Soviet Strength in Afghanistan

I wonder if Prof. Jerry F. Hough, author of the article (Editorial Pages, Jan. 16), “Moscow Deals From Strength in Afghanistan,” would continue to believe that a pro-communist regime in Kabul is “closer, in human rights terms, to American values” than the views of the moujahedeen resistance fighters if he were to accompany me on a visit to a destroyed village, or through a ward of wounded Afghan children.

For a professor of political science, Hough exhibits astonishing ignorance about the character of the Afghan resistance, which, though it does have Muslim fundamentalists, also has many other elements that might be more to his taste. His analysis also shows an inability to distinguish the subtleties of Muslim politics, between different degrees of fundamentalism, or even between basics such as Sunni and Shia sects.

What is frightening is Hough’s cold, calculating, cynical attitude that what’s good, or at least acceptable, for American geopolitical interests is good for the Afghan people. Where are the human beings in this equation? Where are the 1 million dead, the 4 million refugees, the uncounted wounded?

I dare Prof. Hough to stand before an audience in an Afghan refugee camp and tell them to go home, that their children and their fighters have died for nothing, that they will be better off living under communism.

I wonder if Hough has ever stepped off a university campus? From what experience of human joy and suffering does he pontificate about the fate of an entire nation? Sadly, it seems that he and his counterparts in the Soviet Union and other countries must have the greatest influence as advisers of governments that make policy not out of ethical considerations, but out of political and economic self-interest.

DEBRA DENKER

Studio City