AfghanistanicaAfghanistanicaAn exploration of Afghanistan-related issues. Articles
“Balls of Blasphemy,” And Other Assorted Hyperbole
2007-09-06 05:40:00 September 6, 2007. About a month ago, the bloggers over at postpolitical embedded a rather entertaining video that shows soccer balls being dropped from a Blackhawk helicopter. And then the Los Angeles Daily News ran a story about some anti-war hippie who was rounding up soccer balls in California and sending them to Afghan kids via the above delivery method. And all seemed well, insofar as soccer balls were falling from the sky into the hands of Afghan kids. One serviceman even remarked: Wouldn’t it be wonderful if in 15 years, Afghanistan wins the World Cup and the star player says, “I owe it all to a soccer ball that fell from a Black Hawk?” Pic: “Yay! Free footballs!” And then something bad happened. According to the BBC, about 100 people demonstrated in Khost out of anger that the Saudi flag was on some of the footballs. The Saudi flag has the Shuhada (declaration of faith) written on it. So some people have made the case that kicking a ball with... More About: Balls , Blasphemy , Hyper
Totally out of context quote #16
2007-09-05 03:38:00 September 5, 2007. “I have paid the price. Even George Bush has a record. He was arrested, same shit as me. There’s no difference between him and me.” Context : Izzatullah Wasifi, the top Afghan anti-corruption official, commits the mistake of making a very strict quantitative comparison between his criminal conviction and President Bush’s conviction. Unfortunately for Wasifi, a qualitative comparison reveals that his conviction was for attempting to sell $2 million worth of heroin in Las Vegas while Bush’s was for drunk driving. This is actually old news (5 months old). But Declan Walsh digs it up again since it’s so fun (or sad, or shameful, etc..). But selling on the streets of America? Wasifi sure took the concept of vertical integration seriously back in the ’80s. Pic: Director General Wasifi says “‘Sup? You chase the dragon? This ain’t no Nixon here and I don’t tap no bags. This schmack is AIP, straight up. Fire... More About: Quote , Ally
Writing about Afghanistan before it was cool to write about Afghanistan
2007-09-04 04:39:00 September 4, 2007. A couple of my Afghan friends who are here at my university learning English (at a high level) and taking courses asked me to recommend articles. Of course, I underestimated them and started to find them some articles from the New York Times, The Economist, etc… The said, very politely, that they had already read articles like these and they wanted to “read what I read.” So of course I played the ethnic card and downloaded this article from our library system for them: Canfield, Robert L. (2004). New Trends among Hazaras: From “The Amity of Wolves” to “The Practice of Brotherhood.” Iranian Studies, Volume 37, Number 2: pages 241-262. They were quite surprised: “Someone who is not Hazara is writing about Hazaras? Who is he? Has he written anything else?” Above all, they seemed quite pleased about the whole thing. My one friend had an ear-to-ear grin. I had to assure them that, no, Robert Canfield did not just s... More About: Writing , Afghanistan , Cool , Write , Fore
Whatever happened to that photographer blogger in Nuristan?
2007-09-03 03:29:00 September 3, 2007. I while back I found an excellent blog by a photographer who was embedded with American troops in Nuristan. The blog, by photographer John D McHugh, gave some insight into a place few people have even heard of. And his images showed a side of the war, geographically speaking, that has been little seen, such as in this photo below. His early blog entries were about the cold and the challenges of warfare and humanitarian work in a wooded mountain environment. And they were quite well-written. But in mid-May his blog entries suddenly stopped. I was quite disappointed. What was his excuse? Does he think he has the right to deprive us of information on Nuristan? Could he not find an internet connection at an American Forward Operating Base? Did he get lazy? Did he not care anymore? What was his excuse? Well, he updated his blog this weekend and provided an excuse and an apology. Pic: That exit wound on McHugh’s side is his “excuse.” According to McH... More About: Blogger , Photographer , Graph , Pene
Afghanistan and the CNN YouTube Presidential Debate: What You Can Do
2007-09-01 22:41:00 September 1, 2007. On November 28 the Republican candidates for president will meet in Florida for the CNN-YouTube debate. The questions they will be asked will come from YouTube, where people may submit their own 30 second long questions. I watched the Democratic CNN-YouTube Debate , recapped here, and Afghanistan was not featured as part of any of the questions. Pic: The Democratic CNN YouTube debate. But can CNN be blamed? I have looked through the 1400 entries for the upcoming Republican debate so far and only two of them are about Afghanistan (both of them really bad in their own way). If CNN is to choose a question about Afghanistan they will need a decent one to be submitted on YouTube. I talked to somebody with a considerable amount of professional media savvy who asked for my help in getting some questions on Afghanistan submitted to YouTube. That’s where “you” come in to the picture. If you are concerned about how things are going in Afghanistan, you ca... More About: Youtube , Presidential , Ghan
Civilian Casualties, Warlords, Professors and Tricky Dissimulating Jews
2007-08-31 05:22:00 August 31, 2007. “Dear RAWA: Yes, we HAVE KNOWN FOR A LONG TIME - and do not need Human Rights Watch to tell us - that terrible criminals are in the puppet Karzai regime. You at RAWA have, for years, been saying this! You have published accurate detailed evidence. I find it very revealing that only when mainstream organizations “report” - like Human Rights Watch which is completely funded by the capitalist financial speculator, George Soros - does the world begin to notice, no? When RAWA spoke about the criminals in government or when Marc Herold reported on civilian casualties, very few mainstream persons listened. In fact, Human Rights Watch launched into unsupported, personalized criticisms of my research and for now close to four years ignored the war criminals in the Karzai regime.” Context to the above passage: In his letter to RAWA, a (Swiss?) associate professor of economics and women’s studies at the University of New Hampshire, Marc Herold, e... More About: Jews , Tricky , Casual , Casualties , Ricky
Afghan Scholarship Rugs
2007-08-29 22:07:00 August 29, 2007. Safrang is posting on his blog again and promises to continue doing so. Today he posted about a unique scholarship program. Basically, you buy a rug from Afghanistan and the funds go into an academic scholarship fund that will enable students from Afghanistan to study at a small liberal arts college in Pennsylvania. At the other end, the funds will be helping economic development in Afghanistan. Check out the scholarship program here and feel free to link to this scholarship fund. Pic: One of many rugs available for purchase. And yes, this shall be the first of many instances where I just steal Safrang’s blog postings. More About: Scholarship , Rugs , Ghan , Scholar
Counterinsurgency in Afghanistan: Mongol Style
2007-08-29 02:51:00 August 29, 2007. In 1221, the people of Herat and Balkh rebelled against their new Mongo l rulers. In the process the Mongol governor was killed. The Mongol response to the 1221 uprisings was to massacre the entire populations of both cities. Thomas J. Barfield, an anthropologist and a legitimate expert on Afghanistan (as opposed to those illegitimate ones), briefly discussed historical rebellions in Afghanistan in an article titled “Problems in establishing legitimacy in Afghanistan” (Iranian Studies, Volume 37, Number 2, June 2004). Barfield notes that: “While conquered cities often rebelled after a conquest, this was less a challenge to the legitimacy of its government than a test of its staying power. Populations were rarely punished for such acts beyond the execution of the ringleaders and confiscation of property.” Barfield goes on to say that the Mongols clearly did not understand the “ritual nature of such challenges.” Yes, clearly not. Pic: The newer, kinder... More About: Style , Ghan , Erin
Totally out of context quote #15
2007-08-28 05:26:00 August 28, 2007. “Recent memoirs written by women from Afghanistan have also been critiqued for succumbing to the “neo-orientalist” paradigm of presenting yet another example of suffering, eastern women beaten down by their barbaric men and suffering at the hands of a medieval culture. To these critics, Hosseini’s heroines, Mariam and Laila, are not women emerging from a chasm of hopelessness but rather an indictment of a whole society that will be discarded and denigrated by the Western reader as inherently misogynistic. In Gayatri Spivak’s now oft-quoted words, Hosseini’s tale (especially in light of the Allied invasion of Afghanistan) can quite literally be construed as yet another instance of “white men saving brown women from brown men.” Yet allowing for such critiques leads us to an even more untenable thesis. Should the grim reality of abuse be abridged and disguised simply because it promotes negative stereotypes? Is the suffering of Afghan women not wort... More About: Context , Quote , Ally
Whoops! They Caught A Chechen.
2007-08-27 03:43:00 August 27, 2007. Aaaargh! I spent so much time trying to debunk the idea about Chechens being in Afghanistan and one is caught in Paktia. How would I know that they would catch a Chechen literally one day after I wrote about the “Chechen Myth?” According to the blog writings of “John,” an officer at FOB Gardez in Paktia, this happened: “On a completely different topic, Afghan police at a checkpoint near here captured a Chechen fighter fleeing from an operation in the K-G pass — dressed as a woman. We were at the governor’s compound yesterday when the police rolled in with him, still wearing a burqa, and proceeded to interrogate him in front of a tribal shura the governor had been mediating. Fun times for everyone. Except the Chechen. I’m currently trying to get authorization to release the photo I took of him publicly — hopefully should get it by this evening.” Painting by Keith Rocco: Something heroic happening in Paktia,... More About: Caught , Chen
Imaginary Chechens Attack!
2007-08-25 00:36:00 August 24, 2007. Way back in the day (2001-2o02), I saw several reports in the media about the hoards of Chechens that were battling US-NATO and their local allies in Afghanistan. I thought “WTF? Why have they left a perfectly good fight on home soil back in Chechnya?” Of course it turned out to be totally false, yet this myth persists to this day. Pic: “We ain’t in Afghanistan. We in Moscow” Who was saying this about the Chechens? Usually it was journalists, American officers or other US government spokespersons. It usually went something like this: “Yeah, we’re fighting the hardcore al Qaeda troops right now. You know, Arabs, Uzbeks, Malaysians, um….Uyghurs……and&hel lip;uh …..the reanimated zombie corpses of Confederate soldiers and Chechens.” OK, maybe they did not actually say Malaysians but you get the point. Who gave these people the idea that there were Chechens to be fought in Afghanistan? Well, to s... More About: Chen , Attack , Atta
Liveleak Afghanistan Video Channel
2007-08-22 23:31:00 August 22, 2007. Liveleak is quite similar to Youtube but it seems to be more popular with the troops. Also, it has an Afghanistan specific channel. You can see serious stuff like this soldier-produced report on a district meeting in Kapisa or reason #8792 why not to fly Ariana or this profanity laced mock snowball execution of American soldiers or this Jihadi video of an IED attack on an Afghan police vehicle in Kunar. Anyways, if you are not down with Youtube/Google then Liveleak Afghanistan may be useful to you. Although it is over 90% military stuff so not everybody will find it useful. Also, you may be able to guess the target audience by quickly glancing at the single ladies ads on the left-hand side. Unfortunately my blog software does not support Liveleak so I’ll continue to use Youtube and Google for imbedded video. More About: Video , Channel , Ghan , Chan
Do Area Studies Students Hate America?
2007-08-22 01:07:00 August 21, 2007. Why is the government of the United States of America so suspicious of area studies students? And why have 12 of 14 applicants from a certain area studies program failed the security clearance process? It’s not just any area studies program. It is one that includes Afghanistan. These students, either with a Master’s or with a PhD in the works, have been told that they are insufficiently loyal to work in any sort of job that requires a security clearance. Pic: Did someone drop this? I have been at or affiliated with this area studies program for a long time, since before 9-11 actually (when people would say directly to me that my planned studies were “stupid”). Soon after 9-11 I was pointed to a photo in a newspaper of an alumnus of my program trying to look inconspicuous in Afghanistan while wearing civilian clothes and dodging incoming fire. I thought at that moment that my program would surely serve as a great resource in the years to come... More About: Studies , Students , Hate , Area
Afghanistan Experts, Researchers, etc…
2007-08-21 00:39:00 August 20, 2007. Am I missing anybody from this list below? All people listed here are either scholars, researchers, experts, authors (in academic press), professors or students. I’m trying to maintain an accurate list of links to Afghanistan researchers/experts/students over at The Afghanistan Analyst. If you know of someone who should be on the list or if you should be on the list then email me a link to that person’s webpage from this Afghanistan Analyst page here. I am actually getting a decent amount of traffic on The Afghanistan Analyst so I should probably be as accurate and as comprehensive as possible. Anyways, try browsing this list of links. There is some interesting stuff in here. United States or Canada based: Ludwig Adamec Jon W Anderson Thomas Barfield Michael Barry Robert L Canfield #1 Robert L Canfield #2 Fotini Christia Robert Crews David B Edwards Vanda Felbab-Brown Reuel Marc Gerecht Thomas E Gouttierre Shah M Hanifi Marc He... More About: Experts , Ghan , Pert
PsyOps Disinformation or Emerging Divisions Within the Taliban?
2007-08-18 04:31:00 August 18, 2007. Have you ever read a threatening pamphlet that is supposedly from the Taliban and said to yourself “this is so totally manufactured by an U.S. Army 37F“? I am willing to bet that more than a few Afghans feel that way about a “Taliban night letter” that was distributed in Helmand in July of this year. The pamphlet, that was purportedly from pissed-off local Taliban fighters complaining about the Quetta Shura, went something like this (from RFE/RL): “We criticize the decision of Mullah Mohammad Omar. We don’t accept any other commander. If they continue on this path, we will leave the movement. We only want to carry out jihad against Americans and this is our wish. And we will fight until the end against foreign troops. But the decision of the leadership council in Quetta was a wrong decision. They want to appoint Uzbeks or Chechens instead of a Taliban commander. And Mullah Mohammad Omar, you should know that Pashtuns never want to... More About: Disinformation , Division , Visions
Totally out of context quote #14
2007-08-14 00:30:00 August 13, 2007. Via Afghanwire: When I visited Ghor province, a government official told me that a huge number of girls in the province were married by force. This means that they are sold. A while back, a girl was even sold in exchange for a horse. […] It is better than the incident that happened last year in Kunduz province: there, a girl was exchanged for a dog. This, however, is a horse. Context : A horse is a horse of course…..unless it’s being traded for a human being. Then it’s just part of some horrible equation. And noted somewhat sarcastically (I think) by the above journalist of the newspaper Eqtedar-e Milli, it is better than being traded for a dog. But the dog was an expenive prize fighting dog and who knows the quality of the horse involved in the trade. Anyways, there is a list of NGOs that focus on women and children at the bottom of this page. And you may find numerous books and articles focusing on the problems faced by women and children... More About: Quote , Ally
Safrang Is Back
2007-08-10 16:32:00 August 10, 2007. The Afghanistan blog Safran g, written by an Afghan-American, is back in action after not-so-mysteriously disappearing for strategic reasons. If you’ve been reading Afghanistan blogs regularly then you already know of Safrang. If not, go read it. It is essential online reading. And no, this is not part 2 of a 537 part series of recommending Afghanistan blogs. More About: Back
Afghanistan and State Failure from a Majaristani Perspective
2007-08-08 21:18:00 August 8, 2007. I know, I know. Lately my attempts at serious analyses have been restricted to explaining Afghanistan through the lense of diet coke and post-modern art. Summer is bad for me. So why don’t you move along double-quick until you get to My State Failure Blog? It’s not mine, actually. It belongs to Péter Marton, a PhD student from Majaristan who specializes in state failure. The analysis on Afghanistan is excellent (a rare thing) and the blog is updated quite regularly with some great insights into counter-insurgency, opium cultivation, development, state-failure, etcetera… So yeah, check out (not) My State Failure Blog. Seriously, a Hungarian scholar analyzing the Australian counter-insurgency approach in Uruzgan? That’s cool. More About: Ghan , Perspective
Afghanistan Is (Sort Of) Irrelevant
2007-08-06 01:59:00 August 5, 2007. For your consideration I will present two arguments: one arguing that the importance of Afghanistan is exaggerated and another arguing that Afghanistan is, and will remain, important. Pic: Nothing important to see here. So……Afghanistan is not important because: A) The “bases” for terrorism have shifted to Pakistan, Iraq, the Middle East Europe and even to the United States and Canada. That’s with the current understanding that a built-up AQ training camp full of guys in black pajamas jumping through fiery rings is so 1997. B) I’m no Bonnie Boyd, but it seems to me that as an energy transit route, Afghanistan is not a great candidate. The likelihood of oil and gas from Central Asia transiting through Afghanistan and Pakistan is extremely unlikely. Can you imagine any oil company seeing a proposal for the Turkmenistan-Taliban Country-Baluchistan Gas Pipelin... More About: Sort , Irrelevant , Ghan
Lida Abdul Is Too Post-Modern For Me
2007-07-29 21:49:00 July 29, 2007. Being an uncouth troglodyte, I am sometimes confused by art. I’m especially confused by the artwork of Afghan artist Lida Abdul . However, I like this lady’s video art nonetheless. I found a few stills of her video installations or whatever they call them. In the still below, Lida paints a ruined house white. Lida now does the same for a wrecked car. Now, I’m confused by this video art of Afghan men trying to pull in vain against a half-ruined structure. But I’m sure the men she hired are even more confused. Now this Afghan dude must be confused beyond all bounds of comprehension. Lida pulls a mini-house on wheels around some wharehouse district in Los Angeles. Got it? Anyways, teasing aside, I like her artwork. I don’t find it necessary to understand art in order to like it. Give her bio and her statement a read. She is quite interesting to say t... More About: Post , Modern , Post-Modern
Totally out of context quote #13
2007-07-26 21:41:00 July 26, 2007. “During my last trip to Afghanistan I’d met a guy in the hospital’s psychiatric ward who was concerned that he had no shadow. He proved to me, by means of excellent logic, that a man without a shadow cannot - and must not - live. He tried to commit suicide several times. I was reminded of this incident in Moscow when Zhenya Raevsky, an afghantsi [Afghan War veteran] and student at Moscow State University, shared with me his idea for a screenplay; his main characters were going to be Afghanistan veterans who’d returned home from the war. What makes them different from all other people, Raevsky told me, was that they had no shadows. Some hideous meaning was buried there, inaccessible to the sober mind.” Context : Russian journalist Artyom Borovik ponders the meaning of shadows in The Hidden War, his book on the Soviet-Afghan War. Pic (by a friend): A monument in Kygyzstan for Soviet veterans of the Afghan War, casting a shadow. ... More About: Quote , Ally
A Quick And Brutal Retaliation For My Soviet Counter-Insurgency Post
2007-07-25 23:33:00 July 25, 2007. The Afghan-American blogger Ronin over at Looking at the World Through Slanted Eyes, who is apparently an admiral in the Afghan Navy’s Pacific Fleet, took exception to my post on the insurgency tactics of a certain Soviet Captain Zakharov. In response he swiped the picture from my profile and added a few elements: Ochen khorosho! Ronin didn’t even have time to let me put up my planned post on the worst Soviet officer in Afghanistan. But to show that I am no lover of Bolsheviks, I submit to you a picture of myself in my full Hizb-i Islami glory: And yes, we Hizbis do like hanging out with Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders when we are not rocketing Kabul or slitting the throats of Soviet conscripts. If you wish to see this horrible defamation of my unimpeachable character in the original context, go read the post at Looking at the World Through Slanted Eyes. I should’ve just sent you over to his post without repost... More About: Post , Quick , Counter , Insurgency
Captain Zakharov: A COIN All-Star in Afghanistan
2007-07-25 02:06:00 July 24, 2007. While the Soviet-Afghan War more often than not provides the NATO/US forces with lessons on what not to do, occasionally it provides an excellent example of counter-insurgency skill. Pic: Soviet troops in northern Afghanistan in 1988. I came across a few pages in the late Russian journalist Artyom Borovik’s book The Hidden War about a young Soviet officer who gained a reputation as a COIN specialist: His name is known in every kishlak [village] in the province of Kunduz. Zakharov is a legend. […] Zakharov, who turned twenty-eight on May 27, came to Afghanistan a year ago. He spent the first four months exploring the territory and learning the customs and traditions of the local peasants. It’s impossible to fight the dukhi [literally: ghosts] successfully without such knowledge. [page 29-30] Captain Zakharov’s relations with the locals was surprisingly good.... More About: All Star , Star , Khar , Ghan
Growing Old in the Hindu Kush
2007-07-21 19:43:00 July 21, 2007. From portrait field-photographer Jan Schlegel: Agolia, age 6. Masrana, age 13. Zarmeda, age 83. These women are Kalash from the Pakistani side of the area known as Nuristan/Kafiristan (in a region of Chitral). One argument shows them as being unrelated to the Kalasha across the border in Afghanistan. They are apparently Dards, not Nuristanis as previously thought. Many have converted to Islam. But not the ones pictured above. I would really like a print of Zarmeda. However, the photographer personally spends several hours on a single print, each of which is unique in subtle ways. The price... More About: Growing , Hindu , Rowing , Grow
Threats to Afghans Studying Abroad
2007-07-19 21:19:00 July 9, 2007. Very few Afghans returning to Afghanistan are provided with bodyguards and an armoured American SUV. For almost all Afghans there is no such comparable security blanket. Obviously there are many dimensions to the security problem. I will only discuss one aspect of this: online anonymity. You will notice that Afghan bloggers are almost all anonymous, especially if they live in Afghanistan or travel there at all. If you are a regular reader of Afghan blogs then you likely noticed that an excellent blog by an non-anonymous Afghan-American disappeared before he headed to Afghanistan. And you may remember the threats that Nasim Fekrat was receiving a couple of years ago (allegedly from a local BBC employee). But bloggers are generally savvy about this. It’s not an big problem in my opinion. However, if you are an Afghan studying in the West or an Afghan expatriate there are additional precautions you should take. If you can find yourself on google then so can &ldqu... More About: Studying , Threats , Ghan , Hans , Threat
Aya ta pa pakhto khabarey kawalai shey?
2007-07-18 22:11:00 July 18, 2007. ايا ته په پښتو خبرې کولى شې؟ No? Well neither can I. But if you are learning Pashto, or want to find info on how, you could start at this Pashto Language Blog. It has lessons and info posted blog-style. It also includes many useful links. Don’t be intimidated by the alphabet. It is actually very easy and much more consistent than what the English-speaking world uses. You could also check out the quicky language media available on Amazon.com. And not related to the above blog, I received some new language learning materials the other day and found this page below included in it. Somebody should really psychoanalyze the naughty monkeys in the illustration. I believe that the peeled bananas signify the [fill in this space with Freudian pop-psycho babble, etc…]. Or maybe the illustrator was just trying to make it interesting for kids and didn’t realize that dirty old grad students would be usin... More About: Wala
Afghans Versus Diet Coke
2007-07-14 20:33:00 July 14, 2007. My brain hurts from the sheer amount of language being shoved into my short-term memory. Hopefully it will migrate into my long-term memory. Inshallah. Since I really have nothing to post due to my general business (which will persist until the end of August), I will share a second-hand anecdote. It is a conversation between an Afghan in America and a local. Afghan: This Coke you are drinking is different? American: Yes. It is a Diet Coke. Afghan: Ummm….. American: It has no sugar in it. Afghan: It has honey in it maybe? American: No. There is no sweetener. Afghan: Ummm… American: In koka-kola shirin nest. Afghan: OK, OK. So you put in your own sugar? American: No. You drink it the way it is. Afghan: It is much less expansive? American: Expansive? Afghan: Yes, less expansive. American: You mean arzontar? Afghan: Yes. American: You mean less expensive. Afghan: Yes. Less expansive. Cheaper. American: No. It is the same price. It has no sweetness. It is i... More About: Diet Coke , Versus , Ghan
Two New Academically Inclined Afghanistan Blogs
2007-07-09 19:16:00 July 9, 2007. The quality and frequency of blogging here at Afghanistan ica will continue to suffer through August as I am being kept quite busy by my Farsi-Dari-Tajiki language learnification process. But help is on the way……elsewhere. Two new blogs related to Afghanistan have popped up recently. The first is a group blog that includes Barnett Rubin (who reveals in his first post that he is technically not a professor, which is good because with all his work I’m sure the burden of undergrads would kill him). Anyways, the blog is Informed Comment on Global Affairs. Go check it out. But be warned that it includes topics other than Afghanistan. Here is Dr. Rubin’s first post. The second blog is by a “historian in training” who seems to have a thing for Afghanistan. I also have a thing for Afghanistan so I understand. The blog is titled In Transit to Afghanistan. That is all. More About: Blogs , Logs , Ghan , Cade
An American Democrat President and Afghanistan
2007-07-08 21:01:00 July 8, 2007. Although the Republican and Democrat candidates’ debates have been dominated by Iraq, there was some mention of Afghanistan in the Democrats’ debate. Basically, the serious Democrat candidates have been framing Afghanistan as the “good war” and Iraq as the place America should leave ASAP. Now, assuming all the candidates on each side will keep their campaign promises [pause for laughter], this means that a Republican president will keep the troops in Iraq and a Democrat will shift the focus to Afghanistan. Pic: Afghanistan’s New Friends? However, the elections are a long way away and things could change drastically. Perhaps by late 2008 the Republicans will also be advertising a pull-out from Iraq. But looking at just a Democrat president, what could he or she do for Afghanistan in the way of troop level increases? I see one great potential limitation to a troop level boost in Afghanistan. And that is the need to keep troops in the Persi... More About: President , American , Ghan
American Independence Day: Afghan Edition
More articles from this author:2007-07-04 21:50:00 July 4, 2007. After some linguistic confusion I took an Afghan friend to see the July 4th Independence Day fireworks last night. Earlier this week he had expressed his desire to “go to the olympics for some explosions.” He had meant “go to the picnic and fireworks.” The whole thing was much funnier than when I said had 4 fathers-in-law. I had meant to say I had 4 paternal uncles. Ha ha. That’s all very funny but it is not the subject of this blog post. While we were sitting amongst the crowd waiting for the fireworks to start my friend told me a story that was a refreshing departure from the shallow and/or repetitive conversations that my grad student friends and I usually inflict upon each other. I’ve cleaned up the halting English and removed the parts where we searched for the right English words. So here it is: “All throughout my childhood I could remember a dream that I had as a child. In my dream my parents wake me up in the mi... More About: American , Independence Day , Edition , Ghan 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 |
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