My life for another lovely year

As i try to figure out MS thesis topics....

h/t Ducks of Minerva

Iraqi Soccer

James Denselow at HuffPo has a piece on the Iraqi national soccer team, noting that the multi-sectarian/ethnic team has been widely popular, and this month have begun playing home games again for the first time since 2002.

The team includes Sunnis, Shias and Kurds, and winning the Asian cup in 2007 brought thousands on to the streets to celebrate across the country. However, this almost universal reaction to football success was brought to a bloody end by a series of Baghdad bombings that killed 50.

My own memories of the team are very much tied to watching the 2007 Asia cup final between the Ira and Saudi teams in a restraunt in Amman, Jordan. Most of the time, Iraqis in the city tried to keep thier nationality under the radar and out of the conversation, but after the team won, the were cars with Iraqi flags and lots of honking. returning to the area I was living, which was home to many more Saudis in town for the summer, the mood was decidedly less celebatory.

A modest proposal to fix Afghanistan

Ok so this is a case of me cooking up a crazy theory too late at night. I dont particularly buy it, but I think its worth poking at, so I'm opening it up for public mockery.

So one of the things that keeps coming up as people try to transfer what has worked in Iraq to Afghanistan in some version of the "Awakening", Sons of Iraq, tribal militia scheme. Nathan at Registan points out the holes in another new set of suggestions for this type of program.

This stuff is hard, and there’s enormous tension between creating and strengthening local institutions and trying to strengthen a central government with a powerful executive. It’s clear that Green gets that, and bully on him for giving the creation of a tribal engagement and militia creation strategy a whirl. What everyone involved in this effort really needs to do, however, is ask whether or not we make things harder by talking about Afghanistan’s people and society the way we do. When we talk about tribes, we imply institutions or leaders with authority over those in the same kin group. Are we really seeing much of that in Afghanistan above the level of one to a few villages?

This got me thinking about the possible ways we think about ethnic identity. If Afghanistan does have a less centralized political elemant as this passage seems to suggest, prehaps there is a better way to mobilize it than one shaped around political leaders.

There's plenty of lit. in the ethnic conflict field (particularly D. Posner's work on Africa) that suggests that ethnic divisions become politically salient only if there are institutions that incentivises one particular identity over another. So make it that when you join one of the national security services, you can identify as a particular identity. Your presence in the security force, and the success of the missions you undertake is then combined in some type of "tribal team score" that is publicly available, and translates into some type of monetary perk (he with the highest per capita recruitment gets roads first kind of deal).

Do i think this is going to make for a very good free and open society? absolutely not. It entrenches tribalism within the security forces, creates incentives that force people into the security forces against their will, is vulnerable to central government corruption to name only a few, but it seems better than the current system...

Temporary Randomness

For any of you who read though the link roll on the left side bar, you'll notice that I often drift into pointing out art, and art related posts. Normally, I feel that these are more personally interesting then reliant to the blog, but I did what to highlight Ta-Nehisi great series of pieces about art. Today's is another barn burner.

I'm always skeptical of nostalgia--even if I fall victim to it myself, at times. I think we spend too much time hand-wringing about the present, as opposed to adjusting to it. I come to what is classic from all the art of the now--Chris Claremont, Raekwon, Randall Cunningham and Double Dragon. They've helped shape my sense of what is beautiful--but they don't limit it.

I'm genuinely not sure how to feel about this. I've actually taken quiet a bit of both practical art and art history back in high school and college. A part of me has always found that nostalgic part of art very appealing, but I also can recognize that it was what made me such a lousy painter. Something to think about.

Vote or die- it CAN work both ways

Reuters reports that Izzat al-Douri, fugitive head of Saddam’s Baath party has called for Sunni insurgents to form "national, political or supreme leadership council to include all armed and unarmed resistance powers". The article claims that the move “suggesting a possible shift away from armed struggle”. Would that that were true.

One facet of Middle Eastern politics that has frequently puzzled western commentators is the lack of division between political oppositions groups and militias. Groups like Hezbollah and Hamas has been able to participate in elections while continuing to employ political violence. Even if the wide variety of Sunni groups still resisting the central government were to follow Douri’s suggestion, and band together to form a political committee, violence would not come to an end.

That’s not to say that political participation cannot serve to moderate such organizations. For instance the Muslim Brotherhood’s involvement in the elections within professional syndicates that serve as unions in Egypt has undeniably softened the group’s position. Even as an opposition bloc in parliament, the ability to gain at least some of the key demands of the insurgents may well serve to lower levels of violence. Furthermore, if this announcement is followed through on, this move may well help to bring Sunni votes to the polls in January, creating a government that has a stronger perception of legitimacy. But lessening violence doesn’t mean that the militia will disband, or that violence will cease, and by creating such unrealistic expectations, we risk missing very real, if smaller, signs of stabilization.

Crossposted at http://attackerman.firedoglake.com/2009/08/01/you-cant-start-it-like-a-car-you-cant-stop-it-with-a-gun/

Let go of your heart, let go of your head

About a month, UNESCO smacked the US and Poland for the damage that has occurred over the last six years due to a military base being located in the ancient city of Babylon. Given the totally cost of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan in capital and lives, it may seem that throwing a hissy fit over a bunch of rocks, particularly ones that had already been tampered with by Saddam to create an archeological Disneyland, is a waste of everyone's time and energy. However, even if I can't sell you on the idea that the monuments and art of a country should be protected for their beauty and for the knowledge we gain from studying, there are political reasons that protecting this monument is good for us.

The reason why has to do with the difference between how we as Americans view such cites, and how the citizens of a country do. Blue at Afghan Quest (formally Bill and Bob's) captures this difference perfectly in a recent piece

As I roamed the shell of the palace, wandering through what was once a grand hall on the third floor, my eyes were drawn to an Afghan civilian who stood deeply considering the graffiti on the wall. I assumed that he was feeling the great sorrow of such a place, representative of the hope that Afghanistan had once held and the destruction of that same...

[I] asked him how Darulaman made him feel.

He thought for a moment, fingers on his chin. "Proud."

"Proud?" I asked, incredulous.

"Now, I am proud; and I'm thinking, ‘Do something in your life unique like this,'" he told me, "I pray to God to give me energy like this, to kick all of these insurgents out of here and I will tell them, ‘Hey, 80 or 100 years ago, they made this place. Why you made this place like this?'"

"It doesn't make you sad?" I quizzed him further, intrigued at his outlook.

"No. I feel this sorrow, but I cannot change these things that happened. But, this man, Amanullah, did a unique thing. I can do a unique thing too, inshallah."

For outsiders, antiquities are all about the past, particularly when talking about studying areas of the world that have been traditionally viewed through an Orientalist aesthetic. But for the descendents of the society that produced them, these places and items form key parts of personal identity narratives that link the individual to a historical sense of the nation. In fact, these places and things are so important to political narratives that in countries with strong ethnic and tribal divisions, like Iraq, Afghanistan, or Israel, claims about where the people you are descended from lived and what the achieved can play very specifically into division of modern political spoils.

The preservation of the past can also be way of linking to a sense of the nation that existed before the Taliban, before Saddam. A good example of this is the exhibit of pieces saved from the National Museum in Kabul by the staff before the Taliban took over. Americans didn't build the palace, and Americans didn't save this priceless collection. Afghans did. At a time when there are major concerns about the US's ability to recruit Iraqis and Afghans to take on critical security and development projects in order to ‘hold' the territory we take, we should be doing everything possible to promote Iraqi and Afghan nationalism, and that includes not destroying tangible symbols of patriotism.

Crossposted at http://attackerman.firedoglake.com/2009/08/01/let-go-of-you-heart-let-go-of-you-head/

What's happening to the monarch of the Sea?

Yesterday the British government launched Iraq Inquiry committee, just as the last troops were pulled back to Kuwait by today in compliance with the British-Iraqi SOFA, charged with”

…considering the UK’s involvement in Iraq, including the way decisions were made and actions taken, to establish, as accurately as possible, what happened and to identify the lessons that can be learned. Those lessons will help ensure that, if we face similar situations in future, the government of the day is best equipped to respond to those situations in the most effective manner in the best interests of the country…

The Inquiry is not a court of law and nobody is on trial. But I want to make something absolutely clear. This Committee will not shy away from making criticism. If we find that mistakes were made, that there were issues which could have been dealt with better, we will say so frankly.

The Washington Post is reporting that those called will be former Prime minister Tony Blair, and in contrast to what had previously been discussed sessions with be public whenever possible. The article also stated:

John Chilcot… said that "the Anglo-American relationship is one of the most central parts of this inquiry" and that the panel hoped to have "discussions" with Americans involved in the war.

I was reminded forcibly of Patrick Porter’s piece on Kings of War from earlier this week, discussing the role that the “special relationship” has played in continued British involvement in both wars:

For the UK, the war in Afghanistan, like the war in Iraq, is part of a grand strategic goal – to sustain a relationship with the United States.

In the debate over invading Iraq, Tony Blair was explicit on this point. The UK was not only supporting the US because it agreed with its case for removing Saddam. Britain was participating also to shape, lead and advise the American superpower – to promote British influence, to integrate America’s war effort within a multilateral (if not formally sanctioned and legal) coalition, to guard against a reversion back to American isolationism, and to align America’s war against terrorism within an internationalist and liberal framework…

At the level of defence policy and military capability, senior officers articulate a parallel desire to make Britain’s military power deliver the UK a seat at the top table, to help Britain ‘punch above its weight’...

For the Anglo-American relationship, there is a paradox in the war on terror. Though Britain participated in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan partly to keep its credibility and pay a ‘blood price’ to sustain the relationship, the strain and difficulty of those wars effectively endangers that credibility. Britain’s political will, the muscle and effectiveness of its armed forces, and its capacity to translate highly-regarded military force into strategic success, all of this is placed on the line, and repeatedly. Undertaken to fortify the Atlantic alliance and Britain’s status as a heavyweight junior partner, the war instead jeopardises it, and the Brits feel forced to rescue it.

I think the specific note this early in the proceeding of the inquiry board that the “special relationship” is within the bounds of the investigation speaks, a least to some degree, to a more serious desire to question whether the relationship should remain as prominent in calculations of British Strategic interests in the future. Given the way the political climate is leaning in Britain, I think that decision is going to rest with David Cameron and the Tories, rather than the beleaguered Brown administration. If Obama wants to keep our strongest ally, this might be a good time to make nice.

Crossposted to http://attackerman.firedoglake.com/2009/07/31/old-friends-sat-on-a-park-bench-like-book-ends/