Afghanistan: 'A Shocking Indictment' - NYT Book Review by Rory Stewart
… Western policymakers still argue, however, that something has been achieved: counterterrorist operations succeeded in destroying al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, there has been progress in health care and education, and even Afghan government has its strengths at the most local level. This is not much, given that the US-led coalition spent $1 trillion and deployed one million soldiers and civilians over thirteen years. But it is better than nothing; and it is tempting to think that everything has now been said: after all, such conclusions are now reflected in thousands of studies by aid agencies, multilateral organizations, foreign ministries, intelligence agencies, universities, and departments of defense…
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I thought the following panel might be interesting to listen to in addition to reading this very fine book review by Rory Stewart:
<blockquote>The first of two panel discussions spnsored by the Carr Center's Kashmir Initiative.
This event took place November 11, 2009 at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.
Panelists included: Rory Stewart, Dr. Sugata Bose, Dr. Ayesha Jalal, Alexander Evans....</blockquote>
http://www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/carr/research-publications/personal-…
Scroll down.
An almost infinite number of things to discuss but I'd like to focus on the American institutional understandings, the year 2009, when the Obama administration and its NATO partners sought to bring a new plan to AfPAk and a new envoy for the region (very Vali Nasr, Richard Holbrooke), the Carr Center and its relationship to Samantha Power, the traditional attitudes of the Americans and the British that Kashmir, specifically the Valley and the Indian occupation, are "key" to solving whatever problem of the day (development, communism, nuclear flash points, terrorism, militarization on the "subcontinent'), and that the US and its NATO partners had the moral authority to be key leaders in all of this, and so on.
Western internationalists have a pecking order in their head of conflicts that matter, and how the US should be involved. When asked (speaking more of Powers here) why one should take precedent over the other and how this all came about, you tend to find a lot of hand waving.
So too for the Hoover types and the Kagans, etc.
But Kashmir is important. Its importance lies in its long suffering people, but the "Samantha Powers" of the day--to use a shorthand-- sadly always somehow mess up the intellectual background.
But of course this is an important topic and I am glad that academics explore it. I simply wish that the academic discussion had been widened to encourage different narratives and areas of study. I don't buy the Indian spin, but the British/American and Pakistani and various Kashmiri spin is not to my taste either. The world is complicated, and complicated problems deserve the casting of a wide intellectual net. Perhaps, in the end, the status quo is correct. But we can't get at that unless we challenge the status quo ideas.
I'm sorry to be such a pest on this subject, but it becomes addictive, mining the intellectual milieu of our Foreign Policy Class, and their certainties.
I like Rory Stewart and Anand Gopal, but there are always a million narratives out there, a million ways to look at an issue. It's never ending.