Oh policy, where art thou?

In the last 24 hours or so, I: a) read that Prince William and Kate are engaged (good for them, I think they'll be a fine couple), b) saw Bill Nye faint on stage (don't worry, he's fine), and c) heard my professor say that US policy was essentially dictated by Sarah Palin's tweets (no, not fine at all).

With regards to the last point, the majority of this class has been spent discussing how the US didn't really have a foreign policy for the Middle East for, hmm, quite a few decades actually. Well, okay, it's a little silly to have one all-encompassing, one-size-fits-all-no-alterations-needed policy that could fit the area roughly between the Mediterranean, Central Asia, the Sahara, and the Indian Ocean. But even when you boil it down to, say, Iraq or Iran, there were periods you could say were devoid of policy or strategy. The Middle East countries did what they wanted, and the US chased the laser pointer. Or chased each other, if you take the whole Clinton vs the neocons story.

In an interesting coincidence, Joshua Foust brought up this point today in his aptly named post Don't Bring a Knife to a Gun Fight... Over Afghan Strategy. He focuses more on how strategy is being undermined by partisan backbiting and poking-sticks-into-motorcycle-tyres:

And what to make of all the public and contradictory wrangling over positions, troops and strategy? This is, sadly, what Washington has become in recent years: a mad dash, in public, for power, influence and triumph at all costs.

I don't want to overly criticise the US political system, because the UK system sure as hell is not the paragon of a democratic, multi-partisan government. I mean, we have a debate chamber where the two parties literally sit across from each other with two sword-lengths of space being the main barrier against anyone emulating a football fan after 90 minutes and the same number of beers. But most of my four years here has been highlighted by campaigns, debates, and political commentary, sandwiched between a presidential and a midterm election. And based on my observations, once you're in office, it's like juggling with fire between implementing your own policies and overturning the previous guy's (not always mutually exclusive). Does anyone get a breather?

Oof. Where was I?

Oh yes, policy. Yeah...there isn't really a clear policy for Afghanistan right now. And while I'm interested in how policy is implemented, I don't like the politics that it has to piggyback on. And after writing all the above, I'm not quite sure where I'm going with this post now for real. I did swear at the beginning of this blog that I would try and remain as nonpartisan as possible, but I think I've gone the other way and become rather nationalistic, whoopsies.

I promise I'll write something a little more cultural-oriented next time. While I do like to write about policy and politics, it does get pretty cut and dry, and I'm the kind who will spend hours looking up the exact national costume of country A in time period B just because it's culturally very, very cool.

What do Afghan food and Thanksgiving have in common?

Pumpkin.

Yup.

Professor gave me leave to post about something non-news related, so how wrong can one go when blogging about food? I mean, look at This is Why You're Fat. I've checked that website out enough times to have a cholesterol-induced coma just from looking at the pictures.

My first taste of Afghan food was in 2009, while I was interning in Washington DC. Before I took off for the capital, I bombarded my cousin for tips on how to survive without dying of starvation or wandering into the wrong quadrant and getting mugged. Her response: "try the Afghan Grill at Adams Morgan!" (No tips on safe areas, thanks cuz.)

So I did.

Adams Morgan was a pretty good meeting point, as a friend of mine was also in DC and we figured why not grab a bite together? Even with the frequent delays on the Red Line, it wasn't too difficult to get there. The escalators, on the other hand, were probably one of the scariest things I've had to go on. Call me a wimp, but I hate heights. And I hate escalators that are so long you look like you're descending into the bottomless pit of 300 as you get on at the top, and steep enough to go climbing on with belays and possibly a pickaxe.

Anyway, back to the food. Afghan Grill is this tiny little place on the 2nd floor of one of the townhouses around the corner from the station, and there weren't a lot of people there when we arrived (early evening), but the staff were pretty friendly and got us a window table. Then we looked at the menu.

The specialty was Kadu Buranee, which is lamb with pumpkin, yoghurt, and rice. But I didn't go for it (which I should have), and my friend got it. I instead chose Qabili Palao, which was lamb (or chicken) with raisins and carrots.

About 15 minutes later, a plate the size of my head was plonked down in front of me piled high with rice and lamb. Let the demolition begin.

I have absolutely no idea how authentic the food was. It looked reasonably true to style. I mean, there are Chinese restaurants all over the world; some are the genuine thing, others sell stuff like "chop suey". I'm sorry, I'd never heard of the stuff until I LEFT China. But besides authenticity, I just need to know if at least tastes good.

And this rice and lamb was good. Sweet, thanks to the raisins and whatever they'd cooked the carrots in, and pretty tender too. Then I tried a bit of my friend's dish, and MMM PUMPKIN AND LAMB. The lamb was more of a meat sauce covering the pumpkin, so you got to mix it into the rice and therefore use only one utensil to eat the whole thing.

It really didn't take us long to polish off what we could, and even then there was some rice left. "Would you like some dessert?" Uh, no thanks, unless you want us to explode a la Mr. Creosote. We did try Turkish coffee though, which is a pretty interesting experience when you forget - and then remember - that the grounds are supposed to remain in your cup after the coffee has been boiled.

So in a nutshell, I really liked the place. The only drawback was the price, which is on the steep side for a semi-hole in the wall even for DC. Nevertheless, I went back a few weeks later, dragging another friend along. We thought we'd get smart and order appetizers to reduce the portion size. Until my friend ordered the appetizer sampler.

We waddled home.

Grab bag

Ah, this post is late, I know. Mea maxima culpa. Aaaand I don't have one fixed topic to blog about, so here are a couple of vignettes.

First, the shameless yet serious plug: as part of my writing class, we are creating a service project, and in particular we are providing resources for those who are victims of bullying, especially through means such as Facebook. Wall Watch is currently campaigning for better support from Facebook if there is an apparent case of bullying using their network. We are also setting up a page that combines links for various programs and hotlines that you can access in one go, covering issues such as cyberbullying, suicide prevention, physical bully (still happens unfortunately), and LGBT-related bullying. I know that there are plenty of programs out there, but the recent rash of teenage and young adult suicides as a result of ongoing, very public bullying indicates there is some way to go, whether it be a lack of awareness or lack of access to the right resources.

Now, foreign news: Well, there's not much good news at the moment, with different armies pushing against each other constantly like really disjointed versions of the German and British lines at the Somme. You gain some ground, and you lose it elsewhere; even as progress is being made by NATO forces in the south, the Taliban have been slowly creeping across the north. NATO allies are now reassessing their future role in the conflict, as Sweden has chosen to reduce its troops from 2012, while the Czech government has chosen to do the complete opposite and increase its troop numbers, and Canada is evaluating its own progress. And when entire police units decide to abscond, it's easy to feel particularly morose about the whole situation.

What about domestic news? I've always liked the colour red. And one of my school colours is cardinal, which is pretty close. On the other hand, as of Tuesday, the House of Representatives is now distinctly red. Probably the one time where I haven't cheered to see it. US politics is probably the one time I've leaned towards the colour blue. So what happens now? I'm not entirely sure. Political campaigns in the US are ridiculously long in my opinion; even before the midterms were over certain candidates were already focusing on 2012. What does that mean for the legislature? It's really too early to say at this point. With the House in one pair of hands and the Senate in another pair, bipartisanship is going to be important, more than before.

Finally, the lighthearted moment: fainting kittens.

Brother, can you spare a pul?

So President Karzai has revealed that he has accepted money from Iran. Definitely not as much as the U.S. has given Afghanistan to tackle its bucketful of problems, but enough to fill a couple of bags. This probably confirms the worst fears those who've always suspected that Iran and Afghanistan were buddying it up somehow. Personally, though, I'm not particularly surprised. Karzai's government hasn't exactly been a paragon of accountability or fairness. What is interesting though is that the announcement follows up a period of pretty shaky U.S.-Afghan relations, and casts doubts on whether the Afghan government is going to go along with American or Iranian interests.

The same article states that Karzai claimed "American officials had leaked information to The New York Times about Iranian payments because of disagreements over the private security companies. " Whether this is true or not, it does reflect the issues that these private companies have played a part in Afghanistan's reconstruction. It's a Catch-22: the government doesn't want what are essentially Western mercenaries going trigger-happy, but without them to protect development projects, Taliban insurgents will hamper progress since local law enforcement is still insufficiently prepared to meet the threat.

The prognosis for U.S. future involvement in Afghanistan is not good at the moment. While many American news sources state that coalition troops are weakening the Taliban and that offensive operations have been a success, Afghan sources state otherwise (for a comprehensive overview, check out Afghan Notebook's entry Operation Dragon Strike and Kandahar). If the situation does not improve soon, public opinion on the war may fall so far that troops will have to withdraw soon from Afghanistan. Looking at the results from the small sample of students I surveyed for my project, the majority feel that the U.S. has been in Afghanistan for too long; this has been the second longest conflict for U.S. involvement, a few months short of Vietnam. And not to be too pessimistic, but we all know how that ended.

There is also a question of how this will affect U.S.-Iran relations (or lack of). Iran's the giant octopus in the Middle East room, and no one's quite sure where it's tentacles are reaching out to, which is what what makes it so unpredictable right now. We can see from Ahmadinejad's recent visit to the U.S. that there is little love for him, and it's partly because he's smart. Real smart, and a smooth talker. In most of his media appearances with pundits such as Larry King, he came looking a lot better than most would like, and without driving any interpreters to collapse from exhaustion during his speeches. There have been some overtures made towards nuclear talks, but even then there is no guarantee with the rapid changes in politics on both sides.

To continue the octopus theme:

RIP Paul (2008-2010)

*DRAMATIC PRAIRE DOG* - Say whaaaat?

No, this post isn't actually about the Dramatic Prairie Dog. Sorry to disappoint you. He is a cute fella though.

I used that title for a reason: just to see if I could grab your attention with an Internet meme. Because when I was going over my Afghanistan feeds and saw the title "Zombies*", I wanted to read it. Halloween is coming up, after all.

And it turned out to be about zombies after all, in a way. Zombies with notepads and pens and overly friendly microphones. Even better, it was relevant to my project about public opinion in Afghanistan. Or lack of.

Recent articles on Afghanistan have been primarily about how the electorate frankly doesn't give much of a damn about it at the moment. The New York Times alone has "For Midterm Voters, War is Off the Radar", "The Wars That America Forgot About", and from dear readers, "Letters-Why the Wars Aren't a Campaign Issue." Bit weird when you remember that the U.S. is still helping the Afghan government engage in one of the biggest and possibly most precarious set of talks with the Taliban.

Who's fault is it? The public, for just getting jaded and preoccupied with domestic issues? Or the shoddy, same-old-same-old reporting that comes out of that region, as Joshua Foust argues?

Bit of both, really.

I can attest to domestic issues being a higher priority for many Americans. Living in California, I have been bombarded with sundry TV commercials to vote for/against Jerry Brown, vote for/against Meg Whitman, vote for Prop 19, vote against Prop 26, etc. which can take the fun out of watching a 30 minute Simpsons episode. I'm not even eligible to vote, but I feel like I have to, just so something can get done, even if it's just so the green stuff can be smoked legally. And for a while, I definitely forgot that there were other, literal matters of life and death happening beyond the Atlantic and the Pacific.

If this is being played out in every state, of course people will be worrying about whether they're checking the right box on November 2. And that's not counting the constant head-banging over the economy and unemployment.

So what's the media got to do with it?

Foust makes a good point when he says "it’s rare to find a reporter for a major paper or TV channel that routinely quotes actual Afghans in their stories about Afghanistan." Everything in the news is about what America is doing in Afghanistan, and almost no space is given to what Afghans are doing in Afghanistan.

I won't crucify the media just yet because it makes sense if you consider that newspapers will choose to print what Americans will think is relevant, because there's only so much space available. Furthermore, many of the journalists stationed there don't go beyond Kabul much due to security concerns. What are they supposed to print then?

This brings me back to my project. If the general public is pretty apathetic to foreign issues, who knows what college students are going to think. Maybe they'll be the same, if not even more numb due to the proverbial anvil of midterms (political and academic) hovering over their heads. Or they could be more aware, more inquisitive, because they are in college and there are opportunities to explore. Who knows?

You know what, I feel kind of bad. And it was my birthday yesterday. So here you are, as a metaphor for my friend's reaction when I told her I'd only just become legal (I'm a little young for the class):

Is anyone out there?

Finding a social bookmarking buddy is like trying to find a crush's profile on Facebook. It involves fact-checking, a degree of uncertainty, a lot of cyber-stalking, and the other person probably doesn't even know you're trying to find them.

But that was our assignment, so after trawling arenas such as Diigo and Delicious, it seems that AfghanVeracity comes the closest to being my social bookmarking buddy in that their bookmarks almost exclusively cover political and social issues in Afghanistan. Looking at their tags, they like to cover topics such as:

• Women
• DVDlist
• Non-profit
• Booklist
• Military_Policy
• News
• Activists
• DOD
• Military_Experience
• US_Gov't

Their chosen bookmarks often lean towards a focus on women, especially women in the military whom are currently deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq. Issues can range from the role of women in the military, to how women are adapting to social changes in Afghanistan and what challenges remain. My research focus wasn't going to be that gender-specific, but these sources do provide an interesting perspective.

AfghanVeracity's account also stood out because most of their bookmarks also come with a small blurb about what the article or link is about, which helps me figure out what the content is because I am lazy and may not want to read it myself. For example, NewsHour: Women in Combat Numbers Increase is bookmarked with the concise "Intv. with Female Vet, talks about working with local women", so I instantly know it will be along the lines of a transcript with a veteran soldier. If that's what I want, I can click on it. And in this case I did, which revealed a very insightful look into how female soldiers have dealt with both the pressures of combat and serving along male comrades whom may or may accept women serving in the front line.

The blurbs are particularly useful in AfghanVeracity's case because a lot of their links are not to articles, but to websites of organisations and institutions such as the Afghan Women's Mission, which provides more practical advice on how to support such issues such as schools and health clinics for girls, as well as contextual information.

Maybe I was trying to be too picky about what would be a close bookmarking buddy, since beggars can't really be choosers, but sadly, there have been no updates on AfghanVeracity's account since May, so it is highly possible that the account is defunct and there won't be any new bookmarks in the near future. There are also only 32 bookmarks, which is not a bad number for a timespan of 2 months, but 2 months is the entire account history. And the majority of bookmarks were created in a single spree on 23 April 2010. Nevertheless, after checking out what links already exist, I think I can still put it to good use for my research in the social aspects of Afghanistan.

Dipping my oar in

This week's assignment required us to "dip our oar in" and comment on blogs covering topics similar to ours.


The Canada-Afghanistan Blog: Teaching Soldiers to Read

I’d never heard of this program before I found it referenced on your blog, but it sounds like an interesting idea. It never occurred to me that this would be an issue: I assume that the US and UK military require some sort of basic literacy before you can fully enlist for the very reasons mentioned by Lt. Gen. Caldwell about serial numbers and bank accounts.

That said, I checked out the original article, and the comments posted there raise some interesting questions about the information presented, such as: What languages exactly will the soldiers be taught? Serial numbers use English, but will they also be taught to be literate in their own language, and if so, to what extent? I am not familiar with the many local languages and dialects spoken over there, but I would imagine that it would not be easy finding one written script for all to read unless it were something like Arabic. Some of those commenters also seem justifiably peeved at the fact that money is being spent to teach Afghans when so many children back in the United States are already having issues with education; what are your thoughts?

It’s possible that these issues have already been covered in the program, and the details were somehow omitted when writing the article. I am very curious as to how this will turn out, and I will try and follow it on my own blog as well.

Afghan Notebook: Afghan Protests Turn Violent

I’m not one of your students, but that is a very interesting question you put at the beginning. Afghanistan and its neighbours are all very religious countries, and the clergy have an enormous amount of influence not seen in the U.S. or many Western countries anymore, at least not since the 18^th century or so. (Unless you count Catholicism.) As to why the proposed burning of the Qur’an provoked so much more anger than other equally shocking events, I think it is because of the Qur’an’s status in Islam. If a Bible burning were to take place, I’m sure there will be pockets of outraged reactions from the Christian community. However, the physical form of the Bible seems to me secondary to the text within it and the lessons of that text. With the Qur’an, the whole is sacred. I was taught in class that one should technically make sure they are purified through ablution before handling the Qur’an to read from it. And if I treated that seriously, I would be angry too if someone wanted to burn it to make a political statement.

On a final note, I am glad that they chose not to do it after all, but that doesn’t mean the sentiment has gone away. I also wonder what it feels like for Muslims who are serving in the U.S. army and have to witness the outpouring of anger on both sides.