Afghanistan burning of schools

[Admin Khan]

Who is responsible for the burning of schools in Pashtun dominated areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan?

[MENTION=1772]BarakzaiAbdali[/MENTION] [MENTION=1547]khushal[/MENTION]
[MENTION=103]tor_khan[/MENTION]
[MENTION=1201]Toramana[/MENTION]
[MENTION=78]pir_Rokhan[/MENTION]

[Nazar]

Taliban?

[Admin Khan]

[MENTION=4608]Nazar[/MENTION]
Bring forward some evidence as well -- point is to settle the score.

[ډګروال]

interview with general abdul razeq regarding school burning.

School Burned in Kandahar Afghanistan July 2012 - YouTube

[BarakzaiAbdali]

I think its a slight irrelevency when you see the ground level facts like this:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/21/world/asia/despite-education-advances-a-host-of-afghan-school-woes.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Take for instance the common propaganda Karzai-concubines (my new moniker for both male and female supporters of this windbag) put out there:

"The Afghan public school system has expanded immensely in recent years, buoyed by extensive international aid — the United States Agency for International Development alone has given $934 million to education programs over the past 12 years, according to the government agency. The education minister, Farouk Wardak, insists that 10.5 million students are enrolled this year, 40 percent of them girls, a huge increase from an estimate of 900,000 enrolled students, almost none of them girls, under Taliban rule in 2001."

The times answers this with:

"Those numbers are widely quoted by Afghan and Western officials as a marker of success, but the claims are seen as unsupportable by many here.

Jennifer Rowell of CARE International, who has been conducting a study of education in Afghanistan, cautions that enrollment numbers are not actual attendance numbers.

And she said that when CARE tried to contact the headmasters of schools around the country, using contact lists kept by the Education Ministry, 'half to three-quarters of phone numbers of school masters were missing, or the man we call has not been in the job for years.'"

OR this choice quote:

"Beyond initial enrollments, attendance tends to drop off quickly, often within just a few weeks. Only about 10 percent of students make it through to graduation, according to U.S.A.I.D. figures.

Those numbers are even lower for girls, most of whom drop out between sixth and ninth grades, after puberty makes them marriageable in many areas. Female teachers are acutely scarce, and families worry about the safety of sending their daughters to school given continuing threats from the Taliban and resistance from some local elders.

And finally:

"The schools themselves have an incentive to inflate their figures, since their financing, which comes from Kabul, is based on enrollment."

So Admin, I think irrespective of who is burning them down or building them up, one key thing is that the technocrat government has built a war racket driven Ponzi scheme.

Regarding who is burning them down, I think Nazar may or may not be right. I think the more important question is why.

I still recall an Al Jazeera video where they were talking to a local village boy whose brother had been killed and who had joined the insurgency. He pointed to a row of trees planted in his Eastern province. He said that as soon as they ejected NATO he was going to cut down the trees since they were planted by kharijaan. A similar sentiment was expressed in a follow up video of the Paul Refsdahl figure, Commander Dauran.

I think that war radicalizes people and occupation does that even more. It comes to a point where the occupied associates so many things with the occupier, that all these things are grouped together or psychiatrically split into a category the person labels "bad."

This same phenomena was what probably underlay the famous sayings of the frontier Pashtuns and the various rhyming missals they used when describing how those that pursued Western education in the classroom would find themselves in the hot seat of Hell fire. This saying was used in the British occupation period.

Here is an old article from the 1980s to show how the Communists, like the current government, used these institutions as indoctrination centers as well:

"Those Afghan children who live in cities under Soviet control are being subjected to a Soviet-style education aimed at creating a new, communist Afghan. Thousands, including children orphaned by the war, are being sent to the Soviet Union for long-term indoctrination."

Afghanistan’s Other War by Jeri Laber | The New York Review of Books

And the same things were happening back then too.

So in summary three groups of people are really responsible for this issue Admin:

1) Mr. Karzai himself, who is a thieving, lunatic, nepotist, liar
2) His acolytes and government members who are pumping up numbers for personal gain and fixing the books so to speak
3) Elites in Western nations demanding the military industrial complex sustain its occupation

The people on the ground in Afghanistan, in my opinion, are not to blame no matter where they fall in because they are subjected to so many pressures. They, if they are apart of these activities are responding to stimuli associated with war and occupation. This same behavior was seen Vietnam, Korea, the Prior Afghan war etc.

Its beyond me that people are asking those that are at the receiving end of this sustained violence to "use their heads" and "act civilized" when an utter lack of civility is being inflicted upon them.

I think morally, the occupied always have the last right and the most room for being given excuses.

[tor_khan]

This direct question was raised question more than 3 years back:

BBC Pashto: Schools in Pashtoon Areas

A few points from that article:

پښتني سيمو کې ښوونځي څوک خرابوي او ولې ؟

Who is attacking schools in Pashtun areas, and why?

The responses to the question spoke of an "enemy" working to prevent Pashtun educational progress. Who this enemy is - was not really identified, so the question about who* is behind the attacks remains. Without knowing who the enemy is, can it be possible to begin to work out a solution?

Consider a few select comments:

څرګنده ده چې د پښتنو د ښوونځیو سوځول د پښتنو د دښمنانو کار دی. دوی نه پرېږدي چې پښتانه له تعلیم برخمن شي

Apparently, the buring of Pashtoon schools is the work of the enemies* of the Pashtoons. They do not want Pashtoons to have a share in education.

دوی د پښتنو په سيمو کې ښوونځي سوځوي، ځکه چې پښتانه يووالی نه لري، دوی نالوستي او د افغانستان دښمنان دي، دوی په دې کارونو سره امتياز اخلي

They* can burn schools in Pashtun areas because the Pashtuns are disunited and they* are the enemies of [ending] illiteracy and Afghanistan. It is to their* advantage to do this.

*whom exactly?

Loy Pukhtunistan Blogsite asked this question just this month, so it is one that isn't going away. This article ends:

د طالبانو د واکمنۍ په موده کې د نجونو پر تعلیم بندیز و او اوس هم د افغانستان د جنوب په هغو سیمو کې چې طالبان واکمن دي د نجونو ښوونځي بند دي

During the Taliban period (in power), there was a closure of girls schooling and even now in the southern areas of Afghanistan where the Taliban holds authority girls schools are closed.

No proof is offered for the latter claim. I have just translated the last part of the article.

[Khostai]

Its the peopel themselfs who burn down the schools actualy. The peopel who live there, from my own expirience the onece who braged at me and who shouted to burn the "kafir" school were the same peopel who lived in those villages and towns.....
I wish that we could just point out one group en deal with them, but thats not the case here.....

[Shamlawar Khurasani]

[Admin Khan]

[MENTION=1772]BarakzaiAbdali[/MENTION]
Why are you calling it a technocrat government?
Do you think the Taliban also play a role in the burning of schools?
[MENTION=103]tor_khan[/MENTION]
Kurbaan di sama, that post was interesting.

[Nazar]

[MENTION=4608]Nazar[/MENTION]
Bring forward some evidence as well -- point is to settle the score.

Source: Residents in areas under Taliban influence.

Those who do not accept that Taliban are actually behind the burning of schools, usually tend to not believe in media reports. So, that's why I am not quoting any media reports. Talk to anyone who has lived or still lives in those far remote areas of Afghanistan (I am not sure about Pakistan) where Taliban have an upper hand.

Some senior Taliban commanders including Mullah Omar, have called on their fighters to abstain from destroying schools and harming teachers and students, yet the Taliban fighters on the ground haven't taken it any serious.

I am not actually a die-hard anti-Taliban or something, however, if you come here and see the reality you will be totally shocked by how 'extreme' these people are in their ideology. I have seen them, I've got relatives and friends in them and most importantly I have been to places where they actually rule.
They take the teachers as 'spies' for the government by saying the logic that these teachers are paid by the government and who then get the money from America - the real enemy!

I know there are some relatively less extremist Taliban, especially in the eastern Afghanistan (most of them from Hizb-i-Islami) who even have their own curriculum at schools and Education Commissions on district level. But the Taliban in southern provinces like Kandahar, Helmand, Uruzgan, Ghazni, Farah and Zabul will appose anything that sounds even a little non-Taliban.

[BarakzaiAbdali]

@BarakzaiAbdali
Why are you calling it a technocrat government?
Do you think the Taliban also play a role in the burning of schools?
@tor_khan
Kurbaan di sama, that post was interesting.

A technocrat has multiple meanings, but when it comes to these states like Iraq and Afghanistan it generally implies the Karzai/Maliki/Chalabi brand. People like Yama Karzai typify the technocrat, who last I checked has his gaurds unload multiple rounds into a civilian vehicle near the NDS complex because his gaurds and him were a bit too trigger happy.

It also implies that its not a government for the actual Afghan people or by the Afghan people. Its basically comprised of people like Karzai who want to school their "little brown brothers" ala Kipling.

What they do is what the NY Times article says, they cannot produce real results, even when 57 world nations and every super power funds their endeavor... so they generate Ponzi scheme style results to justify perpetual outside presence. They basically are fifth column citizens to their adopted nations and terrible denizens of the one that they claim to be guiding to stability.

Regarding the Taliban, I think Khostai's answer is probably more suitable. There may be multiple folks involved. This is the same system that is attempting though, to brainwash its denizens and as I recall they are deleting the full history of the country out of historical teaching past the Zahir Shah era. I think that is reprehensible... as reprehensible as our nation violating the fourth amendment real time.

Some of these folks as I noted are probably the guys Khostai describes, who have become radicalized even further.

The best cure will be when all kharijaan leave and the Afghan people iron out their differences and develop their own system.

Who knows what sort of mentally handicapped monster they have in mind in the post 2014 era as a ruler.

The next question you might ask will be, don't I believe there are good hearted technocrats that just want to rebuild their country?

I think that's like a group of doctors walking into a room and, while knowing that the key doctor whose name is on the chart is giving mercury poisoning to the patient, they decide to manage the patient's blood pressure and diabetes because "they want to help in any way they can."
In their own way, they are just perpetuating more idiocy and their "good heartedness" means not an iota of benefit. And I believe that that result has played out and validated what I have been saying all along. These "good hearted" technocrats haven't produced anything worth mentioning... their "schooling gains" as the NY Times article shows, ends up being farcical when the real numbers are crunched.

So what you have is the sad situation of a radicalized country side burning down faux schools that were operating at 10% capacity in the initial if that.

So instead of doing what I was saying years ago and just letting central asia as a whole and Afghanistan in particular work out its own destiny by its own hand, 10 years have been spent killing Afghans, labeling them with idiotic terms, funding local tyrannical istan states and enriching their coffers, taking away the freedoms of American denizens, and building 1/4 of Pakistan next door to Pakistan.

They naysayers were always saying that its far better to order Pizza express than to have to bake it yourself since the latter takes longer... or as our local atheist mullah says: "Why use a donkey cart when the West will sell you a Lamborghini." At the end of the day, 10 years later you have a donkey not even connected to the cart.

Every day I turn on the news and see Karzai thinking he is sly, telling his cabinet that Obama is bluffing about the zero option and how, he Karzai, will work out the best bargain for Afghanistan... all because he heard that the US is doing what a super power should do (i.e talk to the real military power it is fighting and not its installed puppet) and he is quivering that his ill begotten gains and his fake schools and his Kabul-Paris that caters to predominantly emigres is going to go up in smoke.

[BarakzaiAbdali]

Source: Residents in areas under Taliban influence.

Those who do not accept that Taliban are actually behind the burning of schools, usually tend to not believe in media reports. So, that's why I am not quoting any media reports. Talk to anyone who has lived or still lives in those far remote areas of Afghanistan (I am not sure about Pakistan) where Taliban have an upper hand.

Some senior Taliban commanders including Mullah Omar, have called on their fighters to abstain from destroying schools and harming teachers and students, yet the Taliban fighters on the ground haven't taken it any serious.

I am not actually a die-hard anti-Taliban or something, however, if you come here and see the reality you will be totally shocked by how 'extreme' these people are in their ideology. I have seen them, I've got relatives and friends in them and most importantly I have been to places where they actually rule.
They take the teachers as 'spies' for the government by saying the logic that these teachers are paid by the government and who then get the money from America - the real enemy!

I know there are some relatively less extremist Taliban, especially in the eastern Afghanistan (most of them from Hizb-i-Islami) who even have their own curriculum at schools and Education Commissions on district level. But the Taliban in southern provinces like Kandahar, Helmand, Uruzgan, Ghazni, Farah and Zabul will appose anything that sounds even a little non-Taliban.

Unfortunately this may be a big problem 2014 too. I remember Refsdahl's ride along with the insurgency. One of the young men named Omar was like a cowboy and the older commander was more solemn and tried to control Omar's behavior. He actually kidnapped the reporter and tried to ransom him until the older commander got him freed.

For years some of the retired CIA folks told the US government officials and others that they are going to create a new generation of very aggressive ground level commanders that wont follow the orders of the older ones.

I think this is the unfortunate outcome of this war. Usually the most rugged and fit survive in the darwinistic environs of combat.

There was recently an Al Jazeera special where they went to a village near Spin Boldak and they interviewed the younger commanders. They were pissed that the older ones were in Qatar trying to reach some sort of compromise with the Afghan government and the US to end the war. One of them said "We don't care what the commanders say as our principles are what guide us to push for complete victory."

And can one blame that young man and the others like him? Did the same not happen with Ho Chi Minh before and also when the Cong started to radicalize aggressively.

It was only when outside presence was completely removed that the Veitnemese insurgency started to cool down a bit and begin trading and working with the outside world. So many statesman looked at each other and said, why didn't we just make trade deals in the beginning and use economics instead of losing 50,000 soldiers to fight in the jungle.

In some ways, Karzai himself acknowledges this. In a recent conference on Islam in Central Asia he acknowledged foreign involvement had resulted in radicalization beyond belief. The sad thing is that he doesn't understand that if kharijaan are the positive electrode, he is the negative one that makes it so current can flow in the first place! He is no different than Dhiem in this way who learned far too late.

[Registerwal]

Tajokes and Hazara militias

[ډګروال]

Unfortunately this may be a big problem 2014 too. I remember Refsdahl's ride along with the insurgency. One of the young men named Omar was like a cowboy and the older commander was more solemn and tried to control Omar's behavior. (1)He actually kidnapped the reporter and tried to ransom him until the older commander got him freed.

For years some of the retired CIA folks told the US government officials and others that they are going to create a new generation of very aggressive ground level commanders that wont follow the orders of the older ones.

I think this is the unfortunate outcome of this war. Usually the most rugged and fit survive in the darwinistic environs of combat.

(2)There was recently an Al Jazeera special where they went to a village near Spin Boldak and they interviewed the younger commanders. They were pissed that the older ones were in Qatar trying to reach some sort of compromise with the Afghan government and the US to end the war. One of them said "We don't care what the commanders say as our principles are what guide us to push for complete victory."

And can one blame that young man and the others like him? Did the same not happen with Ho Chi Minh before and also when the Cong started to radicalize aggressively.

It was only when outside presence was completely removed that the Veitnemese insurgency started to cool down a bit and begin trading and working with the outside world. So many statesman looked at each other and said, why didn't we just make trade deals in the beginning and use economics instead of losing 50,000 soldiers to fight in the jungle.

In some ways, Karzai himself acknowledges this. In a recent conference on Islam in Central Asia he acknowledged foreign involvement had resulted in radicalization beyond belief. The sad thing is that he doesn't understand that if kharijaan are the positive electrode, he is the negative one that makes it so current can flow in the first place! He is no different than Dhiem in this way who learned far too late.

1 - Wrora did that really happend or did the reporter try to make that up? after all it was him that said it without any proof.

2 - when was this interview or aljazeera programe? was it AJ arabic or english? was it one of those AJ special series?

thats because it was already a business to some in the military indutrial complex.

[Shamlawar Khurasani]

People here are debating stuff they know from fabrications by Western media.