more important, why I think that the Soviet Union crossed the border with Afghanistan, at that time, it was a brutal dictator.
He killed thousands of people, I mean, thousands of Afghans, because it was a civil war.
And I guess the heart of Leonid Brezhnev, former General Secretary of Communist Party, was broken.
And probably this was one of the main reasons why he made a decision, because it was, I read many books, and it was a very difficult process.
Almost until December 12, like two weeks prior to the invasion, it wasn't a decision yet to go across the river, like you said, or not.
But speaking about secrecy in Soviet society at that time, you're right, many people, including me, even I was the officer, so we were not told the truth about what was going on and what the motive and why we need to do this.
I just can give you a very, very quick anecdote.
I put this in the book about Soviet secrecy.
Like, somebody was knocking into the door.
And very old man inside of a parking lot.
Who is this?
And the answer was, it's your death.
And old man said, Hey, oh, very good.
I was thinking that it was KGB.
Better death than the KGB, right?
So it was KGB ideology.
And you cannot, let's say, say, hey, Communist Party is bad.
No, no, no, you will immediately go very far from Moscow.
So it was kind of secrecy.
And again, I can be very honest, even right now with you that at that time, I was thinking that I'm performing a very important international duty job.
Because I was thinking I'm helping our Afghan neighbors.
But of course, now, I think that 30 years later, I would reconsider my opinion because a lot of information came to the table.
All right, well, there's so much to talk about.
And we're just never ever going to have enough time to go through it all.
I want if you can to let's start to compare.
And we didn't even talk as much about the Soviet occupation as I would have liked to but maybe we can go ahead and compare the Soviet experience to the American experience.
You point out in your book, I note that there was no suicide terrorism during the Soviet military involvement in Afghanistan.
And of course, there is and has been quite a bit now.
What do you think is the difference?
I don't know if I am jumping ahead of your plan.
But 30 years after my service in Afghanistan, I was able in the middle of 2010, go back to Afghanistan for a week as a tourist.
So, and I was able to talk with many, like a regular Afghan through the interpreter.
And what I understood even in 2010, many people, they were very honest, and they were saying that, hey, we like so much better than this current occupation.
This was not my words, it's their words.
And I asked him, hey, why we killed you so many times?
And they said, Yeah, you guys killed us, but at least you killed us, you care about us.
So I guess this is kind of the point that Soviet, they did a brutal, bloody war, and they killed thousands of Afghans.
But at the same time, they tried to help Afghans.
They built a lot of hydroelectric stations or this tunnel, I remember it was very significant construction.
So they did so many things that even 30 years later, the regular Afghans, they remember this.
But on the other hand, when I asked him, how about NATO troops?
They said, Yeah, they're doing good things just for themselves.
This is a real translation of what they told me.
They considered everything what was done since 2001, when first bombing of Afghanistan by NATO and the US military forces.
They did everything pragmatically correct for them.
And again, Afghans, they think that US troops and NATO troops are there not just to help Afghans, but for geopolitical purposes.
Ah, yes.
And that's an excellent point that you address in your book also.
And a question that I was going to ask, for the benefit of the listeners, what do you think the US is doing in Afghanistan?
I mean, they say it's one thing.
But as we already established, politicians can say one thing and mean another when they move military forces into Afghanistan.
So what do you think is the real, real politic, real cynical political motive going on here?
Oleg?
Yeah, just I can just continue my point that, from my perspective, everything with people on mass media channels, they think about, yeah, we do.
We're trying to do democracy in Afghanistan, we need to, we try to help women in Afghanistan.
This is a lie for me, because I was there.
I'm talking to people who regularly go there, like my friends.
So I know what's going on inside of the country.
And what I see on TV here in the US is just, I don't want to use the word be, but it's just total lie.
So I think that the main purpose of staying US troops there, again, geopolitical issue.
I put somewhere in the end of my book that I think that Islamic terrorism project will continue until new project, Cold War II with China will start.
In other words, when it will be like a real Cold War with China, then this fundamental terrorism issue will go away.
So my point is, I think that some people in Washington, they think about a situation in the world, and they consider that the main threat for the United States is rising China.
So that's why they try to do their best to put bases around China and just to do everything possible to minimize future problems with China.
No matter how many people die, no matter...
No, no, no.
This is just a game.
I don't know, Brzezinski, he mentioned that it's a chess game, something like this.
So I was surprised at the Brzezinski issue, if I can just share this with you.
All right, well, we're about to have another long top of the hour break.
Can I get you to stay one more segment so we can talk some more about Gorbachev, Yeltsin, perestroika, glasnost, and whether the Afghan boomerang is going to land in America, Western Europe, or whatever else you want to talk about, Oleg?
Sure, yeah.
Okay, great.
Well, the break isn't quite here yet.
We still got another minute or two, or maybe just one minute or so.
Did you really win a bunch of sheep in a wrestling match at a wedding in Uzbekistan?
You're right, yeah.
Yeah, you mentioned that I described my episode when I was like one week prior to go to the Afghanistan in Uzbekistan, when I was fighting another player.
Wow, so the way it's described in the book is you wrestled once and won like a small prize, like a television or something, and then you wrestled again and won another prize, and you won the tournament, basically, and they were worrying about their 20 sheep as the grand prize, and you were wondering what you were going to do with 20 sheep being Soviet military in-country.
It's funny stuff, funny stuff in that book.
Yeah, but keep in mind that television was not like here in the United States.
It was very rare.
In other words, it was a very expensive item at that time, but 20 sheep is just unbelievable money.
But again, it was like a wedding prize, and it's not just one day experience.
It just goes there, I guess, until nowadays, wedding prize wrestling competition.
That's funny stuff.
All right, well, here's the music saying that we have a break coming on.
I'm talking with Oleg Novinkov, talking about his book Afghan Boomerangs, his anti-war radio.
More on the other side.
Welcome back to the show, everybody.
It's anti-war radio.
I'm Zoe Greif, and in case you just joined us, I've been talking with Dr. Oleg Novinkov, former lieutenant colonel in the Soviet military, and we were discussing his book, Afghan Boomerang, and we have just scratched the surface, just barely, in these two segments that we've done, Oleg, and we've only got time for one more segment because we've got other great guests lined up.
So, I mean, there's so many things we could talk about, so many directions we could go.
Is there anything that you particularly want to cover, that you particularly want to talk about, for the benefit of our listeners?
Oh, yeah, sure.
Yeah, I think I put in my book that it's like a very rare suggestion what we can do with Afghanistan, how to help them and how to save the United States.
So my solution is to leave Afghanistan tomorrow.
I agree with that.
And also form new countries on Afghan territory, according to settlements of tribes and people, like Pashtunistan, Belugistan, northern territories.
In this case, Pakistani, Afghani, Pashtun, Taliban problem will just be solved almost immediately.
This solution should be based on historical analysis, because it's already, for many years in Afghanistan, we can see a systemic crisis.
And just to fight Afghans, it doesn't make sense at all.
Just blood, blood, blood.
Why do we need blood?
Why does world society do something like they consider good with Yugoslavia when they just form many new countries?
Why can't we think about doing the same with Afghanistan and solve many intertribal issues?
So this is kind of, I think, important.
And also I would like to say that my book address to American people, and I think I'm faithfully perform my duty to the country of my residence, I mean, United States, and I warn the country of the upcoming disaster.
Soviet December 1991 can become reality very soon in the United States because of this Afghan war.
And it's not just economic.
I think that the problem in the United States is approximately the same as what was in the Soviet Union.
The morale of the majority of people is totally different.
I came to this country 15 years ago in 1995 and 2012, totally different countries from a moral point of view.
This is bad for this country when they don't have connection between each other.
Yeah, and along those lines, you talk about and you warn, especially in the epilogue of your book about how you think the Afghan boomerang is landing or could land upside the head of the United States of America.
Please continue in that vein and talk more about what you think that would look like and what what the consequences of that might be.
Yeah.
Afghan boomerang, I use this term just to attract attention that Afghan boomerang, everything was connected with Afghan war, will finish badly.
Like, remember, British, they were there, and after that, there are no more British Empire.
Soviet, they were there, no more Soviet Union.
Now, United States.
And I'm just asking myself, why United States government cannot learn lessons of history?
Why is it trying to repeat the same and the same?
Like, it's madness.
I tell you, it's madness.
Madness.
Yeah.
Remember, Albert Einstein, they said that if we do scientific experiments, the same and the same, but we try, we're thinking that we'll get new results.
It's insanity.
So now we have, like you said, insanity in Afghanistan.
Absolutely.
And another point you make in your book that I really agree with is that while all these important global issues are going on, the US media distracts the American public with meaningless, fluffy nonsense, celebrity this and blah, blah, blah that when really important things are going on.
And the American body politic is largely unaware of this.
Would you agree, Oleg?
I'm not agree.
I put this in the book, so I am very open with this.
But I'm just I don't know, I don't have arena.
I would like to say so many things, but I know we're limited.
But what I'm saying that United States 2012, it's approximately like perestroika time in Soviet Union.
The same craziness, like openness, glassness.
So they destroyed the whole system.
I'm not a supporter of Communist Party, but I was a regular Soviet citizen.
And I was part of this destroyment by Gorbachev and Yeltsin.
But it was Soviet Union.
And here in 2012, I feel the same, maybe named like Barack Obama, change, change, change.
But in Russian, it was perestroika.
It means also change.
So it's the same processes, but different name in English.
And I'm trying to say, my colleagues, hey, guys, we need to wake up.
We need to wake up.
The same story will repeat soon in the United States, like it was one superpower was out.
And now the superpower is on the way out.
Why we need to do this, we need to do prevention, we need to be more thankful, not just consider ourselves to be a world dictator, like many people think.
I agree.
And totally.
And as long as you bring up glasnost and Gorbachev and Yeltsin, I was honestly surprised because again, I just grew up in Texas.
And I don't really know any better than what the government and my school teacher told me.
But apparently Gorbachev and Yeltsin and the whole perestroika, glasnost era are particularly unpopular in Russia today.
Can you address that issue and explain it for the listeners?
Yeah, I put in my book that I was as polite as I can when I described Gorbachev and Yeltsin's actions during that time.
Because if you go to any blog related to Gorbachev and Yeltsin, you will see so many terrible, awful words about them.
Everyone wants them to be dead or dead twice.
So in other words, so many people hate them, not just don't like them, they hate them because they destroyed lives of 250 million people.
I'm one of these 250 million persons.
But I guess the main point is that from Western point of view, from Western eyes, yes, it was good.
It was democracy for Soviet Union, freedom.
But if you go to the territory of one sixth of the world land, I mean, Soviet Union, 99% would say no, it wasn't freedom.
It wasn't good for Soviet people.
It was terrible, terrible thing what happened there.
Yeah, you described some of the consequences in your book with decaying morality and decaying sense of unity and national spirit, increased drunkenness and drug abuse and crime and just a whole sense of decline.
It was really palpable when I was reading about it in your book.
I certainly hope that doesn't come here to the USA.
But I'm afraid it will come because, again, these two bad people Gorbachev and Yeltsin, when they started this perestroika and after the democracy in Soviet Union and later in Russia, they started processes from economy, but they destroyed ideological structure.
They need to update ideological structure.
And it's not my words.
Some smart people on the Russian side, they do many shows and they think, hey, the main problem of Gorbachev and Yeltsin, they just destroyed everything and they did not build new updated ideology what would be good for a majority of countrymen.
But they just think, yeah, freedom, take as many plants as possible, take as many oil as possible.
But it wasn't freedom.
It was like a stealing of state property.
And people who were very close to Soviet government, they got so many advantages if compared with 99% and the rest of the 250 million people.
Well, we're almost out of time.
Not quite yet.
Just real quick, I want to ask you, what do you think of military conscription?
What's your opinion of the draft?
I think that this current Afghan war, I mean, when the US military participate in the war, this tragedy is what happened in military families inside of a small group of people, not small, but let's say one million people in the United States.
But the rest of Americans, they do not feel the same pain like wounded or killed military people.
I mean, Americans in Afghanistan.
So in other words, if it would be draft or if it would be, let's say, 10% war tax on each person in the United States, then Americans would consider that, oh, we have war over there and this war hurts us, each of us.
So then maybe they will move their legs and asses to streets and say, hey, stop war, stop war.
We don't need this war.
We don't need this war.
I agree entirely.
I'm so sorry we're out of time.
Maybe we can do it again sometime.
The guest is Oleg Novinkov.
The book is Afghan Boomerang.
And it sounds to me like neither the American military nor the American people learn much from the Soviet experience.
It was great talking to you, Oleg.
Thanks for your time on the show.
Thank you, sir.
