Apr 28, 2009

Walking into the Wind

----


A man in Mazar-e Sharif (northern Afghanistan) who walks into the wind with his son, suddenly a powerful wind tugged him and fell down on the ground, then stood and started to spit blood on his son when he was suffering from pain. I took this picture when they were walking farther down the street.
He is one of those warriors who lost one of his legs in war against Soviet Invasion, today he is begging on the streets alongside of hundreds of others who are effected by war.

The ANA soldiers in front of them shown, are taking care of security measurements of the Nawrooz festival, the fist day of the year.

Nawrooz is historically cheerfully celebrated by Afghan people and also popular in Iran. Actually Nawrooz is a Zoroastian holiday and it originated in northern Afghanistan then spread across the continent by Afghans. Nawrooz is celebrated in a very special way in Afghanistan which tells a lot about its history and Zorosastian, especially about the people while in Iran it is just turned into a cultural event.

Apr 5, 2009

The Bush Legacy - Afghanistan & Iraq war

On Thursday evening, March 26, while everyone was getting ready for watching Duke Basketball game at Duke Campus, in the social science building there was a very interesting discussion on US National Security in the 21st century with the former national security adviser Stephen Hadley. Hadley was working as national security adviser from 2005 to 2009 under Bush administration.

More than 60 students and faculty member attended this discussion and sponsored by Duke and the Triangle institute for Security Studies. Peter Feaver, who worked under Hadley from 2005 to 2007 as special adviser for strategic planning and international reform on the National Security Council interviewed Hadely and then opened the floor for the audience.

The war in Iraq and Afghanistan is the Bush legacy and today the new administration has to carry out to defeat the enemy. The United Sates was quite successful to overcome the terrible situation in Iraq but not in Afghanistan. This was an issue I had chance to ask Hadely personally.

He believes, the Bush administration was unsuccessful on war against terror in Afghanistan, not only Hadely but a numbers of politicians whom I met, they sated that the United Sates went to Afghanistan to prevent another September11 which was successful. The interpretation is; Taliban, war in Afghanistan is an Afghan issue, they should solve their problem by their own.