If anyone could change my mind on Afghanistan, it's Sarah Chayes.

Even though (or maybe because of the fact that?) I am a humanitarian in heart and mind, I have always been skeptical about American efforts in Afghanistan, whether we are hurting more than helping, creating more enemies than fighting, endangering more civilians than we are protecting.

I have failed to consider, however, that the person who serves (unknowingly) as my role model in life tends to side on the other side, however for some different reasons than most.

Sarah Chayes has lived in Afghanistan since she decided to leave her job at NPR that took her to that country in 2001. For years she has lived and worked with local population in Khandahar running a cooperative, and generally participating in indigenous life there. This has given her unique insight on Afghan society whci she has shared in a book, on Bill Moyers, with Charlie Rose, and in countless articles, including one fairly recently for the LATimes called many for the LATimes.

Chayes' main goal is helping the people of Afghanistan to rebuild and live prosperous, healthy lives in safety and secruity. (As opposed to many who might have US security interests first and foremost in mind, as those who directed the surge in Iraq were first and foremost looking for a US exit strategy. Fortunately said exit strategy included first and foremost protecitng the population. SO here again, COIN and humanitarian 'ideology coincide...kind of. By the way, I did not write the previous sentences in a critical light, everyone has a right to have their own interests and priorities and look at the world and situations like Afghanistan and Iraq from different perspectives; we need them all.) So considering Chayes' aforementioned perspective and goals, the fact that she titled her last article in the LATimes "'Lower your sights' is the wrong vision for Afghanistan" makes me think twice (well, a gagillion times) about blindly leaping into the Bacevich - Rory Sewart camp. She is also currently serving as an advisor to NATO and US led forces. I know she was in communication with Patraeus and no doubt the same is now true to McChrystal.

Stalker moment:
1. Sarah Chayes and I both served in the Peace Corps in Morocco.
2. Sarah Chayes and I both have a MA in Middle East History. (Full disclosure: her Harvard, me UVA)
3. I really want to be Iraq's Sarah Chayes.
4. Sarah Chayes might actually occupy my No. 1 person in the world spot. Close runners up: Karen Armstrong, Noam Chomsky, George Packer, Amy Goodman, Bill Moyers, Steve Coll, Andrea Turpin, Andrew Sullivan, Crooks and Liars, Marc Lynch

Sarah, if you are reading this, which you aren't, please don't be scared by my stalker moment, I'm not crazy. I swear the fact that I want to be just like you is totally harmless. Pure admiration! (Call me k?)


Excerpt from LATimes article:

"The answer is not to lower the bar but to raise it. What is needed is some of that patented Obama "Yes, we can!" energy.

We can, for example, work to ensure not just the security of the upcoming Afghan elections but a modicum of integrity, by observing, reporting and sanctioning instances of abuse and by distancing ourselves from those Afghan officials illegally exploiting their offices to ensure a Karzai reelection. We can insist on accountability on the part of Afghan officials, especially regarding the expenditure of international funds.

We can help Afghans give teeth to what is perhaps the most important feature of American democracy -- one that was signally ignored by the Bush administration's Afghan design: checks-and-balances mechanisms.

Additional troops are desperately needed, and they should be deployed to protect the population rather than focused on hunting high-value targets or trying to seal off Afghanistan's borders. Development assistance, well targeted and monitored, is also crucial. But only with a concurrent full-court press on governance can the most limited U.S. goals in the region be accomplished.

The sudden appetite for Afghanistan in Washington, and the real attention being devoted there, allows me to argue to my cooperative members that the "lower your sights" rhetoric is just that -- rhetoric. This time, I try to assure them, our actions will outstrip our words. May I be telling the truth."

Counterpoint on Afghanistan.

Peter Bergen on why Afghanistan is worth it.

Would be a good read alongside Rory Stewart's argument against a major commitment there.

Badakhshan, Afghanistan.

Interesting article on the Badakhshan province in Afghanistan.

The province is unique for many reasons; for example, in recent years poppy fields were eradicated. Its geography has prevented Taliban and extremist infiltration. This has not left it without problems, however, namely a lack of jobs and income from said poppy eradication.

Quote that stayed with me: "We need a strong Muslim leader, a real mujahed, to bring us jobs and justice" - Abdul Samad, an elder in Kesham district.

Bacevich v. Kilcullen on Afghanistan.

In the ring: Bacevich v. Kilcullen.

If Bacevich had a tag team, it would be Rory Stewart;. in Killcullen's corner would be Patraeus.

I've got the defense budget on Bacevich.

Assumption based case against the Uighurs.

Instead of evidence, an assumption, that any Uighur in Afghanistan was there for a terrorist training camp, landed Uighurs in Guantanamo; Richard Bernstein breaks down this assumption in an article in the NYTimes.

"But the reality is quite different, said Alim Seytoff, the vice president of the Uighur-American Association. Over the years, he said by telephone, many young Uighur men, fearing political persecution and also needing jobs, have tried to go overland from Xinjiang to other countries, with Turkey, whose language the Uighurs can understand, a highly desired destination. Many of them, unable to get visas to Turkey, have ended up in Afghanistan, which shares a strip of border with Xinjiang, living in a village that has been wrongly portrayed as a terrorist training camp — a portrayal very much encouraged by China."

I like it.

Rory Stewart: Cut the Crap in Afghanistan

Warning: This post is much longer than usual due to outakes from the article. I won't make a habit of it.

“The Irresistible Illusion”, by Rory Stewart Afghanistan in the most recent London Review of Books, is a must read article about our erroneous policies in Afghanistan. His ‘what is do’ is basically what not to do, which is basically almost everything that the US is doing.
(Stewart is well known in many circles and has written extensively in newspapers and other sources on Afghanistan. He is the author of the best-selling Places in Between about his travels on foot across Afghanistan and Prince of the Marshes about his time as a commander of the British forces in Basra. He is the Director of the Carr Center for Human Rights at Harvard and founder of the Turquoise Mountain, a project that helps to rebuild and revive bazaars and assisting merchants in Kabul.)

Using his extensive knowledge of Afghan history, culture, politics, economy and general policy and military strategy (counterinsurgency and reconstruction) he formulates a realistic approach to Afghanistan, rather than the inflated, ambiguous inapplicable plan of the Obama administration. (Sorry Obama, you know I love you.) I am in agreement with his perspective. The vision of Afghanistan as put forth by the US, Britain and other organizations in the international community might make us feel good inside – safe and warm due to all the talk of democracy and governance and a strong state and killing extremists and the Taliban and AQ – and serve to quell conservatives and neocons ready to attack at any perceived weakness to ‘terror’, but it is neither attainable nor sustainable, especially when it is the vision only of foreign forces.

Stewart starts with 2 eloquent and unbelievably on point paragraphs about the ambiguity and inapplicability of the US policy, and language surrounding the policy, in Afghanistan. It’s so stinkin’ good, I had to re-print it here:

“When we are not presented with a dystopian vision, we are encouraged to be implausibly optimistic. There can be only one winner: democracy and a strong Afghan state,’ Gordon Brown predicted in his most recent speech on the subject. Obama and Brown rely on a hypnotising policy language which can – and perhaps will – be applied as easily to Somalia or Yemen as Afghanistan. It misleads us in several respects simultaneously: minimising differences between cultures, exaggerating our fears, aggrandising our ambitions, inflating a sense of moral obligations and power, and confusing our goals. BEST LINE: All these attitudes are aspects of a single worldview and create an almost irresistible illusion.

It conjures nightmares of ‘failed states’ and ‘global extremism’, offers the remedies of ‘state-building’ and ‘counter-insurgency’, and promises a final dream of ‘legitimate, accountable governance’. The path is broad enough to include Scandinavian humanitarians and American special forces; general enough to be applied to Botswana as easily as to Afghanistan; sinuous and sophisticated enough to draw in policymakers; suggestive enough of crude moral imperatives to attract the Daily Mail; and almost too abstract to be defined or refuted. It papers over the weakness of the international community: our lack of knowledge, power and legitimacy. It conceals the conflicts between our interests: between giving aid to Afghans and killing terrorists. It assumes that Afghanistan is predictable. It is a language that exploits tautologies and negations to suggest inexorable solutions. It makes our policy seem a moral obligation, makes failure unacceptable, and alternatives inconceivable. It does this so well that a more moderate, minimalist approach becomes almost impossible to articulate. Afghanistan, however, is the graveyard of predictions. None of the experts in 1988 predicted that the Russian-backed President Najibullah would survive for two and a half years after the Soviet withdrawal. And no one predicted at the beginning of 1994 that the famous commanders of the jihad, Hekmatyar and Masud, then fighting a civil war in the centre of Kabul, could be swept aside by an unknown group of madrassah students called the Taliban. Or that the Taliban would, in a few months, conquer 90 per cent of the country, eliminate much corruption, restore security on the roads and host al-Qaida."

Stewart refutes the viability of the US vision in Afghanistan: a strong, centralized state. “It is impossible for Britain and its allies to build an Afghan state. They have no clear picture of this promised ‘state’, and such a thing could come only from an Afghan national movement, not as a gift from foreigners. Is a centralised state, in any case, an appropriate model for a mountainous country, with strong traditions of local self-government and autonomy, significant ethnic differences, but strong shared moral values? And even were stronger central institutions to emerge, would they assist Western national security objectives?” Moreover, the existence of a state, or state-building strategy, is not an effective counter terrorism approach. The planning and execution of terrorist attacks, Stewart reminds us, have s occurred all over the world, in up and running nations, like the US and Britain and Germany.

The means to reach this goal are ‘state-building’, promoting systems (more like ideas…) of ‘rule of law’ and ‘governance’. First of all, these ideas, in practice, currently mean one thing to us and another thing to Afghans. Moreover, whatever they mean to both parties, they are not realistic goals, especially with the resources at our disposal. Stewart asks: “What is this thing ‘governance’, which Afghans (or we) need to build, and which can also be transparent, stable, regulated, competent, representative, coercive?”

Counterinsurgency (COIN), like state-building, is not a solution. It guarantees nothing, Stewart argues: "…there are no self-evident connections between the key objectives of counter-terrorism, development, democracy/ state-building and counter-insurgency. Counter-insurgency is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for state-building. You could create a stable legitimate state without winning a counter-insurgency campaign (India, which is far more stable and legitimate than Afghanistan, is still fighting several long counter-insurgency campaigns from Assam to Kashmir). You could win a counter-insurgency campaign without creating a stable state (if such a state also required the rule of law and a legitimate domestic economy).”

As for what is in store for Afghanistan, Stewart first points to a somewhat likely, yet less appealing, reality: that Afghanistan ends up like one of the neighborhood Stans, or Iran. He then details why no one will win in Afghanistan: Neither the Taliban nor the US. He gives convincing, historical evidence. For example, that the Taliban would no longer have the Pakistani government to support them, for example. Populations that hated them before are wealthier and more powerful. As for the US, there are no coherent tribes for the US to work with, no political parties, for starters. We don’t have enough troops to have the proper proportion to Afghan population.

So, what, should we do????

Well for starters, it’s what I call “Cut the Crap.” We’ve got to get rid of our current policy that “…rests on misleading ideas about moral obligation, our capacity, the strength of our adversaries, the threat posed by Afghanistan, the relations between our different objectives, and the value of a state.” Our lofty language that makes us feel good, “does not help us to declare the limits to our power and capacity; to concede that we can do less than we pretend or that our enemies can do less than we pretend; to confess how little we know about a country like Afghanistan or how little we can predict about its future; or to acknowledge that we might be unwelcome or that our presence might be perceived as illegitimate or that it might make things worse.” Specifically no more mindless dribble about state-building because “we don’t know exactly what that means.”

After cutting the crap, goals must be narrowed. The US and Britain must create a realistic, applicable, appropriate, relevant historically, culturally, politically, accurate policy. Stewart makes this a two part policy. First, about 20,000 foreign troops should be left in Afghanistan to root out extremists and gather intelligence. They should be accompanied by small scale practical development projects.

He ends with an excellent analogy to the British predicament in Afghanistan in the late 19th Century. They realized what their fate would be if they stayed in Afghanistan, if they set their goals too high, or set any goals at all, and decided to leave. Even Sir John Lawrence, imperialist leader and viceroy of India, knew that Afghanistan was not just ‘not worth the wait’, but that the wait would never end.

Stewart concedes that “such arguments seem strained, unrealistic, counter-intuitive and unappealing. They appear to betray the hopes of Afghans who trusted us and to allow the Taliban to abuse district towns. No politician wants to be perceived to have underestimated, or failed to address, a terrorist threat; or to write off the ‘blood and treasure’ that we have sunk into Afghanistan; or to admit defeat. Americans are particularly unwilling to believe that problems are insoluble; Obama’s motto is not ‘no we can’t’; soldiers are not trained to admit defeat or to say a mission is impossible. And to suggest that what worked in Iraq won’t work in Afghanistan (or that what worked in postwar West Germany or 1950s South Korea won’t work in Afghanistan) requires a detailed knowledge of each country’s past, a bold analysis of the causes of development and a rigorous exposition of the differences, for which few have patience.”

If Obama was to wear the same thinking cap he wears when he makes other decisions, he would agree with Rory Stewart. He is someone who makes decisions thoughtfully, with patience, consulting experts – academic, policy, political – examining the nuances of situations. What is inhibiting him from wearing his proper thinking cap is the fact that he does not want to seem weak on national security, in short, politics as usual. If he is seen as ‘abandoning Afghanistan’ the place ‘where 9/11 was planned’, instantly he is a weak, whimpy Democrat. Obama must rise above these politics as usual and invite Andrew Bacevich (see my post on his most recent articles just below) and Rory Stewart to dinner at the White House. Oh, and me, he should invite me too.

Andrew Bacevich Poking Holes in Policies.

Rory Stewart and Prof. Andrew Bacevich, both of military and academic minds, have recently come out with articles questioning the Obama administration’s policies in Afghanistan. Both, among many other points, point to the inapplicability of the policies and their problematic use of morality to justify them. Below is a brief analysis of Bacevich’s articles. Please look for my post on Rory Stewart’s later today. It is significantly longer and has taken me more time to dissect.

Professor Andrew Bacevich (one of my most favorite people) has been an outspoken opponent of US use of the military in Iraq and Afghanistan. He is respected and listened to in the usually insular military circles because he is a retired Colonel. He has recently come out with two important articles.

In one article in the LA Times he begs the administration to consider alternatives to its current course, which will fail in Afghanistan as it failed in Iraq. He draws historical analogy to the British during WWI: As Churchill asked 1915, "Are there not other alternatives than sending our armies to chew barbed wire in Flanders?" so should we ask "Are there not other alternatives than sending our armies to choke on the dust of Iraq and Afghanistan?" There are, he argues. The US must be guided by "matter of strategy and politics" rather than "tactical and operational concerns" for starters. Obama needs to add an element of principle to his pragmatism: "... pragmatism devoid of principle will perpetuate the strategic void that Obama inherited. The urgent need is for the administration to articulate a concrete set of organizing precepts -- not simply cliches -- to frame basic U.S. policy going forward." He then outlines principles which should guide any US decision to use military force in the future. Bacevich has written many articles on how having troops in Afghanistan and Iraq can no more solve local problems than our own. He would agree with Rory Stewart's advice in the most recent London Review of Books. (Look for a post on this later today.) Both urge Obama to drop ambiguous language and cliches and look for a more realistic approach.

His second article in the World Affairs Journal is a rebuke of Washington's pretentious 'narcisistic' attitude via a tribute to Graham Greene's The Quiet American. Thank God he says, we have Jon Stewart's to 'puncture' holes in the arrogance and insularity of politicians and policy makers. The article recounts the story line in Greene's novel, then moves on to the situation today. It is fairly long, but these are, I think, his two most important points:

Greene points out, as does Rory Stewart, about the inapplicability of our policies and takes issue with the fact that our policy formation draws legitimacy from moral righteousness, not reality: "Righteousness induces blindness. The acknowledgment of guilt enables the blind to see. To press the point further, the statesman who assumes that “we” are good while “they” are evil—think George W. Bush in the wake of 9/11—will almost necessarily misinterpret the problem at hand and underestimate the complexity and costs entailed in trying to solve it. In this sense, an awareness of one’s own failings and foibles not only contributes to moral clarity but can help guard against strategic folly."

He warns that we must not allow the surge to "...obviate[s] any need to revisit questions about the war’s purpose and justification..." While it "...mesh[es] nicely with the Obama administration’s inclination simply to have done with Iraq and move on", to use the imagined 'success' in Iraq to justify new policies in Afghanistan will be detrimental to the US. We were not successful in Iraq, nor will we be successful in Afghanistan.

Reconstruction in Afghanistan.

Interesting article in Wash Post on new approach to reconstruction in Afghanistan.

"Members of his national security team have concluded that the country requires not just more money and personnel for reconstruction but also a fundamental overhaul of the U.S. approach to development. They want to implement broad-based initiatives aimed at improving the lives of as many Afghans as possible, shifting away from an approach employed during the Bush presidency that focused on generating discrete "success stories" and creating long-term economic sustainability through free-market reform."

New book on the invasion of Afghanistan.

Horse Soldiers: The Extraordinary Story of a Band of US Soldiers Who Rode to Victory in Afghanistan, reviewed today in the NYTimes Book Review, tells the tale of Special Forces and CIA who fought alongside Afghan General Dostum and the Northern Alliance forces to topple the Taliban in 2001.

Great argument against drones.

Andrew Exum (blog Abu Muqawama, works at CNAS) and David Killcullen (preeminent COIN strategist and anthropologist, savior of US army in Iraq), put forth a solid and convincing argument against drone attacks today in the Week in Review section of the NYTimes. Their opinions are weighty considered they are both well respected military strategists.

1. Drones are arrogant. They say, America is stronger and better than you and we are going to show it and American lives matter more than yours. They are pretentious.

2. Drones are a rallying cry for the Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan. People there do not like the Taliban, they like Americans, and drones are changing that dynamic. And not just in the regions where the attacks occur, it is all over both countries, uniting different parts of the populations around the anti American platform.

3. There is no PR campaign to accompany them.

Great section:
Governments typically make several mistakes when attempting to separate violent extremists from populations in which they hide. First, they often overestimate the degree to which a population harboring an armed actor can influence that actor’s behavior. People don’t tolerate extremists in their midst because they like them, but rather because the extremists intimidate them. Breaking the power of extremists means removing their power to intimidate — something that strikes cannot do.

And I like their nod to history:
The drone strategy is similar to French aerial bombardment in rural Algeria in the 1950s, and to the “air control” methods employed by the British in what are now the Pakistani tribal areas in the 1920s. The historical resonance of the British effort encourages people in the tribal areas to see the drone attacks as a continuation of colonial-era policies.

Exum and Kilcullen end with the point that killing these guys, while important, is not as important as winning the hearts and minds of the population, protecting them, and these attacks do just the opposite.

The COIN tunnel must be challenged.

I give two thumbs up to Celeste Ward for her piece in the Outlook section of the Wash Post today challenging the almost godlike status of COIN (counterinsurgency). It has received all the credit for 'solving' (ha) Iraq and has become the exclusive plan for success (ha) in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It is as if there is this tunnel that we must go through to 'win' and the sign above it is 'COIN.'

Ms. Ward makes an extremely important point about the 'surge' in Iraq, which is what the military et al would like us to see as proof of COIN's success. Not so fast, she says:
"Exhibit A of the counterinsurgency movement is the "surge" -- the catch-all term used to describe the increase in American troops and the new approach the United States took to the Iraq war beginning in early 2007 -- which supporters portray as the clearest example of counterinsurgency in action. The story of the surge has developed into a tidy narrative -- bordering on mythology -- that overlooks several critical factors. Many questions remain about what really happened in Iraq."

COIN crazies have also come out saying Pakistan needs a COIN strategy, Aye Yae Yae. For a reaction to that, see my post directly below on Bill Moyers last Friday with Mufti and Cole. Similarly, in the middle of the whole Somalia debacle, Andrew Exum (CNAS, who I usually like) and other COINies were out, COIN swords drawn, ready for battle. I cant even imagine the rallying cry this would have created there. Would have been like a bull horn times 5 million.

Few points:
I think what they fail to address is that maybe, just maybe, the US military presence in these places, protecting civilians or not, is creating more enemies (Taliban) than we are getting rid of. (I really mean 'maybe' bc I don't know exactly how I feel about this.)

Because locals - in Afghanistan and Pakistan - detest the Taliban, can we have a strategy that helps them in a less obvious way, so as to avert multiplying the Taliban? This also, however, sounds dangerously like what we did to fight the Soviets in the 80s. But what we are doing now might be just as detrimental.

I do, however, understand, that in places like Afghanistan and Pakistan, all civilians are not hostile to having US troops around, they want their help in fighting the Taliban. But is our presence making the Taliban harder to fight?

Pakistani Poll

This NYTimes article reports on some interesting stats from Pakistan.

Some of the survey results:

Most saw economic issues as the nation’s most pressing problems, with only 10 percent saying terrorism, but 69 percent agreed that having the Taliban and Al Qaeda operate in Pakistan was a serious problem.

Forty-five percent said they supported fighting the extremists in the tribal areas and the North-West Frontier Province, a high for the poll.

The survey also showed signs of an increase in the willingness of Pakistanis to cooperate with the United States against extremism, with the number hitting 37 percent from a low of 9 percent in January 2008.

“The most striking thing about the survey is that while 81 percent feel the country is headed in the wrong direction, 77 percent say they wanted to live in a democratic setup

Seventy-four percent agreed that religious extremism was a serious problem in Pakistan. But 56 percent said they would back Taliban demands to extend Islamic law to other parts of the country, including some major cities.

More great input from Andrew Bacevich.

I love Prof. Andrew Bacevich and his reasoned historical analysis based approach of US FP in the Middle East and in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

(Bacevich is an ex army colonel, history professor at BU, author most recently of The Limits of American Power: The End of American Exceptionalism.)

He was on the News Hour tonight with John Nagl, COIN guru, also an ex colonel, head of CNAS (Center for a New American Security.)

In my opinion, Bacevich and Steve Coll (New Yorker, author of Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001, among others) really need to be running the US' program in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Another perspective on Taliban takeover of Buner.

This article on the front page of the sunday NYTimes presents the Taliban takeover of Buner as due to the lack of Pakistani military support and presence.

In fact, Buner's local residents had fended off Taliban attacks before, but had been weakened as a result of these confrontations and needed support from the Pakistani military this round.

They didn't get it and the Taliban strolled in.

Mind Boggling Buner.

This whole Buner thing is absolutely mind boggling. (Few days baack, Buner in Taliban hands, yesterday Pakistan threatens to send forces, today Taliban makes 'tense' exit??)

If I didn't know better I'd think it was a set-up...wait, I do know better, and it does smell like a set up.

For months the Pakistan military and ISI have been accused of fake attacks on the Taliban, telling the US they carried out some massive raid and really they didn't do squat except drink tea with their fake raid victims. Dexter Filkins reported on this a while back; it's considered pretty much common knowledge.

Something is just off here: The Taliban forces, who usually could give a crap less about the Pakistani military threat and who were able to take over Swat easily (via military force and a deal with the government) then easily took over post of Buner, are suddenly magically repelled by the threat of a few Pakistani paramilitary brigades.

I mean, maybe this is a good thing, Pakistani military finally threatened to actually unleash the wrath, but I don't know, why wouldn't the Taliban fight it out? Who knows what is going on in their inner wheelings and dealings, but it's certainly not the US.

I need to read a bit more and will be back with a follow up.

It's about time.

Pakistan seems to be starting to confront reality today, sending paramilitary forces to Buner, which is only 70 miles from Islamabad and also happens to be the Taliban's new hang out. (map from NYTimes.)

Here is a great NYTimes slideshow of pics from Buner and Swat.

Swat Taliban extend their rule to Buner.

Dawn (Pakistani paper) reports here that the Taliban from Swat have taken over Buner:

The militants, who had sneaked into Gokand valley of Buner on April 4, were reported to have been on a looting spree for the past five days.
They have robbed government and NGO offices of vehicles, computers, printers, generators, edible oil containers, and food and nutrition packets.

Sources said that leading political figures, businessmen, NGO officials and Khawaneen, who had played a role in setting up a Lashkar to stop the Taliban from entering Buner, had been forced to move to other areas.

The Taliban have extended their control to almost all tehsils of the district and law-enforcement personnel remained confined to police stations and camps.

On the diplomacy front...

Obama will host talks Afghan and Pakistani leaders.

Obama will host Palestinian, Egyptian and Israeli leaders in separate talks.

On Point tonight on Swat: Is Pakistan Ripe for Islamic Revolution. (And most importantly: Man on show clearly read my blog and stole my argument.)

On Point with Tom Ashbrook tonight was about your favorite scary topic and mine: Swat. The title, "Is Pakistan Ripe for Islamic Revolution," implies it has a bit more to do with Islam than I am willing to concede, but I am sure it will be an interesting conversation.

I don't mean to toot my own horn but I have to mention: (and at the start bc I know most of you - whoever reads this - probably only read about 5 lines of each posting) One man on the show, Marvin Weinbaum, former CIA and at Middle East Institute now, praised the same article I did last weekend on this blog from the NYTimes AND most importantly, stole my argument about revolution! I mentioned that the situation in Pakistan looked like a revolution to me last Saturday morning, I remember it well because it was the posting that interrupted by egg and bacon breakfast. Marvin, if you're reading this, stop stealing my stuff; and if you do, I'd like a little verbal footnote next time.

Anyway, here are my notes on the show:

Samina Ahmad, Head of South Asia desk at International Crisis Group in Islamabad:
-Spoke at length about Sufi Muhammad, our Red Mosque maniac
-Been unsuccessful throughout past, recently gained strength
-Definitely not gaining strength through popular will, but through fear
-Evidence: they lost all elections int he past

Didn't catch 2nd participant's full name, a Professor Hussein maybe:
-spoke about Taliban's strategy - methodical
-manipulate local animosities
-isolating local community
-ban Internet, radio, tv
-disrupt social structure and political structure
-paralyze police dept
-install new one

3rd guy - Marvin Weinbaum (name??) Middle East Institute, former intelligence analyst
- He mentions the NYTimes article I wrote on last week (for the same reasons!)
(Clearly he has been reading my blog.)
- He says article is important bc it explains how the Taliban are taking advantage of wealth inequalities
-they appeal to the dispossessed of Pakistan
-This is how it will take hold in Punjab
-Beitullah Meshud was a bus driver - not high on totem pole, look at him now, like many other revolutionaries
-this disenfranchisement is linking up with anti Americanism and anti Indian sentiment
(just like what I said last week: anti-americanism is like the anti-imperialism from past revolutions)
***Government is NOT taking this seriously
***All of these things = revolution
- He compares it to the 1979 Iranian Revolution!!! Boy oh boy. Whoaisme.

Point of contention:
Samina states there is not popular support for this extremism

The question running through my mind for the past few days has been "Where in sam hell are you Pakistani military?" I know you boys are friends with some of these guys from way back in the Soviet mujahideen days, but this is getting ridiculous.

Latest news: Taliban in Swat looking to take over Buner.

Firsthand account of ambushes and attacks in Afghanistan.

C.J. Chivers, NYTimes reporter embedded with brigade in Korangal Valley, Afghanistan, wrote two articles giving us a rare account of what is going on on the ground in a daily basis for soldiers over there. In the first, US troops ambush Taliban fighters; yesterday's follow up another of the reverse situation in which American troops found themselves under attack. The series culminates with the front page picture of the coffin of the soldier killed in attacks returning to the US.

In the Bush years, we would never see this, but now the public is more able to see the price American families pay for this war.

I guess one of the many things I don't understand about military folks that supported Bush is how they could support a commander who tried to hide their losses from the public for political reasons.