C'est incroyable: Hell really does seem to be freezing over

The New York Times reports:

After years of shunning involvement in a war it said was wrong, France now believes that it may hold the key to peace in Iraq, proposing itself as an “honest broker” between the Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish factions there...

“I believe this is the moment. Everyone knows the Americans will not be able to get this country out of difficulty alone,” [Bernard] Kouchner[, France's new Foreign Minister] told the French radio station RTL on Tuesday before returning to Paris.

“This is about having an opinion and knowing what positive things one can do and what role France can play in this region,” he said, adding that Iraq was “expecting something” from France.

As the Times report continues:

The French move carries the personal mark of Mr. Kouchner, who was one of the few French politicians to back the forcible removal of Saddam Hussein before the American-led invasion in 2003, and whose longstanding relations with Kurdish and Shiite leaders have earned him credibility in the region. During his visit to Iraq, he held talks with religious and political leaders, including Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki and President Jalal Talabani, whom he has known for three decades.

Kouchner, you might recall, was also the founder of Doctors Without Borders and was a former United Nations administrator for Kosovo.

But don't think French cynicism is dead however. As the Times reports:

As one diplomat explained, “The prevailing view in a significant part of the French diplomatic community is that mediation in Iraq is futile and that the civil war needs to run its course and hand a decisive victory to one faction before the violence can end.”...

Jean-Pierre Chevènement, a former Socialist minister and former presidential candidate, accused Mr. Kouchner of “repenting” before President Bush for France’s opposition to the war and said the trip risked destroying France’s diplomatic standing in the Arab world.But as the

But as the Times also reports, Kouchner is far from alone in wanting France to be helpful for a change:

[A]s the left-leaning Le Monde put it, “It’s time to stop lecturing the Americans about their errors and start contributing to a solution.”

Need a break from jihad? Now you can surf Gaza

The New York Times reports:

On Tuesday, Dr. Paskowitz, 86, a retired Jewish physician from Hawaii popularly known as Doc, personally delivered 15 new surfboards to Palestinian surfing enthusiasts there.

He talked the Israeli authorities into opening up the fortresslike Erez crossing for that purpose, overcoming their repeated protestations about the volatile security situation, he said — even though hardly any nonessential goods have been allowed into the Gaza Strip since Hamas took over there in June.

“We used every wily wit that any Jew could muster,” Dr. Paskowitz said, deliberately poking fun at an ethnic stereotype while speaking after the event by telephone from Tel Aviv. He was accompanied by his son David, 48, one of his nine children and a former surfing world champion.

The endeavor started with an article in The Los Angeles Times three weeks ago about a beach in Gaza called Al Deira. It featured a photograph of two Palestinian surfers with one old surfboard between them. “My son and I said, why don’t we go over and help them get some boards,” Dr. Paskowitz recalled.

As the Times report continues:

One of the Palestinian surfers, Muhammad Jayab, described himself in the article Dr. Paskowitz had read as sympathetic to Hamas. That did not put Doc off. “To be able to go to your enemies and give them something that makes them happy is a most fulfilling adventure,” he said.

Too bad everyone doesn't have the Doc's sense of adventure.

Chennai

reading prayers - Chennai, originally uploaded by " Maciej Dakowicz ".

Chennai

Praying ..., originally uploaded by Paren.

Where I happen to be at the moment.......

An alternative vision of Pakistan: Interview with the artist hitherto known as Perfectlymadebirds

What should we call you? Perfectly?

You can call me Kenny Irwin AKA Perfectlymadebirds.

Where do you live?

Palm Springs, California, USA.

How do you look so amazingly South Asian for a white guy?

I am not a white guy. I have a mixture of Eastern and British ancestry.

When and why did you start wearing salwar kameez?

I have been wearing salwar kameez everyday for the past ten years. All I ever saw was people in Western-style clothes. I wanted to show that there were other forms of dress, ones that were ages old, expressive, and beautiful. I hope Eastern fashion will rebound someday so there can be more variance in how we all express ourselves.

I'm not tired of Western clothes, I just want to see more of a mixture of cultures in both hemispheres. But sometimes I do wonder if I am the only man left on Earth wearing Eastern fashion everyday.

Tell us about your love of Eastern culture. Where does this come from?

Ever since I can remember, I've always been aware of Eastern civilization though I had no external exposure to it.

In my work I try to show a future that is technologically advanced but very spiritual, where everyone has respect for each other and the environment.

I believe the path to equality is through expressing our uniqueness and diversity as opposed to assimilating towards a dystopian future of global sameness.

Is there a clash of civilizations occurring?

Any clash of civilization, I believe, must be the result of misunderstanding between two different civilizations.

While Western civilization is today's trend setter, I don't see this as entirely the West's fault.

Easterners' fascination with Western culture also has contributed to the diminishment of their much older culture.

I think this started happening during colonial times. Modernization became associated or confused with Westernization and the idea that Easternization could also be a form of progress was lost as a possibility.

While it is tempting to blame the West for this, the East's mass adoption of Western fashion, food, music, governmental systems, methods of commerce, and even etiquette also contributed to the demise of the East.

We humans in my view are often the sole proprietors of our misfortune. But we also own the solution too.

Tell us your prescription for the mess we're all in.

I believe anyone who resents Western dominance should mine Eastern civilization and other alternatives to find ways to reshape the world.

I like to imagine a world where the salwar kameez, galabaya, and sherwani are as common as Western business suits or jeans - in the West as well as the East. Imagine if Eastern music and entertainment were as popular as Western music and entertainment. Or if we really did have a balanced understanding of current events, where both Eastern and Western perspectives were presented in the media. We'd all be richer, I think.

To help make this happen, the East has to educate the West about the positive contributions it can make. But this has to be done by example. The East has to flourish before it can teach the West what positive, progressive Easternization means.

I hope the East will usher in a new golden age where the East and the West will work together to create a spiritually deep, morally adept, and technologically advanced state.

What kind of feedback do you get from your work?

People either love or hate my work. There is never an in between.

To date, my work has not been featured in any first gallery showing or promoted, in any real sense by anyone outside my family. But still I have hopes that as time goes on, I will be able to share my artwork with more and more of the world.

I am just trying to create a bridge through my art between two great cultures so that together we can explore our future.

Take a break from jihad and check out the surf in Kabul

Stay tuned for my upcoming interview of the artist, known on Flickr as perfectlymadebirds.

Stay tuned: Interview with the artist

See more of his work on Flickr.

The SCO: Just like NATO, really?

The Christian Science Monitor reports:

Bloomberg reports that Russia and China are worried about the United States perceived sole superpower status. The two nations are willing to do business with Iran in order to change the balance of the world security order that they feel is badly out of whack. Another important subtext to the conference is that Russia and China are seeking to present themselves as potential developers of Central Asia's vast oil and gas reserves without carrying the political package with them that doing business with the US sometimes brings.

As the Monitor report continues:

[T]he orientation of the group's members are increasingly aligning to project a more united front that is, if not hostile to, then outwardly suspicious of U.S. military, economic, geopolitical and -- some might say -- neo-imperialistic interests in the region

If enlarged to include the group's four observer states -- Mongolia, Iran, Pakistan, and India -- currently under consideration, the SCO would dwarf NATO's size and be home to large amounts of the world's natural gas and nuclear ammo.

As the Monitor continues:

Back in the Cold War era, NATO was often described as a way to keep the Germans down, the Americans in, and the Russians out. The SCO, it might be said, is meant to keep the Russians down, the Chinese in, and the Americans out.

I hope we can take [Chinese President Hu Jintao] at his word, that the SCO "will support all activities that benefit regional peace, stability and economic progress and will help preserve the solidarity and security of its member countries," as he was reported as saying. But I, for one, am not so sanguine about this. But others might be, for example all the people I encounter who claim to want American influence to decline in the world. Maybe this budding SCO gives them that warm, cozy feeling that I, frankly, am not just not experiencing here.

Here's what the Saudis are doing to combat extremism in the kingdom

Christopher Boucek reports on "soft" counter-terrorism measures the Saudis have adopted in this week's issue of The Jamestown Foundation's Global Terrorism Analysis:

The centerpiece of the Saudi strategy is dubbed the "counseling program," which is intended to assist those individuals that have espoused takfiri beliefs "repent and abandon terrorist ideologies" (al-Ikhbariyah, April 27). The program seeks to de-radicalize extremist sympathizers by engaging them in intensive religious debates and psychological counseling. It is important to stress that participants in the counseling program are only terrorist sympathizers, and at the most individuals caught with jihadi propaganda. They are not individuals that have been active in terrorist violence in the kingdom; people "with blood on their hands" are barred from participating.

But curiously, this program seems to involve counseling people in Saudi prisons. But if the program is only open to people without "blood on their hands" one does have to wonder, well, what are they in prison for then? For merely sympathizing with terrorists? And most Saudis think America's detention policies are unfair???

Anyway, back to the report.

In their first meeting, committee members will simply listen to the prisoner. They ask them about what they did, why they did it and the circumstances that brought them to be in prison. Throughout the process, the scholars engage prisoners in discussions about their beliefs, and then attempt to persuade them that their religious justification for their actions is wrong and based upon a corrupted understanding of Islam. The committee first demonstrates that what the prisoners were tricked into believing was false, and then they teach them the proper state-approved interpretation of Islam.

The Advisory Committee runs two programs. The first includes short sessions, which typically run about two hours. While some prisoners recant their beliefs after the first session, typically a prisoner goes through several of these meetings... At the end of the course, an exam is given; those who pass the exam move to the next stage of the process, while those who do not pass repeat the course.

As Boucek writes:

The Counseling Program is based upon a presumption of benevolence, and not vengeance or retribution. It presumes that the suspects were abused, lied to and misled by extremists into straying away from "true Islam," and that the state wants to help security prisoners return to the correct path.

Fair enough, but now check this detail out:

The vast majority of prisoners who have participated in the program, according to research conducted by the Advisory Committee, have been found to not have had a religious education during their childhood....the majority have been radicalized through extremist books, tapes, videos and, more recently, the internet. The Counseling Program, therefore, seeks to "correct" this misunderstanding by reinforcing the official state version of Islam.

I'm not sure I buy that this is indeed the case, having heard once too many times that radical Islam entered the kingdom after the Saudi educational system became infiltrated with radical Muslim Brothers who had fled Nasser's Egypt. Nevertheless, I still think this has to be a positive development - that the extreme version of Islam is now being so thoroughly repudiated by the Saudi government that it is even willing to resort to a bit of revisionism to make it so.

And here is another good idea, I think:

[O]nce a breadwinner is incarcerated, the committee provides the family with an alternate salary. Other needs, including children's schooling and family healthcare, are also provided. This is intended to offset further radicalization brought on by the detention of family members. It is acknowledged by officials that when the government arrests someone, that memory lingers, and this social support is intended to offset that hardship somewhat. The government further recognizes that if they fail to do this, then it is possible that extremist elements will move in to provide this support.

This support then continues upon release. Prisoners who have successfully completed the rehabilitation process and have satisfactorily renounced their previous beliefs are given assistance in locating jobs and other benefits, including additional government stipends, cars and apartments. Upon release, they are required to check in with authorities, and are encouraged to continue meeting with the scholars they were speaking with while in prison. Many, for instance, often continue to attend their study circles at mosque after being released. Furthermore, rehabilitated prisoners are encouraged to settle down, marry and have children, in part because it is understood that it is much more difficult for young men to get into trouble once they become obligated with family responsibilities.

According to Saudi figures, of the 700 prisoners who passed this program, only 9 have been re-arrested for security offenses. About 1,000 participants remain incarcerated and then there are some 1,400 individuals who refuse to have anything to do with the program.

I've heard other counterterrorism experts claim the same success with other programs that use persuasion as opposed to coercion. At the moment, however, I'm too lazy to supply examples but if you want some, email me and I'll dig them up.

Why we should sell arms to the Saudis

Arms expert Anthony Cordesman in today's New York Times on the $20 billion Saudi arms deal:

IN an ideal world, arms sales are hardly the tool the United States would use to win stability and influence. [But...] America has vital long-term strategic interests in the Middle East. The gulf has well over 60 percent of the world’s proven conventional oil reserves and nearly 40 percent of its natural gas. The global economy, and part of every job in America, is dependent on trying to preserve the stability of the region and the flow of energy exports.

Washington cannot — and should not — try to bring security to the gulf without allies, and Saudi Arabia is the only meaningful military power there that can help deter and contain a steadily more aggressive Iran...

This means mutual tolerance and respect. Saudi Arabia is not the United States, and reform there is going to be slow and often focused more on economic development and the quality of governance than on democracy and human rights. Reform, however, does happen. Saudi cooperation in counterterrorism still has limits, but it has steadily improved. For all the rather careless talk about Saudi nationals entering Iraq to fight a jihad, the numbers of volunteers total some 10 to 25 a month.

Moreover, the United States is in a poor position to criticize Saudi support of its positions in Iraq and the Arab-Israeli peace process. Sunni Arabs like the Saudis have every reason to accuse the Bush administration of being slow to realize it was backing a political process in Iraq that has led to the broad sectarian “cleansing” of Sunnis in key cities like Baghdad and that has so far deprived them of a fair share of political power and Iraq’s wealth...

Critics of the Saudi arms deal have also taken aim at the administration’s proposed increases in military aid to Israel and Egypt. That, too, is misguided. The success of Israel’s peace with Egypt and Jordan is heavily dependent on American military aid to Egypt.

Given the reality that, as Cordesman writes, "sales to Saudi Arabia will take place with or without the United States — from Europe, Russia or China." As he concludes:

Until we wake up in a perfect world, we must build strong security relations with allies that are sometimes less than perfect. We also must not discriminate between Israel and Arab allies, which would undercut our national interest and maybe actually weaken Israeli security by increasing Arab hostility to both Israel and the United States. This is particularly true when the motive for such discrimination is domestic political posturing and self-advantage, rather than a serious concern for America’s role in the world.

Here's a story we might learn from

Maybe everybody got this email in their inbox today, but in case you didn't:

In a zoo in California, a mother tiger gave birth to a rare set of triplet tiger cubs. Unfortunately, due to complications in the pregnancy, the cubs were born prematurely and due to their tiny size, they died shortly after birth.

The mother tiger after recovering from the delivery, suddenly started to decline in health,
although physically she was fine. The veterinarians felt that the loss of her litter had caused the tigress to fall into a depression. The doctors decided that if the tigress could surrogate another mother's cubs, perhaps she would improve.

After checking with many other zoos across the country, the depressing news was that there were no tiger cubs of the right age to introduce to the mourning mother The veterinarians decided to try something that had never been tried in a zoo environment Sometimes a mother of one species will take on the care of a different species. The only orphans" that could be found quickly, were a litter of weanling pigs. The zoo keepers and vets wrapped the piglets in tiger skin and placed the babies around the mother tiger.

Would they become cubs or pork chops? Take a look...you won't believe your eyes!!

As the email concluded:

Now, please tell me one more time..........why can't the rest of the world get along ??

Balkanizing the world or the right of self-determination

This is my ancestral migration path

Whenever I hear people claim their ethnic rights to land, I always get a little queasy, I have to admit, wondering just where I'd fit in were the entire world to be divided into ethnic enclaves. To find out, I sent my cheek swabs to the National Geographic's Genographic Project to try and trace my genetic history.

Using the 569 letters of my mitrochondrial DNA sequence, this is what the project told me about my ancestors going back on my mother's side (she was Swedish-American).

Like everyone else on this planet, I am a descendant of "Mitrochondrial Eve," the mother of us all. Eve, they say, lived in Africa 150,000 to 170,000 years ago, and though she wasn't the world's first female human, only her lineages have survived to the present. As to why only Eve's lineage made it to the present, this is what the Project says:

A maternal line can become extinct for a number of reasons. A woman may not have children, or she may bear only sons (who do not pass her mtDNA to the next generation). She may fall victim to a catastrophic event such as a volcanic eruption, flood, or famine, all of which have plagued humans since the dawn of our species.

None of these extinction events happened to Eve's line. It may have been simple luck, or it may have been something much more. It was around this same time that modern humans' intellectual capacity underwent what author Jared Diamond coined the Great Leap Forward. Many anthropologists believe that the emergence of language gave us a huge advantage over other early human species. Improved tools and weapons, the ability to plan ahead and cooperate with one another, and an increased capacity to exploit resources in ways we hadn't been able to earlier, all allowed modern humans to rapidly migrate to new territories, exploit new resources, and outcompete and replace other hominids, such as the Neandertals.

My next "signpost ancestor" is a woman who lived some 80,000 years ago. She was the mother of haplogroup L3, the first modern humans to leave Africa, the birthplace of us all.

As to why my ancestors left - well, because of global warming, says the Project:

Around 50,000 years ago the ice sheets of northern Europe began to melt, introducing a period of warmer temperatures and moister climate in Africa. Parts of the inhospitable Sahara briefly became habitable. As the drought-ridden desert changed to savanna, the animals your ancestors hunted expanded their range and began moving through the newly emerging green corridor of grasslands. Your nomadic ancestors followed the good weather and plentiful game northward across this Saharan Gateway, although the exact route they followed remains to be determined.

Because I have the signpost N, they say my ancestors left Africa across the Sinai Peninsula, the land bridge that connects Africa to Asia in what is today Egypt. They most likely stuck close to the Nile basin as this would have given them food and water and some protection from the harsher climate of the desert.

After spending some 20,000 years in the Middle East, they headed northward into Europe, crossing through the Caucasus. In the process, they would wipe out the Neanderthals who couldn't compete with them for scarce resources because of these early humans' superior communication skills, weapons, and tools.

An ice age some 15,000 to 20,000 years ago would drive my ancestors southward again, to the warmer Iberian Peninsula, Italy or the Balkans. Many early humans didn't survive this period, however, and much of Europe's early genetic diversity was lost.

My ancestors did survive and eventually they headed north again during a global warming phase, beginning around 15,000 years ago. They would end up in what is today Sweden before heading over to the United States in the late 1800s:

Today haplogroup H comprises 40 to 60 percent of the gene pool of most European populations. In Rome and Athens, for example, the frequency of H is around 40 percent of the entire population, and it exhibits similar frequencies throughout western Europe. Moving eastward the frequencies of H gradually decreases, clearly illustrating the migratory path these settlers followed as they left the Iberian Peninsula after the ice sheets had receded. Haplogroup H is found at around 25 percent in Turkey and around 20 percent in the Caucasus Mountains.

While haplogroup H is considered the Western European lineage due to its high frequency there, it is also found much further east. Today it comprises around 20 percent of southwest Asian lineages, about 15 percent of people living in Central Asia, and around five percent in northern Asia.

Importantly, the age of haplogroup H lineages differs quite substantially between those seen in the West compared with those found in the East. In Europe its age is estimated at 10,000 to 15,000 years old, and while H made it into Europe substantially earlier (30,000 years ago), reduced population sizes resulting from the glacial maximum significantly reduced its diversity there, and thus its estimated age. In Central and East Asia, however, its age is estimated at around 30,000 years old, meaning your lineage made it into those areas during some of the earlier migrations out of the Near East.

So, given this history, I ask my readers, where would you put me in a world of ethnic states? And where would my children fit in? Their history is even more complicated than mine as you will find when I share their father's report when it becomes available.

Anyway, which land would I get to claim as my own based on my ancestors' migration pattern? And does anyone who makes these ancestral claims have a simpler history than mine?

Kashmiri women taking up arms against terrorists

AP Photo/Channi Anand

NDTV.com reports:

Fighting militancy in Jammu and Kashmir is no longer limited to just men. Women and girls are now picking up the gun to protect themselves and their homes. . .

18-year-old Sona helps her mother with the household chores but soon she will also be protecting her neighbours from militants.

"I and my mother both have undergone this training. Now even if militants come when my father is not at home, we can protect ourselves and our house,'' said Sona Devi, VDC member, Sarya village.

27 women from this border village of Naushera have been trained to use AK-47s and other heavy-duty weapons. They will now be part of the village defence committees.

AP Photo/Channi Anand

Ok while the girls above don't exactly look like they're ready to scare any terrorists away, their grandmothers sure do:

AP Photo/Channi Anand

Definitely something happening in Pakistan's tribal areas

Sure hope we're not seeing the genius of Al Qaeda here. Because if these photos are real....

Photos all uploaded by perfectlymadebirds

And you can check out more of what is happening in Pakistan here.

Recall an earlier jirga

Pakistan Independence, originally uploaded by puneet&katie.

Photo by Margaret Bourke White

As the caption reads:

December 1947: Clerk helping Malik (Chief) of Swat Ranezai tribe, place his inked thumb print as his signature on the agreement document to their accession to the govt. of Pakistan during Jirga (tribal assembly) for the Northwest Frontier Province.

Afghan peace jirga ends on a positive note

Photo uploaded by perfectlymadebirds

Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf who wasn't even supposed to attend makes a last-minute appearance to acknowledge Pakistan's role in Afghanistan's insurgency. From the New York Times:

“There is no doubt Afghan militants are supported from Pakistan soil. The problem that you have in your region is because support is provided from our side.” President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan nodded in agreement.

General Musharraf’s words, and his appearance at the final ceremony of the four-day meeting in Kabul, were a sharp turnaround for him.

As the Times went on to say:

[Musharraf's] presence at the final ceremony of the jirga lent weight to the proceedings. In a declaration at the end of their four-day assembly, convened to try to bring peace and stability to the region, the 650 delegates pledged to continue an “extended, tireless and persistent campaign against terrorism” and not to allow terrorist sanctuaries and training camps in their territory.

They agreed to establish a smaller jirga, consisting of 25 representatives from each country, to work on peace with the Taliban and other insurgents who are opposed to the governments of both countries and to continue a dialogue between the countries. They also agreed to urge their governments to combat the narcotics trade in the region.

The 650 delegates, incidentally, were mostly tribal leaders as opposed to politicians.

"South of Baghdad" area where tribes are fighting for control

SOURCE: U.S. military poster from FOB Iskan showing operational area via The Washington Post - August 10, 2007

As the Washington Post caption reads:

South of Baghdad, in the arid area near the Euphrates River, U.S. soldiers fight not just one insurgency but many groups across a number of zones that mix sects and tribes. Al-Qaeda in Iraq is just one of the competing armed groups.

See my post about some of the factions vying for control of this "South of Baghdad" region.

What does an expert think about all these budding tribal alliances?

Wondering what an expert would say about the tribal alliances occurring in Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and even Syria, I solicited the opinion of one of my favorite Middle East experts, F. Gregory Gause, at the University of Vermont.

Did the professor think the tribes could really deliver what they were suggesting they could - security and even democracy - to their areas of control? Was there really any basis to hope that such traditional leaders could be the modern governors - accountable, transparent, and fair to all, even the non-tribals within their domain - they were saying they could?

The professor was kind enough to respond, and here is what he wrote:

One could (almost) write the history of modern state development in the Arab world (or big chunks of it, not Egypt so much) as a long effort by central states to get control of the hinterlands, which means the tribes. Tribes have always been seen, and with good reason, as the opponents of centralized state authority. They have their own authority structures, their own law, their own loyalties (of which the state might be one, but might not trump tribal identity) and, sometimes, their own armed forces. As economy and technology have changed, the ability of tribes to maintain their autonomy from the state has dwindled.

Different states have handled this in different ways. In Saudi Arabia, for example, the state has adopted the trappings of tribalism, emphasizing it in social life, giving shaykhs an honored position in society, even recruiting some military formations along tribal lines, while absolutely gutting the autonomy of the tribes. The Saudis did this through a clever mixture of enforced settlement, money and the provision of a new loyalty that would trump tribal identity, Wahhabi Islam. But they never tried to humiliate tribal leaders (unless they opposed the Al Saud) or to deny the important role of tribal identity in social life. Contrast that to Ba'thist Iraq in the 1970's, where the use of tribal indicators in names (al-Shammari, al-Dulaimi, al-Duri, etc.) was outlawed. The Ba'th had a project to create a whole new Arab society, not just a new political regime, and tribalism was not part of it. We see how that worked out. Another contrasting case is Yemen, where the state has never really been strong enough to break the autonomous power of the tribes. The balance of power has shifted somewhat to the state with oil money, but not completely. In the 1970's, some of the tribes in North Yemen could field more competent armed forces than the state could. That is not the case any more, but the tribes have retained much more autonomy in Yemen because the efforts to build a centralized, bureaucratic state have not been that successful.

But the flip side of these efforts by centralizing state elites to exercise power over the tribes is that, when the state is weak, or becomes weak, or collapses, tribes come back to the fore as important and autonomous political actors. People need a place to look for protection and belonging and basic needs. In a crisis, where the state is absent or hostile, the tribe can fill that role. Back to Ba'thist Iraq. When Saddam was weakened by his defeat in the Gulf War and the sanctions in the 1990's, he turned to some of the Sunni tribes for political support. He armed them and gave them economic benefits, and most of them supported his rule in the 1990's. (Some, of course, did not and he put down tribal revolts brutally.)

Fast forward to Iraq today. The central government is basically an irrelevance. In Sunni Arab areas there is no government to speak of. There are American forces, there are militias (some of which have a tribal base), there is al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) and there are the tribes. We have seen an effort recently by some tribal forces (the Anbar Salvation Council and some others) and some of the militias to ally with the US against AQI. That's great. It sure beats the alternative of them helping AQI. But we should be very cautious about what this means down the line. I don't think that it means that the tribes and Sunni militias want us in Iraq for anything but the very short term, to help them out. I am even more confident that it does not mean that the tribes and militias are going to cooperate with the central government. Maybe they will, but it will take lots of hard bargaining and quite a few concessions on constitutional and oil issues from al-Maliki and the Shi'a and Kurdish parties (and militias) to bring them on board.

When asked for his specific title, Professor Gause wrote back to say he was the Director of Middle East Studies at the University of Vermont - or as he put it: "That's a bit like being the shaykh of a very small and poor tribe."

Yet more tribal alliances forming, this time in Pakistan and Afghanistan

RFE/RL reports:

Some 650 tribal leaders and other representatives from Afghanistan and Pakistan today opened an assembly in Kabul to boost security and seek an end to militancy undermining both governments.

Over the next three days, tribal leaders, government officials, and other influential representatives from Afghanistan and Pakistan will discuss a common strategy to confront support for Al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters.

Officials from both countries said the main aim of their first joint council -- the "peace jirga," or assembly -- is to find paths to restoring peace in the region.

Some notable absences include Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, who according to RFE/RL "pulled out of the assembly at the last moment to deal with reported security threats in his home country" and - can this be a coincidence? - "delegations from Pakistan's North and South Waziristan -- tribal areas where insurgents reportedly get much of their support."

Could the Taliban's expected no-show also have a relation to these other absences?

As Afghan presidential spokesman said about the Taliban's failure to participate - and I paraphrase - chalk it up the fact they don't value peace.

Where in Kabul exactly is the tribal peace jirga taking place? Well, duh, inside a huge tent.

How Iraqis see suicide bombers

RFE/RL's Baghdad correspondent, Hassan Rashid, reports from the front:

Mostly, [Iraqi's] view them as so incomprehensible that they label them all foreigners, saying Iraq itself has no tradition of such perverse actions.

But...

Ahmad, a restaurant owner in central Baghdad, says that he regards the suicide bomber "as a criminal, and I imagine him as being a simpleton who has been subjected to some form of brainwashing. He is a simple person.

As he went on to say:

"The sheikhs and the Islamists who are brainwashing this or that person, claiming that this is a humanitarian act that would lead to having lunch with the Prophet, and that this act will be credited to you and you will enter heaven...that is the real crime."

As the report continues:

Many Iraqis of all classes say extreme religious views are responsible for creating suicide bombers and for spreading the suicide culture in Iraqi society. But people differ over who to blame.

There are those, such as Ass'ad, a civil engineer, who lay the blame exclusively on clerics.

"This is the ultimate crime," says Ass'ad. "You know those who call for jihad and so on? This is brainwashing. The sheikhs and the Islamists who are brainwashing this or that person, claiming that this is a humanitarian act that would lead to having lunch with the Prophet, and that this act will be credited to you and you will enter heaven...that is the real crime."

Others, like journalist-writer Ali al-Maliki, say the problem lies in the multiple interpretations that can be given to religious texts by extremists.

...Mudhhir al-Alusi, a specialist in Islamic studies, also sees the problem as improper interpretation of texts.

"The cause is the difference in the concept of Islam among Muslims," he says...

An Iraqi researcher who prefers not to give his name says improper reading of religious texts leads to "great mistakes."

"The wrong reading of anything creates a negative situation; even when you read a story with a negative attitude, that will generate a negative condition within you," the researcher says. "And when you read the Koran, the religious texts, the sayings of the Prophet and the caliphs, and others, and you understand them in a mistaken manner, that would all lead you to the 'great mistake' zone."

I have to say, all of the above explanations sound reasonable to me.

Iran

Tribes in Syria pulling together too

From Akhbar al-Sharq (in Syria, via Memri):

Representatives from 55 Syrian Arab tribes have declared the establishment of a joint association called the "Party of the Nation."

A communiqué released by the party stated that it "will function democratically, together with the other opposition forces, to change Assad's criminal dictatorial regime."

I don't even think I have to comment here. (But I can't help myself: If this is true and they are true to their word, good for them.)

Southern Iraq: Tribes apparently getting sick of outside interference here too

The Christian Science Monitor reports on the factional differences emerging in Iraq's southern provinces.

The Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC), one of the most powerful Shiite parties, is leading the charge to form an autonomous "South of Baghdad Region."

But 45 southern tribal notables in Najaf last week signed their own pact that envisions creating "the self-rule government of the unified Iraqi south."

Here briefly are the differences in the two proposals.

The "South of Baghdad" region the SIIC wants to carve out would include Babil, Basra, Dhi Qar, Diwaniyah (also known as Qadisiyah), Karbala, Maysan, Muthana, Najaf, and Wasit, according to the Monitor report. Under the Iraqi constitution, if this region is approved, it could adopt its own constitution, make and enforce its own laws, erect its own security force, create and manage its own foreign policy, and protect its own sovereignty in the case of any conflict with the central government. In other words, Iraq's main Shiite party - sometimes referred to as Iran's proxy in Iraq - wants to essentially carve out its own state in this "South of Baghdad" region.

So what do the tribes want to do? According to the Monitor, tribal leaders from Basra, Dhi Qar, Diwaniyah, Maysan, and Muthana provinces have come up with a plan that would create self-rule in a unified Iraqi south - going so far as to already elect a president and state that they will create a 130-member legislative body to be comprised of sheikhs and experts.

As one tribal leader, Sheikh Abdul-Karim al-Mahamadawi from Maysan told the Monitor, the tribes' vision would allocate more powers to the "real southerners" who are still committed to the idea of an Iraqi nation: "The sons of the south have been marginalized in every way ... it's as if Saddam's dictatorship has been replaced with another one," as he told the newspaper.

As usual, it is the tribes' position that resonates with me. I wouldn't want to find myself living in an Iranian province either were I a "real southerner" - or any kind of person for that matter.

Is this another bet for the tribes?

Stuart Koehl of the Center for Transatlantic Relations at Johns Hopkins University - SAIS writes in to The Campaign Spot:

The error being made—on your part as well as by others—is assuming that progress can only be made at the level of the national government. In fact, under the Iraqi constitution, the national government is rather weak, while traditionally real political power has been wielded on the local and regional level. And it is precisely at the local and regional level that we see real progress being made with regard both to power sharing and national reconciliation. Because of the social and constitutional structure of Iraq, political progress cannot be imposed from the top-down, but must percolate from the bottom up. To some extent, the members of the national assembly and the unity government are merely play-acting, posturing for the cameras until such time as a consensus emerges on the local level that will prompt them to act. The success of our counter-insurgency effort on the political front is not measured in the assembly chamber, but in the tribal councils. And there, we are definitely winning.

Bet on the tribes

Is the message I get from today's Wall Street Journal report - not to mention other accounts regarding what's going on in Iraq now. From the Journal:

To understand how the U.S. managed to bring relative calm to Iraq's unruly Anbar province, it helps to pay a visit to Sheik Hamid Heiss's private compound.

On a recent morning, a 25-year-old Marine Corps lieutenant from Ohio stacked $97,259 in cash in neat piles on Sheik Heiss's gilded tea table. The money paid for food for the sheik's tribe and for two school renovation projects on which the sheik himself is the lead contractor. Even the marble-floored meeting hall where the cash was handed over reflects recent U.S. largesse: The Marines paid Sheik Heiss and his family $127,175 to build it on his private compound.

Lt. Col. Silverman and Sheik Heiss at ribbon-cutting for U.S.-built meeting hall.
Such payments have encouraged local leaders in this vast desert expanse to help the U.S. oust al Qaeda extremists and restore a large measure of stability and security. Today, Anbar is averaging about 100 attacks a week, down from 425 a week last year. On the main street in Ramadi, Anbar's main city, Iraqi laborers are removing three years of accumulated rubble that couldn't be carted off previously because of the threat of sniper fire. They're fixing sewer lines shredded by years of roadside bombs. The work is taking place on the same thoroughfare where al Qaeda in Iraq late last year staged a parade of fighters that was posted on Jihadi Web sites.

"For three years we fought our asses off out here and made very little progress," says Lt. Col. Michael Silverman, who oversees an 800-soldier battalion in Ramadi. "Now we are working with the sheiks, and Ramadi has gone from the most dangerous city in the world to a place where I can sit on Sheik Heiss's front porch without my body armor and not have to worry about getting shot."

The Journal seems to be hinting there might be something unsavory about compensating tribal leaders to come to the American side. But why would anyone think this when other allies in the Middle East are richly rewarded for the same? Egypt and Jordan, for example get $2 and $1 billion a year respectively to keep peace with Israel, which gets its own $3 billion or so a year for its special relationship with the U.S. The tribal alliance described above seems to be a relative bargain.

Anyway, Brig. Gen. John Allen, a person who has helped put these tribal alliances together in Iraq said he was inspired by Gertrude Bell, the Arabist who drew up the modern map of the Middle East after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire during World War One. As the Journal reports:

"When the tribes are at their best they live in a condition of splendid equilibrium," says Gen. Allen, quoting Ms. Bell. The lesson, he says, "is that the tribes are constantly shifting alliances to suit economic and security needs." In the process, they are also testing boundaries with U.S. forces and each other to see how far they can expand their power. About three-quarters of Iraq's population, both Sunni and Shiite, are members of one of the nation's 150 tribes...

The sheiks oversee vast business networks that often include some cross-border smuggling, say the Marines. They award spoils and arbitrate disputes within the tribe. They also seek to place members in key jobs throughout the local and national government so that they can deliver money, power and influence. "Tribal society makes up the tectonic plates in Iraq on which everything rests," says Gen. Allen.

After the Baathist regime was deposed in Iraq, the Sunni tribes first aligned with Al Qaeda against the U.S. coalition. But as the WSJ reports, this alliance didn't last long:

The al Qaeda leadership quickly moved to seize power from the tribal sheiks and institute Sharia law, which hews to a strict interpretation of the Quran. The tribal sheiks, who tend to be more moderate Muslims -- some keep a few bottles of whiskey stashed in their homes -- balked at that, and al Qaeda operatives began to slaughter them.

After losing too many family members to the terrorists, Sheikh Sattar Al-Risha from Ramadi, approached the Americans about a possible alliance:

The U.S. parked an M-1 tank in front of Sheik Sattar's house and began to train his men. Other tribal leaders in Ramadi such as Sheik Heiss began to rally to Sheik Sattar's side. Soon the Ramadi sheiks were leading a force of some 2,100 men. With the help of U.S. forces, who provided training and backup firepower, they had by March essentially pushed the radical Islamists out of Ramadi toward Baghdad.

Seeing the success of the tribal alliance in Ramadi, the Americans decided to cultivate other tribal leaders, even ones waiting out the hostilities in Syria and Jordan.

Gen. Allen began to make regular trips to Jordan to meet with exiled sheiks. His top priority was to convince Sheik Mishan al Jumaily, the head of the powerful Jumaily tribe, to return from Syria. U.S. forces had killed one of his four sons in 2003 by mistake at a checkpoint. A second of the sheik's sons was killed by radical Islamists in 2005. "After he was killed, my wife died of a broken heart," Sheik Mishan says...

In late June, Sheik Mishan's third son was killed, by a roadside bomb outside of Fallujah. The following day he called Gen. Allen and said he wanted to return to Iraq. The general immediately jumped on a military plane to Amman and on the fourth of July escorted the sheik back to his front door.

With the support of the two main tribes in Fallujah, the Marines trained an 800-man "provincial security force" to fight al Qaeda and man checkpoints in the areas outside of Fallujah where the terrorists had found support, primarily from Sheik Mishan's own people. The Sheik's presence, combined with U.S. training and reconstruction contracts, helped galvanize the tribe. Attacks on U.S. and Iraqi army forces in Fallujah plummeted in a matter of weeks.

As the WSJ report concludes:

Today, the sheiks' biggest fear is that the Americans will leave them to the devices of a failing, sectarian government in Baghdad. Recently, the U.S. military flew a small group of national security experts to Anbar province to have dinner with Fallujah sheiks at the Marines' base. The think-tankers, who hailed from the Brookings Institution, listened as the sheiks, who came from the Jumaily and Issa tribes, described their frustrations. "We have gotten rid of al Qaeda but we have other organizations that are worse," said Sheik Mishan, referring to the Iraqi government.

One of the Fallujah sheiks then reached out a hand and placed it on Gen. Allen's knee. "This is my government," he said proudly.

Gen. Allen sighed. "Unfortunately, that is the problem," he said.

I'm not sure why Gen. Allen made this last remark. Hasn't the U.S. done pretty well with other tribal allies in the region? For example the Gulf monarchies, sometimes derisively referred to as tribes with flags. As allies go, these tribal monarchies seem pretty reliable to me. Sure their justice systems can seem a little too swift and brutal, but then again, I'm sure they could make the same complaint about the way we go about trying to right the world's wrongs.

It really is too bad none of our nations are perfect as it would be nice to always hold the higher moral position. Anyway, were I in charge here, I'd be placing more bets on the tribes. I bet they're not even on vacation this month.

Yusef, Mali

Uploaded on January 20, 2007 by bdinphoenix

The photographer writes:

Yusef is a Toureg young man who invited me to his tent in Mali to share a cup of Toureg tea with him and four of his friends. I accepted and had a delightful conversation with them. He is one of six young men who take a 1500 camel caravan of salt from their village, approximately 26 kilometers from Timbuktu, to Timbuktu to trade for goods such as sugar once every three months.

Ahmed, Timbuktu

Ahmed, originally uploaded by mobilevirgin.

More than you ever imagined behind this door in Timbuktu

timbuktu door, originally uploaded by roadwarrior.

Timbuktu rising

If the Gulf countries are resuscitating the Silk Road, look what the plans are for Timbuktu. (That's in Mali, in case you forgot your high school geography). From the New York Times:

A surge of interest in ancient books, hidden for centuries in houses along Timbuktu’s dusty streets and in leather trunks in nomad camps, is raising hopes that Timbuktu — a city whose name has become a staccato synonym for nowhere — may once again claim a place at the intellectual heart of Africa. . .

This ancient city, a prisoner of the relentless sands of the Sahara and a changing world that prized access to the sea over the grooves worn by camel hooves across the dunes, is on the verge of a renaissance.

“We want to build an Alexandria for black Africa,” said Mohamed Dicko, director of the Ahmed Baba Institute, a government-run library in Timbuktu. “This is our chance to regain our place in history.”

Mr. Dicko isn't working alone either. The South African government is providing assistance, as are governments and NGOs in Europe, the United States, and the Middle East. As the Times report continues:

This new chapter in the story of Timbuktu, whose fortunes fell in the twilight of the Middle Ages, is almost as extraordinary as those that preceded it.

The geography that has doomed Timbuktu to obscurity in the popular imagination for half a millennium was once the reason for its greatness. It was founded as a trading post by nomads in the 11th century and later became part of the vast Mali Empire, then ultimately came under the control of the Songhai Empire.

For centuries it flourished because it sat between the great superhighways of the era — the Sahara, with its caravan routes carrying salt, cloth, spices and other riches from the north, and the Niger River, which carried gold and slaves from the rest of West Africa.

Traders brought books and manuscripts from across the Mediterranean and Middle East, and books were bought and sold in Timbuktu — in Arabic and local languages like Songhai and Tamashek, the language of the Tuareg people.

Timbuktu was home to the University of Sankore, which at its height had 25,000 scholars. An army of scribes, gifted in calligraphy, earned their living copying the manuscripts brought by travelers. Prominent families added those copies to their own libraries. As a result, Timbuktu became a repository of an extensive and eclectic collection of manuscripts.

But this Golden Age, unfortunately, wasn't to last forever:

Moroccan invaders deposed the Songhai empire in 1591, and the new rulers were hostile to the community of scholars, who were seen as malcontents. Facing persecution, many fled, taking many books with them.

West African sea routes overtook the importance of the old inland desert and river trade, and the city began its long decline. When the first European explorers stumbled across the once fabled city, they were stunned at its decrepitude. René Caillié, a French explorer who arrived here in 1828, said it was “a mass of ill-looking houses built of earth.”

Mr. Caillié’s description remains accurate today.

Let's hope Timbuktu gets its second shot at being the intellectual capital of Africa.

Somali

Abdul Arts, regular readers will recall, is a Somali refugee living in Egypt. I hope he's not feeling too homesick over there.

More tribes uniting against terrorism in Iraq

Centcom reports:

Eighteen paramount tribal leaders representing 14 of the major tribes in Diyala province, Iraq, swore on the Quran and signed a peace agreement unifying the tribes in the battle against terrorism during a meeting at the Baqubah Government Center Aug. 2. . .

“The tribal leaders can change the hearts of the people,” said Sheik Mahmood Abdul-Shinba Al-Hassani. “Instead of cheering for the terrorists driving through the streets, the people will cheer for the Iraqi security forces in the streets.”

“The terrorists are not that many,” said Sheik Adnan Abdul-Mehdi Al-Anbaki. “We have to stand together and we need to kill the terrorists. We know who they are.”

As the Centcom dispatch continued:

After discussing tribal differences and why it is important to unite, the sheiks signed a reconciliation agreement and swore over the Quran as a promise to uphold the agreement.

As stated in the Quran, “And hold fast, all together, by the rope which God (stretches out for you), and be not divided among yourselves,” the sheiks agreed to ten conditions.

Some conditions of the peace treaty include ending tribal conflicts and attacks; cooperating with the ISF; fighting al-Qaida, militia groups and other terrorist organizations; working with the security forces to eradicate corrupt members; returning displaced families to their homes; reporting and removing improvised explosive devices; and respecting all sects, religions and women’s rights.

Sounds like it could be a peace plan to me.

Ethnic view of Pakistan

Afghanistan's main ethnic groups

National Geographic Ethnic Map of Afghanistan

Hazara girl, uploaded on June 27, 2007 by aghaznawi.

See Aghaznawi's photoessay on the Hazara here.

Hazara history has it that this Central Asian people are direct descendants of Genghis Khan. Or maybe their ancestors were the people who constructed the Buddhas of Bamyan that the Taliban destroyed in 2001.

Report from the front

Following is my email interview with Waliullah Rahmani, an analyst who covers terrorism and related issues for the Jamestown Foundation. He is also a correspondent for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and was an analyst for saudidebate.com.

Based in his native Afghanistan, and fluent in Farsi, Pushto, Urdu, and English, I sought out Rahmani since he is one of the very few experts in this area who has this level of linguistic penetration and actually reports from ground zero, so to speak.

Who are you?

I am Waliullah Rahmani. I studied management and now work on Terrorism, political Islam and Middle East issues.

How did you end up covering jihad in Afghanistan and would you rather be running some company?

First, I have to say, what is going on in Afghanistan is not Jihad. It is an insurgency. The violence and extremist actions are directed against a democratic and legitimate government that was selected by the Afghans and supported by the international community. We do not have Jihad in Afghanistan but only anti-government extremists who call themselves the Taliban who are supported by Al Qaida and engaged in anti-government activities. They are not widely supported..

So why is what we see in Afghanistan not Jihad?

First, while the jihadis may call this jihad, there is no basis for this. Jihad has specific standards. And what is going on in Afghanistan has nothing to do with how Islam defines it.

Can you explain?

The very common meaning of Islamic Jihad or holy war is to fight against the nonIslamic countries, occupier, or the infidel forces. Based on this definition, the extremists' war against an Islamic government based on an Islamic constitution and against foreign forces who are under the supervision of this government and have entered the country with agreement of that for reconstruction and security of Afghanistan is not Jihad. It is called Baghawat (insurgency) against a legitimate government.

So how did you end up to covering terrorism, insurgency, and extremism?

Well I am a person who belongs to this country (Afghanistan) - good or bad. Like every Afghan, the main issue for me is insecurity. So we have to devote a lot of effort to securing this country which means combating terrorism and violence. Everyone has to do their share. I felt these issues had to be covered from an Afghan prospective. We could not have just Westerners providing the in-depth analysis to policy makers in the Afghan political arena. So I’m doing what I think I should be doing for my country.

Is your work risky?

Certainly. We face the Taliban, Al Qaida, and other extremists who want to suffocate every voice. Ajmal Naghashbandi, the Afghan journalist who was beheaded earlier this year in Helmand Province, reminded everyone what could happen to anyone who dares to speak or write the truth about what is going on here.

Well you talked generally of threats. Do you face any threat in your field work?

I do. In Afghanistan every thinker who wants to research in the field faces many threats. For example, researchers and thinkers run the risk of being called spies for the government or foreign forces because research is something strange for them. Because of this, the Taliban kill journalists and brutally.

So how do you protect yourself?

Well, I use different methods. First, I never let anyone really know where I am going when I travel to the south or other dangerous areas. Second, I wear local clothes. Since I have a beard and and speak the local languages, I can blend in fairly well. The goal is to be able to pass myself off as an ordinary passenger. I am also careful about never appearing in any Afghan media, so that not many people know who I am or what I really do.

Who is the most talented jihadist or strategist commander?

Since Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Osmani and Mullah Dadullah Taliban were killed, we have not seen any leader emerge with any similar strategic vision and leadership ability. Mansoor Dadullah, Mullah Dadullah’s half-brother, who was named as his replacement is not thought to have the same strategic depth or command presence his brother did. He has been able to carry on the violence, terror and suicide attacks, however.

I saw you reported that Mullah Omar objected to his selection but apparently was overruled by Al Qaeda. Why and what does this mean?

When Mullah Dadullah joined the Taliban, he was a soldier but soon became a high-ranking commander. During his command, he was willful and didn’t care much about Mullah Omar’s orders. Once during the Taliban’s governance in Kabul, he entered the capital and ordered his soldiers to eat food which had been prepared for the cabinet members’ lunch.

So Mullah Omar opposed the selection of Mullah Mansoor because Omar thought that Mansoor might be too much like his brother, Mullah Dadullah. But Al Qaeda supported the Mullah Mansoor leadership style. They wanted a brutal commander to lead their Neo-Taliban. Al Qaida wanted to replace Mullah Dadullah with someone who would act like Zarqawi had in Iraq. This shows that there is a wide rift between the Taliban and Al Qaida.

Do you see the jihadists’ base of support growing?

Unfortunately yes. Reports from the south and other parts of the country suggest that the extremists’ activities are intensifying and that locals are involved. An officer of the Afghan National Army told me recently that four years ago he could go anywhere with his vehicle and alone. Now he can’t even get from his home in Kabul to the base in Midan Wardak Province fifteen kilometers away without bodyguards. Perhaps it’s like the early years of the Jihad against Soviets. We now have the Taliban targeting military bases just as the Mujahideen used to attack the Russians.

So they don’t target civilians in Afghanistan?

No, they do kill civilians but don’t want to continue doing so it appears because in suicide attacks civilians are usually the victims. The Taliban is now dedicated to stopping the civilian killings, but they are still happy to kidnap people.

How can villagers really like these people, don’t they see what they are?

Well, Afghan villagers are mostly illiterate, extremely religious, traditional, and superstitious and the Taliban knows how to capture the imagination of this type of mentality.

Also the Afghan government and coalition forces have not been careful enough in avoiding civilian casualties and any time civilians are killed, you have villagers who then want to join the anti-government forces so they can take revenge.

The Taliban’s extreme dogma and anti-government stance seems reasonable to the villagers.

What motivates the Taliban?

Well I don’t know about their real motives, because these cannot be probed. But according to their actions and speeches, they say they are against the presence of foreign forces in Afghanistan. They call these forces occupiers. Second, they call the present Afghan state a client of the foreigners. And third, they say their goal is to revive God’s government in God’s land, - that is, Amarat Islami.

You don’t think you’ll see a similar revolt in Afghanistan as we’re seeing in places like Anbar Province in Iraq where the Sunnis have figured out that Al Qaeda is also a foreign occupying force and one that is harsher and has longer designs than the Americans and their coalition?

No, I don’t think the situation might change in this way in Afghanistan. What you see in Iraq is completely different from Afghanistan. Al Qaida is Sunni , comprised mostly of Wahhabi Muslims and it is behind most of the sectarian violence in Iraq. But after years of violence, the Hanafi Sunnis of Iraq are now rethinking their alliance with the Wahhabis in Al Qaeda because they were a nation as Iraqis for many decades.

But what we see in Afghanistan is different from Iraq. In Afghanistan, Al Qaeda was born and raised. Then this jihad network established subgroups outside of Afghanistan, in other countries.

Afghans especially in the southern and eastern provinces care about their traditions. In Pushtunwali and traditional Afghan culture, if a person comes into the domain of a tribe seeking shelter, he is respected as a guest to the extent that the members of the tribe would give their life for this guest rather than turn him in to his enemy. These types of traditions are the obstacle to any revolt against Al Qaeda in many parts of Afghanistan.

So Afghanistan is losing yet another generation to Jihad?

Unfortunately, the answer to that question is yes. In the past five years, once again, Afghan youth have lost almost all access to other types of opportunities.

Can you talk about some of the friends you have lost? Do your Hazara friends subscribe to the Taliban’s jihad too?

My friends have not joined the Taliban. Because they are Hazara and mostly Shia and they don’t subscribe to the Taliban’s insurgency.

But there may be some Sunni Hazara, members of Hizb-e Islami and other Islamist parties, who may have joined.


What is your advice on how to counter Jihad?

Well as I said before, Jihad has conditions and every brutal action against humans should not be called Jihad. It’s not only inaccurate, it is also counter productive to keep using this word jihad. Because even if this serves the jihadists’ purposes, you do not want ordinary Muslims feeling that they have to join this jihad to fight a war they are being told is against Islam.

So to counter the violence and insurgency then, first and foremost, the government has to provide economic opportunity for its citizens. As long as there is high unemployment, the Taliban will have a recruitment angle. Then the government also has to extend services to the villagers. Right now only Kabul is being properly served and Afghanistan is not only Kabul. Also, government corruption must be reined in otherwise people won’t trust the government.

The government also needs to counter the Taliban’s message. It needs to encourage the moderate interpretation of Islam to counter the fanatical one. Afghans are a traditional and deeply religious people. The mullahs play key roles so the government needs to promote moderate clerics who can counter the radical interpretation of Islam being espoused by the extremists.

Finally, something has to be done to diminish the ethnic tension in the country. The government can’t stand by as Uzbeks or Hazara get slaughtered.

Why are the Uzbeks and Hazara being attacked?

Well Afghanistan is a country where tribe and ethnicity is very important for people. So though there is a democratic government in place, many officials only work to strengthen their tribe or ethnic group.

In the case of the Uzbeks, the most sensitive issue was the violence which occurred in Shiberghan where many Uzbek civilians were killed. The governor was not Uzbek, so there was ethnic tension.

In the case of the Hazara people, the nomadic Kochies came to Hazarajat and ethnic tensions flared and many Hazaras were killed. Unfortunately, some people were under the influence of the Taliban and it almost became a national crisis. After 50 days of violence in the Behsud district, the Shia politicians in the central government decided unofficially to leave if something was not done to force the Kochies to leave the district.

And do you really think that any central government based in Kabul could really gain control of all of Afghanistan? Isn’t this just some Western pipedream? Would a better approach be to hold the tribes responsible for their areas of influence as opposed to politicians in Kabul?

Based on democracy, a government never can implement its orders and demands through force or brutal actions. What the government can do is pave the ground for getting elected leaders in every province and district.

Unfortunately, now whoever is sent to a province is just responsible to President Karzai or the interior minister, not the people. So these provincial leaders never need to take into account the peoples’ expectations.

If the provinces could elect their own leaders, they could hold them accountable. It doesn’t matter if it’s federalism or democracy - in my view, this is the only way to strengthen the central government and secure and develop Afghanistan.

Thank you for your comments, Rahmani. May God keep you out of harm’s way.

Sharon, you are welcome. Thanks for your prayers for me.

The detainee wants to stay in Gitmo

The London Times reports:

Ahmed Belbacha fears that he will be tortured or killed if the United States goes ahead with plans to return him to his native Algeria. . .

“Ahmed is being held in camp six, the harshest part of Guantanamo,” he said. “His cell is all steel, there are no windows, he is not allowed to communicate with other prisoners and he gets just two hours exercise each day in a metal cage.

“He says his cell in Guantanamo is like a grave and that although it sounds crazy he would rather stay in those conditions than go back to Algeria. The fact is that he is really, really scared about what might happen to him in Algeria.”

According to what he says, this guy has had some pretty bad luck in life:

Mr Belbacha, 38, fled Algeria in 1999 at the height of the brutal civil war between the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) and the Algerian Government.

He was an accountant for a state-owned oil company, Sonatrach, when he was called for a second spell of military service. The call-up was followed by death threats to him and his family from the GIA, which killed thousands of state employees during the 1990s. . .

Mr Belbacha claims that in July 2001 he was persuaded by friends to go to Pakistan to undertake religious study. While there he crossed the border into Afghanistan.

When the US-led invasion began in response to the September 11 attacks he crossed back into Pakistan. He claims that in December 2001 he was apprehended by villagers near Peshawar, in northwest Pakistan, and sold to the authorities for a bounty.

Today's lesson on freedom of expression

Comes from Wall Street Journal Daniel Schwammenthal who writes:

A British court last week sentenced four men to up to six years in prison for inciting murder and racial hatred. The men were among the hundreds of Muslims who in February of last year met after Friday prayers at London's Regent's Park mosque and marched to Denmark's embassy to protest the Muhammad cartoons that had been published in Danish newspapers. Like other such rallies, this protest descended into calls for terror and the beheadings of those who "insult Islam."

As he explains the law in Britain:

Even in the Anglo-Saxon tradition, where freedom of expression has always known fewer limitations than in Continental Europe, it is not an absolute right. Laws regulating obscenity and hate speech have long set boundaries for what can be considered legitimate speech.

In this case, the slogans the men were chanting and had written on their placards were more than offensive; they were calls to mass murder. They were not vague threats that a society could afford to tolerate. Instead, by referring to actual acts of terror, the men's words took on a concrete, menacing character. Among the threats they shouted were: "U.K. you will pay, 7/7 on its way," "Oh Allah, we want to see another 9/11," "Bomb, bomb Denmark, bomb, bomb U.S.A." and "Bomb, bomb the U.K."

As he continues:

In fighting the war on terror, the challenge for Western societies is usually defined as finding the right balance between security and preserving the freedoms that make our democratic societies worth defending. But that's not the whole story. Terrorists and their supporters threaten not just our lives; they also threaten our freedom -- including our freedom of speech. . .

If the the state is not allowed to stop Islamists' incitement to murder and terror, their speech may eventually be the only one that remains "free."

A Somalian refugee in Egypt sends his condolences to Korea

As Abdul the cartoonist writes:

Dear Sharon, I send you this cartoon about the Taliban hiding the hostages of Korea and the US military searching it..I want to express my sorrow about killing Korean Hostages. It's sad news..I wish you will publish.

Happy to oblige, Abdul, and thanks.