AfghanistanicaAfghanistanicaAn exploration of Afghanistan-related issues. Articles
Rory Stewart Strikes Again
2007-10-12 07:49:00 October 12, 2007. In an interview with The Canadian Press Rory Stewart expressed his pessimism about the Afghanistan mission and urged Canada to reconsider its “dishonest” approach. Photo: Rory Stewart , lost in contemplation. Feel free to read the quick article I linked to now. Then read his bio. And then read my hopefully coherent comments in regards to Stewart’s arguments below. “NATO has bitten off far more than it can chew in Afghanistan while expounding a “strange, dishonest rhetoric” that overstates progress as much as it builds false hope, says former British diplomat and best-selling author Rory Stewart.” Bitten off more than it can chew? False hope? If Stewart thinks Afghanistan is doomed then he should quit running his generously funded NGO in Kabul and flee the country. Canada should help lead a major refocus on parts of the country, namely in the north, that actually support democratic reform and development, he says. So Pashtun...
Afghan Ambassador Jawad Speaks
2007-10-11 03:33:00 October 11, 2007. As far as his diplomatic communication skills go, the Afghan Ambassador to the U.S., Said T. Jawad, is the equal of any ambassador posted in Washington. In a live chat with readers of the Huffington Post he answered many hard questions from those Americans who are actually concerned about Afghanistan. Here are a sampling of some of the better questions (taking into account the format): Would you please elaborate on the progress being made on the training of Afghan security forces? What, in your honest opinion, is the single greatest mistake the US has made since driving out the Taliban 6 years ago? Quite simply — how can we turn things around in Afghanistan? How can your government justify asking the Taliban to join Mr. Karzai’s government? Don’t you believe this is an insult to all the Americans and Afghanis that have lost their lives at the hands of the Taliban? Knowing the Taliban’s human rights record and the damage they inflicted in t...
Totally out of context quote #20
2007-10-10 03:55:00 October 20, 2007. “Today even the scarf is being left at home and miniskirts, worn by pert school girls, blossom on the streets of Kabul and on the Kabul University campus.” Context : The good old days. Anthropologist and Afghanistan super-duper-expert Louis Dupree (deceased) writing in his 1973 book Afghanistan (page 247). Pert? pert (pûrt) adjective pert·er, pert·est Trim and stylish in appearance; jaunty. High-spirited; vivacious. Impudently bold; saucy. Saucy! More About: Quote , Ally
At War in Afghanistan
2007-10-09 02:04:00 October 9, 2007. Two new documentaries on Afghanistan have caught my attention in the last week. The first one is At War. This documentary will feel familiar to many people because of the man who shot the video footage: Scott Kesterson. Scott, a former soldier and now a combat reporter, started to get attention when his short video of Canadian troops fighting off an ambush got a huge number of viewers on various video sites. The footage went on to be included in features by Frontline and by the Canadian channel that shows all the hockey games. Fortunately, Kesterson has much more video footage that he has accumulated from his work in Afghanistan. He has, together with his production partner David Leeson, worked all his video footage into a documentary. Based on the trailers, it seems to be a combat documentary first and foremost. There are two trailers; one emo and one aggro. This is the emo trailer: And this is the aggro trailer: More information can be had by visiting the At War...
Hazara Kite Runner Riots?
2007-10-08 02:34:00 October 8, 2007. I usually don’t blog about issues that are being blogged to death on the internet. Nevertheless, I think it is time for me to weigh in on The Kite Runner controversy. My qualifications to do so rest solely on my status as an online purveyor of unsolicited analysis on Afghanistan. Have I read The Kite Runner ? No, not per se. I haven’t read fiction in more than ten years. But I have seen the trailer for the movie and glanced at a few articles about the book. Some kids fly kites and then something bad happens to one of them. And then something about making amends, or atonement or something along those lines. OK, maybe I actually know a lot more about the book than that. Pic: “Dude, I’m Hazara and you’re Pashtun. I understand that. But I don’t understand why we are surrounded by Uyghurs.” As far as the controversy about the rape scene as described in this New York Times article, one of the parties is lying. And if the liars are the par... More About: Riots
Koran, Kalashnikov And Laptop
2007-10-05 02:11:00 October 5, 2007. I’ve said it before: Antonio Giustozzi is one of the best and most productive analysts writing about conflict in Afghanistan at the moment. So go buy his newly published book. Note that I have only recommended three books thus far. Koran , Kalash nikov and Laptop : The Neo-Taliban Insurgency in Afghanistan 2002-7 is definitely going to be a permanent fixture on my bookshelf. An impressive lists of publications by Giustozzi, an expert on warlordism and insurgency at The London School of Economics, can be found here. And if you don’t believe me, then here is some advance praise: “This book fills the gap in the current scholarship on the neo-Taliban. It benefits from the author’s entertainment of deep thinking and cross-analyses of facts and figures. While ambitious, by strictly confining himself to developments occurring between 2002 and 2007, Antonio Giustiozzi has succeeded in providing a valid framework for e... More About: Niko
Lion of Panjshir
2007-10-04 01:50:00 October 4, 2007. Lion of Panjshir is brilliant. They’re just like the original Lion of the Panjshir, except that: (a) they play psychedelic folk rock infused with Afghan elements and (b) they have not fought the Soviet Red Army. The band is Ariana Delawari, Max Guirand and Paloma Udovic. Visit their myspace page to listen to their music. “San Francisco” is an excellent track and if you don’t listen to their reinterpretation of “Chesme siah daree” then you are a bad person. A bad person. Or at the very least you only read this website for conflict and security related issues. Lyrics from “Chesme siah daree”: oh you hold a thousand years the truth of what’s to come so far but oh so simple this could be the one and i knew when i saw those faces i would be the one to trace it a map to gather all the tribes to live as one I imagine Ariana’s dad (it’s who I though it might be) was able to summon up quite a formidable secu...
Random Photo Commentary #2
2007-10-03 01:30:00 October 3, 2007. Photo by James Nachtwey: James Nachtwey’s description of this 1996 photo merely states that this woman is at the grave of her brother who was killed in a Taliban rocket attack. Nachtwey has managed to do something remarkable here. He has found a way to strongly convey emotion in a photo of a woman wearing a burqa. As the burqa hides the face and most of the body, reading emotion can be next to impossible. Other “burqa” photos are almost dehumanizing: the representation of an anonymous, faceless uniformity and a seemingly emotionless nonentity. But underneath is a human being. And under the most difficult circumstances for a photgrapher Nachtwey has shown that this is true. And 11 years later… More About: Commentary , Random
Cash Reward for Taliban and Friends
2007-10-03 01:27:00 October 3, 2007. The U.S. military has started a rewards program for information on select Taliban and vaguely associated rif-raf. It will consist of posting 200 billboards and 300,000 posters in certain areas. Here are some examples, which I hope are available in Pashto: WTF? Tahir Yuldashev? I wouldn’t give you even 200 Uzbekistani Som for this 2nd-rate Juma Namangani wannabe. He probably does the Jihadi cause more harm than good. Leave him be. Will this program see any results? Critics will point to the long-standing massive rewards out for other AQ or Taliban leaders who remain at large. However, rural Afghans have informed on Taliban fighters in the past for no reward at all (usually based on a grievance). But the chance that Sarajuddin Haqqani will be waltzing around west of the Durand Line is rather unlikely. If you are an Afghan and you want to make this kind of money, I suggest becoming a politician or dr... More About: Friends , Cash , Reward
Afghanistanica: Unsafe For Children
2007-10-02 04:29:00 October 2, 2007. Oh dear God, no! What will my mother say? This is my blog rating according to What’s My Blog Rated: Apparently I get the NC-17 rating, which in America is a rarely given rating for movies with extreme violence and graphic sex. The reasons given by the rating tool is that I frequently talk about suicide, death, pain, drugs and killing. Welcome to blogging about Afghanistan. Some of the others? From cleanest to most vile: Registan and My State Failure Blog are G-rated. Ha! Safrang and Home in Kabul are PG. Abu Muqawama is PG-13. Informed Comment on Global Affairs is R. Afghanistanica: purveyor of filth; NC-17. Note: I don’t know how deep the blog rating tool digs, so blog ratings may change as the blogs are updated. More About: Children
Al Jazeera “Embeds” With Americans
2007-10-02 02:53:00 October 2, 2007. Al Jazeera English hangs out with American soldiers and at least one contractor (PMC?) at the KOP in the Korengal Valley of Kunar (50K from the Pakistani border) before moving to Outpost Vegas. What’s the message of this report? I presume it’s much more subtle than their Arabic fare. Despite the subtlety the report is very dramatic; the screams of “Medic!” come about half-way in. At the very least it humanizes the soldiers. But yeah, I have to go to Al Jazeera, Canadian or British TV to get regular TV reports on Afghanistan. That’s sad. At the moment CNN is reporting the serious news: The Britney Spears child custody scandal. This reminds me of a certain photo: More About: Americans , Al-Jazeera
Villagers and Distrust of Government and NGO Development Projects
2007-10-02 01:37:00 October 2, 2007. The following was written about Afghan villagers by a former American Airborne soldier from North Carolina: Local and foreign experts cannot really be blamed for being duped by villagers, who, over many generations, have developed excellent defensive mechanisms to protect themselves from the outside world. For example, villagers willingly accept any and all suggestions for technological change, because they realize that the sooner they accept, the sooner the “developers” will leave. […] The village builds a “mud curtain” around itself for protection against the outside world, which has often come to the village in the past. Sustained relations with the outside world has seldom been pleasant, for outsiders usually come to extract from, not bring anything into, the village. […] As a consequence, most villagers simply cannot believe that central governments, provincial governments, or individual local or foreign technicians want to... More About: Government , Projects , Development , Villa , Ager
Totally out of context quote #19
2007-10-01 05:34:00 October 1, 2007. A few months ago I had written an article in Pashto about media progress in Afghanistan. A survey report of Reporters without Borders was quoted in the article but unfortunately the name of the organization was misprinted when the article published in a local newspaper. In Pashto the organization is called ‘Da Besarhada Zhornalistano Tolana.’ But it printed ‘Da Besara’ which means Reporters without Brains. Context : Abdulhadi Hairan, writing in his blog here, points out a misprint in one of his published articles. He then goes onto to link to his article wherein he discusses warlord journalists. As much as this was an innocent mistake, I’m sure we could all think of a few reporters without brains. Reporters Without Borders? They’re cool. More About: Quote , Ally
Sloppy Reporting From Afghanistan
2007-10-01 02:39:00 October 1, 2007. In March of this year American Marines in Nangarhar used completely excessive force in response to a suicide car bomb attack. The bomb killed 6 people while the Marines shot and killed 6 civilians as they sped away. I briefly commented on the incident at the time and made a very safe and obvious prediction. Pic: A victim of the March Jalalabad shootings. By the standards of media reporting on Afghanistan it was a big story. And reporters love a big story. Especially if your name is Noor Mohhamad Sherzai and you are a bored stringer for Reuters sitting around Nangarhar. So what to do? How about rush out a story without doing the things that journalists are supposed to do? Yeah, let’s do that. Who will notice? Nangarhar is so far away. Journalists are often accused of shoddy reporting and lazy writing. But sometimes they go completely overboard and completely fabricate or grossly exaggerate an incident. It usually ends with them being exposed, humiliated and f...
Afghan Ethnic Dolls
2007-09-30 02:14:00 September 30, 2007. I came across a rather interesting website while on internet foot-patrol. Well, maybe the content may not interest you. But Afghanistanica can not be all things to all people. The site is AfghanEthnic Doll s .com and is a project by Zareen Noory of California. She has dolls in various costumes of seven different ethnic groups. Once again I put my pro-Nuristani bias on display with this example below: The artist, Zareen Noory, of course gives part of the proceeds to charity and has plans to set up an embroidery workshop in Afghanistan. Zareen offers porcelain, vinyl and cloth dolls for sale on her site. Give it a visit. Oh, yeah. One more thing. Burqa doll!
Tom Cruise Invades Afghanistan
2007-09-28 01:28:00 September 28, 2007. …..from his air-conditioned office in DC. Or is Tommy from Kentucky invading Pakistan? It’s sort of hard to tell from the trailer below. Some explanation: New movie titled Lions for Lambs about Afghanistan and other stuff. Starring Tom Cruise as a Senator, Robert Redford as a university professor (Redford is probably not good-looking enough to play a college professor, but I’ll make an allowance since he is a good actor), Meryl Streep as a journalist, and Michael Pena and Derek Luke as US Army Rangers. Movie studio propaganda: Two determined students at a West Coast University, Arian and Ernest, follow the inspiration of their idealistic professor, Dr. Malley, and attempt to do something important with their lives. But when the two make the bold decision to join the battle in Afghanistan, Malley is both moved and distraught. Now, as Arian and Ernest fight for survival in the field, they become the string that binds together two disparate stori...
Afghanistan’s “Newest” Ethnic Group, Rashid Dostum And&he
2007-09-27 03:10:00 September 27, 2007. OK, Afghanistan has no more room for new ethnic groups. So this is the last one (for this month at least): Turkologist Ingeborg Baldauf, who has been working on the folklore, local religion and recent history of Northern Afghanistan since the late 1970s, tracked “them” down and wrote a spiffy little article. Here is the summary: On Turkological ground, the existence of “small groups of Khorassanian Turkic speakers along the Amu Darya” had been postulated years ago. Field research in Andkhoy, the northwestern most town of Afghanistan, seems to have yielded proof of this assumption: The Dayı / Kārgıl of the Andkhoy oasis in fact speak a dialect that comes close to Khorassanian Turkic. This paper introduces local knowledge about their historical background, religious and linguistic affiliation, and social and professional attribution, all of which are important elements in the shaping of personal and collective identities. I was really excited (se... More About: Ethnic , Group , Rashid
Afghanistan’s Wasps and Rocks Want to Kill You
2007-09-26 05:36:00 September 26, 2007. Both of these videos from Afghanistan are amazing. After watching these you will come to fear Afghanistan’s natural hazards. First up, just when the Germans thought it was safe to go driving in the mountains of Northern Afghanistan…. And is it just me or do Afghanistan’s wasps weigh 1 kilogram each? Nature-wise, this place is almost as dangerous as British Columbia. More About: Wasps , Kill , Rocks
Asien 104 is Afghanistantastic
2007-09-26 01:53:00 September 26, 2007. Bow down to Asien 104 in all its glory! These Germans are just giving away these pdf files for free! How unAmerican! And unBritish! Every article should be $25 at least! Academic publishing should generate revenue! I should lay off the exclamation marks!! The German Journal on Contemporary Asia Benjamin Buchholz: Thoughts on Afghanistan’s Loya Jirga: A Myth? Andreas Dittmann: Recent Developments in Kabul’s Shar-e-Naw and Central Bazaar Districts Felicia Herrschaft: Democratic Articulations of Cultural Identity: The Arts in Afghanistan Christine Issa and Sardar M. Kohistani: Kabul’s Urban Identity: An Overview on the Socio-Political Aspects of Development Max Klimburg: The “Enclaved” Culture of Parun in Former Kafiristan Katja Mielke and Conrad Schetter: “Where is the Village?” Local Perceptions and Development Approaches in Kunduz Province Marcus Schadl: The Man Outside: The Problem with the Externa...
The Poetry of Nadia Anjuman
2007-09-25 02:52:00 September 25, 2007. A couple of years back the 25-year old Afghan poet Nadia Anjuman was beaten to death by her husband. She had just recently published her first volume of poetry: Smoke-Veined Flower. And now, thanks to Afghanwire.com, the volume is available online in English. Visit Afghanwire’s poetry site here. More About: Poetry , Adia
Totally out of context quote #18
2007-09-24 02:14:00 September 24, 2007. “It has been said that fences make for great neighbors. In Afghanistan, they have taken the concept a step further. Walls are as much a part of this culture as Islam and burqas. There are walls around homes. There are walls around villages. There are walls around entire towns and cities. […] I also can’t help but think how big a role walls play in the mindset of Afghans. [But] All the walls have not kept out invaders. The barriers have not repelled violence. Poverty has not known any restrictions. Walls have not limited pain. Walls are really a false sense of security for most Afghans. Real protection comes from a government that is strong enough to protect its people and give them the economic security necessary to provide for themselves. Real security comes from caring about and helping those who are on the other side of the wall, not in fearing them or worrying about their differences. Afghans will find peace and freedom not in the walls ... More About: Context , Quote , Ally
Tintin in Afghanistan
2007-09-22 19:33:00 September 22, 2007. If you do not know who Tintin is then you are probably an American. What you need to know is that over 200 million Tintin books have been sold. And for good reason. I don’t have the time to go into it. You should already know who Tintin is. Unfortunately, the Belgian author Georges Remi died in the early 1980s and The Adventures of Tintin were no more. But the original graphic novels inspired countless parodies and pastiches. One of the better known pastiches (a true to the original imitation) was La Menace Des Steppes by Sakharine. In this adventure, Tintin and Captain Haddock travel to Afghanistan and give the Soviets a well-deserved thrashing. It is of course quite fitting since the first Tintin book, Tintin in the Land of the Soviets (1929), finds Tintin giving the Bolsheviks a beat down. Many criticized the book for portraying the Soviet Union as a violent paranoid authoritarian st...
Who’s Watching Afghanistan?
2007-09-21 02:21:00 September 20, 2007. I know Canadians regularly watch news items that focus on the Canadian effort in southern Afghanistan . And the Brits still have time for Afghanistan even with a British presence in Iraq. I can’t speak to the amount of attention that Afghanistan gets on the other side of the English Channel, but I do know what I see in America. It does not amount to much. So who is really interested? Aside from Americans of Afghan heritage and the occasional weirdo who studies Afghanistan, it seems that the family of troops deployed to Afghanistan are also concerned. As the girl said: “It makes me mad because there are people in Afghanistan and no one ever talks about them.” So that’s indicative of the amount of attention lavished on Afghanistan by the media; a news station in OKC interviewing a confused 18-year old who wonders why no one in the media seems concerned about the war her husband is deployed to. More About: Watching
Afghan Villagers Love Men With Guns and Karzai Needs a Few Good Sycophants
2007-09-19 03:02:00 September 19, 2007. So Al-Jazeera embeds a reporter with the 50 Talibs who roam around Kapisa (yup, Kapisa), buy guns from the National Police, and feel the love from the locals. The results: So the locals warmly greet 50 armed men? To be honest, if 50 well-armed soldiers walked up to my house I would greet them warmly as well, whatever their affiliation. NATO troops now understand this very well. I have heard numerous soldiers remark about the smiling villagers who are probably cooperating with the Taliban. And then there are the times where villagers “warmly greet” the Taliban and then gladly tell Captain America all about where the Talibs are hiding. These village folks have both the hospitality and deception down to a fine art. It’s a survival tactic that has surely served them well for the last few hundred years or so. Pic: “Dear villagers of Kapisa! PsyOps loves you!” But back to the Taliban’s presence in Kapisa. The Taliban claims that i... More About: Love , Guns , Good , Villa , Ager
Joy, Peace and Happiness in Northern Afghanistan
2007-09-18 02:48:00 September 18, 2007. It’s a good thing that all the conflict in southern Afghanistan is balanced by the idyllic harmony in northern Afghanistan. For an example of how nice northern Afghanistan is, let’s look at Takhar Province , which borders Tajikistan. Pic by Tearfund: Taloqan is the capital of Takhar. The Institute for War and Peace Reporting just published an article on the “peace” in a recent article subtitled “For residents of the northern province of Takhar, there are worse things than the Taliban.” Apparently, the things that are worse than the Taliban are their local armed commanders and their elected representative. Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi reports: Habib Rassoul, a resident of Takhar, cannot talk about his wife without tears of grief and rage. For the past three months, he has had no word of her. Commander Piram Qul kidnapped my wife while I was away in Kabul helping my sick brother,” he said. “I have no idea what has happened to her. I... More About: Happiness , Northern , Hern
Afghanistan’s Online Ethnic War
2007-09-17 00:48:00 September 17, 2007. Online ethnic warfare reached new heights early last year when South Korean online gamers carried out an online massacre of Chinese farmers (crazy but true). And then a few weeks ago internet ethnic clashes reached an absurd new level when Chinese kung-fu monks threatened to sue an internet troll (possibly Japanese) who announced that a Japanese ninja showed up at a Shaolin temple and thrashed the Chinese martial arts monks in unarmed combat. Reuters reports: “The so-called defeat is purely fabricated, and we demand the Internet user to apologise to the whole nation for the wrongs he or she did,” the Beijing News said, citing a notice announced by a lawyer for the Shaolin monks. “It is not only extremely irresponsible behaviour with respect to the Shaolin temple and its monks, but also to the whole martial art and Chinese nation,” it quoted the monks as saying. So how about Afghanistan ? How are online relations between the angry kids? I&r... More About: Ethnic
Totally out of context quote #17
2007-09-16 02:32:00 September 16, 2007. Counterinsurgency is a strange game. I’ve had chai, nan (flat bread,) and cheese with Taliban members; everyone acting like we actually are civil to each other. I’ve had chai with minor officials who were trying to talk me out of sending a guy who had senior Taliban leaders in his house within an hour of our raid to detention so he could be questioned. [….] I’ve sat in Shuras as the village elders pled their case, insisting that they hadn’t seen any Taliban in months, only to have a citizen on the outer reaches of the circle stand up and throw the “bullshit flag,” recounting a recent event. That changed the song… it became, “What are we to do? They will kill us if we tell you anything about them.” Context : An American police mentor, who is alone with an Afghan National Police team in Eastern Afghanistan, writes in his blog about what you do when you are the only American for miles around in Taliban cou... More About: Quote , Ally
Random Photo Commentary #1
2007-09-15 02:42:00 September 15, 2007. New Feature! Minimum effort! Probably irrelevant! Since I am still a little sick I will restart with a new feature where I find some obscure or interesting photo and provide some hopefully accurate commentary for it. First up, from Afgan.ru, is this photo: Who is this brave mujahid? His name is Vasily Vasilevich and he’s not a jihadi, he’s a Soviet officer incognito. Photo circa 1980-something. Vasily is apparently still alive and well (in Russia of course). More About: Commentary , Random
Blog Break for Flu
2007-09-10 03:18:00 September whatever day it is, 2007. I’m deathly sick with the flu (bird flu? west nile? ebola? SARS? black plague?). No posts until I make some sort of recovery. Maybe I’ll be back blogging by Wednesday Saturday if I don’t die of over-exaggeration by then. More About: Break , Blog , Brea
Malalai Joya and Enemies of Happiness
More articles from this author:2007-09-07 02:20:00 September 7, 2007. The American broadcast premier of Enemies of Happiness , a documentary that follows Mala lai Joya’s successful parliamentary electoral bid, will be this coming Tuesday (September 11) at 9pm on PBS. Coincidentally, PBS is the only TV station that I receive (I have the rabbit ears antenna). So I will definitely be watching this film. As you can see from the website that is promoting this film, Enemies of Happiness has received many rave reviews. I am, of course, expecting a very sympathetic portrayal from the film makers. I have been critical of some of Joya’s tactics and rhetoric in the past, but I will try to be as open minded as possible. A review of the film will be forthcoming next week. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 |
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