- FEBRUARY 10, 2010
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AFPAK
Why We Shouldn't Listen to Gen. McChrystal
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MEIN KAMPF
Discrediting Hitler's Tome
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IRAN
Regime Change Isn't Coming
Lost in translation?
Posted By Stephen M. Walt
Wednesday, April 22, 2009 - 4:35 PM
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The Obama administration has said that a purely military victory is not possible in Afghanistan, and promised to devote greater attention to civilian "nation-building." Journalist/historian Gareth Porter questions the feasibility of this approach, pointing out that the United States lacks anywhere near the number of Pashto speakers that such a strategy would require. I'l let him take it from here:
Pashtuns who represent about 42 percent of the population of Afghanistan. It is in the Pashtun southern and eastern regions of the country that the complex insurgency that has come to be called the Taliban has been able to organise and often effectively govern at the village level in recent years.Uh-oh.
'If all you are going to do is kill the bad guys, then you don’t need a lot of Pashto speakers,' said Larry Goodson of the Department of National Security and Strategy at the National War College, who was a member of the team assembled by CENTCOM commander Gen. David Petraeus to formulate a proposal for Afghanistan and Pakistan. But an effort to win over Pashto-speaking Afghans cannot succeed without officials who can communicate effectively in Pashto.
According to Chris Mason, who was a member of the Interagency Group on Afghanistan from early 2002 until September 2005, the Pashtuns of southern Afghanistan are 'proto-insurgents,' meaning that they are 'naturally averse to the imposition of external order.'
The United States needs 'thousands' of Pashto speakers to have any chance of success in winning them over, said Mason, recalling that 5,000 U.S. officials had learned Vietnamese by the end of the Vietnam War. 'The Foreign Service Institute should be turning out 200 to 300 Pashto speakers a year,' he said.
But according to an official at the State Department's Bureau of Human Resources, the United States has turned out a total of only 18 Foreign Service officers who can speak Pashto, and only two of them are now serving in Afghanistan –- both apparently in Kabul.
The Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California trains roughly 30 to 40 military personnel in Pashto each year, according to media relations officer Brian Lamar, most of whom are enlisted men in military intelligence.
That indicates that there are very few U.S. nationals capable of working with local Pashtuns on development and political problems. The National War College's Goodson said the almost complete absence of Pashto-speaking U.S. officials in Afghanistan 'belies the U.S. commitment to a nation-building and counter-insurgency approach.'"
MASSOUD HOSSAINI/AFP/Getty Images
In "Ghost Wars", Steve Coll documents how because Americans were unfamiliar on all the different tribes and languages in the region, they came to rely upon the Pakistanis to select which groups would receive American aid against the Soviets. Anytime the U.S. made small steps to learn about the area on their own, without a Pakistani filter, they were blocked by the Pakistanis. Now, we are still dependent on Islamabad to tell us which are the good guys and the bad guys. Of course, their notions may of good and bad may not match ours, but if they can use the U.S. to advance their own interests, all the better.
...from Rosetta Stone? This is a truly sobering revelation on our ability make a dent in bringing the Pashtun folks over to our side.
Nation-imagining to save the state
"nation-building."
Professor I found a better expression in place of this "nation-building". Let's call this "nation-imagining" to save the state as a tribute to one of your favorite book writer:-)
yeah, yeah, go "nation imagining" to save the state there, have you decided how many of them you are going to imagine yet;->>
Now you have saved the State at home, it is time to save it on the skirts of Himalayas;->
You Guys have a very, very short memory. On the one hand you boast that the SU's collaps started by Afghan "nation-imagining" affair, on the other the same affair attracts you so much, you wouldn't mind a similar doom. I am watching with delight the way you path to make the State redundant by crowning Obama yet as another African King. You yourselves are not enough to "Nation-imagining" there, call NATO/OTAN, Russians, Usame Bin Laden, Gengis Han, here is Alaaddin's Lamp for you, call his Genie to help you;->>
But please, don't call me, even I can't help you Guys;->>
I can imagine Bushes laughing at Obama with their... saying "Yeah, yeah, Yesss you can!".
Grand Sen~or.
Looks like it's panic time for Obama on Pakistan:
Panicky US asks Pak to take stand against terrorists
23 Apr 2009, 0110 hrs IST, Chidanand Rajghatta, TNN
WASHINGTON: A stunned Obama administration said on Wednesday that Pakistan posed a "mortal threat" to the United States and world even as a rampant Taliban moved to within 60 miles of Islamabad by taking control of Buner district just outside the capital region.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Panicky-US-asks-Pak-to-take-stand-against-terrorists-/articleshow/4437334.cms
Color me not shocked. For starters, Pashto doesn't exactly have a lot of utility outside of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and parts of Central Asia - and once the US is gone, where are the business/employment/enrichment opportunities?
Speaking of 'Lost in translation.'
It is even worse. See this Guardian film of the same title:
http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=1702
I second Brett. I'm trying to learn Persian in the hopes of working at the State Dep., and I'm going to Tajikistan this summer to study more. But I'm worried about putting all my eggs in the State Dep. basket, as if that doesn't work out I'll be in debt with few opportunities to seek. More so than with Pashto, of course, but not many - there aren't too many American businesses looking to invest in Iran, Afghanistan, or Tajikistan.
putting all my eggs in the State Dep. basket, as if that doesn't work out I'll be in debt with few opportunities to seek.
I suggest you also learn how to shoot at dummy targets, so that you can join one of those PCG units. You'll be well paid, as long as you keep your fingers crossed;->>>
Grand Sen~or.
At least you can read Khayyam and Hafez in the original.
That's got to be worth something.
It is not just translation. It's the entire misdirected Af-Pak policy of Obama administration: the hyphenation is probably the ultimate insult.What have Obama policy makers really done :they spiced up stale Bush administation's Afghanistan and Pakistan policies with a few aromatic herbs and presented it as something new.
What's unfolding in Pakistan is really tragic and it will soon give the policy makers and academicians like Prof.Walt the chance to write the epitaph of "Af-Pak".
As things stand today, very soon we will read the signpost: Welcome to Fundamentalist(or it can be Pure or Talibaan: we will not decide) Islamic State of Pakistan. This is no hyperbole.Mind you!
What have Obama policy makers really done :they spiced up stale Bush administation's Afghanistan and Pakistan policies with a few aromatic herbs and presented it as something new.
It looks to me like Obama has no idea how to get something that americans would call a "successful" outcome. And rather than admit defeat and have many americans angry at him for the rest of their lives because somebody else promised they could "win" and they'll think he gave up when we were about to win, instead I think he's looking for a reason to say it isn't his fault.
If some external event happens that *requires* us to pull out of afghanistan, something that Obama could not be held responsible for, something he could not be held responsible for foreseeing, then it will not seem to be his fault.
Can you think of anything like that? If Obama's critics can't even imagine something happening that would require the USA to withdraw from afghanistan short of victory, then they can't very well blame him when it happens. Obama can use Bush's mantra. "Nobody could have predicted this would happen."
Send students to learn languages
Several points:
(1) Who is responsible for the lack of Pashto fluent soldiers and civilians? Fire them! If it is not clear who is responsible, make it clear who is responsible and fire those responsible for not recognizing that someone should be responsible.
(2) What to do about opium and the drug economy in Afghanistan does not get much attention. I do not see how we can both nation build and reduce opium production at the same time. It's just too much.
(3) Don't we have the same issue with the other languages of Afghanistan and, even more importantly, Pakistan. We should take $10 million of the $1.5 billion aid program for Pakistan and send 1,000 US high school and college students to Pakistan to learn their languages.
It’s not just the translators that are missing in the Af-Pak policy. Hyphenation of Af-Pak is problematic: Afghanistan and Pakistan have different terrorism dynamics and so require separate set of solutions.
Civil war is raging in Afghanistan for the past fifteen years and before that Afghans remained at war with Soviet forces for more than a year. So a unique set of conditions like warlordism, ethnicity, economic impoverishment, and, most of all, rise of a generation that have lived only in the refugee camps spawned militancy. Look at the profiles of Talibaan leaders: most of them are war orphans, raised in refugee camps and taught harsh interpretation of Quran. Life has been a brutal reality for them. And their worldview is dark: life can only be understood and tackled with sheer barbarism and virulent concept of Islam.
After the invasion of Afghanistan, Al-Qaeda and Talibaan took refuge in Pakistan’s tribal regions. These are called safe havens of terrorists in the US media. And as these are considered launching pads for attacking NATO forces, so the need was felt for a joint strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan. And the result is Af-Pak policy.
The policy is flawed as it ignores the fact that terrorist activities are no more limited to border regions of Pakistan but have crept into the settled areas. Most important, this policy also disregards the matrix fuelling terrorism in Pakistan. A complex web of factors, most of them home-grown, have led to the rise of Talibaan in the North, and unless these are understood and addressed separately, militants will continue their march towards the heartland of Pakistan.
Stephen M. Walt is the Robert and Renée Belfer professor of international relations at Harvard University.
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