CIA attempt to persuade Europeans to maintain forces in Afghanistan 29, March 2010
Posted by davidbroberts in American ME Relations, Central Asia.Tags: Afghanistan, CIA, CIA memo, CIA leaked memo, CIA leaded document, Afghan stratagy, European Afghan support, France in Afghanistan, Germany in Afghanistan, ISAF forces
add a comment
Wikileaks has obtained a classified ‘not for foreigners’ CIA memo discussing strategies to shore up European support for ISAF forces in Afghanistan. In the wake of the Dutch Government’s demise over troop questions, the report states that there is a similarly grim outlook in France and Germany.
In France the report suggests focusing on the Afghan refugees as a way of ‘promoting’ the issue, whereas in Germany the notion of stressing the consequences that would negatively affect German interests is suggested as the way to proceed. Additionally, a focus on the multilateral and humanitarian nature of the conflict might shore up German support.
Using President Obama’s high regards in Europe was also suggested as a strategy. Were he to stress his full commitment to the process and the gains for Afghan women, this might also prove advantageous.
Al Qaeda’s caves 3, March 2010
Posted by davidbroberts in Central Asia, Terrorism.Tags: Afghanistacn cave, Al Qaeda, Al Qaeda cave, Al Qaeda cave photo, Pakistan cave
add a comment
Intercontinental Hotel Kabul 15, January 2010
Posted by davidbroberts in Central Asia.Tags: Adam Curtis, Afghanistan, Intercontinental hotel, Kabul
add a comment
The Intercontinental was perched above the city with wonderful views. It was where the western businesspeople, the diplomats and the rich tourists all stayed. But it also quickly became the place for the Kabul elite to go – for tea, for parties, and for weddings. They were the modern people of Kabul who were helping to make the King’s vision come true.They were also a “slimy opportunistic clique” – according to Nancy Hatch Dupree. She was an American archaeologist who knew everyone in Kabul.
And then rock music came to Kabul, courtesy of the Intercontinental Hotel.
The Intercontinental’s food and beverages manager asked a musician called Claude Selvaradna to create a house band for the hotel. Claude had been a sergeant in the Sri Lankan army but now he lived in Kabul and he knew that rock music was the future. He brought in some musicians from Sri Lanka and put together a band he called The Esquire Set.
For what can probably be described as the definitive history of Kabul take your time and go through its history at Adam Curtis’ blog at the BBC.
US aid to Yemen, Iraq, Afghanistan 11, January 2010
Posted by davidbroberts in American ME Relations, Central Asia, Iraq, Yemen.Tags: Yemen, US aid, Military aid, Yemen crisis, Yemen aid
add a comment
By 2008, nonmilitary [US] aid to Yemen had dwindled to less than $20 million. Afghanistan is expected to receive $2.7 billion a year in nonmilitary aid, Pakistan $1.5 billion and Iraq $500 million.
The administration doubled Yemen’s economic aid last year, but as Barbara K. Bodine, another former ambassador, pointed out, the amount “works out to $1.60 per Yemeni.”
The NYT.
Rory Stewart on efforts to counter the Taliban 2, January 2010
Posted by davidbroberts in American ME Relations, Central Asia.Tags: Afghanistan, Taliban, Rory Stewart, New York Review of books, Af-Pak
add a comment
The ever-erudite and persuasive Rory Stewart has written an excellent essay on Obama, the US and their strategies to counter the Taliban. It’s well worth the read.
Interview with a suicide bomber 8, December 2009
Posted by davidbroberts in Central Asia, Random.Tags: Interview suicide bomber, Suicide, Suicide bomber
add a comment
Hat tip: Comment Central
A brief snippet from Uzbekistan 16, September 2009
Posted by davidbroberts in Central Asia.Tags: Central Asia, Fergana Valley, Uzbek repression, Uzbekistan
add a comment
…from Prospect magazine. I spent quite some time in Uzbekistan some years ago and did not notice the omnipresence of police and security forces in the capital as is mentioned in the piece. Friends currently working there, however, testify to a gradual slip into ever more draconian and authoritarian ways in recent years, mirroring what Prospect has to say.
Conversely, my time there was preoccupied with sampling the world-class tourist sites to be found dotted around the country. Samarkand and Bukhara are truly breathtaking. Go have a peak at my photos of them as clear and unequivocal proof (indeed, if a lousy photographer like me can take photos like those…). I suppose that in hindsight perhaps I was walking though the country in something of a typical tourist-like daze.
Currently, the country is run by a megalomaniacal dictator who boils dissidents as a form of torture, clamps down horrendously on any kind of popular uprisings and has eviscerated any notion of a pluralist society evolving with wide-spread repression. This, unfortunately, shows no signs of change with Uzbekistan’s not insignificant oil and gas reserves shielding them from anything approaching meaningful criticism.
NYT journalist’s account of kidnapping 10, September 2009
Posted by davidbroberts in Central Asia.Tags: Afghanistan kidnap, Journalist kidnap, New York Times, Stephen Farrell, translators
add a comment
(Stephen Farrell – The Times)
Here’s the link to Stephen Farrell’s account of his four days in captivity after being kidnapped by the Taliban in Afghanistan until his rescue by British Special Forces, during which one soldier died. It is as engaging and ‘page-turning’ a read as it is possible to get. Once again as with all of these writings or even just those where people have some spent time with terrorists/freedom fighters/irregulars/bandits/insurgents, what comes across most profoundly (to me at least) is the relative normality of the people. They aren’t monsters, though some of them to monstrous things. Alas the other aspect of the story that is familiar is that the interpreter is killed, this time not by execution but in the fire-fight at the very end.
Here’s a link to an article to the memory of Farrell’s translator, Sultan Munadi, who died in the rescue operation. I feel, however, that it is unfair to call people like Sultan translators. To me a translator is someone who sits in an office or in an organisation and translates articles, speeches and the like. They are in a civilian environment doing a civilian job. People like Sultan are a different breed entirely doing a different job entirely. Whilst they do not always do it well, they are, nevertheless, unquestionably risking their lives. Their job is, therefore, unequivocally different and must be treated as such. It makes decisions like the British Government’s not to automatically grant translators entry to the UK utterly disgusting and immoral.
Afghanistan: Lost in Translation 26, July 2009
Posted by davidbroberts in Central Asia.Tags: Afghanistan, America, Language skills, US Forces
add a comment
The Guardian has an excellent video of the US forces in Afghanistan and their problems with understanding what the local Pashtun are trying to tell them. The clip shows one of their translators wilfully mistranslating what a tribal elder has to say. One can only hope that translators such as these are in the vast minority, however unlikely that may be.
Hat Tip: Media Shack
Article catch up 21, May 2009
Posted by davidbroberts in Central Asia, Iran, Kuwait, The Emirates.Tags: Afghanistan, Al Qaeda, Bedouin, Gulf single currency, Hadar, Iranian Sunni terrorists, Kuwait, Kuwaiti politics, pakistan, UAE, World Politics Review
1 comment so far
There’s a veritable flood of interesting stories today:
- Quote of the day is taken from the World Politics Review Blog, with a firm and hearty hat tip thanks for Andrew Bishop.
We’ve now got upwards of 40,000 troops in Afghanistan, with the ostensible mission to eliminate the threat posed by 300 guys. In Pakistan. Think about that.
- An article on Al Qaeda’s apparent new ties with an Iranian Sunni (yes, Sunni) terrorist group.
- The UAE have pulled out of the proposed Gulf single currency. Whilst achieving such a milestone of integration would have been enormously difficult in any case, it now appears to be all but impossible.
- The Kuwaiti Amir has reappointed his nephew, Shaikh Nasser, as the Prime Minister. This is highly unlikely to appease opposition MPs and calm the volatile and fragile nature of Kuwaiti politics, considering that Shaikh Nasser was, essentially, the very reason that Parliament was dissolved last month (for the fifth time in three years).
- There’s another good piece covering the Kuwait election written by Brian Ulrich. The most interesting bit is when he quotes from Kristin Diwan on the reappearance of one of the original and fundamental societal clefts in the Arabian Peninsula between the settled people (hadar) and the nomads (bedu) who did not get settled into cities until the last century (if at all). [Brian writes] “(quoted with permission from a professional list-serve)”:
“The other area of dynamism in Kuwaiti politics is coming from the ‘tribal’ outer districts. I attended a HUGE and very well planned rally for women in the south of Kuwait near Ahmedi, and was duly impressed by the energy, which may have been amplified by the fact that it was held in an amusement park and most of the women brought a bevy of happy children in tow. As observant Kuwaiti social scientists have been telling us for years, these relatively late arriving citizens of Kuwait are becoming better educated and less willing to accept their role as ‘service’ candidates quietly accepting government jobs for loyalty to the rulers – especially as there are less jobs and services to give to their steadily increasing numbers. They may mobilize as a ‘tribe,’ but their complaints are essentially economic and full of historical resentment of the better off ‘hadhar’ of Kuwait’s inner constituencies. The democratically elected parliament gives them the perfect vehicle to press their economic demands, and goes a long way in explaining why many of the merchant-led Kuwaitis who championed Kuwaiti democracy can now contemplate an unconstitutional dissolution of it.”
