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Drone cheerleader Christine Fair humiliates herself on Al Jazeera Upfront
This deranged alcoholic patron saint of Paki liberals is embarrassing all proponents of drones with this tv appearance.
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This deranged alcoholic patron saint of Paki liberals is embarrassing all proponents of drones with this tv appearance.Originally posted by Firdousi -
Fair is attacking even Malala. This got to be the funniest debate ever.Originally posted by Firdousi -
To be honest, this Christina fair has got it right, relatively speaking......the male participant is ignorant about drones like rest of the world including you. Drones surely do not shower flowers on populations but they are relatively very precise with lesser collateral damage. The collateral damage in most cases is the families of terrorists. The intel for location of terrorist, is provided by the locals. The real havoc and destruction in tribal areas is caused by artillery shelling and air strikes by Pakistani army. There is no comparison between indiscriminate Pakistani air strikes, shelling and American drone strikes. Drone strikes have wiped out very important leaders and fighters of Haqqani network and other groups, because of it the militants can no have proper sleep and they cant stay at one place for more than 6 hours. Riffatullah Mohmand was right in saying that tribal people are more concerned about F-16 bombardments than drones.Originally posted by Shamlawar Khurasani View Post
Christina is also very right in saying that Malala is not exactly authority on drones, that male participant has no clue about the region , no drone strikes take place in Swat. Malala regurgitated the common narrative in Pakistan about drones. Pakistani military establishment , on purpose , created intense hate for American drones among Pakistani population, to divert attention, while kept them ignored about their own bombardments. Very few Pakistani people are aware of the fact that drone strikes are carried out with permission of Pakistani army. Pakistan is informed about the number of drone strikes per month, and Pakistani military signs it. Intel is shared and Pakistani army fattens its pockets by selling out Haqqani militants to America. Look at Zarb-e-azab operation and the number of American drone strikes on Datta Khel during that.
@marwat what are your views?Last edited by Samandri; 10-25-2015, 06:11 AM.Comment
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Most Pakistanis hate her. Her only supporters are some Kabuli Awwgans,Pakistani Elite Libz, and mostly hindus on twitter.
Most of her articles are based on bs, and while she makes a few points sometimes, they are not articulated objectively.Comment
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Originally posted by History of Pashtuns View Post
You clearly didn't hear what Glen Greenwald was saying. Please read Drone papers on his website: the intercept. Second, please read Dirty Wars by Scahill.
The point he was making is not that drones don't kill terrorists. He is saying drones kill allot of civilians. Which is true, you admit it yourself when you say they kill family members of terrorists.
That's exactly the problem. If you kill a whole family the relatives will certainly won't stop joining armed groups to fight you back.
Gleenwald also interviewed American General who told him killing top terrorists has no effect. The groups don't stop fighting if their leaders are killed.
The fact that Pakistani attacks are worse than drone is not being discussed here. Besides, Malala is mentioned by Greenwald for a specific reason. The liberal elitist Paki apostates use Malala for every argument against any opponent. Since Christine is a sort of representative of those liberal pakis, he is using Malala against them. This is called tactics.
You should do some research to find out who Greenwald is.Originally posted by FirdousiComment
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Christine Fair- A true or a junk scholar?
Christine Fair is widely quoted as an expert on South Asian political and military affairs. She is often requested by mainstream media to comment on terrorist acts occurring in India and Pakistan and invited to educate members of the US administration on issues in her field of expertise.
Prior to joining the Security Studies Program (SSP) within Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, she served as a senior political scientist with the RAND Corporation, a political officer to the United Nations Assistance Mission to Afghanistan in Kabul, and as a senior research associate in USIP’s Center for Conflict Analysis and Prevention. Her research focuses upon political and military affairs in South Asia. Her proximity to intelligence services can be gauged by her membership in the International Institute of Strategic Studies, the Council on Foreign Relations, Women in International Security, and the American Institute of Pakistan Studies. She serves on the editorial board of Current History, Small Wars and Insurgencies, Asia Policy, Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, and India Review. She is also a senior fellow with the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point.
Is her reputation deserved? In the following essay, I demonstrate through an analysis of her testimony before the House Homeland Security Committee in 2009, that her reputation is based on the services she provides to imperialism, not on her academic excellence. I submitted the following essay to Prof. Fair three for critical observations. After waiting in vain for her reply for approximately three months, I decided to publish this essay.
Critique of C. Christine Fair’s testimony before the House Homeland Security Committee, March 11, 2009, regarding “Antecedents and Implication of the November 2008 Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) Attack Upon Several Targets in the Indian Mega-City of Mumbai.”
1. In the Introduction, Ms. Fair mentioned that she had been asked to focus upon four specific areas related to 26/11: (a) to “contextualize” Lashkar-e-Taiba (a Pakistani organization designated as a terrorist outfit); (b) to provide specific information about Lahskar-e-Taiba; (c) to draw out the “antecedents and innovations” of 26/11; and (d) to outline the important “implications” that emerge from this and other LeT activities. She was, in short, directed to focus her essay mainly on the party accused by India for having mounted 26/11. Surprisingly, she nowhere mentioned in her testimony that LeT has emphatically denied responsibility for 26/11.
2. The author claimed that from 1999 if not earlier, “LeT and JM began operations in the Indian hinterland both in the name of ‘liberating Kashmir’ but also in the name of a wider jihad in India and exacerbating Hindu-Muslim discord within India to undermine India’s claims to be a diverse democracy that accommodates the aspirations of its varied religious and ethnic groups.” (p. 3-4)
Apart from failing to substantiate these allegations, the author completely ignores efforts by powerful Hindu nationalist organizations to alienate the Muslim population of India, both by Hindutva ideology and by violent means. She also ignores findings by Indian investigators, including Hemant Karkare – who was killed on 26/11 – that various terrorist acts in India blamed on Muslims had actually been carried out by Hindu nationalists.
3. The author claimed that “Pakistan-based militants” carried out the December 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament (p. 4).
She did not mention that this allegation is disputed in India. Thus, the alleged mastermind of the attack, S.A.R. Geelani, a young lecturer at Delhi University, was ultimately acquitted on appeal by the High Court and Afzal Guru, sentenced to death for complicity and executed twelve (12!) years after the events, did not participate in the attack. According to the official narrative, all the actual attackers died in the attacks.
4. The author claimed that LeT “massacred wives and children of army personnel in Kaluchak” in May 2002. (p. 4) In the Kaluchak incident a couple of passengers, in what was reported as a tourist bus from Himachal Pradesh, allegedly began to shoot to kill. The shoot-out continued outside the bus and resulted in 31 deaths, thereof women and children. The Government of India claimed that the attackers were Pakistani nationals (though it did not claim that they were operatives of LeT). No organization claimed responsibility for the attack. No inquiry is known to have been carried out to determine the exact circumstances of this deadly event. Whatever transpired to the public domain about the event is sourced to the military and is marred by contradictions and unexplained facts. The author ignored completely the haze covering this incident until today.
5. The author claimed that “Pakistan’s various Deobandi groups [...] have also been responsible for numerous attacks against international targets such as the various attacks on the U.S. Consulate in Karachi, the suicide attacks against numerous French naval engineers working in Karachi, a church in Islamabad frequented by foreigners, among numerous others.” (p. 4)
None of the attacks on the U.S. Consulate in Karachi were claimed by any bona fide organization. In all these attacks, the victims were exclusively Pakistanis. No Americans died in these attacks alleged by the author to have been directed at “international targets.” The author, unable to impute these attacks to any particular entity, imputes these to an amorphous set designated as “Deobandi groups.”
Anyone familiar with the attack on the French naval engineers, cited by the author, knows that the initial accusations have been replaced by a new direction of inquiry, adopted by French judge Marc Trevidic, namely that the attack was linked to the halting of commission payments (kickbacks) relative to Pakistani purchases of French military material, an affair dubbed “Karachigate.” It requires merely a couple of mouse-clicks to discover these facts.
The barbaric attack on the church in Islamabad in 2002 was carried out in “one of the most guarded areas in one of the most secure cities in Pakistan.” Yet, it was not claimed by any organization. There was, thus, no basis for the author to impute this attack to “Deobandi groups”.
6. The author claimed that the March 2, 2009 attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore was carried out by LeT and represented thus a “shift” in its operations. (p. 5)
No organization claimed responsibility for this attack. Various theories were presented by the Governments of India, Sri Lanka and Pakistan regarding the identity of the attackers. Although various individuals were later arrested in Pakistan in relation to these attacks, it is difficult to draw any conclusions from arrests made in a country where such arrests are routinely made for political reasons and trials are marred by government or military interference. The assertion that these attacks were carried out by LeT is baseless.
7. The author claimed that LeT literature “demonstrates a commitment to targeting Indian Hindus, Jews, Americans and other infidels and apostate Muslims; stoking larger Hindu-Muslim discord in India; and liberating all of India and establishing a caliphate.” p. 7-8
This assertion is not substantiated. The author, elsewhere, claimed that she possesses posters and other printed items produced by LeT, which support her claim. Yet, she has not produced these documents nor authenticated them as emanating from LeT. The author, later in her presentation, admitted that LeT has not for two decades undertaken attacks targeting Jews or Americans. Yet, even on 26/11, the overwhelming majority of victims were ordinary Indians.
8. The author claimed that “many LeT-associated individuals and cells have appeared in Iraq, Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom and several European countries.” (p. 8)
The general nature of this allegation reeks of propaganda. While such a sweeping claim lacks any empirical quality, it can be asserted that in numerous cases involving alleged Islamic wannabe terrorists in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and several European countries, police informants have been entrapping vulnerable Muslims in order to manufacture terrorist plots. Any claims by courts of links between the defendants and LeT must be assessed in the light of informants’ role to entrap the defendants, or as the case might be, to induce them to dwell some time in camps run by LeT, in order for them to be later arrested and produced as evidence for the terror threat. As for Iraq, any claim regarding alleged links between detainees in Iraq to the Pakistani LeT ultimately depends on the observer’s trust in the honesty of Iraqi police.
9 . The author claimed that “at least 14 young men from Hyderabad left for Pakistan for training, reportedly motivated by the massacre of Muslims in Gujarat in 2002...This cell was responsible for the May 18, 2007 terrorist attack in Hyderabad’s Toli Chowki area.” (p. 9)
Here the author mixes up the facts. The May 18, 2007 attack did not take place in Hyderabad’s Toli Chowki area, but inside the Mecca Masjid, a mosque in the old city area. This attack was not, either, imputed to a Pakistani cell, but to the Indian nationalist organization RSS.
10. The author claimed that in July 2006, LeT working with local operatives, detonated seven explosions across Mumbai’s commuter rail system. That 2006 assault was even more lethal than the 2008 carnage, killing at least 187.” (p. 9-10)
The author appears oblivious to the failure of Indian authorities to impute the attacks to LeT or to the Pakistani ISI. Initially, admittedly, it was believed that LeT operatives had been responsible for that attack. Both LeT and the Indian SIMI denied responsibility for the bombings. Various arrests were made in subsequent years, but none led to conclusive results regarding the responsibility for the bombings. The author’s assertion turns up to be nothing but prejudiced opinion.
11. The author claimed that in 2000, “Indian authorities intercepted three Pakistani LeT cadres who had planned to kill Bal Thackeray, leader of a Hindu nationalist group called the Shiv Sena.” (p. 10)
The only source known to me for such views are statements made by David Headley at the witness stand before a Chicago-court. Headley, a double or triple agent for the DEA and FBI with a murky criminal background, is certainly not a credible witness. The author did not provide any source for her allegation.
12. The author claimed that in 2004, “another LeT cell was disrupted that aimed to attack the Bombay Stock Exchange.” (p. 10)
No organization claimed an attempt to attack the Bombay Stock Exchange. No trial followed this alleged attempt. The author did not provide sources for her claim. I did not either find sources for the author’s claim.
13. The author claimed that in June 2006, “the Maharashtra police arrested an 11-member LeT cell that shipped some 43 kilograms of explosives, assault rifles and grenades to India using sea routes.” (p. 10).
This case is known in India as the “Aurangabad arms haul case.” As these lines are written (March 2014), the case is still being examined by Indian courts. The main defendant in the case, Zabiuddin Ansari, alleged to be a LeT operative involved in 26/11, retracted in court his confession, claiming that he has been falsely implicated and his signature obtained under duress. He also denied to bear the name Abu Jundal. The conflicting reports regarding his alleged participation in the arms haul were not mentioned by the author.
14. The author claimed that with respect to the Mumbai attack of November 2008, “at least two Indian operatives played critical roles: Fahim Arshad Ansari, a key LeT operative from Mumbai, and Sabahuddin Ahmad of Uttar Pradesh. Both men helped prepare maps and videotapes to guide LeT’s operatives to their targets.” (p. 10)
Both individuals were acquitted by the Special Court in Mumbai in the 26/11 case, because no evidence could be found that they helped prepare maps in preparation of the attacks. The author apparently forgot to wait for the verdict of the court before making her claim.
15. The author claimed that “British forces captured two Pakistani LeT operatives in Iraq and rendered them into U.S. custody.” (p. 11)
The author does not provide any details for this claim – no names, dates, locations or sources – making such a statement lacking any evidentiary value.
16. The author claimed that “a number of Australians (including apparent converts to Islam) have been trained in LeT camps and have plotted to attack Australian targets.” (p. 11)
The only source for this claim I found is a testimony by a certain Yong Ki Kwon, who claimed that he met an Australian man “known as Abu Asad” at a LeT camp in Pakistan in 2001. Kwon made his testimony to an Australian court via a video link from the United States in January 2009. Is this all the evidence for the above claim?
17. The author stated that “at least one of the bomber (Shahzad Tanveer [sic]) in London’s 7/7 subway attack is alleged to have contacted LeT officials while in Pakistan as well as those associated with JM.” (p. 11)
While hedging her statement by the word "alleged", the author offered this statement as evidence in a testimony to a Congressional Committee. As demonstrated by various authors, including me, there exists no evidence that Shahzad Tanweer or his three colleagues carried out the London bombings. Whatever Tanweer may have done while dwelling in Pakistan – where he had family – is not only highly speculative but is irrelevant, unless it is proven that he participated in the bombings of 7/7. Such proof has not been produced by the British authorities, notwithstanding what the author might believe or had read in the newspapers.
Conclusion
The above demonstration constitutes a warning. In the present case, a warning against the alleged scientific expertise of Christine Fair who readers might hear or see in media interviews. Persons presented by mass media as terror experts, are more often than not academic prostitutes whose sole achievement resides in providing a scientific mantle to governmental criminal policies. This essay is the second in a row. The previous essay dealt with Bruce Hoffmann, another academic prostitute widely presented as a terror expert.
- See more at: http://www.mwcnews.net/focus/analysi....QHFN964d.dpufOriginally posted by FirdousiComment
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I am not interested in knowing about these western analysts, i prefer getting input from the local analysts and journalists.
Its not that i support drone strikes, they remain kind of pointless in the absence of thorough ground operation and is not the solution to end terrorism. They just terrorize the terrorists. About collateral damage, it is inevitable if the terrorist is sleeping with his wife on the same bed and kids are sleeping in next room. But its not always the case. Some times terrorist is taken out while driving in the car, the drone follows the chip attached to the car.
If you watch Taliban videos, they justify the collateral damage at their hands by giving example of Ghazva e Hunain. But they condemn the collateral damage in Pakistani bombardments or drone strikes. Double standards. 80% of civilian casualties in Afghanistan, are collateral damages in Taliban's blasts and IED attacks. Pashtuns have to distance themselves from both Hashashin-like ISI and fanatics like Taliban.Last edited by Samandri; 10-25-2015, 01:29 PM.Comment
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That pretty much sums up your mindset.Originally posted by History of Pashtuns View PostOriginally posted by FirdousiComment
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Yea thats my mindset.I prefer consulting analysis of Rahimullah Yusufzai and other locals than some christina or Glenn from America on Taliban, FATA and other regional issues.Thats the bias that i am surely carring.Originally posted by Shamlawar Khurasani View PostComment
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drone strikes kill 90% civilians which means it is only effective in killing civilians.Last edited by khushal; 10-25-2015, 11:08 PM.Comment
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Shamlawar, I wrote her an email- here is an earlier draft since I seem to have left the final on my mac.Originally posted by Shamlawar Khurasani View Post
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Dear Dr. Fair,
I enjoyed your spirited debate with Mr. Greenwald on Al Jazeera recently. Unfortunately, twelves minutes are too little time to devote to such an important and controversial subject which requires its own debate with “rules of engagement” (forgive the pun).
To give you an idea of where I am coming from, and citing my own biases: I am an Afghan fluent Pashto speaker with tribe and family links in Kandahar having spent some time across the border in Quetta and my wife’s family is amongst the Yargu Khel Wazir whose ascendants assisted Amanullah in ousting Bacha Saqo. My field is not Security Studies, but Cardiology. That being said, I remain intimately familiar with matters that affect my people.
A few points of contention:
1. The issue of reliability and studies: You give the example of a study on abortion released by Planned Parenthood. I think there are nuances you ignore. Pharma companies fund cardiovascular drug studies rather often often and there are checks and balances on these studies and critical responses from academia to serve as a quality control of sorts. If Planned parenthood did a study on say, the relationship between crime statistics in certain areas concordant with the rates of abortion and noted a negative correlation – it would not be dismissed out of hand because they, as a center might have the most access to such data.
Question 1: So in this vein, why is the AP study you cited any less marred by the issues in the region with polling? To the contrary, the article notes they faced some of the same issues you cited. In fact this article by the AP notes the same issues you mentioned:
“The reporter, who was not named on the story for security reasons, made several trips to North Waziristan and spoke to about 80 villagers about the attacks. Many people were wary about talking, so he had to look for acquaintances such as former classmates who could vouch for him. Even then, many people were happy to share a cup of tea but no information.
Source:
Additionally, you criticized Mr. Greenwald for conflating regions and countries and not understanding the difference between Swat and FATA. I would say that you also are doing the same since villages in the region have their own political (e.g. Awami National party vs PTI vs Jamiat), familial, and tribal loyalties. It is actually very conceivable that one clan within a tribe would have little issue labeling a competitor tribe or landowner as “Talib” as we saw other Pashtun tribes in Afghanistan take full advantage of. For instance in our areas Abdurraziq Achakzai the US backed police chief has no compunctions about labeling a Noorzai family he killed as “Talibs.”
That aspect coupled to the quote I cited earlier about the same charges you made against polling don’t really add the level of credibility you assigned the AP.
Also, regarding military matters credibility, it was only recently that the AP was forced to admit it had jumped the gun when it claimed heavy arms were displayed in the MSF hospital struck in Kunduz:
So how they are any more or less acceptable than Clive Stafford Smith’s Reprieve is a point of argument not fact.
2. Your own twitter feed references are problematic for claiming that you have a purely academic bent toward this subject matter. For instance you reference the “real “ Pakistani viewpoint here. Question 2: How would you explain/justify utilizing Farhat Taj as a reliable voice and citing her reference to ababeel?:
So one need merely look into Farhat Taj’s background to see that she hardly represents the traditionally conservative cultured Pashtuns who are predominantly sunni Muslims.
First, the name she utilizes in the Eastern media is Farhat Taj MINUS her surname.
But her Western Press report registered name is Farhat Taj Anderson. As you may know, it is extremely rare for a Pashtun woman to marry a foreigner much less one named “Andersen” in any part of the Pashtun belt. For this very reason she never affixes her legal surname of her non-Muslim husband in the articles she writes for Pakistan or associated with her now defunct think thank AIRRA.
You challenged the host’s knowledge of the Quran regarding ababeel, but I would venture to say you would at least recognize this well-known difference between the sexes that is codified the second surah of the Quran that the overwhelming majority of Pashtuns in the Pashtun belt rarely deviate from.
I have attached some screen captures of Miss Andersen using her surname in Western sources to substantiate her links.
The reason that this matters is that Taj Andersen’s credibility has been called into question
Regarding her own methodologies.
Here is one example of her sample size and deductions based on them:
“Shane also presents a partial sketch of a recent Aryana Institute for Regional Research and Advocacy report on the views of 550 residents of the tribal areas where drone attacks occur, authored by anthropologist Farhat Taj -- who claims that professionals in FATA view the drone missiles as "liberators." A more careful look at the survey, however, reveals that the report's findings are so split down the middle as to be inconclusive.
When asked whether the drone attacks bring about "fear and terror in the common people," 45% of respondents answered in the affirmative. "Fear and terror" are powerful words. When respondents were asked whether they thought the drone strikes were "accurate in their strikes," 48% answered "No," and 42% believed the missiles increased anti-American sentiment in the tribal areas. 100 of those approached declined to answer. These results are at best inconclusive, but by no means provide a solid argument in favor of drone attacks.”
Additionally, Miss Taj Andersen’s own writings align her with the secular former Marxist part the Awami National Party of Ghani Khan. It is well known that Islamists and the Awami Party have been at odds from the era of the Russian War and well before. It incorporates Shiites, Qadianis,
local atheists, Mirzais, left wing minority members etc into its rank and file and comprised the larger portion of AIRRAs leadership council. So she certainly comes into this with an agenda and her comments on your twitter feed show this rather clearly.
However, I would posit that it goes beyond methodology that makes Taj Andersen’s findings unreliable… its demonstrative manipulation of data
For instance, she helped collect the following information that shows clear and blatant pre-meditated selection bias:
“As a matter of fact, the only known survey "on the ground in FATA" at the time was carried out by a "letterhead organisation" named the Aryana Institute for Regional Research and Advocacy whose conclusions can fairly be described as deeply unreliable and dubious. It claimed that 55 per cent of respondents in a survey it carried out in "parts of FATA that are often hit by American drones" (among which it curiously included Parachinar, which has never been hit and whose overwhelmingly Shia population is deeply hostile to the virulently anti-Shia Taliban) did not think that the attacks caused "fear and terror in the common people"; 52 per cent found them "accurate in their strikes"; and 58 per cent did not think they increased anti-Americanism.”
So I think its behooves you to also note that if you assign Greenwald and Co an agenda that your seemingly bosom buddy Miss Taj Andersen be given the same treatment.
3. It is actually Miss Taj Andersen who made the claim of ababeel that you attempted to utilize during the debate with Greenwald. However, this also is a serious point of contention. There are numerous sources that actually refer to NEGATIVE Pashto words being assigned to the drones that actually make more empiric sense:
“Some call them "wasps" or "mosquitoes", after the low buzz emitted by the pilotless aircraft's small engines. But the most telling name is "bangana" – the Pashto word for a thunderclap – after the terrifying impact of a laser-guided Hellfire missile as it slams into a building, often obliterating everyone inside.”
As a native Pashto speaker I can verify that the root word “bang” means almost literally a buzzing sound (bung-bung awaaz jorowl). This is the sound that many on the ground have described the drones make overhead and make far more sense to be utilized by local speakers who are often literate in Arabic script but not versed in the Arabic language to have associated the ababeel of Surah Fil and incorporated an Arabic loanword to describe the drones.
4. Your criticism of related issues belies a pro intervention agenda to some degree. Take for instance the exception that you take to Pape’s data. Is it that you take exception to Pape’s work because his deductions for Offshore Balancing (i.e. a limited nonintervention into Muslim countries) are at odds with US military intervention which is predicated on the moral imperative that a bunch of random mad men are “blowing themselves up” and America has to stop them from doing so? Or that the religion of Islam demands that they do so and that they would be doing so in absentia of American military presence? I think irrespective of relative risk scores, Ezra Shricker’s response to Max Boot, based on Pape’s database cites an unassailable fact:
“Since 2004, 92 percent of all suicide terrorism has taken place in countries with U.S. combat operations.”
You cite Ashworth’s dated criticisms based on relative risk scores and what not, but you leave out the 2013 Columbia Study that took on a design that intended to eliminate the reported selection bias in Pape’s work and re-used his universal data set:
And yet they come to similar but nuanced conclusions as Pape:
“First, using an improved research design, we find that occupation is associated with a greater risk of suicide attacks, as predicted by Pape. Second, when we treat foreign and domestic occupations separately, we find that foreign occupations are associated with a higher risk of suicide attacks, while there is no consistent evidence of association between domestic occupations and the occurrence of suicide attacks.”
Their contention of domestic occupations and FATA would seem to fall into this exception of a “domestic occupation” but there are important caveats that might not make it so. This moves me to point 5.
5. Greenwald’s mixing in of FATA with Afghanistan is hardly racist or completely off the mark. In the last 70 or so years there have been sociological developmental differences between the Afghan and Pakistan Pashtun populations for sure. FATA however is not subject to this. King Amanullah relied heavily on the Yargu Khel Wazirs and other FATA tribes to retake the Afghan throne when the British had already attempted to subjugate the Wazir and Mahsud tribes. Nadir Shah would do the same subsequently. The Wazirs have lands and movements that cross the border regions and have preserved a very “Afghan” culture amongst themselves. Their past involvement in Afghan power struggles (including the Russian War) made it only natural that they would do the same when yet a new invader would appear across the border and install a government in Kabul.
Also, Malala being from Swat and commenting on the resentment of the drones does matter for an important reason since a segment of the TTP under Fazlullah interface with FATA and draws manpower from Swat. So cause and effect ripples out of FATA into the adjacent Pashtun regions.
6. Outside data makes an empirical contribution to the general argument that goes against your criticism of Pape. I think it is important to define what “data” in this case is. Your colleague Michael Scheuer in Georgetown did an excellent job in his series of books, especially Imperial Hubris in taking the words and word to deed ratio of Islamic insurgents and reached the conclusion that mirrors Pape’s deductions about America’s contributing actions to blowback. He did this without having to rely on any classified documents from his time as the CIA head of Alec Station.
This was supplemented by the Arizona State University’s study into how extremists quote the Quran to instigate or justify their actions:
“Other findings in the report raise questions about the veracity of claims often made by analysts. The most surprising is the near absence of the well-known “Verse of the Sword” (9:5) from the extremist texts. Widely regarded as the most militant or violent passage of the Qur’an, it is treated as a divine call for offensive warfare on a global scale. It is also regarded as a verse which supersedes over one hundred other verses of the Qur’an that counsel patience, tolerance, and forgiveness.
We conclude that verses extremists cite from the Qur’an do not suggest an aggressive offensive foe seeking domination and conquest of unbelievers, as is commonly assumed. Instead they deal with themes of victimization, dishonor, and retribution. This shows close integration with the rhetorical vision of Islamist extremists.”
To conclude, I would say that while you leveled various charges and allegations against Mr. Greenwald and Al-Jazeera of being driven by an agenda , your associations, twitter comments, and selective citations certainly do not portray you as any more of an academic purist relative to them.
That being said, the drone in the scope of history is just another tool of warfare that is unlikely go away anytime soon. Just as Alexander’s phalanx would go on to be utilized throughout history up to Napolean’s time, the drone likely will be used for generations to come based on the march of history. To expect a military to abandon technology that theoretically minimizes their own population’s casualties on the battle field and mitigates the costs of training and paying pilots is unrealistic. But that is a separate argument.
Best Regards"2 crackheads don't become any better or stronger by sharing the same crack pipe." - Greatest PF quoteComment
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Good job, Barakzai.Originally posted by FirdousiComment
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Originally posted by History of Pashtuns View Post
I think relative to the other debates greenwald has, where he often crushes the adversary in an avalanche of data and citation, she was able to hold her own. But the issue is when you get into the detail of the citations she gives, first of all, there is no Christopher Allgood, but rather Sebastian Abbott that did the AP work. Second, as I noted she relies on her own biased sources and does not scrutinize her own references. When one does this, her performance was not at all as strong as it seemed.
People viewing these debates do not come into them with a mindset that says: let me take what both parties are referencing and fact check them. When one does this, Greenwald emerges as the victor at least based on the argument he is putting forward.
Also, even if in the worst case scenario she was "right" that these people (including Nabila's grandmother) were associated with militants - that still begs a moral response.
So generally, the premise or the moral imperitive/"shariat style secular madhab justification" for the involvement of the West centers on:
1. We fight them there so we dont have to here.
2. As opposed to them, we minimize civilian casualties.
Its interesting because these are semi on par with the world wide insurgency's logic of how they attack - since when you see what they have to say they give the same justification of things:
"Thats how war works."
Regarding Pakistan being more retarded intheir military approach and destroying everything - yes you are correct about that. They used scorch earth tactics with the thought process that if you remove the "bekh" and shake the earth beneath the militants you will make them weep over their mother and relatives to the point that they will stop. That is dumb logic and has proven to not work.
The one thing that seems to be pacifying the rejion is not the action of the Paki Military like Mazdigar is saying - but rather ISAF drawing back into bases and not being so apparent.
In fact Pakistan's coordinated movement in was coincident with ISAF moving away from the border because they got worried that it was going to be payback time."2 crackheads don't become any better or stronger by sharing the same crack pipe." - Greatest PF quoteComment
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Ben Norton destroys Fair and Farhat Anderson in this piece:
'I AM a rambo b**ch': Meet the drone defender who hates neo-cons, attacks Glenn Greenwald - and may have conflicts of her own
Originally posted by FirdousiComment
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