# Was Soviet War in Afghanistan a genocide? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 18, 2014, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-soviet-war-in-afghanistan-a-genocide/681582 "2014-02-18T01:59:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![CCitizen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@CCitizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CCitizen)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2014, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-soviet-war-in-afghanistan-a-genocide/681582/21 "2014-02-18T05:24:45Z")
> [@Gorsnak](#): > > Marek Sliwinski, “Afghanistan: The Decimation of a People,” Orbis (Winter, 1989), p.39. I have read that article a few times and I have it. ---
**Author:** ![CCitizen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4af34b/32.png) [@CCitizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CCitizen)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2014, 5:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-soviet-war-in-afghanistan-a-genocide/681582/22 "2014-02-18T05:26:42Z")
> [@XT](#): > > I can’t see how it would do a thing to help our relations with anyone and would simply antagonize the Russians. If there is a new Cold War, that could be useful. In any case, every mass killing has to be remembered – especially a killing on a similar scale as Armenian Genocide. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2014, 5:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-soviet-war-in-afghanistan-a-genocide/681582/23 "2014-02-18T05:27:41Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > Sigh… Ok, who wrote this article? What are his credentials and qualifications? Is he or she an acknowledged expert in Soviet or Afghan history? Would he or she be able to even order dinner in Dari or Russian? > > There’s a reason most serious academics don’t take wikipedia seriously. At best it can point you in the direction of good sources. > > Wikipedia is fine for some things, but on any controversial topic, such as just about anything relating to the MENA it’s best to be avoided for a ton of reasons. > > The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan is probably better than any article on the Troubles in Northern Ireland, or the Israel/Palestine conflict, but it’s still something I’d avoid. > > To the OP: if you’re going to make such arguments at least point to specific things like the use of booby trapped toys clearly designed to kill children. But the only fact that the OP used Wikipedia for is that about a million Afghans were killed during the Soviet occupation. Are you saying this figure is controversial and other sources would offer a significantly lower figure? If not and you accept the figure as reliable, then Wikipedia is as good a source to cite on this issue as any other source. Sure, Wikipedia isn’t the end-all of knowledge. But it’s intellectual snobbery to pretend it’s never right and any citation to it should be automatically dismissed. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2014, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-soviet-war-in-afghanistan-a-genocide/681582/24 "2014-02-18T05:36:33Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > But the only fact that the OP used Wikipedia for is that about a million Afghans were killed during the Soviet occupation. Are you saying this figure is controversial and other sources would offer a significantly lower figure? If not and you accept the figure as reliable, then Wikipedia is as good a source to cite on this issue as any other source. > > Sure, Wikipedia isn’t the end-all of knowledge. But it’s intellectual snobbery to pretend it’s never right and any citation to it should be automatically dismissed. I never said that. I will say that in my experience when someone begins by citing a Wikipedia article it usually is a pretty good indicator they don’t know much about the subject and that they should keep going. As for the figure, I suspect any figure given is going to be something of an educated guess and an educated guess is still a guess. That said, I think we’re on a bit of a hijack which is at least partly my fault. If anyone wants to continue I’d say open a separate thread. ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2014, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-soviet-war-in-afghanistan-a-genocide/681582/25 "2014-02-18T05:42:15Z")
> [@CCitizen](#): > > If there is a new Cold War, that could be useful. In any case, every mass killing has to be remembered – especially a killing on a similar scale as Armenian Genocide. Whether or not one believes the Armenian Holocaust was a genocide or not, probably around 40-60% of all the Anatolian Armenians were killed of starved to death which is a vastly higher figure than what happened during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. I don’t think that’s a good example. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2014, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-soviet-war-in-afghanistan-a-genocide/681582/26 "2014-02-18T05:49:33Z")
> [@Ibn\_Warraq](#): > > Sigh… Ok, who wrote this article? What are his credentials and qualifications? Is he or she an acknowledged expert in Soviet or Afghan history? Would he or she be able to even order dinner in Dari or Russian? > > There’s a reason most serious academics don’t take wikipedia seriously. At best it can point you in the direction of good sources. > > Wikipedia is fine for some things, but on any controversial topic, such as ju Then it should be easy for you to cite a “real” source that disproves the wikipedia numbers. Why don’t you do that instead of issuing an _ad hominen_? ---
**Author:** ![Ibn\_Warraq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e19b73/32.png) [@Ibn\_Warraq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ibn_Warraq)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2014, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-soviet-war-in-afghanistan-a-genocide/681582/27 "2014-02-18T06:03:17Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Then it should be easy for you to cite a “real” source that disproves the wikipedia numbers. Why don’t you do that instead of issuing an _ad hominen_? Er… I never said the figures they cited were false, I just said Wikipedia isn’t a good source for a number of reasons on any controversial topic. I also didn’t make any ad hominem attacks and suggested dropping this hijack, which admittedly I was at fault for. ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2014, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-soviet-war-in-afghanistan-a-genocide/681582/28 "2014-02-18T13:33:15Z")
But Wikipedia isn’t the source of the numbers. It’s just reporting the number given by the actual sources. I know it’s like work to read footnotes, but they exist for a reason. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-soviet-war-in-afghanistan-a-genocide/681582.md?page=1)