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I find it interesting to some here that a fact... what a pesky one syllable word like gnat... is to be glossed over for the sake of some sort of "mission."
I reference this in terms of my discussion with Pir Roshan. I refer him and others to this request that I think sets the forum apart from others:
http://www.pashtunforums.com/showthread.php?t=489
I wish that facts could be like gnats and that you could swat them and they would simply go away. Unfortunately, thats just not the way I am constructed. If I hear that Linus Pauling proposed a triple stranded DNA model and then I see the evidence that Waston and Crick bought, I cannot simply keep viewing the triple strand model as the right one.
These discussions we have are not religion where one is actually asked by the divine to suspend some element of belief in the physical for the metaphysical. These discussions are based to be based on historical fact.
Now some may say: well its about cherry picking facts. For instance you cannot take a quote from Kawun Kakar at face value, if it says that the rural lives of Pashtuns were not affected in the Taliban era, if a video exists where Brzenzski talks about how he lured the Soviets into Afghanistan which set of the sequence of events that would disrupt the rural man's life in the initial. You cannot equate Ahmad Shah Abdali to an Islamist because you cherry picked a certain number of his actions.
OK, fair enough. That is why we are here: to have these uncomfortable discussions with point vs counterpoint. However, to summarily dismiss an important event (e.g. Ahmad Shah writing to the Chinese Emperor to intervene on behalf of the beleagued Muslims of China) to prop up your worldview is not a good counterpoint at all.
Superimposing how one wants the world to be over the world as it really is amounts to putting sunglasses on in the dead of night; you just grow more blind.
To illustrate this powerful point, I provide two pieces of information for food for thought. Examine the dramatic difference evidence based analysis makes to presentation and consequent strategic reality :
Example 1: A few days ago someone posted an effort by Van Linschoten and others to translate Taliban poetry.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/News-F...e1-852030.aspx
Richard Kemp, of the British Armed forces responded with visceral dismissal:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012...ounced-british
"Richard Kemp, the former commander, cautioned against 'being taken in by a lot of self-justifying propaganda'.
'What we need to remember is that these are fascist, murdering thugs who suppress women and kill people without mercy if they do not agree with them, and of course are killing our soldiers," Kemp said on Friday. "It doesn't do anything but give the oxygen of publicity to an extremist group which is the enemy of this country.'"
Contrast this with what this learned, strategical, and evidence based gentleman says:
"John Jeffcock, a former British army captain who edited an anthology of U.K. war poetry called "Heroes," said he'd seen parallels between the writings of British soldiers and those they were fighting.
'They are written by soldiers,' he said of the Taliban poetry. 'While you may not agree with their cause, they go through the same anguish and pain and heartache that British soldiers would do.'
But he said that he'd been struck by how stark some of the war poems were.
The Taliban poetry was "much more black-and-white" than what British soldiers wrote, he said, warning that "war is a gray business."
'It tells me that these people are going to be very difficult to negotiate with,' he said."
So once again we see that Kemp's approach, similar to Pir Roshan's is to dismiss any attempt to understand the roots of a conflict and replace it with the desired narrative. When this bait-and-switch is accomplished valuable strategic information is lost. What a Jeffcock may advise after examining this evidence is to say:
1) The Brits cannot assume that they can continue the status quo and hope their enemy shows up to the bargaining table. He might add that the British need to assess the true value of the conflict then, in light of sovereign peoples' goals, and determine what national security benefit it offers them to stay in Afghanistan. Otherwise, humanitarian restrictions coupled to what he sees in his perusal of the enemy's words and commuications will bind the British down in a war of attrition and reintroduce them to failed colonialism.
2) Or Jeffcock may say: Its time to take off the gloves. These folks will not bargain and will not compromise and will not likely ever come to the West's terms so its best to go no holds barred and utilize the full fury of the American and British armies to annihalate the enemy.
3) Of Jeffcock may come to Scheuer's conclusions and say that the most they should do is what Lord Roberts discovered a century ago: utilize punitive expeditions and then rapidly withdraw.
Of course he would take other metrics into account, but the fact that he is actively reading the enemy's motives and words offers him a realistic and holistic assessment of what to do next that is best for his people.
Very similar caustic critiques were rendered to Michael Scheuer's work by the NY Times, accusing him of "aiding the enemy." Anyone who has read Scheuer knows how laughable this is.
Other examples of routine errors here on PF are:
1) A discussion of Afghan governmental setbacks are seen as "cherry picking" despite the clear evidence of both widespread and centralized abuse. Instead of folks seeing such criticisms as ways to improve governance, its called deflating moral and the time honored canard of supporting Pakistan is leveled.
2) The historical basis of insurgency in this volatile region especially, is dismissed summarily as: Saudis + Pakistanis = Taliban = insurgency. Once again, its a fanciful and unrealistic way to approach conflict resolution, i.e. to dismiss history, but its a time honored way to lose a conflict as well.
3) Discussions of why people from Cuba to Vietnam to the Afghanistan will end up relying on assymetric tactics are emotionalized and internalized to the point of absurdity. Folks fail to realize that its not an advocacy or an acceptance of a technique but an answer to why its being utilized. A discussion of why a group continues to become even more radical and why its ways and means do so as well ought not to be viewed through an emotional lense. Otherwise, once again folks fail to understand the simple lesson Admiral Jeffcock had from a few minutes of perusal through some written words.
4) Ideals become conflated with reality. Dhalia Mogahed and John Esposito showed with an evidence basis that Islamism and Islam are vehicles for political expression in many Muslim countries. This doesnt mean that the people utilizing the vehicle are saints. As an example the fact that the Tudeh communists even slipped under the Ayatollah's banner doesnt make them model sahabaa... it does however force us to look underneath platitudes and statements to understand the roots of conflict.
All in ell, I find it amazing that I am expected to, as per Pir Roshan simply ignore historical fact and discard knowledge to support his worldview of what is best for Pashtuns. That is, he seeks propaganda and politicization as opposed to the Colonel Jeffcock approach above.
If we all start thinking this way, then I fear that the region is doomed for a lengthy series of decades of war bought on by these this sort of detached and agenda laced approach.
I reference this in terms of my discussion with Pir Roshan. I refer him and others to this request that I think sets the forum apart from others:
http://www.pashtunforums.com/showthread.php?t=489
I wish that facts could be like gnats and that you could swat them and they would simply go away. Unfortunately, thats just not the way I am constructed. If I hear that Linus Pauling proposed a triple stranded DNA model and then I see the evidence that Waston and Crick bought, I cannot simply keep viewing the triple strand model as the right one.
These discussions we have are not religion where one is actually asked by the divine to suspend some element of belief in the physical for the metaphysical. These discussions are based to be based on historical fact.
Now some may say: well its about cherry picking facts. For instance you cannot take a quote from Kawun Kakar at face value, if it says that the rural lives of Pashtuns were not affected in the Taliban era, if a video exists where Brzenzski talks about how he lured the Soviets into Afghanistan which set of the sequence of events that would disrupt the rural man's life in the initial. You cannot equate Ahmad Shah Abdali to an Islamist because you cherry picked a certain number of his actions.
OK, fair enough. That is why we are here: to have these uncomfortable discussions with point vs counterpoint. However, to summarily dismiss an important event (e.g. Ahmad Shah writing to the Chinese Emperor to intervene on behalf of the beleagued Muslims of China) to prop up your worldview is not a good counterpoint at all.
Superimposing how one wants the world to be over the world as it really is amounts to putting sunglasses on in the dead of night; you just grow more blind.
To illustrate this powerful point, I provide two pieces of information for food for thought. Examine the dramatic difference evidence based analysis makes to presentation and consequent strategic reality :
Example 1: A few days ago someone posted an effort by Van Linschoten and others to translate Taliban poetry.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/News-F...e1-852030.aspx
Richard Kemp, of the British Armed forces responded with visceral dismissal:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012...ounced-british
"Richard Kemp, the former commander, cautioned against 'being taken in by a lot of self-justifying propaganda'.
'What we need to remember is that these are fascist, murdering thugs who suppress women and kill people without mercy if they do not agree with them, and of course are killing our soldiers," Kemp said on Friday. "It doesn't do anything but give the oxygen of publicity to an extremist group which is the enemy of this country.'"
Contrast this with what this learned, strategical, and evidence based gentleman says:
"John Jeffcock, a former British army captain who edited an anthology of U.K. war poetry called "Heroes," said he'd seen parallels between the writings of British soldiers and those they were fighting.
'They are written by soldiers,' he said of the Taliban poetry. 'While you may not agree with their cause, they go through the same anguish and pain and heartache that British soldiers would do.'
But he said that he'd been struck by how stark some of the war poems were.
The Taliban poetry was "much more black-and-white" than what British soldiers wrote, he said, warning that "war is a gray business."
'It tells me that these people are going to be very difficult to negotiate with,' he said."
So once again we see that Kemp's approach, similar to Pir Roshan's is to dismiss any attempt to understand the roots of a conflict and replace it with the desired narrative. When this bait-and-switch is accomplished valuable strategic information is lost. What a Jeffcock may advise after examining this evidence is to say:
1) The Brits cannot assume that they can continue the status quo and hope their enemy shows up to the bargaining table. He might add that the British need to assess the true value of the conflict then, in light of sovereign peoples' goals, and determine what national security benefit it offers them to stay in Afghanistan. Otherwise, humanitarian restrictions coupled to what he sees in his perusal of the enemy's words and commuications will bind the British down in a war of attrition and reintroduce them to failed colonialism.
2) Or Jeffcock may say: Its time to take off the gloves. These folks will not bargain and will not compromise and will not likely ever come to the West's terms so its best to go no holds barred and utilize the full fury of the American and British armies to annihalate the enemy.
3) Of Jeffcock may come to Scheuer's conclusions and say that the most they should do is what Lord Roberts discovered a century ago: utilize punitive expeditions and then rapidly withdraw.
Of course he would take other metrics into account, but the fact that he is actively reading the enemy's motives and words offers him a realistic and holistic assessment of what to do next that is best for his people.
Very similar caustic critiques were rendered to Michael Scheuer's work by the NY Times, accusing him of "aiding the enemy." Anyone who has read Scheuer knows how laughable this is.
Other examples of routine errors here on PF are:
1) A discussion of Afghan governmental setbacks are seen as "cherry picking" despite the clear evidence of both widespread and centralized abuse. Instead of folks seeing such criticisms as ways to improve governance, its called deflating moral and the time honored canard of supporting Pakistan is leveled.
2) The historical basis of insurgency in this volatile region especially, is dismissed summarily as: Saudis + Pakistanis = Taliban = insurgency. Once again, its a fanciful and unrealistic way to approach conflict resolution, i.e. to dismiss history, but its a time honored way to lose a conflict as well.
3) Discussions of why people from Cuba to Vietnam to the Afghanistan will end up relying on assymetric tactics are emotionalized and internalized to the point of absurdity. Folks fail to realize that its not an advocacy or an acceptance of a technique but an answer to why its being utilized. A discussion of why a group continues to become even more radical and why its ways and means do so as well ought not to be viewed through an emotional lense. Otherwise, once again folks fail to understand the simple lesson Admiral Jeffcock had from a few minutes of perusal through some written words.
4) Ideals become conflated with reality. Dhalia Mogahed and John Esposito showed with an evidence basis that Islamism and Islam are vehicles for political expression in many Muslim countries. This doesnt mean that the people utilizing the vehicle are saints. As an example the fact that the Tudeh communists even slipped under the Ayatollah's banner doesnt make them model sahabaa... it does however force us to look underneath platitudes and statements to understand the roots of conflict.
All in ell, I find it amazing that I am expected to, as per Pir Roshan simply ignore historical fact and discard knowledge to support his worldview of what is best for Pashtuns. That is, he seeks propaganda and politicization as opposed to the Colonel Jeffcock approach above.
If we all start thinking this way, then I fear that the region is doomed for a lengthy series of decades of war bought on by these this sort of detached and agenda laced approach.
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