Prague: a city amongst cities’ cemeteries
E-book, Czech
Prague: a city amongst cities’ cemeteries
Afghanistan is nicknamed the graveyard of empires after a series of unsuccessful British campaigns in the last two centuries. Prague has also been involved here in the last four decades by participating in the controversial superpower operations of its contemporary allies. On the first day of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in 1979, the communist leader Babrak Karmal was installed in the presidential palace in Kabul by Moscow, having been in exile from Czechoslovakia. After the Soviet withdrawal and the takeover of the country by militant Islamic groups, which at the time enjoyed Washington's support, the graveyard of empires was again occupied after 9/11, this time by the United States along with Great Britain. They installed a US citizen, Hamid Karzai, as the head of Afghanistan. However, what began as a war against Al-Qaeda quickly turned into a permanent war against shepherds and villagers who do not understand the reason for the presence of foreign troops in their country and refuse to accept it. Prague has been sending our soldiers to Afghanistan since 2002, and a total of seven thousand have served here in several rotations. The practical effect of this entire 'crusade', as US President Bush presciently called it just a week after 9/11, remains at least questionable. The world is not safer today, nor has Afghanistan become a stabilised and prosperous country.
Nakladatelství Epocha s.r.o., Kaprova 12, 11000 Praha 1-Staré Město, Česká republika, 224 810 352
