Afghan refugees in the Soviet-American "propaganda war" (1980-s)

This study highlights the role and place of the problem of Afghan refugees in the Soviet-American propaganda war that lasted throughout the 1980s. The author analyzes the nature of US humanitarian assistance to Afghan refugees, stressing the fact that the US assistance in Afghanistan was not only a humanitarian action of good will, but at the same time a topic of exaggerated foreign propaganda (both in official political speeches and media) used to condemn the fact of the Soviet military presence in Afghanistan. The author points to a dramatic increase in the number of refugees (which lasted throughout the 1980-s), which was undoubtedly convenient for the American (and some foreign) anti-Soviet propaganda. The author examines the roles of Afghan refugee issue in the foreign (mostly American) anti-Soviet and anti-Afghan propaganda, as well as in official anti-American propaganda of Kabul and the Soviet Union. Foreign authors tried to denigrate Soviet activities in Afghanistan in every possible way pointing out that a large number of Afghan refugees and the constant growth of refugee number are associated with the Soviet policy of «squeezing» the civilian population out of Afghanistan through active and destructive military operations, which, in fact, was a piece of disinformation aimed at damaging the prestige of the Soviet Union in the eyes of the international community and present the Soviet Union as a war criminal...