Perhaps I will get back to the next installment of "Back of the Envelope Geopolitics" soon. Indeed, the post is written - was written quite quickly as it should have been given the premise. However, this is the internet, and I feel the need to provide actual links.
I will occupy your interest today with a very quick point on map reading for political understanding:
Follow the water.
In general, people downstream are at the mercy of the folks upstream when it comes to a whole spate of environmental concerns. Not only pollution, but the carrying capacity of the land is directly impacted (fresh water and agriculture).
People upstream are generally at the mercy of the folks downstream when it comes to some forms of access to the wider world.
Think of Ethiopia and its hostility to Eritrea. Think of Turkey and Iraq and their mutual enmity. Think of Central Asia.
The Right Christians offer a solid sermon by contributor, Jack Good. He really gets rolling as he goes along, but I was struck by this passage from early in the piece:
I do know something about listening, and I know that when I hear arguments that are devoid of rationality I am hearing not logic but fear. Fear is OK. It is normal for people to be upset when some important area of life is undergoing change. If you are one of those people who is still struggling with this issue, or if you have friends or relatives who are still struggling, try to listen not to the head stuff. Listen, instead, to the emotional stuff. Fears should be heard and respected. Then ask how you or your loved ones can move beyond those fears.
Fear is OK.
I remember that when I am travelling. I even include that in my training sessions: it is OK to be afraid in a conflict situation.
But I forget at home. I forget when I'm involved in my society, in the struggles with and for my neighbors.
I won't forget again. And I won't forget the second part either: I'll ask how we - all of us - can move beyond our fears
But, seriously, have you ever known a single person who would pick Mickey?
Dramatis Personae
Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC)
Some Legislators (L)
SJC: Hey, we've looked over this Constitution thingy like you asked - heck, we even read the damn thing twice - and we can't find any discrimination in it.L: What? No discrimination? Let me see that . . . hmm, I guess you're right. Well, we'll just have to put some in then.
Both parts performed by the very talented Mrs Martial on looking up from the morning newspaper and its extensive coverage of various proposed Amendments to various Constitutions. She concluded the performance with an inspired bit of improvisation as she muttered "unamerican bastards".
Some months ago I suggested a deluge. I did not anticipate that the water would rise so quickly - and in so many places.
Jim Henley uses two hopeful words to describe San Francisco, Sandoval County, Chicago, your town . . .
Berlin Wall
It can happen very, very quickly, very, very peacefully and with the gravest joy, when the barriers fall.
Bern might be a pretty burg if it didn't have more graffiti per square meter than any other city where I've been. And if I had the chance to walk around it during the daylight.
. . .
I've been running through donor offices around Europe this week and adding way too much to my workload. It has been interesting and stimulating and exhausting and I am very glad to be getting on an airplane home in about seven hours.
I think this will be the last of the "Kabul Diaries" for now. I am likely to return there later this year and I will no doubt learn much more.
. . .
I’ve heard both expatriates and Afghans say that Afghans are “narrow-minded” - the same phrase, repeated several times.
With the mountains ringing this city, I can see how some might feel like the world was a bowl and they were down in the bottom (especially with the current media focus). I can see how people might feel like the world ended at the edge of nature's ramparts. Over the mountain might seem like nonsense.
But, of course, this is the crossroads of the world. The people from here know exactly what lies on the other side. They've sold at least one of everything at one time or another. They’ve forgotten more languages than are still spoken. They have seen every idea tried - and fail.
"Narrow-minded"? I'd call the Afghans very focused on their own problems. They have little time right now for anything else. I certianly cannot fault them for that.
David Kay recently crawled out into the limelight again, prompting yet another round from the cartographically challenged of wondering why Saddam refused to come clean about his weapons. Leaving aside that he did in fact claim to not have the weapons which it now appears he did not in fact have, I agree that he seemed to be playing a cagey game through his simultaneous denials and obstructions. I, however, have absolutely no difficulty in figuring out why - because I know how to read a map.
Iraq is located smack in the middle of several competing interests. Among the most important and influential upon local regional policy are oil, water, and ideology; and by no means should we leave out the consideration of the religious and ethnic dimensions of the latter and demands on the former. Sadly, in the case of geopolitics, these factors do mix and form a rather combustible compound.
Quickly then (looking at a regional map):
Iraq shares borders with Iran, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, and Turkey. And Israel, of course, is an important and ever-present regional power. Let us leave aside for a moment the influence of the US or other outside powers, which indeed adds yet other layers of complexity.
Iraq has water issues of one sort or another with Turkey, Syria, Iran, and Kuwait. There are oil issues with Kuwait, Iran, and Saudi Arabia. Ideological issues with Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Israel. Ethnicity colors relations with Iran and Turkey in particular, but also with Saudi Arabia. Religion is a crucial factor with Iran, but also again with Saudi Arabia. Compounding these potential difficulties in international relations is a wildly diverse and restive population with their own sets of interests and potential alliances.
Saddam was not a fool when it came to retaining power. Chemical weapons, the easiest WMD to make and to deploy to good effect on the battlefield, are practically a necessary accessory in a dangerous neighborhood such as the Middle East - whether you actually have them or not.
. . .
NEXT: If it is true that nations have permanent interests, then it would seem that much of the difficulty in regional relations between Saddam's Iraq and his neighbors will not have disappeared with his regime.
Kevin Moore testifies this morning (bold emphasis added):
The Civil Rights Movement was about asserting the rights of full citizenship and demanding that those rights be honored for all people. ... Civil rights, as a concept, is about citizenship, full participation in the life of one's society and full exercise of one's democratic rights. The level of suffering one must endure to make one's society respect those rights is not a bar that is set to determine whether one gets those rights; it's not a hazing ritual. Such suffering as any minority group has faced in this country is an unfortunate factor of history and certainly a component of a group's oppression. But it is a serious mistake to confuse the suffering inflicted with the struggle for human rights itself.
I'd intended to keep up with De Spectaculis in a slightly more efficient manner, but you'd be astonished at how difficult it can sometimes be to access the web with just a computer and a phone line. Not all phone lines are created equal . . .
As we do every other year, we ended our skiing with a quick dash up to Quebec City to visit the graves of Mrs Martial's ancestors. We always time the visit with the end of Carnaval. This year was the 50th anniversary of the big bash. It's just like Rio only with a lot more clothes.
And I head of to the airport tomorrow night for a quick, one-week jaunt to Europe. One always has to keep the donors happy - and informed.
Warning: I'm about to get professional.
There isn't enough reconstruction or rehabilitation in Kabul. Or, in other words, there is not enough of the right building being done. This is not a good sign for the immediate future.
What do I mean by "getting professional"? Anybody can come to Kabul and see that there is a lot of building underway. Anybody could go to Kabul, see all the building, and come away thinking that this country was really getting back on its feet, really taking strides toward the prosperous future that Afghans deserve. Anybody could say that all that building is a positive sign. And, in their amateur way, they would be wrong.
They would be wrong because they haven't asked the right questions. To be fair, most people haven't been in one post-conflict situation, let alone in enough to begin to know how to ask questions or to interpret the answers.
The issue is not simply how much building is taking place, but what kind of building. Houses or businesses? Reconstruction in damaged or destroyed areas or brand new construction? Are local people building their own homes/shops or are the projects funded by outsiders (donor governments, NGOs, or even wealthy Afghans who won't directly use the property)?
Most of the construction in Kabul is of businesses or of large governmental infrastructure. A fair amount is new construction and not rebuilding or rehabilitation. And the money being spent is largely international. What this means is that the things being built may not be the things people need right now.
There is very little reconstruction of houses, for example. People need places to live, and many refugees are returning to the city (or coming to Kabul rather than returning to their villages), but people are not building their own houses. This is unusual in circumstances of refugee return and it needs to be explored. There appear to be several factors having an impact.
First, and this is quite disturbing, there seems to be a culture of assistance developing in Afghanistan. People are waiting for the international community to take responsibility for nearly everything. It isn't quite dependency yet, but we are taking steps down that road and that is not a good thing.
Of course, this could not happen without the international community's involvement. And the international community feels guilty over having left Afghanistan alone after they drove the Soviets out, they feel guilty over the development of the Taliban, and over the desultory response to the recent famine (now, thankfully, over). And they appear to be overcompensating. That has the potential to rob the locals of their own initiative and their own solutions. How do we fix this? That is one of the crucial questions facing the international community in the twenty-first century and there are no easy answers (fortunately, Haneef Atmar, the Afghan Minister of Reconstruction and Rehabilitation is a very able, experienced, and committed man: if there is anyone who can begin to define the terms by which nations rebuild themselves, he is one of the best candidates).
Second, and related closely to the first, the types of reconstruction that get good press, that make sense to our media and so get reported as "success stories", are the big projects. If a government doesn't have a building for the Ministry of Defense or the Ministry of Women's Affairs then let's build one. If a country doesn't have a good, modern hospital (or ten) let's build them. If a capital city no longer has a university, let's rebuild it.
These are certainly worthy goals, but they also aren't necessarily the most important ones in the first couple of years. Yet they are always considered of the highest priority.
Third, and this is extremely thorny, land ownership is a huge and unresolved issue. People may not be able to rebuild because they do not have a clear title to the land. The government of Kabul has changed hands five times in the past twenty-five years and every one of those governments made changes to the deeds.
Let me give you a composite but representative example, pulled together from conversations with a number of Kabulis:
A family runs afoul of the communists back in the early 80s and goes into exile (probably Pakistan, but possibly farther afield). They manage to have a cousin come and move in so that someone in the larger family is still living in the house. However, the cousin then bribes someone in the government to change the deed to his name.The communists lose the war and the mujahideen take over the city. A fighter or commander decides that he wants the house. He kicks the cousin out, goes down to the record hall and changes the deed to his name.
The Taliban take over the city. One of them changes the deed yet again. And then he sells the house.
Something like this, if not quite as extreme in all the particulars, happened to thousands of people in Kabul. No one wants to rebuild if they might lose the land in court as soon as they've finished - which is a very real possibility. The land ownership is sufficiently confused and confidence in the honesty of the courts is shaky enough to worry people quite a lot.
Fourth, and this goes right to the very heart of the matter, there is very little money in the economy. Not only do people not have very much for reconstruction work, they don't have the funds necessary to take a land claim through the courts. It costs several thousand dollars (people said at least $5000, but usually more) and several months of court time to have a property claim finalized.
Yes, Afghanistan is trying to put systems in place to straighten all of this out. But it goes slowly and the land ownership issue has begun to fester, having an impact on people's sense of the legitimacy of the government. Nearly everyone I spoke with was very annoyed at how slow the reforms were in coming and at how corrupt the courts have become. Currently, there is no assurance of fairness and dissatisfaction is growing.
I must add that when considering reconstruction, people tell me that the difference from even six months ago is immense. Of course, six months ago almost nothing was being done as even those with the ability (legal and financial) to build were still uncertain about the security situation. That, good news!, is no longer considered a hot issue.
So, in my professional opinion: despite superficial appearances, there is not enough reconstruction going on in Kabul. There could be more and it could be done more strategically.
. . .
What would I, speaking in my professional capacity, focus on? Property law and land claims. This offers the most opportunity to the most people in the least amount of time. In addition, dealing with property now has immediate benefits that will extend far into future: one important need is establishing a trustworthy, effective, and efficient judiciary. Do it now, before a culture of laxity and corruption becomes set.
A wasteland wrought by human hands, houses blasted and crumbling, and homes broken beyond repair. A dead city.
But flying free over the empty quarter, unseen by the eyeless windows, a flock of colored birds.
All over Kabul, even over West Kabul, kites dart and weave and hover. Children toss their dreams up into the sky no matter what cruelties or foolishness on the ground try to drag them back.
People live despite disaster, dream despite despair, and, in the face of everything, fly.
The Taliban banned kites. That, perhaps, tells you everything you need to know about them.
By themselves, none of the choices of what to wear means very much. But taken together and including other, less striking, options (many Kabul women dress like poor Russians, which means their faces are bare and the clothes recognizably "western") you can see that there is a shift in attitude taking place.
There will be great strides taken for womens' rights in Afghanistan in the next few years. Educated women from Kabul already know what equal rights look like, they know what they want - and what they need to struggle against. Women from rural areas, as well as from the more conservative cities (Kandahar and Jalalabad in particular) don't. They don't know what to expect, what opportunities will open up or what traditions will be lost.
Changes, of all sorts, on the streets of Kabul (and, as the capital, scenes from Kabul dominate the media and have a wide psychological impact across the country) will both be resisted and embraced. For every apparent step forward big enough to be noticed and reported, there will be a corresponding step back. In order to measure the true depth of change, we need to fall back on more subtle, but not less clear, indications. What people wear and what they expect to be able to wear is one such.
There will be great strides taken for womens' rights in Afghanistan in the next few years. And it will not seem like enough to us, steeped all our lives in the active presence of women, who have gone to school with, worked shoulder to shoulder with, have had conversations with and arguments with and made jokes with and held hands with and shared tears with girls and women every single day. It won't be enough (and will never be enough - not even for us - until certain things are so taken for granted that they are invisible), but it might just be enough for this year. And next year, another few steps. And the year after that.
The changes are happening, right now. Don't miss them because "it isn't enough".
Victory!
How about them Patriots? The offensive line played a monster game and that is really all that. But, even though they win and win and win, the team really, really needs a killer instinct.
The only players on the team with the true killer instinct seem to be Vinatieri and the OL - and maybe Ty Law. Brady should spend the off-season learning how to put teams away from Vinatieri.
Last year, I said I would never bet (were I a gambling man) against the better defense ever again. Earlier this year I reminded everybody both that defense is the key to championships, but also that it won't cover the spread.
I nailed that this year, thank you very much.
Everybody here, from Afghan to zed, thinks that holding elections in June is crazy. I will go further than that: everybody thinks the elections are a farce.
Karzai will win. That has already been arranged. So why, some exasperated people snarled, bother with the elections?
Sure, an election gives Karzai a veneer of legitimacy – and Bush a mask of it. But Afghans are not stupid (and have rather extensive experience with geopolitics; one might even say they imbibe it with their mother's milk) and they know exactly what is going on. They know that their election is being played out (just as was ordained in Bonn) in order to impact the US elections.
Cynical? They would call you naïve if you somehow came to a different conclusion.
However, in contrast to nearly every piece of commentary on the Afghan Constitution from the Western audience (NGOs, media, whoever), every single Afghan I’ve asked thinks the Constitution is a good document. They then offer the caveat that implementation is nearly impossible.
Kabul in winter is actually quite like Boston. The temperature hovers around freezing and the sky threatens precipitation far more often than it drops it.
But some days the cold air clears just enough, becomes nearly crisp, and the infinite sky is revealed unmarred by even a wisp of cloud. On those days, the mountains come out to play.
They are stunning. Just . . . wow.
. . .
Kabul’s height of 1800m is occasionally staggering - literally. I’m from sea-level, a mollusk stranded just beyond high tide and oozing down toward the water is my natural direction. When I’m a mile up, I always find that I sleep longer and deeper than normal. I also forget that running up three flights of stairs will be momentarily puzzling in its sheer breathlessness. The fourth day of training was especially bad, as I unexpectedly ran out of breath in the middle of a sentence.
I've seen a fair number of women here wearing dresses made from a particular fabric. It is clearly artificial, some rayon or polyester weave (a guess, but a pretty good one; a foreign man cannot go up to a woman and ask about her clothes). What is worthy of remark is that this fabric is the exact blue color of the burka. The dresses sewn from it are modern (though still asian; they drape and pleat much more than western dresses) and are often intricately embroidered in silver or white thread.
Yes, there is a nod in one direction to tradition by using the color; and a suggestion that these women will be taken on their own terms and make their own decisions - at least abut what to wear.
Two striking images from my second week:
A woman dressed in a light gray power suit, pants, high heeled black leather boots. Very professional. Blue burka completely covering her head, but also billowing behind her like a cape as she marched off to her next meeting. No heads turned to see her pass but mine.
And I finally saw a woman in a full black chador, covered from head to foot, not even her hands were showing. She had added another wrap to her head (and around her shoulders; it was cold) so that even her eyes were nearly hidden from the gaze of others. All of this was skin tight.
There is the phrase "nothing left to the imagination", but, of course, in this case everything was still obscured - and the imagination was fired. This was not an incitement to prurient thought: it was a command.
She was tall and proud, defiant ("fuck you!") and playful ("don't you want to fuck me too?"), and as this daughter of Lilith swung her hips down the street, every head turned.
I am a fan of human endeavor and striving, the overcoming of the seemingly insurmountable and the pursuit of perfection, all in the face of chaos and despair. Life is made richer through the efforts we humans make to create meaning. And any kids' game, especially when played at a high level, has all of that and more.
And so, I am a fan of sport. And more, a fan of what sport can tell us about ourselves. I welcome this suggestion by ESPN to keep Jackie Robinson's number on the field.
[A]s the pitchers and the catchers, and soon all the rest, begin reporting to training camp, only Yankees reliever Mariano Rivera will be wearing Robinson's immortal No. 42. In a thoughtful and meaningful gesture seven years ago to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Robinson breaking baseball's color barrier, Major League Baseball retired his number throughout each league. Once Rivera retires, it will be gone.How unfortunate.
Soon his number, and perhaps his memory, will become merely another symbol lost in the signage that proliferates in baseball stadiums. Soon, we fear, the significance of his accomplishments will become only another chapter in the history books.
We propose that baseball keep alive the legacy of Jackie Robinson with a living memorial, that rather than retire Robinson's number, it instead put No. 42 back on the field.
A living tribute. One player. Each season. One No. 42.
Kabul is on the road to empire. Almost everybody, every nation, who has laid claim to the world has passed through here. Alexander, Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, Babur, and of course the British.
The Romans, those silly barbarians scratching in the hills around that inconsequential sea, never made it to Kabul. Claims of their world importance are, to put it plainly, suspect and probably worthless.
The Americans have made it to Kabul. Welcome to the big time.
In my experience, it takes thirty-seven hours to get from Kabul to Boston. Your mileage to hour ratio may vary - but you'll still be spent by the end of the "day".
I have also managed to schedule myself so that I head off on the annual ski vacation next week. This time, however, I have figured out to get access to the web - and, therefore, to you . . .
