Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Great thoughts from a fellow deep thinker, Gene Simons. But why does he have to bring fat people into it?
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Quote for the day
War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and
degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing
is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is
willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal
safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless
made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. -- John
Stuart Mill
Found among the personal possessions of a US soldier who died in Iraq. The original post is here.
Found among the personal possessions of a US soldier who died in Iraq. The original post is here.
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Anne Waldrop
Anne Waldrop talks about being the first successful applicant for a Rotary Scholarship from Millsaps in a decade.
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Conservatives are Racists
It is official: everything proves Conservatives are racists. The proposition is now formally un-refutable. There is no conceivable fact that could possibly refute the proposition that conservatives are racists.
Here is the proof. Matt Sullivan argues in the New York Times Magazine today that the reason conservatives are supporting Cain is in order to prove that they are not racists. Of course, their desire to prove that they are not racists is proof that they are racists. By defending yourself against the charge of racism you are proving that you are a racist.
Now, it is not normally thought that defending yourself against an accusation is proof of the accusation so why is it in this case? Because, according to Mr. Sullivan, no one has charged them with being racists. Now, this is a rather curious premise on which to base an argument intended to show that a group of people are racists, which is, after all, accusing people of being racists. How is this rather obvious difficulty circumvented? By subtly switching from the implied premise that no one is accusing conservatives of being racists to the premise that President Obama does not accuse them of being racists. This move allows Mr. Sullivan to rightly point out that Mr. Obama seldom makes the charge that those who oppose him are racists.
It is true Mr. Obama doesn't often make the charge himself. For one thing, whenever he has he has found that it has worked against him. But more importantly, he doesn't have to. The charge is made constantly on the left. Mr. Sullivan himself is exhibit A. What does the left and the establishment press do with the fact that a black man has come from behind to lead the polls and finds himself the darling of the most conservative elements in the Republican party? Write articles about how it all proves that conservatives are racists. Of course it does. Everything does. And if Cain falls in the polls or eventually does not get the nomination it will also prove that conservatives are racists. Whatever happens we can rest assured and comfortably in the knowledge that it will prove that conservatives are racists.
Here is the proof. Matt Sullivan argues in the New York Times Magazine today that the reason conservatives are supporting Cain is in order to prove that they are not racists. Of course, their desire to prove that they are not racists is proof that they are racists. By defending yourself against the charge of racism you are proving that you are a racist.
Now, it is not normally thought that defending yourself against an accusation is proof of the accusation so why is it in this case? Because, according to Mr. Sullivan, no one has charged them with being racists. Now, this is a rather curious premise on which to base an argument intended to show that a group of people are racists, which is, after all, accusing people of being racists. How is this rather obvious difficulty circumvented? By subtly switching from the implied premise that no one is accusing conservatives of being racists to the premise that President Obama does not accuse them of being racists. This move allows Mr. Sullivan to rightly point out that Mr. Obama seldom makes the charge that those who oppose him are racists.
It is true Mr. Obama doesn't often make the charge himself. For one thing, whenever he has he has found that it has worked against him. But more importantly, he doesn't have to. The charge is made constantly on the left. Mr. Sullivan himself is exhibit A. What does the left and the establishment press do with the fact that a black man has come from behind to lead the polls and finds himself the darling of the most conservative elements in the Republican party? Write articles about how it all proves that conservatives are racists. Of course it does. Everything does. And if Cain falls in the polls or eventually does not get the nomination it will also prove that conservatives are racists. Whatever happens we can rest assured and comfortably in the knowledge that it will prove that conservatives are racists.
Monday, October 17, 2011
Sensitivity U
The university stands for the free exchange of ideas and thought. It marks itself out as the place where transgressive thoughts are given a fair hearing. And yet, is there any place in modern American life where one must be more careful about what one says and above all the way in which one says it?
We talk all the time about being sensitive. but what we should really be worried about is being insensitive in the nineteenth century sense of not letting ourselves be succumb to pain and discomfort, of not allowing ourselves to be offended and, when offended, not allowing ourselves to show it or make a great deal of it.
Trying to talk about serious issues without ever offending anyone is a fool's errand. You can't do it. If you are talking about anything important, if you are talking about anything important and taking a position that is different from the position that most people around you take, you are bound to offend someone. You can't help but hurt someone's feelings.
After all, what do people care about but the things that are important to them. If you are telling someone that they are wrong about something that they think is very important and vital to the course of the future you are going to have to challenge a deeply held belief and, almost inevitably, offend someone.
We train our students to follow a carefully worked out set of guidelines that allow them to talk about important issues--within boundaries--without offending anyone, or at least the members of the groups whose sensibilities are considered especially important by the choice and master spirits of the age. If you say something that offends heterosexual males or is generally disparaging of southerners you needn't worry so much. I say that last bit not because I think that those groups deserve sympathy or are treated unfairly but to point out that I wish we could treat all groups with such similar lack of concern for their feelings.
I think that such insensitivity would be to their benefit. People who will be honest with you about your own shortcomings do you a favor, though it may not be one that is very pleasant to receive.
And just as we should be less concerned about being offended for our own good, we should be less careful about offending others for our own good. The reason you should take care to avoid as much as possible putting a thought in a way that hurts someone's feelings or transgresses against their cherished beliefs is that they will be less receptive to your argument. Thus, you should be sensitive out for entirely selfish reasons. When you really want to help someone is precisely when you should put concerns about being sensitive aside.
We talk all the time about being sensitive. but what we should really be worried about is being insensitive in the nineteenth century sense of not letting ourselves be succumb to pain and discomfort, of not allowing ourselves to be offended and, when offended, not allowing ourselves to show it or make a great deal of it.
Trying to talk about serious issues without ever offending anyone is a fool's errand. You can't do it. If you are talking about anything important, if you are talking about anything important and taking a position that is different from the position that most people around you take, you are bound to offend someone. You can't help but hurt someone's feelings.
After all, what do people care about but the things that are important to them. If you are telling someone that they are wrong about something that they think is very important and vital to the course of the future you are going to have to challenge a deeply held belief and, almost inevitably, offend someone.
We train our students to follow a carefully worked out set of guidelines that allow them to talk about important issues--within boundaries--without offending anyone, or at least the members of the groups whose sensibilities are considered especially important by the choice and master spirits of the age. If you say something that offends heterosexual males or is generally disparaging of southerners you needn't worry so much. I say that last bit not because I think that those groups deserve sympathy or are treated unfairly but to point out that I wish we could treat all groups with such similar lack of concern for their feelings.
I think that such insensitivity would be to their benefit. People who will be honest with you about your own shortcomings do you a favor, though it may not be one that is very pleasant to receive.
And just as we should be less concerned about being offended for our own good, we should be less careful about offending others for our own good. The reason you should take care to avoid as much as possible putting a thought in a way that hurts someone's feelings or transgresses against their cherished beliefs is that they will be less receptive to your argument. Thus, you should be sensitive out for entirely selfish reasons. When you really want to help someone is precisely when you should put concerns about being sensitive aside.
Nurse Jackie and Contagion
Laid up for a final weekend I acquired a "Nurse Jackie" addiction. It has a few too many contrived moments but the actors are just great. One thing I really like are the surprises and how intelligent the characters are. There is a scene at the end of the second season where you see an intervention set up and you are lead along just to the edge of a standard come to Jesus moment where the addict breaks down and admits she is an addict but instead she turns it around and goes on the attack, battling back through overwhelming evidence to make it all their fault. People are never so intelligent and resourceful as when they are in the wrong and know it.
Also saw Contagion. It seems to be a story about a virus that attacks really good looking people. I felt safe myself. Still it was very good. I really liked how it departed from the usual storyline. Not only was virus created by some nefarious corporation or the result of some terrible defense department experiment gone wrong I the character that usually turns out to be the hero, the crusading outcast blogger (blogging described as graffiti with punctuation but I don't that is necessarily true because I have seen so many blogger that they don't know about how to use punctuation at least in my opinion) turns out to be the bad guy. Or not even that. Just a bad guy. There is no one overall plot. It is one of those films where a bunch of story lines go through intersecting on surprising occasions. The main purpose seems to be to imagine what would really happen with a new virus and to imagine the consequences as realistically as possible. I personally think they did an unusually good job of it, even down to the overly-cautious and profoundly conscientious military officers.
Also saw Contagion. It seems to be a story about a virus that attacks really good looking people. I felt safe myself. Still it was very good. I really liked how it departed from the usual storyline. Not only was virus created by some nefarious corporation or the result of some terrible defense department experiment gone wrong I the character that usually turns out to be the hero, the crusading outcast blogger (blogging described as graffiti with punctuation but I don't that is necessarily true because I have seen so many blogger that they don't know about how to use punctuation at least in my opinion) turns out to be the bad guy. Or not even that. Just a bad guy. There is no one overall plot. It is one of those films where a bunch of story lines go through intersecting on surprising occasions. The main purpose seems to be to imagine what would really happen with a new virus and to imagine the consequences as realistically as possible. I personally think they did an unusually good job of it, even down to the overly-cautious and profoundly conscientious military officers.
Sunday, October 16, 2011
The bipartisan softsoap we deserve
I was invited by Warren Strain of local NBC affiliate WLBT 
to attend the gubernatorial debate and comment on it afterwards. I somehow envisioned myself sitting there like a baseball commentator, giving an extended running critique. As it turns out they were filming for a report at 10:00; I will be lucky to get 8 seconds air time. As it turned out Warren did a nice little segment structured around my comments and I was quite flattered.
The debate is in a small way historic. Dupree, the Mayor of Hattiesburg, is the first African American candidate for statewide office since Reconstruction. That is not simple suppression of the black vote; race relations are more amicable here than in Chicago by a long shot. There is no shortage of blacks in the state house. One of them, Senator Eric Powell, represents a majority white district. Still, the last time the Democrats nominated a black candidate for statewide office the lightbulb had not been invented and the automobile had not left Europe.
The debate between Lt. Governor Bryant and Mayor Dupree was one of the most friendly and amicable debates in political history. It was also one of the least informative.
The candidates were so concerned to not be seen arguing that they avoided coming out and openly disagreeing with one another. Unfortunately, as unpleasant as disagreement is it is the only way that the issues come out.
We first saw them chatting amiably in the hallway outside the debate hall at MC Law. They looked like they knew each other well and liked each other. That is interesting because even the Republicans don't really like Bryant, they just have him. On the other hand, Dupree is someone that his worst enemies seem to like. The focus on comity surely benefits Bryant.
Bryant faces a big problem in having a black opponent. He can't appear to be negative or mean. Bryant is in danger of appearing that way at any time so the emphasis on comity relives him of a dangerous duty.
It was a debate about the things they agree about rather than the things they disagree about. In other words, it was not really a debate.
Warren Strain, the NBC reporter who was kind enough to invite me to do the piece, was very good about taking my comments and editing them in a way that did not distort their meaning and summarized them in his own reporting very fairly. I would quibble with one thing that he said. At the very end he said that I agreed with the main reporter that the debate stayed on the issues. I agree that it was on the issues in the sense that it was not about the candidates. Neither challenged the other's character or ability. And it was on the issues in that they talked about their goals for Mississippi and the things they wanted to have happen. But it was on the issues in the wrong sense. In the language of political scientists it was all about valance issues, issue that everyone agrees on. It was not about making the real choices, the trade-offs, necessary to get there.
I think that the public is just wrong. The public thinks that the problem is those people in Washington are bickering about a bunch of things that just don't really matter and that there is a simple common sense solution to our budget problems that most people would agree on if those bitter bickerers in Washington would just stop all the nonsense and enact those policies. People think that we can close a 40% hole in our budget by cutting foreign aid (at most 1% of our budget) or taxing the rich (possibly as much as 4 or 5% of the hole closed but at a progressively greater cost in economic growth the more those such taxes are relied upon). The reason that we don't get serious proposals to close the deficit is that no one wants to be the one to tell the American people that if they can't have all the things they want at the price they are apparently willing to pay. Blaming it all on partisan bickering and the tone in Washington is a way of allowing the American people to ignore the unpleasant facts by pretending that it is all the fault of partisan politicians who won't listen to the people. The problem is just the opposite. The American people have spoken loudly and clearly that they don't want to face the facts and the politicians, by going along with the "its all the fault of those bickering Washington insiders" story are giving the people what they want.
A people get the politicians they deserve. What did Mencken say? That democracy is the theory that "The people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard." I think we have gotten it good and soft, but we have certainly deserved it.
to attend the gubernatorial debate and comment on it afterwards. I somehow envisioned myself sitting there like a baseball commentator, giving an extended running critique. As it turns out they were filming for a report at 10:00; I will be lucky to get 8 seconds air time. As it turned out Warren did a nice little segment structured around my comments and I was quite flattered.
The debate is in a small way historic. Dupree, the Mayor of Hattiesburg, is the first African American candidate for statewide office since Reconstruction. That is not simple suppression of the black vote; race relations are more amicable here than in Chicago by a long shot. There is no shortage of blacks in the state house. One of them, Senator Eric Powell, represents a majority white district. Still, the last time the Democrats nominated a black candidate for statewide office the lightbulb had not been invented and the automobile had not left Europe.
The debate between Lt. Governor Bryant and Mayor Dupree was one of the most friendly and amicable debates in political history. It was also one of the least informative.
The candidates were so concerned to not be seen arguing that they avoided coming out and openly disagreeing with one another. Unfortunately, as unpleasant as disagreement is it is the only way that the issues come out.
We first saw them chatting amiably in the hallway outside the debate hall at MC Law. They looked like they knew each other well and liked each other. That is interesting because even the Republicans don't really like Bryant, they just have him. On the other hand, Dupree is someone that his worst enemies seem to like. The focus on comity surely benefits Bryant.
Bryant faces a big problem in having a black opponent. He can't appear to be negative or mean. Bryant is in danger of appearing that way at any time so the emphasis on comity relives him of a dangerous duty.
It was a debate about the things they agree about rather than the things they disagree about. In other words, it was not really a debate.
Warren Strain, the NBC reporter who was kind enough to invite me to do the piece, was very good about taking my comments and editing them in a way that did not distort their meaning and summarized them in his own reporting very fairly. I would quibble with one thing that he said. At the very end he said that I agreed with the main reporter that the debate stayed on the issues. I agree that it was on the issues in the sense that it was not about the candidates. Neither challenged the other's character or ability. And it was on the issues in that they talked about their goals for Mississippi and the things they wanted to have happen. But it was on the issues in the wrong sense. In the language of political scientists it was all about valance issues, issue that everyone agrees on. It was not about making the real choices, the trade-offs, necessary to get there.
I think that the public is just wrong. The public thinks that the problem is those people in Washington are bickering about a bunch of things that just don't really matter and that there is a simple common sense solution to our budget problems that most people would agree on if those bitter bickerers in Washington would just stop all the nonsense and enact those policies. People think that we can close a 40% hole in our budget by cutting foreign aid (at most 1% of our budget) or taxing the rich (possibly as much as 4 or 5% of the hole closed but at a progressively greater cost in economic growth the more those such taxes are relied upon). The reason that we don't get serious proposals to close the deficit is that no one wants to be the one to tell the American people that if they can't have all the things they want at the price they are apparently willing to pay. Blaming it all on partisan bickering and the tone in Washington is a way of allowing the American people to ignore the unpleasant facts by pretending that it is all the fault of partisan politicians who won't listen to the people. The problem is just the opposite. The American people have spoken loudly and clearly that they don't want to face the facts and the politicians, by going along with the "its all the fault of those bickering Washington insiders" story are giving the people what they want.
A people get the politicians they deserve. What did Mencken say? That democracy is the theory that "The people know what they want and deserve to get it good and hard." I think we have gotten it good and soft, but we have certainly deserved it.
car wreck
Sorry about the light blogging. I was hit by a car Monday. I had a bit of back pain that kept me out of the Paul Lacoste thing for a couple of weeks and it took ages to get a rental car, mainly because of the Jackson police department. But I am back now. I apologize to all the people that I have been late in getting back to.
Sunday, October 02, 2011
Sitting Silent
President Obama has really made a great deal out of this one fool booing the gay soldier at the last Republic debate and not being denounced by former Senator Rick Santorum. He has taken on quite a self-righteous tone and made it a central theme of his campaign speeches on the basis of some rather ambiguous facts. If Santorum's silence after one momentary incident is damning for the entire Republican party what are we to make of the years the future President spent silently listening to, allowing his children to be educated by and dedicating his book to this man?
Monday, September 26, 2011
Cain defeats Perry
Cain has defeated Perry. Byron York explains that it was Cain's oratory that "sealed the deal."
Thank heavens! We were this close to nominating another swaggering Texan governor. Instead we are going to elect a black guy that can make a really good speech. Oh wait....
Thank heavens! We were this close to nominating another swaggering Texan governor. Instead we are going to elect a black guy that can make a really good speech. Oh wait....
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Deep Questions about Rationality
All the time I was in Afghanistan I never used a seat belt nor did I ever see anyone else use a seat belt. Now the driving conditions in Afghanistan and the habits of Afghan drivers make one's chances of getting in a wreck several times higher than one's chance in the US. And yet just as I would never think of not wearing a seat belt in the US I never once seriously considered wearing one in Afghanistan.
Now I don't know why this is the case. There are two possible answers presented by theory. One is that we make decisions based not the absolute level of risk but on the proportional level of risk. The risk of driving around in Afghanistan, indeed of being in Afghanistan at all, is perceived as so high that the marginal increase in risk from not wearing a seat belt is simply not large enough to justify a behavioral response such as wearing seat belts.
The other hypothesis that I can think of is a social norm explanation. No one wears a seat belt in Afghanistan because no one wears a seat belt in Afghanistan. You just want to do what everyone else is doing.
Ideas? Any economists want to weigh in? Sociologists? Humans?
Now I don't know why this is the case. There are two possible answers presented by theory. One is that we make decisions based not the absolute level of risk but on the proportional level of risk. The risk of driving around in Afghanistan, indeed of being in Afghanistan at all, is perceived as so high that the marginal increase in risk from not wearing a seat belt is simply not large enough to justify a behavioral response such as wearing seat belts.
The other hypothesis that I can think of is a social norm explanation. No one wears a seat belt in Afghanistan because no one wears a seat belt in Afghanistan. You just want to do what everyone else is doing.
Ideas? Any economists want to weigh in? Sociologists? Humans?
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Rachel Maddow
Watching Rachel Maddow right now. She is reporting on the problem people getting killed by giant snakes. People are getting killed by snakes. She reports that the problem is people importing exotic snakes. The people that get killed by snakes are the people that have the job of capturing the escaped exotic snakes. But why do we capture the snakes? Why not kill the snakes. Capturing a snake is difficult. Killing a snake is quite simple. It is a poisonous snake. A snake that can kill people. Kill it. People before snakes!
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Mere Civilization
One of the foundations of civilized relations among nations is the sanctity of embassies. When Genghis Khan's diplomatic representatives were killed and mutilated by a minor central asian Khanate it led to the Mongol Horde's conquest of the world. It was offensive to the morals of Genghis Khan.
Now the pro-democracy crowd has over-run the Israeli Embassy in Cairo. So much for civilization. Of course when they do it it is only evidence of the weight of their grievances against Israel as an utterly unembarrassed Egyptian professor explains:
"This action shows the state of anger and frustration the young Egyptian revolutionaries feel against Israel especially after the recent Israeli attacks on the Egyptian borders that led to the killing of Egyptian soldiers," Egyptian political analyst Nabil Abdel Fattah said.There will be no consequences. The anger of those that our intelligentsia judged to be part of the aggrieved class excuses anything. The most basic rules of civilization do not apply to these people.
Thursday, September 08, 2011
Thoughts on Obama's speech in real time--with the help of some beer!
Strange things about the Obama speech.
The president talks about getting things done that both parties should agree to but he has not told anyone what he wants to do. "You should pass this bill right away!' --err, I mean as soon as I write it. I suppose it makes sense. The president announces he will announce a major new jobs policy to meet the unemployment emergency--err, just as soon as I get back from vacation and demands that Congress then pass this urgent and utterly unobjectionable piece of legislation as soon as he writes it. Makes perfect sense. If the crisis answering policy can wait till after his vacation why should his denunciations of the Congress for not passing his bill have to wait on the bill actually being written?
Why do we need to focus on repairing bridges when we just borrowed 800 billion for infrastructure spending and "shovel ready projects"? Ok, that was small minded. There was only about $100 billion for infrastructure in the last $800 billion stimulus.
The implicit assumption behind every argument--no, explicit--was that the only reason anyone could possibly have is to oppose this was partisan self-interest.
Rachel Maddau is the real kicker. She says that Obama is being nice by saying to Republicans saying, "You are better than this." That you know that the policies you advocate are not really good and the policies of mine that you oppose are not really bad. You are not really bad people but you just succumbing to the temptation of denouncing everything I propose for partisan gain, but I forgive you.
The strange thing is that Rachel thinks this is a way of reaching out. She really doesn't know how condescending she sounds. She really doesn't imagine that anyone could have principled reasons for not favoring these proposals.
She contrasts the President to Harry Truman who just says that Republicans are bastards who don't care about the poor. Speaking as one of those Republicans I would much prefer just being called a bastard than Obama condescension. My God, there is no intellectual reason to oppose Obama's proposals? No one actually disagrees with him, there are just some people that have let their own political self-interest but get in the way of what they know is right. The condescension is so thick it is disgusting.
It is noteworthy and laudable that the President said we would have to have some "adjustments" in Medicare and Medicaid--i.e., cuts. That does take some courage and is a real contribution to the debate.
Strange things about the Obama speech.
The president talks about getting things done that both parties should agree to but he has not told anyone what he wants to do. "You should pass this bill right away!' --err, I mean as soon as I write it. I suppose it makes sense. The president announces he will announce a major new jobs policy to meet the unemployment emergency--err, just as soon as I get back from vacation and demands that Congress then pass this urgent and utterly unobjectionable piece of legislation as soon as he writes it. Makes perfect sense. If the crisis answering policy can wait till after his vacation why should his denunciations of the Congress for not passing his bill have to wait on the bill actually being written?
Why do we need to focus on repairing bridges when we just borrowed 800 billion for infrastructure spending and "shovel ready projects"? Ok, that was small minded. There was only about $100 billion for infrastructure in the last $800 billion stimulus.
The implicit assumption behind every argument--no, explicit--was that the only reason anyone could possibly have is to oppose this was partisan self-interest.
Rachel Maddau is the real kicker. She says that Obama is being nice by saying to Republicans saying, "You are better than this." That you know that the policies you advocate are not really good and the policies of mine that you oppose are not really bad. You are not really bad people but you just succumbing to the temptation of denouncing everything I propose for partisan gain, but I forgive you.
The strange thing is that Rachel thinks this is a way of reaching out. She really doesn't know how condescending she sounds. She really doesn't imagine that anyone could have principled reasons for not favoring these proposals.
She contrasts the President to Harry Truman who just says that Republicans are bastards who don't care about the poor. Speaking as one of those Republicans I would much prefer just being called a bastard than Obama condescension. My God, there is no intellectual reason to oppose Obama's proposals? No one actually disagrees with him, there are just some people that have let their own political self-interest but get in the way of what they know is right. The condescension is so thick it is disgusting.
It is noteworthy and laudable that the President said we would have to have some "adjustments" in Medicare and Medicaid--i.e., cuts. That does take some courage and is a real contribution to the debate.
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Riaz Hohammad Khan: "simplistic"
So I am watching CSPAN and the former Ambassador is talking about US Pakistan relations and in response to a question about Pakistan's involvement in terrorism and their responsibility for attacks on the India and Afghanistan he says that the accusation is "simplistic." "Simplistic." That is a really interesting choice of words. "Did your intelligence service help Pakistani nationals stage an attack on a hospital in Kabul?" "Did your country's government stage an attack on Mumbai Hotel?" These are accusations that are true or untrue. "Simplistic?" You either angrily deny the accusation or you don't. The fact that the question is dismissed as simplistic is all you really need to know about this "county"--at the risk of being simplistic.
Friday, July 15, 2011
More Steyn on Multiculturalism
Check out this photograph from a Toronto public school:
Boys in front, Girls in back, and Girls that are menstruating in back of them. Steyn has a lot of fun with the contradictions of multiculturalism that insists on feminist principles but tosses them aside when a more entitled--or potentially violent--minority is at issue.
Now I find it strange that I defending the Afghanistan war I am defending a lot of people that would approve of such an arrangement. The same people I am in favor of defending with the lives of American soldiers are the same people I would probably oppose tooth and nail if they were on my local school board. This is not a contradiction. What we are defending in Afghanistan is not a state we would particularly like to live in or have our children educated in, but it is one that is civilized.
I sit every day with people that I could never agree with if they were on my local school board but whom I would ask young Americans to give their lives defending. It is not that I minimize the differences between us but that I do not underestimate the differences between them and the Taleban.
Boys in front, Girls in back, and Girls that are menstruating in back of them. Steyn has a lot of fun with the contradictions of multiculturalism that insists on feminist principles but tosses them aside when a more entitled--or potentially violent--minority is at issue.
Now I find it strange that I defending the Afghanistan war I am defending a lot of people that would approve of such an arrangement. The same people I am in favor of defending with the lives of American soldiers are the same people I would probably oppose tooth and nail if they were on my local school board. This is not a contradiction. What we are defending in Afghanistan is not a state we would particularly like to live in or have our children educated in, but it is one that is civilized.
I sit every day with people that I could never agree with if they were on my local school board but whom I would ask young Americans to give their lives defending. It is not that I minimize the differences between us but that I do not underestimate the differences between them and the Taleban.
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Mark Steyn gets you thinking
Here is a link to a Mark Steyn column from 10 years ago on the Euro. Inside, this:
"In the normal course of events, monetary union follows political union, as it did in the US, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, and so on. In this instance, uniquely, monetary union is in itself an act of political binding. What's important on Tuesday is not the introduction of the new currency but the abolition of the old ones - not the symbolic bridges on the back of the new notes, but the burning of the bridges represented by the discarded currencies."
The European method has been to put constructivist theory into practice. Academics have long pushed the view that our words and symbols shape and determine reality. This is the doctrine that drives so much of the politically correct obsession with using just the right words to describe matters touching on the interests of minority groups. The European Union has sought to create political reality but first creating symbols of political unity, like a currency. Unfortunately, as powerful as symbolism is, it cannot overcome the failure to make certain essential hard choices. We are seeing the consequences of that failure in the Euro-zone now.
Another point he makes is one that I am embarrassed to say I was unfamiliar with:
"The new pan-European jurisdictional authority is also in marked contrast to the US, where New Hampshire won't extradite you to Vermont for actions that are illegal in the latter but not the former. Three years ago, Norman Lamont fretted that Britain would be reduced to the status of Delaware, to which I replied in these pages: you should be so lucky. That ship has sailed: on justice, taxation and much else, Britain is already reduced to well below Delaware."
Something to keep in mind.
"In the normal course of events, monetary union follows political union, as it did in the US, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, and so on. In this instance, uniquely, monetary union is in itself an act of political binding. What's important on Tuesday is not the introduction of the new currency but the abolition of the old ones - not the symbolic bridges on the back of the new notes, but the burning of the bridges represented by the discarded currencies."
The European method has been to put constructivist theory into practice. Academics have long pushed the view that our words and symbols shape and determine reality. This is the doctrine that drives so much of the politically correct obsession with using just the right words to describe matters touching on the interests of minority groups. The European Union has sought to create political reality but first creating symbols of political unity, like a currency. Unfortunately, as powerful as symbolism is, it cannot overcome the failure to make certain essential hard choices. We are seeing the consequences of that failure in the Euro-zone now.
Another point he makes is one that I am embarrassed to say I was unfamiliar with:
"The new pan-European jurisdictional authority is also in marked contrast to the US, where New Hampshire won't extradite you to Vermont for actions that are illegal in the latter but not the former. Three years ago, Norman Lamont fretted that Britain would be reduced to the status of Delaware, to which I replied in these pages: you should be so lucky. That ship has sailed: on justice, taxation and much else, Britain is already reduced to well below Delaware."
Something to keep in mind.
Saturday, July 02, 2011
My Dinner with Mr. Cheng giz
Mr. Cheng giz took me, Mirwais and the professors of the Jemea institute to dinner. Mr. Cheng giz's brother Hussein came too.
It might be helpful to know that "Cheng giz" is the Persian pronunciation of "Genghis Khan." Mr. Cheng giz's real name is Ali Reza but everyone affectionately calls him Mr. Cheng giz because of his command of the family business empire. He stands a little over 5'. He is about 30 though he is just now finishing his undergraduate degree. Not that it has held him back: he has built a string of English schools and other businesses.
They were in a very good mode. Later Mr. Ershod, former head of the political science department at Kateeb, came. He was now at Ibn senau, the school that had been formed the the first president run off by the head of Kateeb.
I have learned more about Kateeb in this conversation. It came out that the founder of Kateeb was a Mujahadin commander and that he had made his money as a warlord more than as a businessman. He was now in parliament. His name is Kazam. [I should get an interview with this guy]
He had fired the staff once before. They were able to form their own school, Ibn Senau, and they are doing fine. The current group that just got fired and which forms the core of the Jemea think tank under Mr. Salihi was pushed out at the end of the last semester.
The assembled Kateeb refugees are unanimous in their agreement that their former school is surviving on its reputation from the past (short though that past is) and is able to attract students. This is the second time of which I am aware that there has been a mass exodus from Kateeb. In general I feel that Afghans don't compromise very well and people always seem to be splitting off into factions. That this has not happened to any of Mr. Cheng giz's organizations (or at least that I know of) is part of what makes him unusual here.
Mr. Cheng giz talked about the time he was in the USAID office of capacity building. He was in charge of getting provincial officials to come to the workshops they had on democracy. He said that the only thing the directors cared about was getting numbers that would look good to their bosses. Running up the number of people that had gone through their workshops was the only thing that mattered to them, regardless of whether they got anything out of those workshops.
The people that attended the workshops, locally elected officials, would ask for their stipend immediately after the workshop was over without asking any questions or doing any sort of follow up. The only questions he ever got about the workshops was what kind of food they would get there. Often, they would lose people after the lunch had been served. Cheng giz said, "And these are the good people, the ones that believe in democracy. You can imagine how it is with the bad ones."
All of his suggestions to his superiors were dismissed. Cheng giz is convinced that they were only interested in proposals that would increase their numbers. Proposals that might increase effectiveness were at best irrelevant and, if they implied decreasing numbers, dangerous.
I asked Mr. Zeki (a first rate sociologist who had just returned from a USAID sponsored study tour of the US averring that America "is the paradise on the Earth) how this might play out with the workshops for moderate Mullahs for which he was presently writing a grant proposal. He nodded thoughtfully for a moment and said that it was always a possibility.
The conversation then turned to the current political situation in the country. Mr. Cheng giz does most of the talking but on this subject at least seems to have the full support of the group.
The Taliban are systematically killing off the heads of the other ethnic groups. When they killed General Davood they announced that they had a list and now two more of the people on the list have been killed.
(Earlier, the normally forgiving and moderate Mirwais had confided in me that he thought President Karzai had a plan to assassinate the leaders of the other ethnic groups.)
(my notes give the impression that Cheng giz does all the talking. That true to a certain extent, though the effect is exaggerated in English. When the conversation slips back to Farsi there is a lot more give and take. Also, along with his disquisitions on current affairs he intersperses eloquent praises of his teachers. At one point I rib him by asking "Who is the teacher and who is the student?" getting a laugh from him and his three largely silent professors. He retorts, "Well, you know, we have a saying that if you want to know how good a teacher is you should not to to him but to his students. So, I am doing my duty to my teachers by showing you all that I have learned from them.")
I bring up what he had told me on my last trip, that the money is all spent in the provinces where there is fighting and the people that are on our side are ignored.
He said that that is true. He once brought this up to a Japanese employee of the International NGO [nail down what organization this was], saying that in the areas where people support democracy they get no help. He replied, "But you are no threat to us!"
In [I can't remember which province, one of the central highlands? Daikondi?] there had been no violence and there was no PRT (Provincial Reconstruction Team). In other words, no violence no reconstruction money.
Mr. Zeki said that he thought they (meaning, I assumed, the Americans) thought that poverty was the reason for the violence and that therefore they should send money to the places where people are violent.
Mr. Cheng giz then returns to one of his favorite themes, Pashtun domination of the government and of Afghanistan's contact with the outside world. "One of the problems is the Pashtun domination of the international community's contact with Afghanistan. At one point the government unilaterally decreased its estimate of the Hazara proportion of the population from 20% to under 10%. In the offices of USAID or the embassy all of the local employees that one sees are Pashtuns. I didn't see a single one that was not a Pashtun." [I remember the fellow that I met with Jeffrey Ellis in the information office was an Hazara--not much of a sample, of course. The one time I went to the Embassy was on a Friday and the local staff were off so I didn't get much of a sense. All the security staff I saw were Philippine contractors].
The discussion turns to AUA (American University of Afghanistan). The faculty is dominated by Pashtuns. I was treated to some discussion of the political rants that Pashtun professors had made in class (Cheng giz had been a student there before transferring to Kateeb and his brother Hussein was about a semester away from graduating). I brought up that I had met some progressive Pashtuns. "What about Dr. Faiez?" Murmurs went around the room (Faiez is the founder of the association of private colleges in Afghanistan and one of the founders of the AUA). It was universally consented that he was a good man, "a modern man." I also mentioned a professor at Kabul university in the law faculty [Wahdi?] and this also met with approval.
(this all dovetailed nicely with my earlier discussion of the AUA at Horazmi where the young economics professor mentioned that AUA gets the most politically influential students. Is that us getting the best students or the most politically influential students getting our resources?)
The DDR
Mr. Cheng giz talks at length, though the rest of the party are obviously in full agreement:
"The us government came up with a wonderful idea [I don't know if it was the US government but it was supported by the US government] to pacify Afghanistan by getting people to turn in their guns. Of course, the Hazara are fully supporting [sic] the US government and democracy. One of our own leaders [Khalili?] was put in charge of it. I can still remember seeing him with his two American body guards standing next to him and him telling us how the government would now protect us. They went around the Hazara villages and got all the guns. People gave them up willingly.
Of course, there is one group that is exempted, exempted in the Constitution, the Kuchi (the nomads). They have a unique way of life that requires them to go around and move through different districts. They have to be able to keep their weapons.
So, now they have raided the Hazara villages [he gives the name of a village in Ghazni] and killed a lot of people including this great leader [when he mentions the name the people around the table actually seem to bow their heads]. The Kuchi had weapons that the government doesn't even have. And many members of the ANA fired at the people trying to defend their homes! Can't they make a distinction between the people trying to defend themselves and armed raiders on horseback?
[The law, in its majestic equality, forbids both rich and poor sleeping under bridges. The same thing could be going on here, where you have a rule against violence in general and you are ordering people to lay down their arms. If they don't you have to shoot them if you see them disobeying. You don't want to take sides, after all. That is the essence of the rule of law. Of course, at a minimum, the guy standing in front of his house trying to defend it will always be a better target than the guy riding by on horseback trying to burn it down.]
Of course they burned down the school and beheaded some people. This was the school that the Ghazni had built themselves so there will be no help from the international community in rebuilding it. They only build schools for the people that won't build them themselves and who only want to burn them down once they are built.
Of course because Ghazni is so peaceful there are no coalition forces around to protect anyone.
The Uzbeks and Tajiks never went along with this disarmament program and are relatively safe. Of course the Pashtuns are openly at war with us. Now of course the Tajiks and the Uzbeks never went along with it. They are fine, or at least they don't have to worry about raids from the Kuchi."
I interjected my own thoughts. Yesterday, when I first arrived Mr. Zeki had told me about his trip to America and how he had seen a small community college with a few Muslims and how the school had made a prayer room available for them. He put his hand on his heart and said, "I love American multiculturalism." I now said to him that the problem the Hazara face in Ghazni at the hands of the Kuchi is in a way a consequence of the same multiculturalism he so admired. The reason they don't disarm the Kuchi is that it would be denying the legitimacy of their culture. Multiculturalism is the idea that no one culture is better than another. Taken to its logical extreme it means that we can't go to the Kuchi and say that your way of life, your culture, of being nomadic raiders is not as good as that of the settled and law abiding villagers. We have to be neutral.
Mr. Zeki nodded thoughtfully. He often nods thoughtfully.
It might be helpful to know that "Cheng giz" is the Persian pronunciation of "Genghis Khan." Mr. Cheng giz's real name is Ali Reza but everyone affectionately calls him Mr. Cheng giz because of his command of the family business empire. He stands a little over 5'. He is about 30 though he is just now finishing his undergraduate degree. Not that it has held him back: he has built a string of English schools and other businesses.
They were in a very good mode. Later Mr. Ershod, former head of the political science department at Kateeb, came. He was now at Ibn senau, the school that had been formed the the first president run off by the head of Kateeb.
I have learned more about Kateeb in this conversation. It came out that the founder of Kateeb was a Mujahadin commander and that he had made his money as a warlord more than as a businessman. He was now in parliament. His name is Kazam. [I should get an interview with this guy]
He had fired the staff once before. They were able to form their own school, Ibn Senau, and they are doing fine. The current group that just got fired and which forms the core of the Jemea think tank under Mr. Salihi was pushed out at the end of the last semester.
The assembled Kateeb refugees are unanimous in their agreement that their former school is surviving on its reputation from the past (short though that past is) and is able to attract students. This is the second time of which I am aware that there has been a mass exodus from Kateeb. In general I feel that Afghans don't compromise very well and people always seem to be splitting off into factions. That this has not happened to any of Mr. Cheng giz's organizations (or at least that I know of) is part of what makes him unusual here.
Mr. Cheng giz talked about the time he was in the USAID office of capacity building. He was in charge of getting provincial officials to come to the workshops they had on democracy. He said that the only thing the directors cared about was getting numbers that would look good to their bosses. Running up the number of people that had gone through their workshops was the only thing that mattered to them, regardless of whether they got anything out of those workshops.
The people that attended the workshops, locally elected officials, would ask for their stipend immediately after the workshop was over without asking any questions or doing any sort of follow up. The only questions he ever got about the workshops was what kind of food they would get there. Often, they would lose people after the lunch had been served. Cheng giz said, "And these are the good people, the ones that believe in democracy. You can imagine how it is with the bad ones."
All of his suggestions to his superiors were dismissed. Cheng giz is convinced that they were only interested in proposals that would increase their numbers. Proposals that might increase effectiveness were at best irrelevant and, if they implied decreasing numbers, dangerous.
I asked Mr. Zeki (a first rate sociologist who had just returned from a USAID sponsored study tour of the US averring that America "is the paradise on the Earth) how this might play out with the workshops for moderate Mullahs for which he was presently writing a grant proposal. He nodded thoughtfully for a moment and said that it was always a possibility.
The conversation then turned to the current political situation in the country. Mr. Cheng giz does most of the talking but on this subject at least seems to have the full support of the group.
The Taliban are systematically killing off the heads of the other ethnic groups. When they killed General Davood they announced that they had a list and now two more of the people on the list have been killed.
(Earlier, the normally forgiving and moderate Mirwais had confided in me that he thought President Karzai had a plan to assassinate the leaders of the other ethnic groups.)
(my notes give the impression that Cheng giz does all the talking. That true to a certain extent, though the effect is exaggerated in English. When the conversation slips back to Farsi there is a lot more give and take. Also, along with his disquisitions on current affairs he intersperses eloquent praises of his teachers. At one point I rib him by asking "Who is the teacher and who is the student?" getting a laugh from him and his three largely silent professors. He retorts, "Well, you know, we have a saying that if you want to know how good a teacher is you should not to to him but to his students. So, I am doing my duty to my teachers by showing you all that I have learned from them.")
I bring up what he had told me on my last trip, that the money is all spent in the provinces where there is fighting and the people that are on our side are ignored.
He said that that is true. He once brought this up to a Japanese employee of the International NGO [nail down what organization this was], saying that in the areas where people support democracy they get no help. He replied, "But you are no threat to us!"
In [I can't remember which province, one of the central highlands? Daikondi?] there had been no violence and there was no PRT (Provincial Reconstruction Team). In other words, no violence no reconstruction money.
Mr. Zeki said that he thought they (meaning, I assumed, the Americans) thought that poverty was the reason for the violence and that therefore they should send money to the places where people are violent.
Mr. Cheng giz then returns to one of his favorite themes, Pashtun domination of the government and of Afghanistan's contact with the outside world. "One of the problems is the Pashtun domination of the international community's contact with Afghanistan. At one point the government unilaterally decreased its estimate of the Hazara proportion of the population from 20% to under 10%. In the offices of USAID or the embassy all of the local employees that one sees are Pashtuns. I didn't see a single one that was not a Pashtun." [I remember the fellow that I met with Jeffrey Ellis in the information office was an Hazara--not much of a sample, of course. The one time I went to the Embassy was on a Friday and the local staff were off so I didn't get much of a sense. All the security staff I saw were Philippine contractors].
The discussion turns to AUA (American University of Afghanistan). The faculty is dominated by Pashtuns. I was treated to some discussion of the political rants that Pashtun professors had made in class (Cheng giz had been a student there before transferring to Kateeb and his brother Hussein was about a semester away from graduating). I brought up that I had met some progressive Pashtuns. "What about Dr. Faiez?" Murmurs went around the room (Faiez is the founder of the association of private colleges in Afghanistan and one of the founders of the AUA). It was universally consented that he was a good man, "a modern man." I also mentioned a professor at Kabul university in the law faculty [Wahdi?] and this also met with approval.
(this all dovetailed nicely with my earlier discussion of the AUA at Horazmi where the young economics professor mentioned that AUA gets the most politically influential students. Is that us getting the best students or the most politically influential students getting our resources?)
The DDR
Mr. Cheng giz talks at length, though the rest of the party are obviously in full agreement:
"The us government came up with a wonderful idea [I don't know if it was the US government but it was supported by the US government] to pacify Afghanistan by getting people to turn in their guns. Of course, the Hazara are fully supporting [sic] the US government and democracy. One of our own leaders [Khalili?] was put in charge of it. I can still remember seeing him with his two American body guards standing next to him and him telling us how the government would now protect us. They went around the Hazara villages and got all the guns. People gave them up willingly.
Of course, there is one group that is exempted, exempted in the Constitution, the Kuchi (the nomads). They have a unique way of life that requires them to go around and move through different districts. They have to be able to keep their weapons.
So, now they have raided the Hazara villages [he gives the name of a village in Ghazni] and killed a lot of people including this great leader [when he mentions the name the people around the table actually seem to bow their heads]. The Kuchi had weapons that the government doesn't even have. And many members of the ANA fired at the people trying to defend their homes! Can't they make a distinction between the people trying to defend themselves and armed raiders on horseback?
[The law, in its majestic equality, forbids both rich and poor sleeping under bridges. The same thing could be going on here, where you have a rule against violence in general and you are ordering people to lay down their arms. If they don't you have to shoot them if you see them disobeying. You don't want to take sides, after all. That is the essence of the rule of law. Of course, at a minimum, the guy standing in front of his house trying to defend it will always be a better target than the guy riding by on horseback trying to burn it down.]
Of course they burned down the school and beheaded some people. This was the school that the Ghazni had built themselves so there will be no help from the international community in rebuilding it. They only build schools for the people that won't build them themselves and who only want to burn them down once they are built.
Of course because Ghazni is so peaceful there are no coalition forces around to protect anyone.
The Uzbeks and Tajiks never went along with this disarmament program and are relatively safe. Of course the Pashtuns are openly at war with us. Now of course the Tajiks and the Uzbeks never went along with it. They are fine, or at least they don't have to worry about raids from the Kuchi."
I interjected my own thoughts. Yesterday, when I first arrived Mr. Zeki had told me about his trip to America and how he had seen a small community college with a few Muslims and how the school had made a prayer room available for them. He put his hand on his heart and said, "I love American multiculturalism." I now said to him that the problem the Hazara face in Ghazni at the hands of the Kuchi is in a way a consequence of the same multiculturalism he so admired. The reason they don't disarm the Kuchi is that it would be denying the legitimacy of their culture. Multiculturalism is the idea that no one culture is better than another. Taken to its logical extreme it means that we can't go to the Kuchi and say that your way of life, your culture, of being nomadic raiders is not as good as that of the settled and law abiding villagers. We have to be neutral.
Mr. Zeki nodded thoughtfully. He often nods thoughtfully.
Hotel Attack
Here is a link to the Guardian's report on the Hotel attack the other night.
I am late in writing anything about it because of the trouble I have been having getting an internet connection.
I was up all night anyway with some kind of food poisoning. You just have to lose at least one day to a new microbe when you are in a country like this. (The next day my friend Mr. Cheng giz almost tried to carry me to the German Clinic.) But I doubt I would have been able to sleep anyway. I was 2 km away--a little over a mile. If I had not been so sick I suppose I would have been able to see quite a show from my roof. As it was I heard a lot of helicopters going over head and the explosions which I later learned were rocket propelled grenades.
I have been to the Hotel Intercontinental before. It has a really nice buffet, but it is the kind of place that could be anywhere. But for the layers of security and road obstacles outside you wouldn't really know you were in Afghanistan so what is the point of going there? And it is expensive. Still, I have been taken there a few times by Afghans who think that is what I, as a foreigner, would like.
It was odd lying there in the basement hearing all this mayhem. I really did start to think that an army was invading the city. But somehow I wasn't scared, or at least no scared enough to get up and see what was going on. I suppose the most important thing was that if I had been in immediate danger Mirwai--my research colleague and general minder--would have come and got me.
It is a good thing that I didn't decide to go to Mirwais' room and see what he thought because I would have found his room empty. As it turns out Mirwais was concerned enough to go over toward the hotel to see what was going on. Now once he gets there the police try to arrest him. Of course he talked himself out of it--Mirwais could talk himself out of a sunburn--but it kept him there a good bit of the night.
In the morning I talked to some students and I kept getting confused by their account. They told me 17 had been killed but then when they gave their subtotals of the various types of people killed the number would come out in the 20s. When I asked they said, "But Sir, of course we don't count the terrorists among the people killed." A bit of sound moral accounting there.
I feel that the city of Kabul gets a bad rap. The various reports have said that security is only nominally under the control of the Afghan police and that the attack represents a major embarrassment for them. I disagree.
First, on security, I have seen nothing but Afghan police this time around. This is the first time I have not seen a single foreign military vehicle in town. All of the checkpoints are manned by Afghans. I have walked all around the city and have had the occasional pleasant chat with Afghan police and have found them invariably efficient and affable. I don't know what would happen if I needed them for something really important or if as a foreigner I am not subject to requests for bribes, but I certainly don't recognize the marauders that I read about in press reports in the police I meet.
The failure to stop five to nine men with small arms from entering a city of some 3 million is hardly a surprise. Could we keep out 10 men with small arms day in, day out from a city the size of Chicago? I rather doubt it. The Taliban speak the language, take hostages, kill you and your wife and children if you don't cooperate, and are suicidal. What police force could keep a city absolutely free of such a force. JKF said that the President can always be killed by a man willing to trade his own life for the president's. Any structure can be shot up pretty well by 10 men bent on exploding themselves.
What is being portrayed as a major failure of the Afghan police, it seems to me, tells us less about them and more about their (and our) enemy. If you are decided to die and don't care who you kill you will surely manage to kill someone. The fact that almost half the people they killed were unarmed, and that even with suicide vests they only managed to kill just under twice their own number, is really rather remarkable. And yet we talk about handing a portion of power in the government to the people that launched these suicidal mass murders? Who praised them as heros for gunning down people who were attending a wedding reception? My God, if we are willing to treat with these fanatics on the strength of such a showing, what country is safe? There are 35,000 Taliban with the support of under 10% of the population. Negotiating a power sharing agreement with them is admitting a monstrous principle--that for commanding a relative handful of fanatics and a depraved contempt for human life you can be rewarded with a share in power for a democracy. It is as if the Congress had decided to award seats to the Klu Klux Klan.
Anyway, as for my own personal safety, I had it figured on a spreadsheet once that I faced a higher chance of falling victim to homicide in Chicago than in Afghanistan. When a get a better connection I will try to update this post with those figures. But in any case, I am sure I am in greater danger here in Kabul from the street vendors than from the Taliban.
I am late in writing anything about it because of the trouble I have been having getting an internet connection.
I was up all night anyway with some kind of food poisoning. You just have to lose at least one day to a new microbe when you are in a country like this. (The next day my friend Mr. Cheng giz almost tried to carry me to the German Clinic.) But I doubt I would have been able to sleep anyway. I was 2 km away--a little over a mile. If I had not been so sick I suppose I would have been able to see quite a show from my roof. As it was I heard a lot of helicopters going over head and the explosions which I later learned were rocket propelled grenades.
I have been to the Hotel Intercontinental before. It has a really nice buffet, but it is the kind of place that could be anywhere. But for the layers of security and road obstacles outside you wouldn't really know you were in Afghanistan so what is the point of going there? And it is expensive. Still, I have been taken there a few times by Afghans who think that is what I, as a foreigner, would like.
It was odd lying there in the basement hearing all this mayhem. I really did start to think that an army was invading the city. But somehow I wasn't scared, or at least no scared enough to get up and see what was going on. I suppose the most important thing was that if I had been in immediate danger Mirwai--my research colleague and general minder--would have come and got me.
It is a good thing that I didn't decide to go to Mirwais' room and see what he thought because I would have found his room empty. As it turns out Mirwais was concerned enough to go over toward the hotel to see what was going on. Now once he gets there the police try to arrest him. Of course he talked himself out of it--Mirwais could talk himself out of a sunburn--but it kept him there a good bit of the night.
In the morning I talked to some students and I kept getting confused by their account. They told me 17 had been killed but then when they gave their subtotals of the various types of people killed the number would come out in the 20s. When I asked they said, "But Sir, of course we don't count the terrorists among the people killed." A bit of sound moral accounting there.
I feel that the city of Kabul gets a bad rap. The various reports have said that security is only nominally under the control of the Afghan police and that the attack represents a major embarrassment for them. I disagree.
First, on security, I have seen nothing but Afghan police this time around. This is the first time I have not seen a single foreign military vehicle in town. All of the checkpoints are manned by Afghans. I have walked all around the city and have had the occasional pleasant chat with Afghan police and have found them invariably efficient and affable. I don't know what would happen if I needed them for something really important or if as a foreigner I am not subject to requests for bribes, but I certainly don't recognize the marauders that I read about in press reports in the police I meet.
The failure to stop five to nine men with small arms from entering a city of some 3 million is hardly a surprise. Could we keep out 10 men with small arms day in, day out from a city the size of Chicago? I rather doubt it. The Taliban speak the language, take hostages, kill you and your wife and children if you don't cooperate, and are suicidal. What police force could keep a city absolutely free of such a force. JKF said that the President can always be killed by a man willing to trade his own life for the president's. Any structure can be shot up pretty well by 10 men bent on exploding themselves.
What is being portrayed as a major failure of the Afghan police, it seems to me, tells us less about them and more about their (and our) enemy. If you are decided to die and don't care who you kill you will surely manage to kill someone. The fact that almost half the people they killed were unarmed, and that even with suicide vests they only managed to kill just under twice their own number, is really rather remarkable. And yet we talk about handing a portion of power in the government to the people that launched these suicidal mass murders? Who praised them as heros for gunning down people who were attending a wedding reception? My God, if we are willing to treat with these fanatics on the strength of such a showing, what country is safe? There are 35,000 Taliban with the support of under 10% of the population. Negotiating a power sharing agreement with them is admitting a monstrous principle--that for commanding a relative handful of fanatics and a depraved contempt for human life you can be rewarded with a share in power for a democracy. It is as if the Congress had decided to award seats to the Klu Klux Klan.
Anyway, as for my own personal safety, I had it figured on a spreadsheet once that I faced a higher chance of falling victim to homicide in Chicago than in Afghanistan. When a get a better connection I will try to update this post with those figures. But in any case, I am sure I am in greater danger here in Kabul from the street vendors than from the Taliban.
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