Malatya Businessmen Association (MİAD) held a meeting in April 2006 within the framework of the 3rd Idea Platform meeting. One of the participants was Malatya journalist Hrant Dink.
In the speech he gave 8 months before he was murdered on January 19, 2007, he said:
“The role played by the British, the French, the Russians and the Germans on these lands in the past is being repeated today. In the past, the Armenian people trusted them. They thought they would save themselves from Ottoman oppression, but they were wrong.”
“Because they came, did their own work, did what they came to do, and then turned away and left whom they referred to as brothers and sisters in blood. And this is what the Kurds are experiencing in the present. America has arrived today, and is about to form a Kurdish state in Northern Iraq. For our Kurdish brothers, it has been a field of attraction. What happened, did something else happen? Is there any hope?”
“This is a very dangerous course. This is America. After it does what it does, it leaves the people here in their own bickering.”
The armed organization that overthrew an American-affiliated ‘elected government’
What happened that day, combined with today’s developments, show that Hrant Dink’s analysis is historically extremely accurate. As what happened in Afghanistan before the eyes of the world, confirms Hrant Dink’s analysis from start to end.
“This is America, it does what it came to do, tends to its own business, and leaves when it’s done. And then leaves the people in the region to their own suffering.”
The organization called the Taliban, has taken over the administration of Afghanistan. Like it or not, the administration of the elected Afghanistan state was seized for the second time by the same armed organization.
They have nothing else in their hands than an understanding of governance based on sharia, force, weapons, executions and prohibitions, which it has produced according to its own understandings. Which is why hundreds of thousands of people are trying to flee the country at the moment.
Not only Afghans who have worked for America or other Western countries, but also ordinary people are trying to save their lives by throwing their newborn babies over concrete blocks and steel wires in the first plane they find. Those who cannot find a place in the cabin hug the wheels of the planes and die.
This is all because of America’s interventions. It serves its own purposes and leaves when it’s done. It doesn’t even look back at the wreckage he left behind.
A lesson for YPG, PKK and KCK
This attitude of America should be a lesson to everyone, to the organizations that currently serve America’s goals. Especially to the organization KCK, PKK, and YPG, which is trying to survive in Syria and the mountains of North Iraq, with the support of the United States, and its political partners in the region.
We will also see the days when America finishes its mission in Syria, and discards KCK/PKK/YPG. Because just like in Afghanistan, America has embarked on an imperialist war of division that it could not win on Syrian territory, starting a decade-long civil war.
Its excuse was yet again the “fight against terrorism”. And to fight this war, it supports an organization itself has listed as a terrorist organization, the PKK. It thinks that it can establish pro-US state in Syria with the help of this organization.
Just as an organization “Taliban” cannot establish a lasting, successful state in Afghanistan, the KCK/PKK/YPG cannot succeed at that either. Yes, they can build an “administration” based on oppression, fear and weapons, but this is temporary and the end will be destruction.
As a matter of fact, the power behind America, in Hrant Dink’s words, “it does what it does” and “when its work is done, it will definitely leave”. Those who are curious about the future should follow the developments in Afghanistan well. We have seen that the Afghan government, which the Americans have spent 2 trillion dollars on over the last 20 years, collapses immediately after they leave, and hand over power to the Taliban without a fight.
America’s interests in Afghanistan
We will soon see that those who say, “the Americans only withdrew because they were defeated” are wrong.
Because the United States is withdrawing today for the same reason that it came to Afghanistan against the Soviet invasion in 1979. Its real target was again Russia. Russia, which it saw as its biggest rival, was fortifying its presence in the middle of Asia, right between China, Iran and Pakistan.
Now it has new points at stake. Chaos serves the Americans more than peace, in that spot between China, Iran and Pakistan. And soon, when the Afghan civil war starts it will be clearer what I mean.
There are also those who will say, “but America’s image as spreader of democracy“. They are wrong. America deals with operations here, not with its image. While everyone is talking about this image, about evacuations, and humanitarian disaster, the Americans have already started doing business with the Taliban.
When America leaves Syria, who will pay the price?
The Syrian-Kurdish administration, which thinks that it can survive with the tens of thousands of truckloads of weapons and millions of dollars sent by the United States, surrounded by enemies, will realize that the history, sociology and geography of the region must not be forgotten, but it will be too late for them.
They’d better start making themselves some friends in the region, instead of relying on American support, and denying the clear fact that the Americans do not want to give them political backing.
Let me end with the following quote attributed to the American politician Henry Kissinger:
“America has no permanent friends or enemies; it only has interests.”
