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Originally posted by BarakzaiAbdali
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Wowra Khan
This is an excellent case report style approach to begin the discussion of how war affects both us and the other (from whichever vantage point one takes on being "us.").
Question:
Are the Qari and Mr. Harris real or symbolic?
Qari is a composite of a handful of jihadists ranging from '79 to present, but most heavily on the present. Harris is a composite of a few different people as well, but his example is much more readily available for comparison stateside, I think. So they are both real and symbolic.
The strengths are the following:
- Two contrasting cases of the average fighter on both sides is detailed.
- The notion of moral imperitive is nimbly danced around but never openly stated.
- Awareness of PTSD is encouraged
- The references to similar conflicts and the DSM criteria shows the depth and breath the author seeks to acquire on his way to expertise.
The questions I have are the following:
- Qari Abdullah and Sargeant Harris, can we assume they are representative figures, or even within the rural strata are there variations?
I think they are fairly representative. I've got a plethora of friends from various parties and various tribes. The only bias is probably that he is based most heavily upon one for literary clarity. Harris, however, i would say is aptly sampled for the average American.
- Some say, and I think Abbassina tries to convey this as well, that the traditional design Elphinstone sort of popularized of the paramount khan (e.g. Zaman Khan Sadozai and Mir Wais and Musa Dunki etc etc) gave way long ago to the strongest man with the most guns. That is, the two may not eclipse.
- For instance, a traditonal Barakzai near paramount khan is Haji Hamidullah of Naway, but the father of Gul Agha Sherzai acquired a lot of guns and power... and then of course there are the multiple Kabul based branches of the Muhammadzai. Perhaps what Luffy means as a Marwat is that if we were to trace the results of even Marwat or Kandahar tribal jirgas and their elected leaders (poor record keeping makes this difficult) - whoever would be considered the current hereditary potential leader doesnt have as much clout as one would think. Or for that matter - let us take up the idea that if Zahir Shah's son or Haji Hamidullah gave an order to Gul Agha - the heirarchial nature of the tribe that is discussed in academic circles doesnt really impact Gul Agha's response unless its in some big meeting in Kandahar and covers his interests.
I agree and have witnessed as much - moreso the closer you get to Kabul. In staunchly tribal areas such as eastern Kunar, the tribal dynamic is still what one would envision as "classically Pashtun."
- Yet I do think that your point is very important regarding all politics being local. Many villages vote wholesale on their collective familial interests even if government officials switch the name of their party.
Absolutely. I never meant to imply that these decisions extend beyond a single remote valley - and entirely acknowledge that, in Afghanistan, no two valleys are the same.
- Do you think that the moral imperitive is the underlying issue regarding PTSD responses? What I mean is that Bush and Co tried immensely to create a moral imperitive. Ann Coulter and other jingoists did the same. For example, when Pat Tillman died she did not realize he had begun to question the moral imperitive of the Afghan conflict and she tried to paint him as the virtuous spartan warrior dawning his armor to defend his soil abroad.
I don't know. There's a number of factors. As Doestoyevsky said, no man does anything for one reason alone. I think the introduction of a 360 "frontline" can induce the necessary anxiety. I think being so far from home could produce the alienation. While a moral imperitive may produce a feeling of betrayal or shame in some, I'm sure it doesn't affect most. Anyone who says they're over there for patriotism is a charlatan. Soldiers fight because they have credit card debt, something to prove, something to validate, love of brothers, want anecdotes. Unfortunately its that shallow, but often on both sides. Patriotism or even Jihad can be relegated to subtext that way. I've seen immature soldiers piss in gatorade bottles and give them to children and I've heard of them relieve themselves in ablution jugs. Maybe just one guy in each platoon has a perpensity for this, but there's a lot of platoons in Afghanistan. Many more have the perpensity to sit there and laugh and cheer him on. So I don't think the moral imperitive is necessarily relevant at this stage. Now, when this generation has grandchildren I think we may see a different thing. I think this is when moral imperitive will come with a vengeance.
Yet we both know that there is a mass of confusion here regarding what the moral imperitive of all our conflicts are these days. The Veitcong for instance may not have been a tribal society and Ho Chi broke down the traditional elite clan structures and communized the Veitnemese right? Yet these folks had the moral imperitive on their side and their outcomes may also mirror Qari's.
Whether Ho Chi Minh did away with "tribes," he could not do away with community. And I think that's the thread that we're picking at here. The lack of community in America, but in Afghanistan (or even rural Vietnam) community is often all you do have. Now, of course poverty has a vote. I once had a handful of Kohistani friends. One of them had a brother who blew half of his face off screwing around with a bad RPG. He lived but spent a long time in the hospital in Kabul - so I gave my friend (the brother) probably 100lbs of rice and flower to take to his wife to hold her over until the faceless man got back home. Almost immediately, his khan swooped in and took half. Then his cousins took a few bags complaining that the khan took too much, and the brother took what was left. The wife may have gotten a bag if that. But still, what we see there is a perverted sense of community. The khan still got his share, as did the cousins - and the wife fell to the responsibility of the brother anyway. If the same thing happened in America - the wife would have fell to the responsibility of the emotionless government. This absence of community. The lack of social connectivity may not be the seed for PTSD, but it provides the fertile ground for its symptoms to grow.
If say Sargeant Harris were fighting on his own soil against an outsider power and a narrative emerged where he was defending his bill of rights and way of life against a true threat internally - would his outcomes be different? Would he mirror Qari and take refuge in the local family and baptist faith of his brethren?
This is interesting, Dr. Abdali - but I think so many dynamics shift here. A fight on US soil would have to result in a cohesion of the communal society to successfully repel/ defend anything. So in essence, I do think that Harris would abstain from symptoms. Plus this puts Harris back in the realm of Maslowe's needs - nothing would be guaranteed at that point.
Also, is it the sensitivity and specificity of the diagnosis that needs to be refined. Its somewhat easier to quantify a lab test level of normality and alter a tests sensitivity and specificity... but a psychiatric diagnosis is a bit of a different beast.
Humor me though. So cardiologists are devising criteria that is beginning to recognize that the way we treat different ethnicities for their risk factors may set up different criteria. For instance a westerner eating a western diet laced with carbs and fat may have a different adaptation and response versus a south and central asian who deposit their adipose centrally and have thinner limbs peripherally. So the waist circumference and BMI proposed by WHO and other organizations are different for these groups. Do PTSD criteria need to be refined in the same way?
I agree whole-heartedly, brother. It's definitely cultural, moreso than physiological medicine. Its the way we frame our outlook toward community. I think I abstain from symptoms by merely creating the community I wish to live in. I know the woman who fetches my eggs, the man who raises my meat and the man that gets my milk. Caveat to that, I'm involved in my local Muslim community - I yield steaks after Eid sacrifices and give them bulani, byrani or kebaabs whenever I make them. Everything becomes a community affair. For this, I sleep well at night and look forward to each day.
So perhaps if we compare Luffy as an indigenous Marwat or Toramana as an indigenous Yusufzai to the local who get swept up in the conflict - would that PTSD manifested by those there perhaps manifest differently to a certain degree?
I would think that a better sample would be for American Afghans that have served as Interpreters in Afghanistan, but return home to a place that does not have a large Afghan community such as Fairfax, NYC, Houston, or Little Kabul in CA. Or the local interpreters that have come to America on a SIV. Do they, then reveal those symptoms?
I refer you to Abdul Salam Zaeef's book published by Columbia. There is chapter where he gives good detail of an encounter on the road with a child soldier of a Kandahar militia that stopped a bus and robbed it violently. Would this child's rearing and response to violence be a manifestation of sorts?
I think I know the passage you're referring to in My Life with the Taliban (one of my favorite books). I think during the time of the topakyan, the communal fibers were so eviscerated that he could in clean conscious perpetuate those crimes, and that he would have been subject to the moral rammifications were it not for the placement on Maslowe's needs.
Or are out approaches sensitive and specific enough to pick up on symptoms in a society where psychiatric ailments are not seen as real diseases? My personal anguishing interactions treating refugees is that when we discuss certain illnesses they have told me that they stopped taking medications because their aunts told them a Pir informed them the disease state had nothing to do with organic causes but was a piryaan possessing the person. It took months of interaction and gaining a comfort level with that refugee to get that out of him after he began to see that I viewed him through a western prism, including his disease state.
This is an excellent case report style approach to begin the discussion of how war affects both us and the other (from whichever vantage point one takes on being "us.").
Question:
Are the Qari and Mr. Harris real or symbolic?
Qari is a composite of a handful of jihadists ranging from '79 to present, but most heavily on the present. Harris is a composite of a few different people as well, but his example is much more readily available for comparison stateside, I think. So they are both real and symbolic.
The strengths are the following:
- Two contrasting cases of the average fighter on both sides is detailed.
- The notion of moral imperitive is nimbly danced around but never openly stated.
- Awareness of PTSD is encouraged
- The references to similar conflicts and the DSM criteria shows the depth and breath the author seeks to acquire on his way to expertise.
The questions I have are the following:
- Qari Abdullah and Sargeant Harris, can we assume they are representative figures, or even within the rural strata are there variations?
I think they are fairly representative. I've got a plethora of friends from various parties and various tribes. The only bias is probably that he is based most heavily upon one for literary clarity. Harris, however, i would say is aptly sampled for the average American.
- Some say, and I think Abbassina tries to convey this as well, that the traditional design Elphinstone sort of popularized of the paramount khan (e.g. Zaman Khan Sadozai and Mir Wais and Musa Dunki etc etc) gave way long ago to the strongest man with the most guns. That is, the two may not eclipse.
- For instance, a traditonal Barakzai near paramount khan is Haji Hamidullah of Naway, but the father of Gul Agha Sherzai acquired a lot of guns and power... and then of course there are the multiple Kabul based branches of the Muhammadzai. Perhaps what Luffy means as a Marwat is that if we were to trace the results of even Marwat or Kandahar tribal jirgas and their elected leaders (poor record keeping makes this difficult) - whoever would be considered the current hereditary potential leader doesnt have as much clout as one would think. Or for that matter - let us take up the idea that if Zahir Shah's son or Haji Hamidullah gave an order to Gul Agha - the heirarchial nature of the tribe that is discussed in academic circles doesnt really impact Gul Agha's response unless its in some big meeting in Kandahar and covers his interests.
I agree and have witnessed as much - moreso the closer you get to Kabul. In staunchly tribal areas such as eastern Kunar, the tribal dynamic is still what one would envision as "classically Pashtun."
- Yet I do think that your point is very important regarding all politics being local. Many villages vote wholesale on their collective familial interests even if government officials switch the name of their party.
Absolutely. I never meant to imply that these decisions extend beyond a single remote valley - and entirely acknowledge that, in Afghanistan, no two valleys are the same.
- Do you think that the moral imperitive is the underlying issue regarding PTSD responses? What I mean is that Bush and Co tried immensely to create a moral imperitive. Ann Coulter and other jingoists did the same. For example, when Pat Tillman died she did not realize he had begun to question the moral imperitive of the Afghan conflict and she tried to paint him as the virtuous spartan warrior dawning his armor to defend his soil abroad.
I don't know. There's a number of factors. As Doestoyevsky said, no man does anything for one reason alone. I think the introduction of a 360 "frontline" can induce the necessary anxiety. I think being so far from home could produce the alienation. While a moral imperitive may produce a feeling of betrayal or shame in some, I'm sure it doesn't affect most. Anyone who says they're over there for patriotism is a charlatan. Soldiers fight because they have credit card debt, something to prove, something to validate, love of brothers, want anecdotes. Unfortunately its that shallow, but often on both sides. Patriotism or even Jihad can be relegated to subtext that way. I've seen immature soldiers piss in gatorade bottles and give them to children and I've heard of them relieve themselves in ablution jugs. Maybe just one guy in each platoon has a perpensity for this, but there's a lot of platoons in Afghanistan. Many more have the perpensity to sit there and laugh and cheer him on. So I don't think the moral imperitive is necessarily relevant at this stage. Now, when this generation has grandchildren I think we may see a different thing. I think this is when moral imperitive will come with a vengeance.
Yet we both know that there is a mass of confusion here regarding what the moral imperitive of all our conflicts are these days. The Veitcong for instance may not have been a tribal society and Ho Chi broke down the traditional elite clan structures and communized the Veitnemese right? Yet these folks had the moral imperitive on their side and their outcomes may also mirror Qari's.
Whether Ho Chi Minh did away with "tribes," he could not do away with community. And I think that's the thread that we're picking at here. The lack of community in America, but in Afghanistan (or even rural Vietnam) community is often all you do have. Now, of course poverty has a vote. I once had a handful of Kohistani friends. One of them had a brother who blew half of his face off screwing around with a bad RPG. He lived but spent a long time in the hospital in Kabul - so I gave my friend (the brother) probably 100lbs of rice and flower to take to his wife to hold her over until the faceless man got back home. Almost immediately, his khan swooped in and took half. Then his cousins took a few bags complaining that the khan took too much, and the brother took what was left. The wife may have gotten a bag if that. But still, what we see there is a perverted sense of community. The khan still got his share, as did the cousins - and the wife fell to the responsibility of the brother anyway. If the same thing happened in America - the wife would have fell to the responsibility of the emotionless government. This absence of community. The lack of social connectivity may not be the seed for PTSD, but it provides the fertile ground for its symptoms to grow.
If say Sargeant Harris were fighting on his own soil against an outsider power and a narrative emerged where he was defending his bill of rights and way of life against a true threat internally - would his outcomes be different? Would he mirror Qari and take refuge in the local family and baptist faith of his brethren?
This is interesting, Dr. Abdali - but I think so many dynamics shift here. A fight on US soil would have to result in a cohesion of the communal society to successfully repel/ defend anything. So in essence, I do think that Harris would abstain from symptoms. Plus this puts Harris back in the realm of Maslowe's needs - nothing would be guaranteed at that point.
Also, is it the sensitivity and specificity of the diagnosis that needs to be refined. Its somewhat easier to quantify a lab test level of normality and alter a tests sensitivity and specificity... but a psychiatric diagnosis is a bit of a different beast.
Humor me though. So cardiologists are devising criteria that is beginning to recognize that the way we treat different ethnicities for their risk factors may set up different criteria. For instance a westerner eating a western diet laced with carbs and fat may have a different adaptation and response versus a south and central asian who deposit their adipose centrally and have thinner limbs peripherally. So the waist circumference and BMI proposed by WHO and other organizations are different for these groups. Do PTSD criteria need to be refined in the same way?
I agree whole-heartedly, brother. It's definitely cultural, moreso than physiological medicine. Its the way we frame our outlook toward community. I think I abstain from symptoms by merely creating the community I wish to live in. I know the woman who fetches my eggs, the man who raises my meat and the man that gets my milk. Caveat to that, I'm involved in my local Muslim community - I yield steaks after Eid sacrifices and give them bulani, byrani or kebaabs whenever I make them. Everything becomes a community affair. For this, I sleep well at night and look forward to each day.
So perhaps if we compare Luffy as an indigenous Marwat or Toramana as an indigenous Yusufzai to the local who get swept up in the conflict - would that PTSD manifested by those there perhaps manifest differently to a certain degree?
I would think that a better sample would be for American Afghans that have served as Interpreters in Afghanistan, but return home to a place that does not have a large Afghan community such as Fairfax, NYC, Houston, or Little Kabul in CA. Or the local interpreters that have come to America on a SIV. Do they, then reveal those symptoms?
I refer you to Abdul Salam Zaeef's book published by Columbia. There is chapter where he gives good detail of an encounter on the road with a child soldier of a Kandahar militia that stopped a bus and robbed it violently. Would this child's rearing and response to violence be a manifestation of sorts?
I think I know the passage you're referring to in My Life with the Taliban (one of my favorite books). I think during the time of the topakyan, the communal fibers were so eviscerated that he could in clean conscious perpetuate those crimes, and that he would have been subject to the moral rammifications were it not for the placement on Maslowe's needs.
Or are out approaches sensitive and specific enough to pick up on symptoms in a society where psychiatric ailments are not seen as real diseases? My personal anguishing interactions treating refugees is that when we discuss certain illnesses they have told me that they stopped taking medications because their aunts told them a Pir informed them the disease state had nothing to do with organic causes but was a piryaan possessing the person. It took months of interaction and gaining a comfort level with that refugee to get that out of him after he began to see that I viewed him through a western prism, including his disease state.
Dr. Abdali, As always, I am enamored by your keen eye and jealous of your insight.
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