Afghan Peace

I have seen how a city is turned into a wreck after an air bombing during the Gulf War in Baghdad. And now, after landing in Kabul at sunrise — landing in darkness is not allowed for fear of Taliban missiles — I watched the tragedy the U.S. has brought upon Afghanistan like it did in Iraq.

The reason for the U.S. to go to war in Afghanistan was an al Qaida attack on 9/11. They violated the sovereignty of the Taliban by occupying the country.

It has been nine years since 9/11. More than 50 countries, including Turkey, under the leadership of the U.N., NATO, the E.U. and the U.S. are aiming to achieve Afghan peace by convening a conference in Kabul — the city of curfews. They are planning “a transition to full Afghan sovereignty” by including the Taliban in the process!

As soon as we entered Kabul, we started to hear possible solutions aiming “to bring the Taliban back from the mountains” and by unarming them “to make them respectful of the Afghan Constitution.” If we hadn’t been in southeastern Turkey last week and hadn’t remembered the situation of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), we would have connected this surreal situation to the tiredness of our flight via Syria. The change in Damascus is unbelievable. The streets where Öcalan once led the PKK now hawk “Valley of the Wolves”* T-shirts featuring the main character Polat Alemdar. There is huge interest and love towards Turkey.

Winds of friendship blow.

The friendly relationship that started in the times of Ataturk still remains with Afghanistan.

The location of the Turkish Embassy can be assumed as one the most secure places in Kabul. However, Kabul is literally under siege; there are walls between main streets and the neighborhoods. Because of the conference, precautions were exaggerated, and the city turned into a prison. The government imposed a curfew as a result of a threat made against the U.N. secretary general’s plane.

The hotel is so well decorated for foreigners that you won’t miss the famous George Seng of Paris. However, in order to avoid suicide bombings and missiles from mountains, castle walls were constructed around it. You have no connection with the outside. There are almost no civilian vehicles, except a few Afghan horsemen on the way to airport; we saw all kinds of military vehicles, all of which are armored.

In a depopulated city, the Western world is trying to construct the future of Afghan people.

In the meantime, the resistance is going on in the south; we hear battle news from Kandahar.

As a part of Obama’s strategy, the U.S. will keep the Karzai regime alive by claiming that not all Taliban are radical Islamists. Because of his history of corruption, Karzai could hardly have been elected for the second time. The U.S. is planning to withdraw from Afghanistan like it is planning to withdraw from Iraq. However, mujahideens the U.S. itself organized against the Soviet Union during the Cold War have converted into Taliban with the support of General Zia-ul-Haq in Pakistan.

As a result, the Taliban is the product of the U.S.

It is known that at least one million Afghans were killed during the internal conflicts.

Now, the U.S. is seeking a way to reconcile with those to whom it gave power who then turned against it on 9/11.

Interestingly, the Afghan women who were supposedly the reason for the occupation are invisible. You cannot see them anywhere, even under their burqas!

It is ambiguous how Afghan peace will happen, but it is certain that the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan before the U.S. occupancy were not worse than they are now. The diplomats are still full of hope; they think that the vision introduced in the Kabul Conference will be beneficial for the process of transition.

*Translator’s note: “Valley of the Wolves” is a nationalist Turkish television series.