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The Graveyard of Empires

Ryan Harvey
Language: English


Ryan Harvey

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Album: Blowback [2010]
coversmallflat

"I wrote this after talking with a friend's father whose brother and many friends were killed by the Russians as they 'liberated' the Afghan people from themselves. Sound familiar? It should be noted that this song is not about the Taliban or the Northern Alliance or any of the corrupt warlords who seized power violently after the resistance to Russia, it is about the larger, secular resistance that carried with it broad support from the Afghan people. And it's about the Soviet Union's imperialist tendencies in the countries that surrounded it" (R.H.).
They came rumbling cross the border with the war machines
100,000 soldiers, 100,000 strong
Soldiers firing into crowds protesting on the streets
100,000 strong
Helicopters firing into little towns up in the mountains
100,000 soldiers, 100,000 strong
And they called it liberation
100,000 strong, 100,000 strong

Onward, Great Liberator! Free the countryside!
Make em refugees, make em refugees
Bomb the villages! Burn the fields! Kill the farmers!
Now they rest in peace, you've brought the peace

They handed down their doctrine, their flag and their new ways
100,000 soldiers, 100,000 strong
You can accept, leave home, or die, the choice was plain
100,000 strong
Poison gas for non-believers in the villages
100,000 soldiers, 100,000 strong
As they hid inside caves clutching their kids
100,000 strong

1 million dead civilians, 5 million refugees
100,000 soldiers, 100,000 strong
But the brave rebels fought back relentlessly
100,000 strong
And after 9 years of invasion by the Soviet guns
100,000 soldiers, 100,000 strong
The Freedom Fighters put the great Red Army on the run
100,000 strong

Imperial occupation, poison Soviet bouquet
100,000 soldiers, 100,000 strong
Strategic assistance for resistance from the CIA
100,000 strong
Cold War politics of empirical regimes
100,000 soldiers, 100,000 strong
With the people of Afghanistan trapped in between
100,000 strong

Contributed by giorgio - 2010/10/27 - 08:41




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