GabariYusufzai/GhalchaTajiks/AndarabAfghanistan/LastofDinosaurs/SultanFaghalGabari

[BarakzaiAbdali]

Hi, I am sorry I was away and couldn't respond to this thread.

This is really interesting. BarakZaiAbdali Saib is trying to link me to random individuals (and their ethnic backgrounds) in the Cyberspace just to prove that my ethnic credentials are doubtful. Anyhow, this whole excercise of determining/guessing somebody's credential on a cyber forum is ridiculous. In the virtual world like this, one's views are the best representation of one's sense of loyalty to a group or community. And that is really the indication that is important. As for the real-world, society at large decides whether to accept or reject someone's claim of group-affinity based on determinents like ancestry, land-ownershio, clan-affiliations, cultural practices, etc.


But the main point is, this is not an issue of identity perceptions. All the terms e.g., Paki, ISI, Tajak, etc. being used here are just metaphors carrying political and ideological perceptions and meanings. For example, a person whose views are more Pakistan-centeric or rooted in political Islam is likely to be called a Paki, Punjabi, or an Islamist. Likewise, those with Pashtun-centeric loyalties may be labelled Indian agent or Afghani or a Northern Alliance walla or a Tajak independent of whether they are pure (by blood) Pashtuns or not. So, here the question isn't that of ethnic validity or legitimacy...Rather it is that of coflicting idealogies and political views.

So please understand this thing and don't be oversensitive to this labeling thing. The same people who resent being called Pakis have been labelling Bacha Khan and other nationalists as Indian agents, commies, traitors, kafirs, infidels, etc. since the birth of the communal issue in Hindustan. Even now, any thing said in favour of Afghanistan in particular and Pashtuns in general might be called as an Indian, American, Jewish, Northern Alliance, etc. agenda.


Anyhow, coming to the point, as for I remember, BarakzaiAbdali Saib was consistently targetting Farhat Taj---the poor Pashthana who is not even present here to defend herself or say anything to resolve the controversies around her person. Then I wrote something and my intentions weren't making inadequate insinuations towards him....It was a very general post depicting the emotional dilemma associated with identity any body in diaspora could be caught in. BarakzaiAbdali Saib called me someone from a low-cast ( ). When Khyaal came up with this PakDef thing, I got a little bit curious because Barakzai Saib views sounded far more pro-Pakistani to me than an Afghan's view could be. But immeditely after that, when it became clear he is an Barakzai Pashtun, I never was in doubt and respected him.


The thing is, almost everybody here has labelled every other body here, if not explicitly and directly, diplomatically at least. Then why am I being singled out? I think the issue isn't ethnicity....The issue is something else...may be my nationalism and views are a problem....

Had Farhat Taj ANDERSEN openly written with stating the views as you do here, I could offer her a little more respect. For instance, I can respect that you openly endorse humanistic values. I can respect that you openly state your antithesis to the concept of ummah. You appear to not claim to speak for the rural village pashtoon or even the malik on his thakhth. You speak for yourself.

As I stated many times, my issue is that kabul daily and news across the border in Pakistan endorse Farhat Taj ANDERSEN as a representative of all of FATA and she does not nothing to counter this view. Instead she runs with it and attempts to then utilize this in subsequent articles to buttress her claims. She paints all of those boys in FATA that are a part of the TTP who are NATIVE to the region as outside interolocuters.

This creates a massive discrepency for those that want to find diplomatic solutions and truly understand why TTP finds a safe haven there and what actually makes that young Wazir or Mehsud pick up his gun.

Bottom line: She depicts FATA as a land of just Farhat Taj ANDERSEN clones running around from village to village, yet we both know that it is not at all like that.

Were she to write as a humanist or even a strategist for a think tank and not claim to represent some purer form of Pashtunism from bygone days where every pashtun harkened to the hills to dance the athaan all day and where religion played no role at all and were she not to present as false a picture of the populace at the ground level as the Kite Runner does, then I would be far more capable of at least cutting her a break and reading work.

Just as no Islamist can go and claim that each Pashtun is exactly like him and that each FATA Pashtun a Khalid Bin Walid in the wings or a Jihadi warrior waiting to ambush anything that is remotely unlike him, she must afford her readers this same dignity.

[Toramana]

Yara, societies are not something stagnant and crystalized in time. They are organic bodies transformed and re-transformed with old values reveresed and new values created. Some of the things that could not be imagined fifty years ago, are a reality on Pashtun land today. This unchangining, ever-stagnant image of Pashtun society and culture is also a stereo-type used by British Imperilist, their heirs i.e. the Pakistanis, and Islamists as a political propanda to camouflage their strategic agenda and hidden/proxy war/jehad.

As for Farhat Taj, I know her personally. I know how does she put her life at great risk to access the primary source of information. Unlike your perceptions/misconceptions, she is also critical of the Western media which she blames for un-ethical reporting on and stereotyping of Pashtuns. Regarding the rest of the things, that is her personal life---I am no one to comment on that. And I don't realy know much about her private life nor am interested to know.

Rest, as Wazir, Mehsuds Mujahideens, etc., it is not some high secret that Kashmiri, Punjabi, Uzbaks, Tajaks, Al-Qaueda and other foreigners have been provided with sanctauries over there at the great cost to the social, economic, and cultural life of our Pashtun brothers in FATA. Almost every Pashtun from FATA that you meet will tell you as how Pakistani state agencies in collusion with jehadi networks are destroying their lives.

[BarakzaiAbdali]

Yara, societies are not something stagnant and crystalized in time. They are organic bodies transformed and re-transformed with old values reveresed and new values created. Some of the things that could not be imagined fifty years ago, are a reality on Pashtun land today. This unchangining, ever-stagnant image of Pashtun society and culture is also a stereo-type used by British Imperilist, their heirs i.e. the Pakistanis, and Islamists as a political propanda to camouflage their strategic agenda and hidden/proxy war/jehad.

As for Farhat Taj, I know her personally. I know how does she put her life at great risk to access the primary source of information. Unlike your perceptions/misconceptions, she is also critical of the Western media which she blames for un-ethical reporting on and stereotyping of Pashtuns. Regarding the rest of the things, that is her personal life---I am no one to comment on that. And I don't realy know much about her private life nor am interested to know about.

Rest, as Wazir, Mehsuds Mujahideens, etc., it is not some high secret that Kashmiri, Punjabi, Uzbaks, Tajaks, Al-Qaueda and other foreigners have been provided with sanctauries over there at the great cost to the social, economic, and cultural life of our Pashtun brothers in FATA. Almost every Pashtun from FATA that you meet will tell you as how Pakistani state agencies in collusion with jehadi networks are destroying their lives.

1. She blames them for being unethical in the instances where the west documents civilian protests against Western incursions. She has never once called out Western media reports for inaccuracy if they agree with her viewpoint or laud it. Her data remains unpublished and we cannot verify your claims. Her personal life matters quiet a bit because she claims that she and not Hakim Mehsed is more representative of the average FATA Pashtun and their mindset. Once again, she wants the reader to believe that FATA is a series of clones of her. Were she not to put that claim out there then we would not seize upon it.

2. Once again, the issue is exactly just what you note in the second part of what you write. I take exception to the view that she and other writers propound as if FATA and the Kharoti areas of Afghanistan are held hostage by these people and the ISI network. It is a number of locals housing and sheltering these people alongside ISI, CIA, AL Qaeda, Saudi, Jordanian, etc intelligence networks that have all infiltrated the area. However, locals are both in collusion and in friction simulataneously with all of the above just as any complex society would be. They are not all automatons in step with one another.

3. It is once again the issue that we have with your refusal to confront folks like Matthew Hoh who was on the ground, a top notch credentialed leader, and assigned to KILL Hekmetyaar and others and has no loyalties except to the US. He ardently wants to destroy Pan Islamism, but is looking out for the USA's best interests. I have a hard time understanding why you so easily label Wrayun and I as Pan Islamists when it is Matthew Hoh of US Central Command quoted now as saying the following in these quotes (full article below):

Question: "What about your second issue, about the Taliban being the only cause of instability and conflict in Afghanistan?
Matthew Hoh: History tells a different story. The conflict is very complex, multi-dimensional and goes back three decades. In 2001–02 we installed a government in Kabul headed by Karzai. In doing this, we backed one side in a long civil war—the more progressive-secular and urban camp, Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras, and some Pashtuns and those who live in the north and west. But it excluded one-third of Afghans, the rural, religious, traditional camp, who are Pashtuns in the south and east—which include the Taliban—whose forerunners we backed in 1980s, against the Soviets."

" We misunderstand many ofthecauses of support for the Taliban. They didn’t wear sandwich boards or hand out pamphlets to win people. They are the Pashtuns. Most don’t want to rule the country. They just want to get rid of the occupiers."

http://www.thenation.com/print/artic...-insider-talks

Yet you will not go onto the nation's website and blast Commander Hoh as Pan Islamist, Terrorist, Paki, Pro ISI, Panjabie, or a number of other unsavory epithets.

Wrayun has been saying exactly the same darn thing as the man. I have obviously supported an Islamic idealist approach but I never said to the exclusion of all other view points at any juncture. I detailed my viewpoints and theoretics elsewhere.

Our opinions are more complex than that and we at least deserve the courtesy of the same respect you would afford Commander Hoh who is fighting the secularists war for them when there ought to be an arrangement between all of the parties in a way that reflects the values of the society on the ground.

You have not ever once conceded that the picture on the ground is complex and this massive proportion of Pashtun society actually exists and does feel antagonized.

[BarakzaiAbdali]

Matthew Hoh’s Afghanistan: An Insider Talks

Barbara Koeppel | December 17, 2010
Matthew Hoh has impeccable establishment credentials. From 2004 to 2007 he served first as a Defense Department civilian on a reconstruction team and then as a Marine company commander in Iraq. In 2009 he was the State Department’s senior representative in Afghanistan’s Zabul province and political officer in Nangarhar province, areas of fierce fighting against the Taliban insurgency. But in September 2009 he resigned his post to protest the war.
“I had to. I couldn’t stand the BS of it anymore,” Hoh says. “Military officers and soldiers, people at the embassy—even at very senior levels—many privately said I did the right thing. Many said they would too, but couldn’t, for financial and career reasons.”
Now Hoh is director of the Afghanistan Study Group, which recently produced a report on a course of action to end the war. Over a period of months in 2010 investigative journalist Barbara Koeppel interviewed Hoh for The Nation to learn why this smart, skilled official, with a “calling” to serve his country and a high-level career ahead of him, took one giant step—out.
Barbara Koeppel: What do you mean by the “BS of it?”
Matthew Hoh: About the way certain issues are presented. The main ones are about why we’re there. That the Taliban created the conflict, that we are affecting Al Qaeda and that the US presence there is serving to stabilize the country. That Karzai and the US have wanted to negotiate and the Taliban haven’t. That we’re winning the war with our counterinsurgency strategy. That we’re reducing corruption.
Let’s start with why we’re there. The military and Bush and Obama administrations said it was to get rid of Al Qaeda and make the US and world safer. Yes, we have to fight them. But as for ousting them from Afghanistan? This is ridiculous. They’re currently not there! After we invaded and removed the Taliban government that sheltered them, bin Laden fled to Pakistan, Al Qaeda decentralized with a truly global presence and now has branches everywhere, even in Europe and America. They use local individuals or small cells that don’t require large safe havens to plan attacks, so why would they return? The CIA says only 50–100 are left in Afghanistan, which is a few more than the German police say are currently in Hamburg [1], let alone the 1,000–2,000 the State Department says are present in Iraq [2]. Our efforts against Al Qaeda are not just ineffective; they don’t make sense. Worse, young Americans are fighting and dying in Afghanistan, while their families back home are being told their sacrifices are making us safer.
What about your second issue, about the Taliban being the only cause of instability and conflict in Afghanistan?
History tells a different story. The conflict is very complex, multi-dimensional and goes back three decades. In 2001–02 we installed a government in Kabul headed by Karzai. In doing this, we backed one side in a long civil war—the more progressive-secular and urban camp, Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras, and some Pashtuns and those who live in the north and west. But it excluded one-third of Afghans, the rural, religious, traditional camp, who are Pashtuns in the south and east—which include the Taliban—whose forerunners we backed in 1980s, against the Soviets.
So we create a government that rewards one side and excludes the other. So there are cracks in the political order we created. This gets much worse in 2005 or 2006, when we decided extend the government’s power into southern and eastern Pashtun areas. At the same time, various elements of the Taliban and other insurgent factions had strengthened and returned into parts of Afghanistan.The push went badly, since villagers rebelled, turning to the Taliban to get rid of the outsiders. And so the cycle began. We add more troops, which strengthens the Taliban and weakens support for the government. Suicide attacks, IEDs, military and civilian dead or wounded—all rise commensuratelywith eachincrease in foreign troop or Afghan government presence. We misunderstand many ofthecauses of support for the Taliban. They didn’t wear sandwich boards or hand out pamphlets to win people. They are the Pashtuns. Most don’t want to rule the country. They just want to get rid of the occupiers.
Could you explain your next point—that the US says it has wanted to negotiate and the Taliban haven’t. As of last month, the US is promoting talks.
This is new, and good. What’s maddening is that we could have negotiated earlier, even in 2005. We claimed we supported talks, but the evidence is contrary. It’s only now that we’re giving Taliban leaders safe passage to Kabul. Before, we would have captured or killed them. And as long as we kept pouring in $100 billion a year for the war, Karzai had no incentive to reconcile.
When I was in Nangarhar in 2009, an Air Force commander asked me about our reconciliation policybecause Gulbuddin Hekmatyar(the leader of the second-largest Taliban faction) told him they wanted to start talks. I said “I’ve got a blacklist”—the kill and capture list—“but nothing on reconciliation.”I contacted our Kabul embassy, which said, “Stay out of it. Only the Afghans should be involved.”
But we were involved. The US and NATO had 100,000 troops there. If we didn’t take a serious role in the peace process, it wouldn’t happen.
Also, our preconditions were total nonstarters. We insisted the Taliban accept the Constitution, which they can’t, because it gives the Karzai government absolute say andexcludes the populationfrom which they draw theirsupport. We demanded they lay down their arms. But why should they surrender when a third of Afghans support them and they see themselves winning, or at least in a stalemate;let alone they portray themselves as an army of national liberation?
Directly talking to Afghans in the south and east led me to understand most Taliban groups are tired and want to stop fighting;it’s been near constant for over thirty years. But they’re not going to surrender. The US should drop these conditions, realizing Karzai must address the Pashtuns’ grievances, share power and bring Taliban fighters into the security forces. Our third condition, that the Taliban must renounce Al Qaeda, is still correct.
Our refusal to negotiate weakened our diplomats. Imagine you’re Ambassador Eikenberry or Special Envoy Holbrooke, and you want to push diplomacy. But your boss, Hillary Clinton—the senior diplomat in the US—pushes a military solution. It cuts the knees out from under anyone outside the Pentagon who was advocating for any alternative strategy.
There have been reports for a couple of years of talks between elements of the Taliban and the Karzai government, and in 2008 the British supposedly endorsed such talks. However, the talks never went anywhere because the US didn’t back them. Secretary of Defense Gates even called them “defeatist.” Without the US support of talks, the Karzai government’s interest is really half-hearted at best.
Why didn’t Karzai want to reconcile?
Why did he have to? He was propped up by Americans, British and Canadians who were spending billions that lined his and his friends’ pockets. His camp’s been fighting theiropposition for decades (although alliances have often shifted), so why give them a share of the pot?
Only last winter, when Obama said we might withdraw in eighteen months, did Karzai probably feel any real pressure to negotiate.
Why do we support talks now?
Because the timing fits with our two scenarios.
Scenarios?
The Administration and military want the war to end, but the military didn’t want to be seen as “losing” Afghanistan, though everyone knows it’s a stalemate or worse, that we’re losing. Now, General Petraeus says we’ve made progress and can negotiate. Meanwhile, thousands more Americans and Afghans died and were wounded and more billions of dollars were wasted.
The administration wanted to stay for political reasons, to win what they call “the right war” and do it closer to the 2012 elections. It wanted to prove Democrats are tough and the president can say, We gave the generals the extra troops, they beat the Taliban and we can withdraw.And we’re closer to 2012.
America has a strong militaristic streak, which is why Obama and McCain campaigned on winning in Afghanistan. There’s also the fear factor. Last Christmas, when that guy tried to light his underwear to blow up the plane over Detroit, do you remember the cry from Republicans that Obama was weak on terror? Can you imagine if he hadn’t put in the 30,000 troops (plus the 21,000 in spring 2009)? He’d have been painted as the typical Democrat, soft on terror and weak on defense.
How do you link more troops to the guy on the plane?
 
There’s no link. In Washington, there’s a total link. John Boehner, the House minority leader, was arguing, “If we don’t fight them there, we’ll have to fight them here.” It’s terrible, playing politics with fear and foreign affairs and war. Politicians on both sides of the aisle do it. And lots of ordinary Americans, who haven’t traveled and seen the outside world, are easily frightened and demagogued.
Are the scenarios in writing?
No. People were too savvy to do that.
Since the generals got the extra troops—21,000 in spring 2009 and 40,000 last December (30,000 from us and 10,000 from NATO)—why didn’t they say a few months later that they won and negotiate?
It didn’t fit the time line. Also, they had to stay long enough to make it plausible. And people don’t have a way to know what’s really happening. Not in Washington. Not even in Afghanistan.
Why not?
Who will tell them? It’s dangerous for reporters to go out alone, so they embed with troops and do good pieces about the problems they face. For the bigger picture, reporters are briefed at headquarters by people like me, civilian or military, who do dog and pony shows.
Dog and pony shows?
PowerPoint presentations and windshield tours to areas of progress. We also show them to Congressional delegations, administration or military staff, academics, development firms and think tanks. There are multiplevarieties of briefings andtours, which areupdated and tailored depending on the visitor.But the briefings are almost always rosy:acknowledging some difficulties,but predicting success.
Why?
You’re at your desk all day and never get to see where an IED went off or a house where a grenade exploded. If you do speak with Afghans, they’re on our side or payroll, and tell stories we want to hear. It is extremely rare for a visitor to ever speak to Afghans with a different point of view.
If delegations go out, we take them to what you can call Potemkin villages. These are theplaces we want people to see, like a school or road we built. Meanwhile, what’s happening a kilometer away is totally different. The Soviets did this. We did this in Iraq and probably in Vietnam.
I’m sure even in Caesar’s time, delegations from Rome visiting the legions in Germany were shown fortresses built to keep the barbarians out of conquered areas, or how barbarians were being taught to be citizens or economically independent. Some poor scribe probably drew something on a wall. Now we call them PowerPoints.
Some journalists are good, but most don’t ask the right questions. Like how being in Afghanistan makes us safe or building a farm in Helmand province affects Al Qaeda. They only look at tactical issues, like how many Afghan forces we’ve trained. Or how many farmers no longer grow opium. ABC’s Diane Sawyer is a good example. She came to Afghanistan with Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who flew her over the country and showed her some things. She also met Afghan authorities and troops. But she never challenged him. David Gregory, the new Meet the Press guy, did the same thing with Petraeus in August.
The presentations are really for Washington consumption.
For whose, specifically?
Congress. You’re not going to tell the ones who fund the war that things aren’t going well.
Could you tell visitors what was happening?
Yes. When the embassy briefed Congressman [John] Murtha’s staff, my colleague there was annoyed they were given the same old line. She had them call us in Zabul, for a more honest view.
Were you ever rebuked?
A couple times. In Kandahar I told military commanders and political officers that Pashtuns in the south boycotted the elections. Also, not to expect the development aspectof COIN [the US counterinsurgency strategy] to work—that I’d seen the same development-focused strategies not work in Iraq. Later my boss reprimanded me for being “too negative.”
What about the US stating that the Taliban didn’t want to negotiate until now?
 
This is just not true. There are even press reports on Taliban attempts to talk. A few factions have talked with the Afghan government and UN for a couple years. For example, in 2008 the Saudis hosted secret meetings, which were backed by Britain. CNN and the Asia Times both covered this.
The website of the Quetta Shura (the biggest Taliban faction), alemarah.info, had lots of propaganda but also stated their goals—ending the occupation and governing their areas without interference. It also told Pakistan’s military and ISI [its intelligence agency] that it wants peace and their help in obtaining it, which was reported in the Asia Times.Most importantly, the Quetta Shura’s No. 2 man, Mullah Baradar, was arrested by the Pakistanis (with US help) last year for talking to the Karzai government.
Last spring the second-largest group, Hizb-e-Islami, took a fifteen-point peace plan to Kabul after we pulled out some troops from their areas—where we’d fought since 2006. It said they wanted new elections, for the government to remain in place and their fighters to join Afghan security forces. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a start. The New York Times reported it.
I thought the third faction, the Haqqani network, with its ties to Pakistan’s Taliban and Al Qaeda, was too extreme to negotiate with. But it met with Karzai’s government last June and in July, Pakistan said it could bring them into talks. So maybe we can talk with them. This was reported in the New York Times.
Could you talk about your fourth point—the claim that we’re winning the war with COIN?
The idea is you put thousands of troops in an area to secure it and support the government so it can bring services to people who need them. You then win their hearts and minds and they turn against insurgents. Supporters of the current policy point to Iraq, where back in 2006 and 2007 thousands were killed every month, and now, deaths are in the hundreds. But this improvement is not because of COIN. Mainly, it’s because we changed our strategy and started dealing with the various insurgent groups separately as well as addressing many Sunni grievances. Also, by the time the surge began in Iraq, Baghdad had more or less segregated itself along Sunni and Shia lines, which led to a significant decrease in the violence in 2007 and the Iraqi government (through our pressure) began to reel in many of the Shia death squads. I think, too, that the understanding that the US would not remain forever in Iraq was beginning to set in, which changed the perspective of many in Iraq to that of understanding that some degree of reconciliation would be necessary among various groups.
So, I don’t agree that COIN or the surge led to the stabilization of the Iraq conflict post-2007. Actually I am unsure that anyconflict has beenresolved this way. In Afghanistan, things will stabilize when we pull our troops out and the villagers don’t need the Taliban any more, as I think we may be seeing in those parts of eastern Afghanistan where we have reduced our presence.
Second, the more troops we add, the more people turn to the Taliban. Our troops are getting killed in record numbers, and roadside bombs and assassinations nearly doubled since 2009. Marines launched a huge offensive last winter in Marja and still couldn’t clean out the Taliban. In September’s elections, of the 50,000–80,000 people in Marja, only 400 voted. Clearly they’re not embracing the government that held elections.
Third, there’s no link between the $336 billion we’ve spent for the troops—and we’re adding another $119 billion in 2011—and increased support from Pashtuns who make up the bulk of the support for the Taliban. We’ve also spent over $50 billion for development and to train Afghan forces. Show me one area where because of our development spending we’ve decreased the conflict, decreased support for the Talibanorincreased support for the Karzai government. You can’t.
Fourth, even if villagers need things, they don’t want them brought in by outsiders who ignore cultural and ethnic issues. Say you’re a rural Pashtun. In comes the American military, bringing their Afghan buddies who are not from the region, incredibly corrupt, and completely exclude you. It would be the same if the UN assigned Irish, black and Hispanic firemen to Boston’s North End, which is Italian. They’re Bostonians, but the wrong type, particularly if they’ve been fighting you for years.
Last, how can you do development in war zones? When experts talk about a “right way” to do it, they miss the point. You can flood a country with money, but it won’t work unless there’s political stability. Things get blown up or not used. For example, schools don’t always open because teachers won’t come to such dangerous areas. Or so much money is siphoned off, there’s not enough to pay them. When people who support COIN say we built things in the north and west, and people valued them, it’s true. But there, the population was on our side and the provinces were stable.
So what effect has COIN had?
Afghanistan is swimming in money, which not only hasn’t ended the war, but prolongs it, because everyone’s chasing it. If you’re on the outside and not profiting, you fight to get it. If you’re getting rich and buying mansions in Dubai, why reform the government, have a negotiated settlement or peace? I argue we should stop the flow until we get political stability.
It also causes corruption. First, government officials take about 10 to 40 percent. Next, local power brokers—who often include people we call the Taliban—get their share. The last 10 to 40 percent goes to those who do the construction. But even here, contractors have to pay off their government connections—because without them, they wouldn’t be allowed to bid.
Who else benefits?
MH. A lot of US firms. When you send 30,000 more troops, you need 50,000 more contractors to support them. They all have lobbyists, just like other industries. So of course the guys selling fuel, uniforms or helicopters are happy. It’s the same with firms that train Afghan forces and teachers, or build a legal system or roads. Like the people who create the theories, many have good intentions. But the ideas and projects are promoted by institutions that profit from them.
Another problem is the way we do projects, and I include the World Bank and UN. I saw this in Iraq, and it’s the same in Afghanistan. Say I’m USAID, and I give an American firm a large bulk contract to build schools. The firm sub-contracts the projects out, over and over, until they finally get to where people build some things. All along the way, everyone takes a cut, with the American contractor first.
So when Congress gives $10 billion for development, up to 40 percent can stay in or returns to US companies to manage the projects. That’s $3 billion or $4 billion! In the end, only 10 cents to 40 cents of each dollar gets to the projects.
You say the war is misguided. Why?
Americans always see what’s happening in a first-person story—how it affects our national interests—not underlying causes, who the players are, or why a country is unstable. We think the problem in Afghanistan is Al Qaeda or the Taliban. But they’re not the reasons why Afghans are fighting each other. The old, real issues must be resolved.
What should the US do now?
We have to address the political cause of the conflict, or we’ll never negotiate a settlement. The Afghanistan Study Group’s recommendations state that Afghans have to reconcile their differences among themselves. Also, that Afghanistan’s neighbors—Pakistan, India, Iran and others like Russia and China—have to see peace talks reflecting their interests. If they don’t, they’ll sabotage the process. Until now, Pakistan and India haven’t been willing to take part. That’s why the US must push for and lead the talks—to bring them to the table.

http://www.thenation.com/article/157...-insider-talks

[BarakzaiAbdali]

Moreover, Hoh ominously says the following regarding the Pakistan India paradigm:

Question: What should the US do now?
Matthew Hoh: We have to address the political cause of the conflict, or we’ll never negotiate a settlement. The Afghanistan Study Group’s recommendations state that Afghans have to reconcile their differences among themselves. Also, that Afghanistan’s neighbors—Pakistan, India, Iran and others like Russia and China—have to see peace talks reflecting their interests. If they don’t, they’ll sabotage the process. Until now, Pakistan and India haven’t been willing to take part. That’s why the US must push for and lead the talks—to bring them to the table."


How once again is this any different than what I have been saying all along? Even with your ideal outcome which appears to be a NATO win and a quick end to the conflict, a prominent and honest US commander in the US Army is now saying the same darn thing as I was stating at the outset when I first got involved on this forum. This is not a Pakistani centric or a Paki forward or a Power to Paki or even a Paki friendly issue. It is an issue clearly of strategy and what the ground level realities are and have been.

Toramana, we could be coming to these conclusions together that Scheuer, Hoh, Bernard Lewis, etc come to and we have been when you read everything we wrote. Even your insights into what constitute a series of imperiums in the Muslim world are pertinent because they reflect what a certain segment of the population there, in India, and in Iran thinks of the conflict.

Yet when things go from you being called a Kaafir to us being called Paki centric, it debilitates the conversation with the occasional jerk like that Parsiwaan fellow throwing in insulting comments about Islam that bear little to no impact on the topic.

And my whole point with this thread has been to stop this debasement and I believe that this now will effectively stop. People should not at all feel afraid to comment on Islam, Pakistan, Secularism, Christianity, etc etc for fear of being hurled into a camp and then attacked by a pack of serial posters that suddenly activate.

Now, the other side is sufficiently armed as I wrote and MAD (mutually assured destruction) assures neither side can gang up in this childish way. If unknown prince, any Kandahari, or any individual feels that his sense of originis being attacked he can utilize this thread to retort.

My hope is that it does not regress into that.

[ScimitarXEdge]

This is precisely what I mean by these so-called Self-Proclaimed Pashtoon Nationalists; they use So much Double Talk that their sincerity and the authenticity of their position becomes dubious to say the least.

On one hand they claim "oh we criticize the Western Media's portrayal of Pashtoons" or be portrayed as "oh these people have done so much for the Pashtoon community and the rights of Pashtoons".

I for one have no issue with those who help those in need no matter what the circumstances or their professed ideological, moral, religious, political background is involved. Virtue will always be Virtue.

But there is a serious problem when on one hand they claim to help others but on the other hand support, propagate, endorse and perpetuate the very mechanisms that are at the root of these injustices and inequities.

On one hand they claim that the idea of "stagnant Pashtoon" is a notion of the British and their heirs, further conflating that with Islamists; all the while striving to appeal to the Lowest Common Denominator of Colonial Designs by internalizing and abiding by British Colonial standards and criteria of "stagnancy". Why must it be seen as "stagnation" why not Diligence or Fortitude; or Perseverance? This is all self serving Imperialist Rhetoric to assert that those resistant to them are "stagnant" and that their "change" is the measure of progress. The attempt to appease such notions by trying to appeal to their measures gives way to mental subservience and becoming haplessly abetting it.

Also this manipulation in regards to the concept of "Change"; even if we presuppose that "change" is an inevitable; not all changes are meritable nor is all resilience unmeritable; so just because something is "possible" now does not mean that possibility and the mechanisms that enable it are valid, nor does it mean they're immutable and that a "new change" to restore the fundamental ways can't be enacted because they clearly can. The idea of change should not be measured by Modernity or Antiquity but meritable ideas. and That's what's being debated here, that the Meritable values of Pashtoons are being under threat by unmeritable changes. So while these individuals are accusing the gamut of "propaganda to camouflage their strategic agenda"; in reality they are merely projecting their own camouflage for the Neoimperialist strategic agenda.

Which brings me to my last point; this is evident of how certain individuals are being discussed who petition and patronize the Standards of the Neo-Colonialists and are engaged in behaviors or choices that are Loathessome to Pashtoon principles, yet duplicitously imploring Pashtoon principles as a defense of such people. Not only is the patronage or defense of such things as merely being "their business" loathesome; but such practices and the move to pardoning them is ultimately self destructive which in turns leads one to conclude that the ultimately well being of Pashtoons is not at the core here; it is some other personal anxiety that's being played out here. It seems to me at least their model of "change" really serves the interests of deteriorating Pashtun heritage with European values.

[آريا]

GHALCHA/Pamiris are closely related to Pashtuns and they even have their own languages (Pamiri) which are similar to Pashto.

(They are not related to mongoloid Persian speakers of Tajikistan.)