{"id":1265,"date":"2016-04-10T18:56:18","date_gmt":"2016-04-10T18:56:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.taand.com\/en\/?p=1265"},"modified":"2016-04-10T18:56:18","modified_gmt":"2016-04-10T18:56:18","slug":"a-true-friend-of-the-afghan-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/taand.net\/en\/?p=1265","title":{"rendered":"A True Friend of the Afghan People"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bruce G. Richardson –
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s with great regret to learn that a great journalist, researcher and writer and a true friend of the Afghan, Bruce G. Richardson passed away on Wednesday 6th<\/sup> of April 2016 at the age of 83.\u00a0 He leaves behind not only a daughter and a wife, but the whole of the Afghan nation.<\/p>\n

Bruce was a sincere and a dedicated journalist.\u00a0 Once he got hold of the reality of a situation, he was never discouraged by others whose fame and gain was to be touched by his writings.<\/p>\n

He started as Marine in the US army and was a true patriot, but he never hesitated to tell the truth about the shortcomings of the American government, despite being asked several time by \u00a0government officials to moderate his criticisms.<\/p>\n

He was one of many journalists who traveled with the Mujahedin to the most remote parts of Afghanistan, but unlike most others, who forgot Afghanistan, Bruce remained with the Afghan issue and wrote three books and hundreds of papers first about the Soviets and their invasion 1979-1989 and then about the American invasion 2001-2014.\u00a0 My two colleagues Dr. Daud Miraki and Dr. Rahmat R. Zirakyar in their remembrance of him,\u00a0 pointing to his books summarize them as : \u201cHis last book published was: Afghanistan: A Search for Truth<\/strong>. Fourth Revised\u00a0 Edition. Free Forum Publications\/New York-Free port-London.\u00a0 Printed in Canada, 2009. Major parts of the book are: 1. Afghanistan-History-Soviet Occupation-Ahmad Shah Massoud: 1779-1989; 2. Afghanistan-History-2001-U.S. Occupation-World Power Rivalry; and 3. Afghanistan-Current Affairs-2001-2008. 456 pages.\u201d But his major work , on the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was: Afghanistan, Ending the Reign of Soviet Terror,<\/strong> 1996 was considered one of the best first hand book after Bruce\u2019s several trips to Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

Bruce was an avid reader.\u00a0 He told me he has about 150 books on Afghanistan and when my book:\u00a0 Afghanistan, Political Frailty and External Interference<\/strong>, came out he wrote a three page review and called my book \u201chis bible of Afghanistan.\u201d\u00a0 He quoted and mentioned my book in his numerous articles, for which I remain grateful.<\/p>\n

I and some of his other Afghan enthusiast decided to invite him to Kabul, but he has been ill over the past year and a half and we never fulfilled our wish.\u00a0 I hope we can still name a department in one our universities after him and thus pay our respect to this wonderful man who spent the last 30 years of his life, bringing the issue of Afghanistan to the world\u2019s attention. No researcher of the two super-power (USSR & USA) invasions of Afghanistan can afford not reading his books and hundreds of his articles that he wrote between 1980-2016 about Afghanistan.<\/p>\n

Bruce found out in the mountains of Paktia that not all Afghans were fighting the Soviets Red Army.\u00a0 https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=AKZCKzaXFG8<\/a><\/p>\n

Having discovered the truth he stuck to it and wrote about such issues untiringly till a couple of months before his death.<\/p>\n

Once about four years ago of party of us drove from Virginia to Rhode Island, where he lived to pay him our respect for what he was doing for Afghanistan.\u00a0 He showed us his photographs of the Jihad period and impressed us how much he was affected by the affections and bravery of the Afghans inspire of the formidable war machine of the Soviets.<\/p>\n

A few years ago he asked me who he should give his books on Afghanistan to and also these rare photographs of the war.\u00a0 The books were an easy project and he decided to donate them to the University of Nebraska who has an Afghan Studies department.\u00a0 But the photographs were difficult to find the right place for. Eventually after writing to an number of Museums he donated them to the UNESCO and was happy they were in the right hand and will be displayed for many years to come, to tell the story of the Soviet invasion of a poor country like Afghanistan, and then in the process, losing their empire and the communist way of life.<\/p>\n

Bruce Richardson\u2019s article first start appearing in Professor Hashemyan\u2019s\u00a0 Afghanistan Mirror<\/strong> and then they were filed in Dawat <\/strong>website without fail and also at the same time in Tolafghanistan and Larawbar<\/strong> websites, all three of which are visited by hundreds and thousands of Afghans every day.<\/p>\n

I hope Afghans everywhere will, in our hospitable way, remember this true and great journalist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bruce G. Richardson – It\u2019s with great regret to learn that a great journalist, researcher and writer and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1266,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-article"],"yoast_head":"\nA True Friend of the Afghan People - Taand English<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/taand.net\/en\/?p=1265\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A True Friend of the Afghan People - Taand English\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Bruce G. 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