Pashtuns and neoconservatism-interventionism

[BarakzaiAbdali]

I would take a 20% chance when the alternative is 100% certain death.

BTW those are your numbers, others dont paint just dismal figures. I have no problem with 30 years of karzai (10 already) if he could deliver stability and let the youth get educated, and able to run an informed revolt for its own future (like mubarak). That can never happen in a 1000 years of taliban rule.

So you're only pro democracy when it suits your interests, Im glad its in writing (30 years of Karzai). More agenda laced fact rigging and a complete ignorance of the massive complexities in Afghan society. I do not get why Parsiwaan is so upset with Pakistan, when you, a Pakistani, support his worldview. I also do not get why you think you know the complexities on our side of the fence. Afghanistan does not = Egypt. Also watch Refdahl's documentary, people like Commander Dauran are the average Afghan... he was not previously a Talib. You are merely affixing the Taliban label to all the Afghans (northern and southern) that want Uncle Sam out. There are governmental collaborators like Abdul Rasul Sayyaf that also are itching to get the US out.

[BarakzaiAbdali]

I would take a 20% chance when the alternative is 100% certain death.

BTW those are your numbers, others dont paint just dismal figures. I have no problem with 30 years of karzai (10 already) if he could deliver stability and let the youth get educated, and able to run an informed revolt for its own future (like mubarak). That can never happen in a 1000 years of taliban rule.

Note Mike's first sentence and Osho's illusory endorsement of Marxist thought processes above. I love the irony.
Osho: "I am in favour of the Marxist international relations theory and later World-systems approach..."
I cannot wait for Osho to post some articles from Gabriel Shoenfeld, Atlantic writer Jeffery Goldberg, or any of the other Neocon shills that attack Scheuer in an effort to discredit this individual that Peter Bergen referred to as a "doyen" in his field.

Bin Laden Does a Happy Dance

February 14, 2011
Michael Scheuer [2]

Osama bin Laden thought the mujahedin had seen the last of Marxist-like thinkers in 1980s Afghanistan where the “inevitability” of communism’s world mastery proved illusory. To his surprise and joy, however, this sort of mental malady reappeared with a vengeance this month as the woefully uneducated West cheered democracy’s “inevitable” advance in Egypt.
From CNN to FOX to BBC, journalists performed as weepy, ahistorical cheerleaders, describing crowds of Jeffersonian Egyptians filling Tahrir Square to replicate the events of Philadelphia in 1776 and 1787. And then
— Mubarak left and democracy was installed! The unfinished republican project Americans have labored on for 800 years since Runnymede was completed in Egypt in only 18 days. We live in an age of wonders.

Is this analysis flawed? Is the argument’s logic weak? Well no, certainly not. Egypt is what it is, as the saying goes. In a time of economic crisis, political chaos, and looming violence, 80 million Egyptians grasped an alien, long-detested ideology called “secular democracy,” turning their collective back on the Islam that heretofore graced and ordered their lives, and gave them the will and courage to patiently resist Mubarak’s tyranny and rely on God’s promise of victory. They swapped Allah for paganism in just eighteen days. Why, my goodness, Katie Couric said so, didn’t she?
Well, back in his Afghan cave Osama bin Laden knows better, not having benefited from an Ivy League education. Indeed, if Salifism allows such things, Brother Osama is doing the Happy Dance. Bin Laden, his lieutenants, and their allies know that after the Western media returns to what it does best — isn’t Lindsey Lohan due in court? — Muslim Egyptians will be reaching for Allah’s rope, not Facebook’s self-deification. And the Islamists also will know the stout wall of U.S.-and-Israeli-supported Arab tyranny they have long attacked is cracking.

When the West sees pious Egyptians moving toward Islam, not secular democracy, bin Laden will have thanked God for His gifts to the mujahedin. Having designated Arab police states and Israel as Islam’s main enemies — brain-dead America simply being in the way due to its money and guns — bin Laden et. al. now see the ruins of the strongest Arab tyranny, as well as the most loyal, least demanding ally secured by Washington‘s relentless intervention in the Muslim world. They know whatever regime follows Mubarak will be weaker, more influenced by those demanding a form of Sharia law — including General Clapper’s Kiwanis-in-waiting, the Muslim Brotherhood — and, being a democracy, more representative of Egyptians’ deep, abiding hatred for Israel.

With one tyranny dished, bin Laden also will know Israel is thigh deep in disaster. Israel’s physical security long depended on repression by the Levant’s three border-controlling tyrannies: Egypt, Syria, and Jordan. After all, look at the trouble Israel gets from Lebanon’s fitfully representative political system. Now, Israel faces Jeffersonian Egypt, which, to reflect popular will, must be less “friendly” toward it, less willing to seal its Gaza border, and unwilling to kill Egyptians trying to aid Palestinians. Perhaps the West missed the anti-Mubarak posters showing David’s star burned into his forehead. And perhaps that’s because few Western journalists explained the hard truth that Mubarak was hated not just for repression and joblessness, but because he dealt with Israel and persecuted Egyptians for their faith.

So for bin Laden and all Islamist leaders, happy days are here. Through no actions of their own, their most potent Arab foe disappeared at the hands of their other erstwhile enemies, the United States and its allies. They can now exploit the Egyptian debacle knowing that, as they do so, Washington will be further weakened economically as the new Egyptian regime begs funds to rebuild — and hints it will take Saudi money if U.S. taxpayers are not shaken down — and the Israel-suborned Congress ships great batches of taxpayer funds to Israel for a military and border-control build-up to cope with Egyptian democracy and prepare for Israel’s other two indispensable tyrants — Jordan’s Abdullah and Syria’s al-Asad — going Mubarak‘s way.

As ever, the wages of U.S. intervention are dire. After intervening for 30-plus years to support Mubarak and allow Israel’s every whim, Washington now finds itself headed toward more intervention in a probably useless attempt to rebalance the Potemkin political “system” its intervention helped create. Like an umpire trying to make up for a bad call, Washington’s forthcoming intervention will spread the Egyptian disaster and undermine U.S. security; only bin Laden and the Islamists will benefit.
Perhaps a reading of General Washington’s Farewell Address is in order?

[Azmal]

Warning Afghans…, all Pakistanis and their legions of useful id.iots seek to project their own unscrupulous antics on to the Americans, with no effort spared at smearing the US as co-authors to crimes planned in Islamabad. Please beware of this vicious propaganda campaign, for the enemy wants nothing more than for Afghans to turn against the only allies they’ve known to help marginalise their collective enemies. Remember that America’s war on terror began against Pakistan while its leaders were busy carrying out their cowardly aggression against the people of Afghanistan via their Al Qaeda allies. DON’T BE FOOLED!

[graveyardofempires]

Warning Afghans…, all Pakistanis and their legions of useful id.iots seek to project their own unscrupulous antics on to the Americans, with no effort spared at smearing the US as co-authors to crimes planned in Islamabad. Please beware of this vicious propaganda campaign, for the enemy wants nothing more than for Afghans to turn against the only allies they’ve known to help marginalise their collective enemies. Remember that America’s war on terror began against Pakistan while its leaders were busy carrying out their cowardly aggression against the people of Afghanistan via their Al Qaeda allies. DON’T BE FOOLED!

wont be fooled by you either

[Toramana]

Lets have a meaningful discussion on neoconservatism and interventionism in relation to Pashtuns with the spirit of mutual sharing and learning and in the larger interest of Pashtuns and the world and not just to win the argument on rebuttals and argument for the sake of argument.

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Zwana, you and BarakzaiAbdali are suffering from same delusional sickness, one hoping that US will withdraw from the world affairs and become a kind of self-concerned power....You on the other hand are considering USA to be kind of all-benevolent power that will launch Pashtuns into 22nd century with all that democracy and development....


Superpowers are seldom benign ...If that were the case, people of Saudi Arabia would now be enjoying freedom of speech and action instead of suffering under the yolk of dictatorial oppression...

Pashtuns will have to stand for themselves ...and "only for themselves"....I have strong faith in the self-sufficiency, strength, and diligence of Pashtuns as individuals...The only thing lacking is, that they cannot develop a unified response to what is causing their suffering....

Moreover, your association of Pashtunwali with all that is evil is nuaseating....This is unhighly unscientific and subjective to the extent of being entriely baseless....Man, no culture is inherently bad or good....Get over it and don't spew this thing more....No one with academic/objective outlook can accept what you say....

[ScimitarXEdge]

the first sensible post by Toramana, congrats.

mubarak sha

[ScimitarXEdge]

why would Pakistan want to be listed as authors at all, nevermind co-authors? This argument fails due to lack of logic.

[BarakzaiAbdali]

Zwana, you and BarakzaiAbdali are suffering from same delusional sickness, one hoping that US will withdraw from the world affairs and become a kind of self-concerned power....You on the other hand are considering USA to be kind of all-benevolent power that will launch Pashtuns into 22nd century with all that democracy and development....


Superpowers are seldom benign ...If that were the case, people of Saudi Arabia would now be enjoying freedom of speech and action instead of suffering under the yolk of dictatorial oppression...

Pashtuns will have to stand for themselves ...and "only for themselves"....I have strong faith in the self-sufficiency, strength, and diligence of Pashtuns as individuals...The only thing lacking is, that they cannot develop a unified response to what is causing their suffering....

Moreover, your association of Pashtunwali with all that is evil is nuaseating....This is unhighly unscientific and subjective to the extent of being entriely baseless....Man, no culture is inherently bad or good....Get over it and don't spew this thing more....No one with academic/objective outlook can accept what you say....

Certainly not an endorsement of me, but a statement that is finally logical, consistent, and reasonable.

[faye]

b.a. don't forget heart. the heart doesn't judge and respond with a university educated logical rational view of the world. some of you guys seem to forget that.

[BarakzaiAbdali]

b.a. don't forget heart. the heart doesn't judge and respond with a university educated logical rational view of the world. some of you guys seem to forget that.

Hi Faye,

I think that it comes across all wrong sometimes. I agree with you. In fact, if you take a look at what I wrote in that thread Graveyard wrote about Rahmatullah Hashemi, I advocate against this idea that we ought to simply defer to a degreed person. In fact, the ivy leagues have produced many idiots who are ruining the world with their policies. Neoconservatives and interventionalists abound in these centers and are promoted up the heirarchial chain simply because of these connections. Our last 4 presidents have all been ivy league educated men, but not a single one truly grasps what their policies are doing. They are products of the ivy tower mentality at these centers.

However, when it comes to advocating a position, facts are essential and matter:

For instance, if someone says: I have this idea that Islamists attacked America because they hate our freedoms! They hate that we let Britney Spears dance on tables and they hate that our women wear jeans. They are really upset that we are beaming pornography into their countries!

This emotional statement then drives policy and creates non evidence based and unnecessary death and destruction because no one really evaluated the documentary evidence.

So when we examine the documentary evidence and read all the speeches and writings of those folks that decided to take it upon themselves to attack American here and abroad we realize a major thing:

They state consistently, cogently, and repeatedly that they care not a wit or a lick about freedoms... they hate us because of what we do in their countries. Even if Baygham Khan stood on a hill and contrived a case to show this is not true and that America is some benevolent superpower like Santa Clause.. it does not matter because that is their preception regarding America's injustices.

And it makes sense right? There are few people (only enough to be a lethal nuisance) that would take it upon themselves to attack us because Americans have women in the work place.

And there are things that folks with limited education can point out, like the fact that Ayatollah Khomeinei tried his best to instigate a worldwide jihad with those sorts of issues: ie. a war on western values.
It then turned out that no one responded to his call. His call for war fell on deaf ears.

That then has to make an enquiring mind wonder: what has made this current insurgency so attractive?

I think that the common man, as opposed to the education man can answer that easily. One fellow from Arkansas once told me, after we discussed these issues:
"You know, if some china man came to my backyard and put one of his men as my mayor and broke down my door and tried to take my guns and messed with my church, Id get right up into those hills and shoot at every single one of em!"

So yes Faye, I agree with you, sometimes the overly educated are not educated at all.

But evidence and logical through processes are available to the educated and uneducated alike.

[faye]

well, thanks dear, i was worried that i might be missing out (tongue in cheek)
it hasn't even been proven yet, who attacked your country. some of those conspiracy theories are starting to find some grounding, in fact. a lot of the supposed videos of bin laden are 'found' by rita katz, an israeli/iraqi jew. why aren't they found by the cia?i would want to read that michael scheuer book to suss him out too. find out who he is working for.
there you are, defence shield activated, on high alert.....

[Badlun]

This is human weakness that when we see something closer to our thinking we take is as sensible and logical but if some one is saying against our opinion and approach we consider it non sense and baseless.

My approach is that Pashtuns may not depend on the superpower totally and may forget its own responsibility but take advantage of their presence and change themselves as per the requirement of the modern era. We should use the USA and may not be used by them. The point is very simple , USA is the enemy of our enemy so we should take it as our ally against our enemy.

If you can defeat Terrorism with out the USA then that will be the ideal. But that is simply not possible in the present circumstances.

As I said somewhere else I prefer the champions of democracy, human rights and development to Alqaida and Taliban. If I have to choose between two evils, the West and the Taliban then my choice will be the former.

The ideal will be when Afghanistan becomes an independent G8 like country with out foreign troops and with out Taliban. A modern Pashtuns dominated religiously Islamic country. May be like Malysia or Turkey.

My fear is that once the foreign troops withdraw from Afghanistan it may not be again conquered by the Taliban. The history of the withdrawl of USSR and domination of the warring Mujahideen may not be repeated. Gran Afghanistan may not once again entangle in the quagmire of civil war and rule of Taliban and safe heaven for Alqaida.

I wish the foreign troops train the Afghan army sufficiently and then leave the country and we have a clean government with strong military, sound economy and democracy with human rights, freedom for women, Pashtunwali as culture and society and Islam as a religion.

[graveyardofempires]

unknown the nazis were not representatives of christians they were atheists in their idealogy.the guy on the other video is just being an extremist.

[ScimitarXEdge]

No that's false; people see things as sensible and logical, because they're sensible and logical, if someones points aren't sensible or logical, then they won't be deemed sensible and logical because simply put they are not. It's just how it works. Nothing to do with how close or how far from our views, just simple reason. The fact is the creator of world corruption, cannot solve the problems of terrorism, as terrorism is an offshoot of it's agendas. Therefore it would be false to advocate their presence.

[BarakzaiAbdali]

An excellent article by the esteemed Dr. Andrew Bacevich

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Bacevich

that provides some good data rebutting interventionalism and neoconservatism:

They're doing it without us

Rendering a decade of U.S. policy irrelevant, the people of the Middle East are transforming the region themselves.

By Andrew J. Bacevich
February 20, 2011

The ongoing upheaval in the Arab world (and in Iran) has rendered a definitive judgment on U.S. policy over the last decade. Relying on their own resources and employing means of their own devising, the people of the Middle East intent on transforming that region have effectively consigned the entire "war on terror" to the category of strategic irrelevance.

When first conceived in the wake of 9/11, two convictions underpinned that war. According to the first, precluding further attacks on the United States meant that the Islamic world needed to change. According to the second, because Muslims were manifestly unable to change on their own, the United States needed to engineer the process, with American military might serving as catalyst. Freedom (or at least submission) would issue from the barrel of a GI's assault rifle.

In Afghanistan, then Iraq and now, of course, AfPak, U.S. efforts to promote change have achieved — at best — mixed results. Meanwhile, the costs incurred have proved painfully high. In terms of treasure expended, lives lost and moral authority squandered, Americans have paid a lot and gotten precious little in return.

It now turns out that those exertions were unnecessary or, at the very least, superfluous. For nine years, the U.S. has been pushing in on a door that opens outward. More amazing still, that door swings open of its own volition. Events of the last several weeks have made it abundantly clear not only that important parts of the Islamic world are ripe for change but that the impetus for change comes from within. Transformation is not something that outsiders can induce or impose or control. The process is organic, spontaneous and self-sustaining.

So poor Muslims tired of living in squalor, and the not-so-poor fed up with suffering under the boot of corrupt authoritarian regimes (not infrequently allied with the United States), don't need Washington's coaching. They don't need us to "liberate" them. They are perfectly capable of liberating themselves. And their doing so basically doesn't cost the American taxpayer a nickel.

Whether Muslim self-liberation will see the rise of prosperous, stable, liberal democracies, tolerant of Israel and friendly to the West, remains to be seen. Yet with the United States doing little more than bearing witness — no need for an Operation Egyptian Freedom consuming hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of American lives — the prospects of democratic change in Egypt and elsewhere in the region are greater today than at any time in memory.

For the inhabitants of the Islamic world, the moment is rich with possibility. For Americans, that moment is equally rich in irony.

Intent on positioning themselves on "the right side of history," senior U. S. officials busily amend whatever pronouncements they issued a week ago, hoping no one will notice. Determined to sustain the pretense that the United States remains capable of exercising "global leadership," pundits and policy analysts discreetly tap into Al Jazeera English in hopes of figuring out what's actually going on.

Yet Americans might also consider this an educational opportunity, with humility and contrition the order of the day, seasoned perhaps with a glimmer of hope. Here's what we should learn.

First, when it comes to divining history's purposes and intentions, the world's only superpower is clueless. "The whole drama of history," the American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr once observed, "is enacted in a frame of meaning too large for human comprehension or management." True when he wrote it more than half a century ago, the passage remains true today, notwithstanding the wonders of computers, iPhones and social networking.

Second, to disregard Niebuhr's counsel is to incur severe penalties. Arrogance invites punishment. The punishment that the United States has sustained in Iraq and Afghanistan merits not simply remembrance but sorrowful reflection: These were needless losses. For those who once advocated preventive war as the shortest path to peace, sackcloth and ashes might be appropriate.

At the same time, however, we might take some small consolation in this: The demonstrators filling the streets in Cairo, Tunis, Tripoli, Algiers, Manama, Sana and Tehran give every indication of dreaming dreams not entirely dissimilar from our own. Rather than rejecting modernity, as radical Islamists such as Osama bin Laden have urged, these protesters want a bigger slice of what modernity has to offer. Though not guaranteeing harmonious coexistence, this convergence of aspirations does suggest that a cosmic clash of civilizations is avoidable.

If the Muslim masses demanding political freedom and economic opportunity prevail, they will do so not thanks to but despite the United States. Yet by liberating themselves, they will also liberate us. Our misbegotten crusade to determine their destiny will finally end. In that case, we will owe them a great debt.

Andrew J. Bacevich is a professor of history and international relations at Boston University. His most recent book is "Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War."