Charlie Rose

tartufe  02/23/2009 09:47 PM Report

fred - nice analysis. The Pashtuns are doubtless the only legitimate tribe in the region. Us gringos with our techno-killing machinery - a tribe of mercenaries, guns-for-hire, all volunteer career soldiers, totally misplaced as the British and Russians before them. But Raytheon et al can hear the electronic 1,0's accumulating megabucks in their offshore taxhaven bank accounts.

hrc  02/23/2009 07:18 PM Report

More of the same, how many ghosts can we kill and how fast. Yes, kill them all, kill them.

fredschumacher  02/23/2009 04:40 PM Report

I was stunned to hear Holbrooke conflate al Qaeda, the Taliban, Vale of Swat, and the Mumbai attack as being all part of the same thing since they're in the same area. That's like saying Obama, Boehner and Lindbaugh are all the same since they come from the same area.

The one observation of use was that for 70% of the Taliban's soldiers being involved in the war was an employment scheme. That's right on the money. All over the world, warlord cultures in regions of poverty provide the same service to young unemployed males as the CCC did during the Depression. Even in Gaza, one of the main roles of the smuggling tunnels is to provide employment to 25,000 young male diggers.

What is totally missing in all the discussion of Afghanistan is cultural and ethnic history. I have a 1960 college geography text of Southwest Asia that clearly discusses issues in the region that are present today but predate al Qaeda and terrorism.

The Taliban are Pashtuns fighting in a Pashtun region. Along with the Kurds, the Pashtuns are the largest ethnic bloc in the region without a country of their own. My 1960 text notes that the Pashtun people have never accepted the validity of the Durand Line, that artificial 19th Century British creation that today still separates Afghanistan and Pakistan. It also mentions the yearning for Pashtuns of creating their own Pashtunistan.

From our end of the telescope, we see a terrorist insurrection; from their end of the telescope it's a nationalist struggle that uses a unifying religion to cross tribal and clan boundaries. To paraphrase Condaleeza Rice, these are the growing pains of nation building.

To discuss Afghanistan and Pakistan and ignore the role of Pashtun ethnicity and language, the power of Pashtunwalli, the pre-Islamic Pashtun tribal code, and the long term history of the region and the origins of the Pashtun people is walk blindly into the unknown, guns blazing in an effort of futility.

The Pashtuns, along with their linguistic cousins the Ossettians, are the last independent remnants of the Saka (Scythian) people, pastoral nomads who dominated the Eurasian steppe over two millenia ago. They had their own country called Sakastan, with its capitol west of Kandahar. The southwest border region of Afghanistan is still called Seistan, which is the word Sakastan with the "k" elided. Pashtunwalli, with its three main components of hospitality, refuge and revenge, is a syncretic innovation arising out of the Pashtuns' steppeland past and mountain present. If you don't know that history, and its implications, you can't be a special negotiator for that region. You will be condemned to spin your wheels and fail, as the British and Soviets did before us.

tartufe  02/22/2009 09:08 PM Report

Well said. Bad policy well articulated is still bad policy. Made the more insidious.

charlizecourriers  02/22/2009 04:52 PM Report

My sense is that there are millions of men and women dedicated to fight to their deaths the forces represented once again by Holbrooke. Charlie had an opportunity to understand people such as these many years ago by going to Vietnam. Instead he went to law school and business school. Of course, going to Vietnam didn't guarantee any understanding of the people who actually are willing to sacrifice themselves for what they believe in. Holbrooke is a perfect example of not understanding the enemy. Thus, forty years later Holbrooke and Rose do a perfect job of baffling each other and some of their viewers. Disaster awaits the Audacious Amateur and his minions! But not a gravesite at Arlington.

tartufe  02/22/2009 04:28 PM Report

Were I so even handed / keeled. I get my underwear in a twit over brutish and needless killing. Throw in counter-productive and I'm round-the-bin.

Killing for sport (and profit) was in the vogue. The Colliseum reveled in it. We still do both but admit to neither.

Nukes may prove to be the final superbowl. The long bomb. The Hail Mary, full of grace(lessness) . . . .

ShalomFreedman  02/22/2009 10:16 AM Report

Holbrooke is so clearly a competent, decent emissary. He will do his best. But the sense I , a total non- professional have is that Afghanistan is simply not the right place for the United States to invest its forces in.

tartufe  02/22/2009 12:26 AM Report

Mr. Holbrooke has to parrot the chosen party line for the Obama adopted war. Consequently, nothing he says really has any personal substance. Even if he had personal misgivings, so what? The M-I oligarchy has sway here. He’s merely an assigned unwitting(?) puppet.

He accused the Pakistani army of tactically oriented to the last land war. Well the pot is as black as the kettle - if not more so - on that point. We are making it a geographical land war strategy, calling for more troops and using air power, missiles and drones when we feel outnumbered. Our techno-arrogance never misses a chance to be CS and counterproductive.

He parroted Filkins, Raddatz et al by painting an obviously hopeless pending quagmire. Hopefully, this is a diplomatic strategy to pave the way for ultimately proposing an honorable pullout. We’ve done all that should be expected. Cheers.

We can’t win there!! How can any state make decisions to send troops and their civilians to their death over a feckless and ill-defined objective. A nebulous mission to prevent terrorism that will instead create them. Filkins pointed out that the Taliban and villager tribesmen were indistinguishable. Our solution will be to kill them both without compunction. It comes naturally to us. It also assures hatred and a sustained conflict, and the M-I oligarches in Bahama tax havens, alongside the financial wise-guy oligarches.

Our own style terrorism in fighting terrorism validates terrorism of any origin. It seems they have won by default. They and the M-I perps. When we are depleted financially in Afghanistan, the perps can then beat the drums-of-war for other geographical caldrons of terror: Yemen, N. Korea, Iran, Pakistan, back to Iraq, Venezuela, Darfur, Syria, Canada (of course) et al. We take on all comers. The more impudent and imprudent the better. Never mind that anti-US is a transportable idea - and n not geography.

Obama (in today’s news) has taken up proxy battles for the (corrupt) Pakistani regime, firing drone fired missiles at his political opponents. Using us like tin foil. Killed more civilians of course. Oligarch’s wet dream. Assures enemy buildup and sustains the conflict AND PROFIT.

You don’t have to be a feckless foil for the war profiteers, but it doesn’t hurt. Edit that. Evidence says you do.