Destination Kabul for Turkish forces

BBC ^ | 6/21/2002 | Jonny Dymond

[a_Turk]

It was six in the morning local time. The aeroplane's in-flight monitor read "Welcome to Ashkhabad".

But something was wrong. Because on either side of the airbus as it had taxied to a halt had been burnt out fighter jets and bombed buildings, the wreckage of a relatively low-level but long-term conflict.

If this was Ashkhabad, capital of Turkmenistan, we'd all be missing a big story.


Kabul remains a city of destroyed buildings.

In fact it was Kabul, the Afghan capital.

The brass band of the Turkish Army reached up into overhead lockers, fretting over their creased uniforms.

And for 50-odd Turkish Army soldiers who sat rigid in their combat fatigues, many of them awe-struck after their first ever flight, contemplated their new posting.

Kabul is not a pretty sight. It is obviously painfully poor: many children are stick-thin, though smiling and waving.


Karzai and the Turkish commander Major General Hilmi Akin Zorlu.

There's a fair amount of war damage and everywhere pitiful stalls with shabby-looking produce. Some fields on the outskirts were being tilled with a crude wooden plough being pulled by a donkey.

Everywhere you go, even with car windows closed, a fine dust cloud creeps into your clothes, your throat and your ears.

At the Turkish Army barracks, despite the strict warning not to talk to any soldiers, the Turkish Army itself was in a relatively expansive mood.

There was a trot round the barracks, which are of a considerably better quality than their British equivalent.

Ceremony

There was lots of standing around in the baking sun - my God it's hot - watching soldiers stand to attention waiting for a commanding officer to trot past them. And then it was off to hand over ceremony.

Many children work on the streets.

"Surreal" is perhaps an overused adjective, but to turn from the dust and the noise of Kabul streets to what looked at first sight like a perfectly manicured lawn and then to watch the ceremonial handover take place, was just that - surreal.

A British pipe and drum band paraded in front of diplomatic worthies, members of the Afghan Government, and British and Turkish commanding officers.

They marched off the field playing "Rule Britannia", reinforcing the 19th century colonial whiff of the affair. Then the Turkish band, resplendent in red jackets, black trousers with yellow stripes and shiny patent shoes took the field.

The 150 journalists present were kept in order by ferocious British military servicewomen.

Flags were hauled down, winched up and then, with a round of platitudes, it was over.

There was one more appointment - a trip to the Turkish HQ to talk to some "average" soldiers. This was carried out, of course, outside under the roaring sun.

Most of them seemed fairly sanguine about their plight. But others who I'd spoken to earlier were less happy about the mission "Do you think I'm a masochist?" asked one, eyebrows raised.

Arm-twisting

Although it was all smiles on handover day there was fierce wrangling over Turkey taking over leadership of ISAF.

After it became clear that there were still many in Afghanistan that were none too happy about the new government the Turkish Government got cold feet: it took a large dollop of US cash and some fairly ferocious arm twisting to persuade them to take ISAF on.

The mandate is supposed to end in six months. But there were some pretty mournful faces around when soldiers were asked if they really thought that Turkey would be able to call it a day at the end of the year.

"It's six months minimum", said one, "Six months and then we'll see."

Darulaman Palace - a reminder of past nightmares.

The trip wrapped up abruptly: suddenly we were at the airport in Kabul again, gazing at the wrecked Ariana passenger jets piled like toys on top of each other.

Three, four, maybe more different nations' troops are camped out in and around the buildings of the airport.

There's a lot of weaponry around. Close up, without the prism of the TV screen, it's clear that the potential for conflict here is still very high.

By four in the afternoon local time we were in the air again: we'd been in and out of Afghanistan in just 10 hours, flying 2,000 miles at either end.

It was a well-organised PR excursion for the normally secretive Turkish Army. But even by the slack standards of journalists it was a ludicrous way to visit a country. I will go back. But maybe when it's cooler.

[a_Turk]

Soon it's gonna be "The Economy Stupid!" We have less than 2 years left..

[a_Turk]

Ping.

[Commander8]

I heard stories about the Turkish Army and how they fought in the Korean War. I heard they don't fool around.

[VOA]

I heard stories about the Turkish Army and how they fought in the Korean War.
I heard they don't fool around.

With all due respect to grunts/snipers Canadians doin a good job in Afghanistan,
I suspect that if our Turkish friends are offered a Bronze Star by the
US Military, there won't be any officers hemming and hawing about allowing the award.

(And in my heart, I hope there isn't any trouble for the US and other troops in the area.)

[browardchad]

And for 50-odd Turkish Army soldiers who sat rigid in their combat fatigues, many of them awe-struck after their first ever flight, contemplated their new posting.

Turk, why is this?

[Tailback]

It's good to see the Turks there. It probably soothes the locals some to have Muslim (well, sort of) peacekeepers instead of more evil Americans to shoot at. If it cost us a few bucks to get them there then hey, what the heck. Just call it a NATO training exercise or something similar to keep the accountants happy.

[Tailback]

It's a draft army mostly in Turkey, many of these guys are probably fresh from small villages although looking at the pictures I'd guess most are from the Western part of Turkey which has some larger urban areas. I knew plenty of guys from West Virginia, Kentucky, and Georgia that had their first plane ride when they got stationed in Germany in the US Army.

[a_Turk]

The Afghans, after fighting side by side with the US, overwhelmingly elected Karzai. I don't think they assume Americans are evil ;)

[a_Turk]

I won't say that most of my compadres ever had enough cash in one place to buy an airline ticket, but I also could think that the reporter's conceit is bleeding through here. We were, after all, declared a second class race by western Europeans in the early 20th century. That was, at least, information that their school books contained.

The one thing positive about that racist crap was their unwitting admission of our being our own race, with our own phylum, and myths - a detail which still escapes most folks.

[Tailback]

The one thing positive about that racist crap was their unwitting admission of our being our own race, with our own phylum, and myths - a detail which still escapes most folks.

Tell me more about this my friend, I've never heard this story.

[a_Turk]

The myth goes that once upon a time the Chinese raiders eradicated all nomads in the central asian steppes, but left one boy alive after severing his arms and legs. This boy was found and nursed back to health by a female wolf. We are their offspring.

Once our nation became too populous for the hidden valley where the wolf had hidden the boy, we started looking for a way out, but could not find one. Then another wolf showed us a passage through a cave, but it dead ended into a wall of iron. Our mythical blacksmith ancestor started a fire and smelted it down. Thus we were set free to spread to the four corners of the earth.

The Turkish word for wolf is "Kurt." The Turkish word for "to save" is "kurtar." Our national animal is a wolf.

On our language: A strict terminological distinction should be drawn between Turkic, the name of a language family, and Turkish, the name of a language. Although Turkish is by far the largest language in terms of speakers in the Turkic family, it accounts for only some 40% of the total number of speakers of the Turkic languages. The main geographic locations of Turkic languages are: 1) Turkey, 2)the Caucasus and NW Iran (e.g. Azerbaidjani), Central Asia and southern Siberia (e.g. Uzbek, Kazakh, Turkmenian, Kirghiz) and on the Volga (e.g. Tatar). One Turkic language (Yakut) is spoken in northern Siberia - gotto see them, they look like Native Americans! In addition there are substantial Turkic-speaking communities in NW China (Uighur and Kazakh) - who are presently really screwed by our good friends the communist Chinese..

The verb final sentence structure of Turkish is employed by Yoda :^D

The external genetic relationships of the Turkic family remain controversial. The most widely accepted affiliation is with the Mongolian languages (in Mongolia, northern China and parts of Russia) and the Tungusic languages (siberia and northwestern China), to form the Altaic phylum. Bolder hypotheses would extend the Altaic phylum eastward to include Korean, perhaps even Japanese; or northwards to include the Uralic family (incl. Hungarian and Finnish) to give a Ural-Altaic phylum.

And here's a study which concerns itself with the ancient runes of Europe and Asia: Ancient Turkish script used in Central Asia and the Primitive Norse futhark in Europe, as well as other scripts have all stemmed from a common origin in a very remote past.

[Travis McGee]

Nobody will play "throw rocks at the Turkish soldiers and run away" twice.

The Turkish soldiers will know haw to give and get respect in Kabul.

[dighton]

This boy was found and nursed back to health by a female wolf. We are their offspring.

The Romans immediately come to mind.

[Senator_Palpatine]

"Begin landing your troops"

[general_re]

The Romans immediately come to mind.

I'm not up on my Turkish folklore, but I've got to admit, you might be on to something there...

[weikel]

Good like I said the Turks don't take any crap and there will be no trouble in Kabul.

[a_Turk]

The myth I summed up is from a time long before our conquest of the Eastern Roman Empire, and from a land further to the east, namely central Asia. I don't know enough to speculate on any connection between us and Romus and Romulus, other than to say that they are from two seperate places and two seperate times.

The Chinese never made it to Asia Minor.. The Turks who conquered Anatolia were the Ouz Turks, who were the ones who wandered southeast following the period of the myth.

[a_Turk]

Also, no Kein and Abel mixed into this myth.

[general_re]

The myth I summed up is from a time long before our conquest of the Eastern Roman Empire, and from a land further to the east, namely central Asia. I don't know enough to speculate on any connection between us and Romus and Romulus, other than to say that they are from two seperate places and two seperate times.

Well, that's the interesting thing about it, really. Keep in mind that the story of Romulus and Remus is probably not really Roman in origin either. It's almost certainly a retelling of a Greek myth, with some heavy Etruscan influences thrown in for good measure - the wolf was a symbol of the Etruscans well before the founding of Rome. And the Etruscans themselves drew heavily from the Greeks for their own mythology and culture - the Etruscan alphabet was based on Greek, IIRC - which was in turn passed down to the Romans.

And guess where the Etruscans are thought to have come from before settling on the Italian peninsula? Somewhere in the Eastern Mediterranean, possibly Asia Minor.

Even though the myths may seem wholly separate in time and place, there may be a deeper connection there than is apparent at first...

[a_Turk]

I was looking for maps showing ancient Turkic migration paths, but was unable so far. I found this one though, and it is pretty recent (see Russia? King Jacob?), but depicts the general area from which we sprung. I understand many of the words on the map, even though I am from thousands of miles to the west from there.



If you can come up with maps depicting political boundaries of the region from the era of the Gokturk empire and back, please forward me the links.