Just starting

[davidkross]

as-salaamu' alaykum - just learned I'll be heading over to Afghanistan in a few months. I would love to learn as much as I can about the history and culture of the region. I am just nibbling around with some language programs...this would be my first stab at a second language (Pashto). Afghanistan is actually in the curriculum I teach, but due to pacing guides and the fact that we have to cover all of Asia, Africa and the Pacific, all in one academic year, we (I) haven't really spent too much time studying the region. But...how things change when you are about to spend a year or so in a place.

I am more inclined to spend some light chatting with Afghans...not so much in need of a list of resources to study in-depth...although, I wouldn't turn down anything, because I want to learn as much as I can.

I've been surfing around a bit, just perusing some of the threads...I hope to stay away from any hating, denouncing or stereotyping. Obviously controversy and strife are a part of the region...and I am definately going to be a component of that mix, but I trully am just trying to learn about people...because, in the end, that's what we really are.

I look forward to meeting you. kha woraz walary!

[Admin Khan]

Welcome David, so I assume you teach high school? Feel free to ask what you want.

[kakargirl]

wa laikum salam david , il be happy to help with the afghan culture .

[kakargirl]

Thank you so much david thats amazing i did robert frost for my G C S E S i also did john steinbeck too another brilliant poet excellent stuff both poets have written i know the poem your talking about the road not taken amazing poem i wrote a assigment on it when i was 14.

[graveyardofempires]

Admin Khan - Actually middle school (7th grade Social Studies). Ok, so first question, and I think it may be rather obvious, but I'll ask it anyway. I'm taking it that blood is much thicker than water in the Pashtun culture. More specifically, would it be correct to say that there is no real allegiance to Afganistan as a nation, rather to one's own culture or tribal roots?

This of course would be different for us Americans. I am scottish/Irish/and German, but hold no loyalty toward that bloodline. We may have regional or even state sentiments, but in the end, no matter our family tree, we would claim to be an American.

This could obviously cause a direct fault in our foreign polcy, especially when it comes to nation building. It seems, we think everone is like us and would gladly become a proud nation, rather than a proud culture. I think the history of colonialism could provide lessons here. Look at Africa...the modern countries have borders (created by Europeans) which throw different ethnic groups into the same political entity. This of course casues conflict.

Is this going to be the same in Afghanistan. Are we pushing a nation on people who simply do not want it?

no it is not that way,people feel more attached to their city and the tribal thing more personal and family bound.

all the people are loyal to Afghanistan as the Great undefeated king(emperor) Ahmad Shah Durrani said :

"By blood, we are immersed in love of you.
The youth lose their heads for your sake. I come to you and my heart finds rest.
Away from you, grief clings to my heart like a snake. I forget the throne of Delhi
when I remember the mountain tops of my Afghan land.
If I must choose between the world and you,
I shall not hesitate to claim your barren deserts as my own"

there you go

the theory of pashtuns not accepting Afghanistan as their nation is false
pashtuns not accepting pakistan is not false since the british drew a line between their hartland.

[graveyardofempires]

Admin Khan - Actually middle school (7th grade Social Studies). Ok, so first question, and I think it may be rather obvious, but I'll ask it anyway. I'm taking it that blood is much thicker than water in the Pashtun culture. More specifically, would it be correct to say that there is no real allegiance to Afganistan as a nation, rather to one's own culture or tribal roots?

This of course would be different for us Americans. I am scottish/Irish/and German, but hold no loyalty toward that bloodline. We may have regional or even state sentiments, but in the end, no matter our family tree, we would claim to be an American.

This could obviously cause a direct fault in our foreign polcy, especially when it comes to nation building. It seems, we think everone is like us and would gladly become a proud nation, rather than a proud culture. I think the history of colonialism could provide lessons here. Look at Africa...the modern countries have borders (created by Europeans) which throw different ethnic groups into the same political entity. This of course casues conflict.

Is this going to be the same in Afghanistan. Are we pushing a nation on people who simply do not want it?

Nation building with bombs LOL

no you are not pushing anything on Afghanistan an dAfghanistan has always been an independent nation and never been colonised.

i think americans are too naive and think the whole world is america or the whole world wants to be like america which is not the case.

[کیش]

No doubt..we aren't the most humblest of people. Can't argue with that. And, no doubt, we are very egocentric...in general, but there are a good many of us that realize we are just folks... as you are, as anybody is..just folks.

It does give me a better feeling to think that Afghans are proud of their country. Maybe I won't feel so pushy if in the end Afghanistan comes out better off. I hope for it!!

Are you going their to teach afghan school children?

[Lemar]

Welcome David.
I would be glad if I could help you in any way possible.

[kakargirl]

well david your making a great effort i understand the question you asked above is alot deeper and needs a deeper answer as its the main question and its more deeper than the answer you got will do my best to answer it , but do wish more people thought like you.

[BarakzaiAbdali]

Dear David (or Da-ood as we say in Afghanistan)

Welcome and pa khaair raghlaay,

As a fellow American, and as an ardent American firster, I can only hope that they send you back as fast as they send you there. It is tragic that our ruling elites, democrats and republicans alike, are sending America's soldier-children and treasure into harm's way to sustain the unsustainable. I hope your wife and kids recognize the David Kross that comes back as exactly the same as the one that left. As a doctor in fellowship training, a part of my work takes me to the local VA to treat vets. I see them returning in the droves with shrapnel in their heads and depression that borders on suicidal at higher rates than any generation of warriors before it. They went from being small town boys that went to the local football game and church on Sundays, to having to kill in a war that does not benefit our national security and disenfrachises the multitides in ways that Washington and Adams would have been horrified with.

It is all the more tragic that congressman of both parties, with little loyalty to the America that the founders sought to build, are sending you there to nation build and sustain an oligarchial and meritless leader that has run the most phenomenally corrupt government in Afghanistan's history. To add unfathomable shame to tragedy, they are sending the hard earned money that the parents of your 7th graders made, to build houses in Dubai for men that were without merit or accomplishment here in the US, so that they can be governors and "khans" in the new and "free" Afghanistan. The greatest military with the most professional training and the most vast arsenal ever incepted is being utilized to do construction (or pay contractors to do it poorly) work and build swimming pools for mass murderers instead of doing what it does best, which is inflict severe punishment on America's adversaries.

While Americans are having to make the hard choices of whether to delay college by a few years so that they can help their double job working parents pay the rent, the sons and daughters of installed ministers are having their educations paid for by the parents of your 7th graders to attend American Universities. A kid in Tennessee will have to wait his turn to be admitted to Georgetown while Yama Karzai takes up a spot there to do poorly academically but still somehow be installed as a director of the Afghan Intelligence Services.

David, do be wary of that other government across the border as well. Its generals know that their loathsome and corrupt order is on life support in the form of, once again, hard earned American dollars. Therefore, it boggs you down in an unwinnable war of attrition to make sure and milk every last dollar out of your country. Their brigadiere generals will certainly never invite you over to the fabulous Islamabad bungalow that they build with your American treasure while an American family loses their home (worth three times less). They, like Yama, will make sure to send their kids to Harvard and Yale so that they can learn to sustain hegemony and feudalism in ways only the ivy leagues can teach.

There is depthless sorrow that we Americans ought to feel while we live in the knowledge of the fact that we are sending you to ensure that Baliwal "Bollywood" Bhutto remains in the wings, living off our nations coffers and is being groomed to further our involvement in his neighborhood to the point of our economic bankruptcy. All the while, Mir Wais Karzai is being groomed in the Arg Palace, once again with American dollars, to become his father's equal in the standards and weights of immeasurable corruption. We Americans used to accomplish things like sending men to the moon, now we accomplish sustaining multi-generational corruption in the name of national security.

David, I recommend this article by your brave comrade, decorated Marine Captain Matthew Hoh, a high-level official that killed America's enemies with brutal efficiency:

http://www.thenation.com/article/157...-insider-talks

and I leave with the quotes of Washington to keep close to your heart:

"
My ardent desire is, and my aim has been... to comply strictly with all our engagements foreign and domestic; but to keep the U States free from political connections with every other Country. To see that they may be independent of all, and under the influence of none. In a word, I want an American character, that the powers of Europe may be convinced we act for ourselves and not for others; this, in my judgment, is the only way to be respected abroad and happy at home."

"
My policy has been, and will continue to be, while I have the honor to remain in the administration of the government, to be upon friendly terms with, but independent of, all the nations of the earth. To share in the broils of none. To fulfill our own engagements. To supply the wants, and be carriers for them all: Being thoroughly convinced that it is our policy and interest to do so."

[BarakzaiAbdali]

Barakzai Abdali,

Thank you for your service to our vets and thank you for being true to your convictions. I respect and admire your eloquent response. I understand your point of view and rest assured, it is mirrored by many on this message board.

Your arguments are very intuitive and insightful, but, I am a very simple man. I believe in people, not necessarily the policy of governments. The people of America are good folk and we aim to do the right thing. Our government is not perfect, and it's aims may not always be on target, but I think they are trying to do the right thing as well. Is it messy? Is it pushy and down right arrogant? Yes! Are there mistakes and could things be better? Yes. But I am one who believes in us and our government.

I am not so naive to believe everything is hunky dorry. I understand that innocent peoples are being killed and their lives ruined. All so we can all live the American Dream at the expense of others.

So what do we do? I hear so much bashing, but I hear no answers? If you were the President after 9/11...what would you have done? Now that we are there...what would you do different? And, please spare me the just leave mantra. Really...what would you do?

David,

No, thank you for being too honest and raised too upright to understand just how malignant middle eastern and central/south Asian politics is. I believe Ronald Reagan characterized it best and was 100% right when he referred to the imbalanced and unpredictable consequences of sustained involvement.

I am offering you a practical solution. The President on 9/11 should have been introspective. Things happen for a reason. I would do what Dr. Michael Scheuer and Matthew Hoh did and try to know A) why were we attacked by the enemy? B) what is their strategical motivation and C) What can we do to counterweight it?

Regarding A)
I would offer you the practical approach that American Firster and republican Dr. Ron Paul MD and his son Rand Paul MD campaign on and follow suit with: Return to the constitution and practice it in government.
Live on the principles of the founders. American ingenuity and innovation does not require hegemony. We accomplished many great feats as a nation without irrationally involving ourselves in the affairs of others on the premise that we need their resources. Instead of paying to prop up the terribly corrupt dictatorship in Saudi that gaurantees the absence of all things you hold dear as an American, and creating a cadre of angry folks in the process that were willing to kill themselves to upset your national security, we ought to put that money into alternative energy sources. By avoiding this, we lengthen our dependence and gaurantee our decline.

We are attacked and will continue to be attacked because our ruling elites, conservative and liberal, democrat and republican have led us into quandries in many lands. As an example when we deposed a democractically elected Iranian government in the 1950s under Operation Ajax we installed a Brutal Shah of Iran. We were subsequently aghast when the Iranian people overthrew our backed man and create a reactionary movement that threatens our national security at home and abroad.

This is not a blame America first approach. As you noted, the American people are barely aware of the number of conflagerations that we have involved ourselves in against the a reasonable national security paradigm.

We are consistenly lied to that if democracy flowers everywhere, we will be more safe here at home. I think the fact that the worlds two greatest democracies, the Union and the Confederacy more than proved that even democracies can result in mass death and destruction.

B) Their strategy is well crafted and openly stated by their leaders. They seek to stretch us thin. They brag that whenever they plant the flag of "jihad" in a country, these same ruling elites and "yes-men" generals begin to spend inordinate amounts of money, blood, and American power to chase them to the ends of the earth. In fact, Osama Bin Ladin clearly stated that he is content with the current outcome because he can kill many more Americans now then he could before. I would say that our soldier children sent back in body bags bare witness to this grim outcome.

They fight us with $10 weaponry that is imprecise and AK47s that cannot shoot straight compared to our M16s and we counterbalance that with spending inordinate amounts of money on high tech weaponry that does not answer the challenge of the Afghan guerilla warrior. Remember, this same individual was fighting Russians with his grand father's Lee Enfield Rifle and would likely still have caused a Russian withdrawal without our aid, it just would have been a long protracted thing.

In this same way, their strategists lured us into the most volatile, rugged, and most difficult to fight in terrain in the world. They picked turf that was made to fight effective guerilla warfare on.

C) How do we best answer this challenge?

THE EASY ROUTE:

1. Inform the American populace. Under our constitution they have the right to make a democractic and informed decision on sustaining or initiating this war. Congressional war powers emanate from them.

2. Remove the motivation of America's adversary to inflict such wounds and destroy the force multiplier affect our policy has on recruitment. Note that once the Russians withdrew, the mujhideen fighters all turned on one another and were better at killing eachother than Americans are at killing them.

THE HARD ROUTE:

If Americans cannot or will not change their policy in the way that I stated (which is much more ethically appealing since it accords with the wishes of our founding fathers) then our military must be utilized to its full lethal affect. America's enemies must understand that overwhelming force will be used in the form of punitive expeditions.

Instead, we executed this campaign with multiple and continuing errors along the way. We turned our military force into a nation building organization instead of what it is created to be, which is a lethal wall of defense.

We gave all adversary fighters a month's notice to evacuate the region in October 2001 by openly stating our intentions to invade. Instead, punishing and punitive fire power ought to have been utilized immediatly and without advance notice as we knew best then where America's adversaries were. The local populace had to be made to understand that the risk benefit ratio was not in the favor of shielding and housing the insurgent fighter.

As an example of how our ruling elites continue to make such idiotic mistakes I refer you to Bob Woodward's recent book on the Obama Administration. In it, he makes it apparent that the US knows the sites of 150 or so training sites in Pakistan and that America will conduct a massive assault should an attack on US soil be linked to Pakistan. This now open source knowledge was read by America's adversaries and they relocated and now have advance notice on what the Pentagon had as back up plans. Moreover, they now know that we are willing to extend the theater of war into Pakistan, taking us into a bloodier conflict, if certain measures are taken by them to incite us into it.

David, I refer you to a historical figure named Lord Roberts of Kandahar (or Candahar as the British spelled it). He was a genius in understanding what Alexander and others failed to understand. He was the only successfull general to fight on Afghan soil and achieved all his objectives. He harnassed and mastered the art of punitive warfare that resulted in an Afghanistan that was hesitant to make incursions into British India. He understood that occupying Afghanistan and attempting to alter its national image is like chasing mirages in a desert. It usually resulted in a long and exhaustive campaign in which an occupier spends inordinate resources to create an unsustainable government. Instead, Lord Roberts marched in a number of days between Kandahar and Kabul and burned and destroyed everything in his path (sort of like Sherman's march to the sea here in the US). Then, he did something amazing... he rapidly withdrew with a warning to future Afghan generals that any incursions into British India would be met by similar inexpensive, brutal, and punitive expeditions.

[BarakzaiAbdali]

I want to qualify the above with the fact that as a physician and a healer I prefer the route that is best for all. I believe that exporting tyranny is against the original American charter. However, I am merely answering the question you asked as an honest analyst and on my readings of how wars were fought successfully. I wish nothing but the best for all mankind.

And I am an American Firster, held by the belief that we ought to devote all these resources to rebuilding Detroit instead of rebuilding Kabul.

[Zayam]

Kakargirl - Loved the poem. I too appreciate the beauty of words. Try this one out for size. It's written by Robert Frost and kind ofmirrors why I am on a Pashtun message board:=) Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,And sorry I could not travel bothAnd be one traveler, long I stoodAnd looked down one as far as I couldTo where it bent in the undergrowth;Then took the other, as just as fair,And having perhaps the better claim,Because it was grassy and wanted wear;Though as for that the passing thereHad worn them really about the same,And both that morning equally layIn leaves no step had trodden black.Oh, I kept the first for another day!Yet knowing how way leads on to way,I doubted if I should ever come back.I shall be telling this with a sighSomewhere ages and ages hence:Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-I took the one less traveled by,And that has made all the difference.

David-

Small world, I quoted the same poem yesterday in my Father's Birthday card-it is of course one of my favorites. That one and the quote from Henry David Thoreau about following "a different drummer".

Welcome on board-
Zayam

[Fahd]

wlcome to PF david :p

[BarakzaiAbdali]

BarakzaiAbdali,

I asked and I received. Your military analysis is spot on. No doubt a "no holds barred" campaign would do the trick...militarily. This smaller world of ours will not allow such tactics anymore; our allies would scatter like the wind. So, I understand the current strategy, as distasteful and inefficient as it is. There are no real answers unfortunately that all can agree on...the messiness of democracy I suppose.

I do hope President Obama has someone on his staff with your insightfulness though; a voice of reason mayhaps:=)

Dear David,

Thank you for your response.

President Bush and President Obama both had/have double dealers on their staff that are more concerned with winning elections than sacrificing you and America's other soldier-children. I recognize your oath does not allow you to comment on such matters directly, but nonetheless, I urge you to save the republic of Washington and Jefferson from the Empire.

Did you read the Matthew Hoh article?