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	<title>Rug Pundits &#187; Bonn conference</title>
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	<description>From the other side of the fence</description>
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		<title>Flawed Questions, Missed Alternatives, Rethinking Causes &#8211; lecture by Nazif Shahrani</title>
		<link>http://rugpundits.com/2009/11/03/flawed-questions-missed-alternatives-rethinking-causes-lecture-by-nazif-shahrani/</link>
		<comments>http://rugpundits.com/2009/11/03/flawed-questions-missed-alternatives-rethinking-causes-lecture-by-nazif-shahrani/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 02 Nov 2009 23:05:57 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jakob Steiner</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Audio]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Blog]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[The Other View]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Afghanistan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bonn conference]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[David Kilcullen]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Nazif Shahrani]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Nicolas Bouvier]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Stanley McChrystal]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://pakchronicle.com/?p=188</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Christian Bleuer on Ghosts of Alexander has provided some excellent material on AfPak &#8211; a lecture at ANU by Nazif Shahrani, which can be accessed here as an mp3.
He is talking about alternatives to the current war that were never considered, a Bonn agreement that was leading into the wrong direction looking for the wrong [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Christian Bleuer on <a href="http://easterncampaign.wordpress.com/2009/11/02/shahrani-on-bushobama-and-afghanistan/#comment-1680" target="_blank">Ghosts of Alexander</a> has provided some excellent material on AfPak &#8211; a lecture at ANU by <a href="http://www.indiana.edu/~afghan/" target="_blank">Nazif Shahrani</a>, which can be accessed <a href="http://www.anu.edu.au/mac/podcasts/Audio/Shahrani_20102009.mp3" target="_blank">here as an mp3</a>.</p>
<p>He is talking about alternatives to the current war that were never considered, a Bonn agreement that was leading into the wrong direction looking for the wrong approach to a solution, and why the West needs to rethink its idea of &#8220;security&#8221; and how to keep it.</p>
<p>Personally his comment on the last point &#8211; that the problem the West has with the Muslim world is a &#8220;breach of trust&#8221; and thus a solution with arms is in no way leading to a solution, just leading to more distrust &#8211; is the most valuable. That &#8220;trust&#8221; is a vital component if you want to e.g. make business with a carpet dealer in Pakistan, if you want to travel from Urumqi to Kashgar with a truck driver or if you want to build a school in Kashmir with a <em>mistri</em> you hardly know. That trust is different from what we understand under the same term when dealing with other people in e.g. Europe. And that difference needs to be understood and felt (unfortunately I am a poor creator with words and thus won&#8217;t attempt an explanation here, Nicolas Bouvier in his L&#8217;Usage de Monde does give some insight for all those who can&#8217;t experience it themselves), can be learnt on the small scale (carpet dealer, truck driver, <em>mistri</em>) and may then be applied on the large scale (international cooperation, trade, nation building).</p>
<p>He does endorse McChrystal&#8217;s assessment, but criticizes him for not presenting a strategy to meet the goal (&#8221;people centered approach&#8221;).</p>
<p>Kilcullen also has <a href="http://www.anu.edu.au/discoveranu/content/podcasts/accidental_guerrilla/" target="_blank">a lecture on &#8220;Small Wars&#8221;</a>, I haven&#8217;t listened to it yet.</p>
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		<item>
		<title>The Bonn Conference &#8211; History and Impact</title>
		<link>http://rugpundits.com/2009/10/10/the-bonn-conference-history-and-impact/</link>
		<comments>http://rugpundits.com/2009/10/10/the-bonn-conference-history-and-impact/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 10 Oct 2009 18:24:04 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Jakob Steiner</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Article]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Report]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Afghanistan]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Ahmed Rashid]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Barnett Rubin]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Bonn conference]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://pakchronicle.com/?p=54</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[From a review by Ahmed Rashid ("Afghanistan: On the Brink" in the New York Review of Books) I turned towards another assessment by Barnett Rubin - his pragmatic comments on the targets set by the US and during the Bonn conference, written in 2006 but already addressing many points some pundits pretend to have invented only recently.]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>From a review by Ahmed Rashid (<a href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/19098" target="_blank">&#8220;Afghanistan: On the Brink&#8221; in the New York Review of Books</a>) that also addresses Greg Mortenson (a mountain climber turned <a href="https://www.ikat.org" target="_blank">philanthropist</a> who became famous with his book &#8220;Three cups of tea&#8221;) and Ann Jones and her criticism on Robert Kaplan (whose book &#8220;Soldiers of God&#8221; according to her &#8220;sometimes read[s] like fan mail, tinged with a kind of homoerotic glorification of manliness, yet safely homoerotic because these tough, fierce, idealized bearded warriors seemed the very pinnacle of macho masculinity.&#8221; &#8211; a criticism I can at least partly agree with although not on the grounds of feminism as Rashid claims for Jones) I turned towards another assessment by Barnett Rubin &#8211; his pragmatic comments on the targets set by the US and during the Bonn conference, written in 2006 but already addressing many points some pundits pretend to have invented only recently (read the <a href="http://www.cfr.org/publication/10273/" target="_blank">CFR report</a> also as PDF for free).</p>
<p>A document he refers to extensively is the <a href="http://www.reliefweb.int/rwarchive/rwb.nsf/db900sid/KHII-6LK3R2?OpenDocument" target="_blank">Afghanistan National Development Strategy</a> by the Afghan government, a document I haven&#8217;t read yet (it includes 234 pages) but which has been acclaimed by international experts as outstanding for the standards of developing countries.</p>
<p>The outcome from the conference, including all projected targets is also available at <a href="http://www.cfr.org/publication/9699/afghanistan_compact.html" target="_blank">CFR</a>.</p>
<p>Also <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/campaign/withus/cbonn.html" target="_blank">PBS covered the Bonn conference</a>, albeit without video material as far as I could grasp.</p>
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