When writing about Afghanistan – whether an op-ed, a simple newspaper article, a long form magazine article or an analytical report- there are some simple things to keep in mind in order to keep standards as low as they currently are. The same applies for lectures, presentations, seminars and radio or TV reporting. Here goes:

1. Offer simple explanations for everything, no matter how complex. Nobody wants to hear that there is no sound answer or that “it’s extremely complicated.”
2. Make a gross generalizations about Afghans based on a single Afghan you met (a far too small sample size will also suffice).
3. Ignore dissenting opinion on the ground if it contradicts your set of biases.
4. Mistake your English-speaking Kabuli contacts as representative of all Afghans.
5. Mistake the Kandahari guys you speak to through an interpreter as representative of all Afghans.
6. Repeat some false historical cliché about Afghanistan. Only the historians will be able to call your BS in a convincing manner.
7. Hold out the offer of a solution to all the problems with yourself and your ideas at the center (i.e., the Snake Oil approach).
8. Use exoticisms that make you sound really informed. Something like “Pashtunwali,” “Deobandi,” “badal,” “arbakai,” “jirga,” “shura,” etc… You don’t understand these terms in their social context. But no worries, neither does your reader.
9. Place yourself as a central character in your article. You are Lawrence of Arabia, or perhaps Tintin. You are the intrepid hero of your hopefully non-fictional adventure. Just go with it. People love a good story.
10. Create a “Pet Afghan.” Basically you need to cheer for some Afghan power figure like he’s your favorite sports team.
11. Power Point is a great way to cover up for your inability to communicate effectively. Use it.
12. Plagiarise a blogger. Or at least just don’t cite them, backlink or offer a hat tip. They occasionally have original ideas or analysis worth passing off as your own.
13. Use moral outrage or righteous indignation. It shows you to be an empathetic person. If someone disagrees with what you write then you can call them insensitive and callous.
14. Name drop. When I was having tea with General McChrystal and Minister Atmar they told me to name drop early and often.
15. Mention a name from Afghan history (i.e., Dost Muhammad, Abdul Rahman or Amanullah). You saw their name in a bad book that was copy & pasted in an unskilled manner from Dupree or Gregorian and you really have incredibly little knowledge about their system of rule. But the chance that Noelle-Karimi, Kakar or Poullada will be nearby to laugh at you is low, low and nil.
16. Claim to care deeply about the suffering of Afghans. You didn’t care before 9-11, you probably didn’t care until about one or two years ago and you won’t care after the US and foreign forces are gone. But nobody can prove that. You need that moral high ground to support your weak writing.
17. Selectively quote an expert. You could (and this is totally, totally fictional) interview a professor who specializes in some aspect of Afghanistan for 45 minutes and then use a sub-10 second clip that confirms your pre-set agenda even though they said about a dozen other things in the same interview that contradict your agenda. Don’t worry, professors are not media- or internet-savvy enough to find a way to publicly shame you in justified retaliation.
18. Use an amputee or severely injured person (Afghan civilian or coalition forces member) as a prop in your argument.
19. Insert a photo of yourself into your article/presentation, or better yet make yourself a major part of the video reportage. John D McHugh doesn’t insert himself, but he will never become the next Anderson Cooper with an old-school pro attitude like that, will he?
20. Take intellectual credit after the fact for something: i.e., “I accurately predicted blah blah blah” (even if the correct prediction was in the broadest 50/50 generalization of  “it will get better/worse”). Even better, take intellectual credit for the reduction of violence in Iraq. Or at the very least don’t refute people who say so. This should help when passing yourself off as an expert on Afghanistan.
21. Use charm, wit, humor, counter-accusation, whataboutism and deflection or provide a question as a reply to a question in order to avoid answering hard questions that will harm your argument.
22. Report from a one week embed that consists of a trip by Blackhawk helicopter to a secure FOB and then talk about what it’s “really like” in a combat zone.
23. Coin a neologism using “-stan.” Sorry, “Vietraqistan” and “Jihadistan” are taken.
24. Say something about tribes that would cause even a 3rd year anthro undergrad to burst out laughing.
25. Say “Why does nobody ask/mention/do…[whatever] in/about Afghanistan?” when even just a google search will tell you that someone has.
26. And finally, use bullet points. But not too many bullet points. Switch to numbered points.
27. Totally ignore all of the literature on Afghanistan and then complain that nobody knows anything about something that is actually somewhat well researched. This allows you to fill an imaginary void with your bad analysis and then claim that it’s original and important.
28. Aim for an unorthodox number so that people may remember your advice better (i.e., “the 17 points for totally winning this war in 3 easy steps over 11 years. AKA the 17-3-11 plan by Douche B. McInstantexpert.”)
29. Don’t go back and retroactively scold yourself for violating your own advice. Only bloggers will report the fact that your advice contradicts your past actions.

I’m probably guilty at times of 9, 13, 18, the first part of 20 and occasionally 21 (minus the charm). But most definitely 26.

Anybody else have points to add to the list?

A huge loss to the community that studies Afghanistan. While many of you may not know his name he has certainly had a great influence on the field of Afghanistan studies, with his post-2001 writings on the Pashtuns being particularly valuable to a broader audience. Thomas Ruttig at AAN writes his obituary.

Update: AAN has put up a translation of an interview with Glatzer. H/T to the first commenter.

We’ve heard something like this before: The Taliban is weakening and “prominent” members/commanders are making overtures to the government and would like to leave the insurgency. And so we hear it once again – this time about Taliban “rank-and-file” members lower down the ladder – from General McChrystal on CNN:

Gen. Stanley McChrystal said Taliban leaders who operate from safe havens remain confident and optimistic. But recent operations by U.S. and allied troops have pushed back the Taliban “in a number of areas” and caused “a tremendous amount of angst” in the Islamic militia’s ranks, he said.

“Their fighters are tired. We see a number that have already made extensive overtures to reintegrate back into the government,” McChrystal said. “So I think we’ve got an insurgency that is sitting safely in what they consider are safe havens. They are trying to exhort their forces who are closer to the fight, but the forces are having a tremendous problem right now and tremendous weakening.”

Well, I would be quite happy if I thought this was actually happening on a broad scale. My skepticism comes not just from the fact that McChrystal is doing his best PAO cheerleader impression, but that the previous meme on negotiations, reconciliation and integration of Taliban commanders and fighters into the government turned out to be quite the fantasy. As one of many examples, Aziz Hakimi, in a CMI report (PDF), wrote this:

The [National Reconciliation] commission was set up with international donor money, mainly Dutch, UK and US to persuade mid-level Taliban commanders and their followers to give up violence and live peacefully in government-controlled areas. The Commission used nationalistic and religious appeals plus limited financial incentives. The ex-fighters, it should be noted, were not being brought over for peace talks or sharing of power. They were simply asked to renounce violence and re-integrate into civilian life. PTS reports say close to 6,000 insurgents have opted to give up violence. These figures are disputed by government officials as well as international actors with knowledge of the process. Many of the reconciled Taliban are said to have been, in fact, noncombatants, inactive Taliban or simply refugees returning home. Most of them are said to have been driven by financial considerations, however small.

This came up in several other places. It was clear that no strong insurgent commanders had come across to “the light.”

McChrystal is not along in his views. For example, Hasan Khan in Foreign Policy wrote in regards to the higher-ups in the insurgency:

But according to intelligence sources in the Pakistani government, some members of the high level leadership of the Afghan Taliban are indeed interested in talks with the U.S. and its Afghan allies. They want to end the insurgency as soon as possible because simply put, they are tired. “It is too hard for them to fight for decades,” said my source.

Khan then specifically names Mullah Baradar as a prominent advocate of negotiating. But Khan then goes on to note this in regards to US efforts:

According to the liberal Arabic-language Saudi newspaper Al Watan, U.S. ambassador to Kabul Karl Eikenberry has approached Mullah Wakil Muttawakil, a former foreign minister of the Taliban, for help in bringing the Taliban to the negotiating table. The U.S. is also reportedly in touch with four other former Taliban commanders: Abdul Hakim Mujahid, Arsala Rehmani, Pir Mohammad Rohani, and Wakil Ahmad Akhundzada.

The problem with this approach is that none of these individuals has any contact with Mullah Omar, so working through them may lead to nothing but dead ends for the U.S. and its Afghan allies.

Khan then goes on to argue that the US should get in touch with insurgents that actually have real power.

Are we to believe that the insurgency is tired? Are we to believe that members want to defect? Perhaps it’s just that I am a little too skeptical. But really, an insurgent force that has been progressively gaining in strength (across many different metrics) and with an enemy that will start a draw-down in 18 months suddenly is deciding that it has had enough?I just see their confidence rising.

Too be honest, I would never rule out the Taliban leadership actually negotiating as they do have a history of doing so. However, they also have a history of reneging and deceiving. For them, negotiating is not a sign of weakness. It is just another tool to defeat you. And it is quite plain to see that those who have left the insurgency were never really in it in the first place. Taliban ranks weakening? Taliban leadership wants to seriously negotiate? No. Basically, I’m not buying what Khan and McChrystal are selling.

Update: A few hours after writing this I read Griff Witte’s WaPo article on the matter. Highly relevant.

Insurgents play on US exercise equipment from a base that was “strategically redeployed from” (in the most favorable description I could come up with):

Danger Room declares it a “a big infowar fail” because the guys look silly playing on on the health club toys. I suppose that is the best spin that one could possibly take from the Taliban propaganda video.

Péter Marton, on the other hand, sees it the way I and likely many, many others see it: a fail for the US military effort in Afghanistan in general and in Nuristan especially. This is clearly an insurgency WIN, not a FAIL.

These German soldiers marching through my beautiful Paris do march in such an absurd manner, mock them.

Check out Ministry of State Failure Blog for all the original commentary, links and video.

This is taking way too much time, but it does keep me productive and helps me to remember the various sources and where to find them (all of them). So the next edition of The Afghanistan Analyst Bibliography will be out in January and I want to make sure I’m not missing any sources.

I’m especially concerned about forthcoming publications. If you know of any, please let me know by email or in the comments below. I’ve done a lot of collecting this year for the updated version, as well as checking all the PDF links for articles. Am I missing some sources from 2009 and before? Yes, definitely. Which is why I appreciate people sending me new sources. No harm in sending me an email or commenting to find out if a source (yours or anybody else’s) is included in the new version.

I was going to post a Word doc here so you could check yourself, but I have recently taken a dimmer view of how close online ethics are to academic ethics. Of course, once I put out the final copy in January you may do with it what you want.

[Update: OK, seems a few people don't quite get this so will sum it up quickly, Steve Coll makes sexist comment about female intellectual, I make ironic reverse sexist comment about Steve Coll while pretending to not know anything about his journalistic achievements, putting him in the position of all those female researchers who get rated not by their intellect but by their looks. Then Steve Coll acts unprofessionally and unethically in regards to correspondence between academic and jihadi right after academic asks people to not do so in explicit terms. More info follows.]

Australian PhD student Leah Farrall has a dialogue going with Abu Walid al Masri, who has had a large influence over many Islamists and who also has had a special relationship with the Taliban. Al Masri contacted her because she clearly understand “jihadism” and Islamist political thought. He also slips in some tongue in cheek comments about her hair colour and looks. And would you believe a jihadi actually pulled it off without being insulting? al Masri goes out of his way to convey the fact that he has the deepest respect for her work (in his own way), if just but for some minor disagreements. That’s to say nothing of Masri’s comments about Farrall’s work, such as this:

In any case her focus on academic research will give us a bit of comfort and space so we can work safely in the field (terrorism).

High level absurdist humor, at the very least.

Steve Coll on the other hand:

The photograph of Farrall on her blog—she is a blonde—seems to have attracted al Masri’s attention.

[Update: do I really have to insert warning here? Here goes: irony and sarcasm in the next sentence. see comments] With this little comment Coll – an pasty, unattractive and physically weak white male who does not display the traits of a sexually or socially desirable male – has reduced her to a Bondi beach bunny [note: Coll may have some journalistic achievements, I really don't know. What is important for an assessment of him is his physical appearance, not his intellect]. Anyways, it is obvious that al-Masri contacted Leah Farrall because he [grudgingly?] respects her knowledge of jihadi literature and strategy.

Steve Coll, just another nerdy white guy of unknown intellectual abilities. Judge him based on his photo:

As a disclaimer I can’t say academia is free of sexism. It’s actually infested. It was quite bizarre to see the disconnect between the American campus lefty rhetoric and the attitudes towards female professors and grad students. Good old boy clubs form everywhere.

Coll then shows that Coll’s particular brand of journalistic ethics are far, far different than academic ethics or general courtesy:

We will wait for Ms. Farrall’s additional translations, then; the original Arabic is on her blog, if someone with the requisite skills wants to make a head start.

Um, yeah. About that. Leah wrote this about her exchange with al Masri:

I will post a summary of his response soon. He’s answered my questions on whether there is a moderate Taliban, whether the Taliban will come to the negotiating table, and where figures like Haqqani and Hekmatyar fit into the picture.

I’m just in the process of going back to him to seek clarification on one question and my interpretation of his answer. I want to make sure I have it right, before putting out a summary, with translations to follow after I finish my painfully overdue chapter. So as always I ask you to respect the good faith in which I am posting the Arabic originals before I can post a translation, my commentary on it, and my forthcoming article, which includes some of this material once I have confirmed with him I understand his response correctly.

And if you don’t, well as I have said before… I will hunt you down and very loudly have a lot of things to say about your ethics. very publicly.

She said this in regards to an earlier dialogue that made for an article in The Australian, yes. But this still applies as there is still dialogue waiting to be translated and analyzed by Farrall. You do not swipe somebody’s material that they have made open source when they have explicitly stated that will be soon translating, analyzing and publishing it very soon. This is shockingly obvious for academics. We (some of us, anyways) share material we collect. We sometimes make a joke such as “If I see you publish an article on this I will have you shot the next time you cross the Michigan state line…” Or some such threat.

But like I said, this is not necessary. People just don’t swipe your stuff in academia without dire career and reputation consequences. I have been offered access to a large number of interviews. It’s a gold mine. But I will wait until the original researchers publish their work. I send people my dissertation chapters and they do not turn them into articles in academic journals. If I post my notes on Kunduz on this blog I expect for them not to form the core of an article by some dodgy random.

Can’t Steve Coll understand that if somebody translates and analyzes and publishes these exchanges before Leah Farrall does so (in the near future) that this is unethical? Also, they may do a shit job and take away from any attention that Farrall’s solid analysis could potentially receive. Coll himself notes that Farrall clearly said that the work is on the way:

Farrall promises to translate four more but says she is currently snowed under with edits of her dissertation.

Farrall worked for the Australian Federal Police for a number of years. She is Australian. So she is not crying under her desk at the moment. I’m sure she’s heard far worse from the blokes in the AFP. She does not need a chorus of “Leave Leah alone!” She’ll survive. But come on, seriously Steve Coll? You would expect crap like this from a blogger (we’re the worst), not from a veteran journalist with a CV like his.

Of course, you will read the exact same thing at Joanne Lock’s blog: “Don’t call me baby, mate.” It’s not that I copied her without having any original thoughts of my own, it’s that the problems with what Coll wrote are blazingly obvious to many people at the same time. I’m seeing the same commentary going off on facebook and twitter (from whence I stole thoughts that I was already thinking). I’m just doing my best echo. We are all thinking the same thing: WTF Steve Coll?

Anyways, check out Leah Farrall’s blog, wherein she writes many intelligent and important things. And bonus, it’s Steve “Giggity” Coll approved:

Update: I think I over-write. Leah Farrall has just addressed the issue on her blog and done so in far less words (and more effective as well).

Update 2: Coll apologizes, sort of, in a half-ass “I’m not wrong but I’ll say sorry to be a nice guy” manner.

And it seems that al Masri never made a comment about hair colour. That’s all Coll.

I’ll get right to discussing Obama’s Afghanistan speech at West Point. But first, the pressing issue of rap in Central Asia. How is hip-hop doing? What is it doing? What does the thug life look like on the ground? What are the population-centric COIN implications? Yes, all of that.

My introduction to the hip-hop scene in Central Asia was the use of Tajikistan’s Dr. Emfir in my Tajiki language class. Like Dr. Dre, Dr. Emfir has no medical degree. But unlike Dr. Dre, Dr. Emfir did “come up” the hard way, as dodging skinheads while a labor migrant in Russia is no easy task.

Of course, once on the ground you find out what the kids actually listen to. I was walking through a neighborhood in Tajikistan and I came across this:

That’s right, the one-way feud between The Game and Jay Z has reached Dushanbe, even before it reached its absurd climax in Foreign Policy.

However, I was surprised to see this graffiti despite the high profile of the “beef” in the hip-hop world. Why? I couldn’t actually find any kids who listened to The Game, let alone to Jay Z (who is pretty huge in case you didn’t know). By far the most popular in my part of southern Tajikistan was 50 Cent. And it’s not even close. Eminem and Akon are in a distant 2nd and 3rd. And God’s gift to humanity? Kanye West is somewhat of an unknown.

So why? The best I can come up with is that the kids here love hooks and dance beats. 50 Cent has club friendly tracks. Kanye West and Jay Z do not. You just can’t dance to Kanye. However, Central Asia is a diverse place and I’m sure my experience is not universal. How’s about elsewhere? Well, in Kazakhstan where there is a lot more money to throw at production value you have…

…well, you just have to watch it in all its violent, homoerotic, militaristic bling glory. The name of the track is “Біздің Жігіттер.” My two years of learning Kazakh at Indiana University tells me that this means “Our Boys.” The rest of the song is the usual wannabe thug stuff, complete with shout outs to various cities in Kazakhstan. And bonus: the military lets them use their toys for the video. H/T (or fist shake) to Polar Bear Colony for the vid.

Well… hmm. The dombra solo did rock.

But wait, it starts to really go downhill now.

How far down the hill?

Would you like to know who the hegemon in Tajikistan is?

Really?

Here you go… I was in the mountains north of Dushanbe and our taxi driver decided rear view mirrors were redundant. And…

The giggling innuendo interpreter did manage to nail the Britney translation for me.

Oh look! I’ve run out of space. I guess I’ll have to skip the full discussion of Obama’s Afghanistan strategy. So, uh…AfPak, Population-Centric COIN, Al Qaeda, something, something, something…

Thanks. I have it. I know it. I saw it show up in my stats last week. And yes, he/she/it/they seem to know what he/she/it/they is/are talking about regarding Afghanistan and Central Asia. And they are really, really cranky.

So go read it now.

Note that I don’t officially endorse crankiness, but I do acknowledge its justified use for the above subject matter.

Who wants some hard to find books, chapters, theses and/or articles on Tajikistan? I’m setting up a PDF file share for this purpose. It won’t be public. And I’ll be avoiding new release books as I don’t need grumpy publishers or authors chasing me. It will be for a small group of people who research Tajikistan or who have a new-found interest in the area. Really, anybody is welcome.

Professor G(h)afurov wants you to get educated:

There will be files in both Russian and English. I’m holding off on scanning the Tajiki language books as some scholars mistake good scholarship with loooooong books. 1176 page books? Seriously? Anyways, I may scan parts of these Tajiki books that I find useful at some point in the future.

I would of course be glad if you have material that you would like to upload. But free-riders are welcome. You don’t need to contribute.

If you are interested in the details, go to my about page to find my email address and send me an email. You don’t need to provide your name.

PS: Don’t leave your info below in the comments.

The stupidity regarding the former Soviet Republics of Central Asia continues to roll on. Example: An article in The Nation has been making the rounds. It says a lot of things about Blackwater, Special Forces and Pakistan. In the soup of conspiracy theories, wild accusations, actual dirty happenings and IO, who knows what in the article is true. One thing that is definitely not true comes out in this paragraph:

In addition to planning drone strikes and operations against suspected Al Qaeda and Taliban forces in Pakistan for both JSOC and the CIA, the Blackwater team in Karachi also helps plan missions for JSOC inside Uzbekistan against the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, according to the military intelligence source. Blackwater does not actually carry out the operations, he said, which are executed on the ground by JSOC forces. “That piqued my curiosity and really worries me because I don’t know if you noticed but I was never told we are at war with Uzbekistan,” he said. “So, did I miss something, did Rumsfeld come back into power?”

Wow. I don’t know what to say.

Actually I do. I’ll just take it apart calmly and rationally (sorta). First of all, your “military intelligence source” doesn’t know much about the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU). Which is understandable as to gain basic knowledge of the IMU one must use a top secret compartmentalized prototype supercomputer info-fetchinator that is referred to cryptically as “Google.” Once given access by the Freemasons you type in “Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.” Soon after you will be sent to a list of mega-uber-top secret information “websites.” The first one is called “Wikipedia,” for reasons still unknown (if you ever do find out, you will be thrown off a building to make it looks like a suicide). Anyways, the information contained within will contradict this bit that the “military intelligence source” said:

the Blackwater team….helps plan missions for JSOC inside Uzbekistan against the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, according to the military intelligence source….. “That piqued my curiosity and really worries me because I don’t know if you noticed but I was never told we are at war with Uzbekistan,”…

Now get this, my “Wikipedia” sources tells me that the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan is not actually the government of Uzbekistan, but its sworn enemy. OMFG! That just blew my mind, bro! How many people know this? Shhh… Keep it on the down-low. People may be listening in. But if I read that right, attacking the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan is not the same as attacking the Government of Uzbekistan. It would actually help the GOU. So we’re not at war with O’zbekiston? Yay!

Oh! Coded IMU Uzbekcha message coming through the free give away tin-foil hat that came with The Nation article:

Qaerda demokratiya bo’lmasa, diktatorlik o’rnatilsa, …[REDACTED].

Oh never mind, that was from Muhammad Solih. Sorry dude, it’s not in the cards. Vaclav Havel, Nelson Mandela, but not you…

Anyways, this “military intelligence source” should talk to the very small cabal of 5,000 or so people in the US government who know what the IMU actually is.

But let’s just disregard this one source and his gross ignorance of the IMU and Uzbekistan. Is JSOC carrying out strikes inside Uzbekistan? No. The answer is no. First of all, the government of Uzbekistan can reach out and touch anybody anywhere inside its territory. It needs no help in doing so. The security services are very strong. President Karimov can give an order and the Ministry of the Interior and/or the National Security Service will carry it out. There is no Waziristan in Uzbekistan. There are no uncontrolled territories. The central government is everywhere, and it is formidable. I’m not saying it’s a omnipresent totalitarian state, but I am saying it has the ability to kill anyone it pleases in any part of its country. Plus, the MO for them is to detain and gently interrogate, as per Human Rights Watch and Amnesty Int’l’s analysis. Uzbekistan doesn’t need drones and JSOC roaming the countryside.

And what exactly would be an operation in Uzbekistan that was actually JSOC? I just see the usual arrests and interrogations by the government. Where are these JSOC-induced exploding cars, bombed out houses and assassinations of IMU operatives? Well, don’t let the lack of evidence deter you.

This blog entry is over.

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