Dec
31
2008
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Written by JD Johannes
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Wednesday, 31 December 2008 |
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In a previous life--the one in which I was a political operative--New Years Eve was always a busy a stressful day as I furiously raced around collecting the last contributions that had been pledged to the campaign.
A tradition developed between myself and one a key donor in which I had to physically track him down, make a few social and business calls with him, then go to his office get the checks (which were already made out) then have an early evening dinner with his family.
I then raced to the last bank branch open and made the deposit.
A new holiday tradition has developed to replace that.
For the past three years, in early December, I drive out to Home Office in Ottawa County, KS and drop off a large hard drive with the new documentary digitally encoded on it.
My friend and business partner David Chavarria then cleans up the audio, graphics and does a bunch of other things I swear are magic to turn it into the final DVD.
Here's a little snippet of the new movie, which is unlike any Iraq documentary ever made:
As for predictions, I am a horrible prognosticator, but a few of these are dead certain, which will bring up my average:
--I will release another documentary
--I'm going to publish a book that has its roots in my work in Iraq, but is actually about something else entirely
--Michael Yon will find himself in the most precarious situations imaginable and live to blog about them
--The SOFA agreement with Iraq will be broadly interpreted to keep US Forces in most Joint Security Stations
--I will finally beat 'Redacted'
--Glenn Reynolds will use the term "heh"
--Uncle Jimbo of Blackfive will not get married
--More media companies, especially newspapers will flounder
--Advertisers will discover that most advertising does not convert to sales, which, when combined with the recession, will be death of many media companies
--In the cattle markets Steers and Heifers will bottom out at sixty-five cents
--Oil will creep up to $65/barrel
--Kansas State, under the leadership of the returning Bill Snyder, will make it to the Alamo Bowl
--Leftwing groups like ANSWER, MoveOn, CodePink, etc., flush with electoral success and without an enemy will suffer mass psychosis
--I will not get shot at in Iraq, but I will get shot at in Afghanistan
--Blackfive actual will declare that I am nuts
--In December 2009 I will drive out to Ottawa County and drop off a hard drive that contains what will be my last documentary
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Dec
27
2008
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Written by JD Johannes
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Saturday, 27 December 2008 |
This is a first for me, the 'hear-say' quote. Actually the 'hear-say' quote is common, it is just the first time I have been part of it in a major publication.
In today's Wall Street Journal , Paul Mulshine quotes Glenn Reynolds quoting me.
Here's the graph:
"Now we're hearing the same thing about the blogosphere. 'When enough bloggers take the leap, and start reporting on the statehouse, city council, courts, etc. firsthand, full-time, then the Big Media will take notice and the avalanche will begin,' Mr. Reynolds quotes another blogger as saying. If this avalanche ever occurs, a lot of bloggers will be found gasping for breath under piles of pure ennui. There is nothing more tedious than a public meeting."
The preceding and succeeding paragraphs take a few jabs at the amatuer pundits of the blogosphere which are to expected.
The whole column is essentially a rewrite of the hundreds that came before and would not be worth noting except the hear-say quote is from a blogger who actually goes out and, in Mulshine's own words:
"...is performing a valuable task for the reader -- one that no sane man would perform for free. He is assembling what in the business world is termed the 'executive summary.' Anyone can duplicate a long and tedious report. And anyone can highlight one passage from that report and either praise or denounce it. But it takes both talent and willpower to analyze the report in its entirety and put it in a context comprehensible to the casual reader."
Supposedly that 'talent and willpower' is found wanting in bloggers. Like I said, the whole op-ed is nothing new.
Except in that the quoted but un-named blogger used to reinforce his points is none other than me--JD Johannes.
Most recently I produced, shot and edited video reports for TIME Magazine's website and my video was aired on WCBS-TV New York, KWTV-TV Oklahoma City and KOTV-TV Tulsa.
I've made TV shows, dozens of customized "sweeps pieces" for local TV and produced five documentaries.
The subject of the quote from Glenn's book, Army of Davids , was about how someone who actually understood the law and legislative process would make a better State House reporter than a recent college graduate with a journalism degree. In other words, an expert in law and legislation should be covering the State House. I even explained to Glenn how the business model would work--old fashioned syndication.
I do not know why Mr. Mulshine did not give my name. If he had, it would undercut many of his statements. A news man of his esteem would have surely googled me and found that I was doing exactly what he says bloggers are not doing and nearly beating a major Hollywood director and billionaire .
(Or perhaps he did google me and for some reason thought I was not the type to read the Wall Street Journal.)
The hear-say quote, and this particular usage by Mr. Mulshine, is one of the reasons why blogs have succeeded--the core news consumer does not like hear-say quotes and does not want bland executive summaries for the "casual reader." The core news consumer wants hard news without bias and expert opinion.
Mr. Mulshine's use of a misleading hear-say quote explains well the demise of his beloved newspaper.
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Dec
19
2008
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Written by JD Johannes
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Friday, 19 December 2008 |
Normally the projectiles you have to worry about in Iraq are AK-47 rounds, shrapnel from a bomb, molten slugs from an EFP and Rocket Propelled Grenades.
If they are down to loafers, sandals and lace-ups, well, that in itself is a sign of progress.
As one who has spent quality and quanitity time in Iraq, I understand the shoe insult. But it is just that, an insult.
The Code Pink types do it verbally. Some prefer puppets and burning in effigy.
The declaration of a 'Shoe Intifada' shows that the opposition forces in Iraq have moved from lethal projectiles into tactical irrelevance.
An irrelevance only the media could misunderstand.
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Dec
18
2008
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Written by JD Johannes
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Thursday, 18 December 2008 |
The just released Army Field manual on "Training for Full Spectrum Operations" has a recurring theme of innovation, agility and adaptation.
This theme is summed up in paragraph 2-69 of the manual, Educate Leaders to Think. (Page 28 of the PDF file.)
The best way to "Educate Leaders to Think" may be outside of the military and far outside of what is normally considered training.
In my travels through Iraq I have watched hundreds of Non-Commissioned Officers operate outside the wire. I have followed dozens of platoon leaders and company commanders through the daily grind of warfare. I spent significan time with four batallion commanders in diverse environments.
I have intentionally focused on the company and battalion level and below. In any level of conflict below force-on-force general warfare, the weight rests on the company commander.
General Raymond Odierno, Commander of Multi-National Forces Iraq, made that point in an interview I recently taped. Odierno described how company commanders have been given a set of tools to use in reconciling former insurgents. Odierno called them, "confidence building measures."
During my years in Iraq, I have seen company commanders go from engaging in full scale Hammer & Anvil operations to something akin to Victorian era territorial administrators and defacto mayors.
And I have seen them toggle back and forth, sometimes several times a day.
Sometimes the units were well prepared for the mission sometimes not.
Marine 1st Lieutenant Sean Gobin who commanded Vengeance Platoon, a company sized Heavy Combined Arms Team, in Fallujah summed it up best:
"We trained for the battle of Stalingrad, but wound up being the Sheriff of Fallujah."
Vengeance was not well prepared for the full spectrum mission when they arrived, but were still successful.
What allowed Vengeance to successful was two things: First, they were tactically proficient and highly lethal, they had mastered the basics. Second, was the adaptability of Gobin and his two Platoon Sergeants.
Vengeance platoon was hybrid. One half active duty, on half reserve.
Lt. Gobin was all about the mission and not afraid to take risks. His First Sgt., Gunnery Sgt. Rodriguez was straight out of central casting. His two Platoon Sergeants, Gunnery Sgt. Brad Pollock and Staff Sgt. Tony Rider were reserve Marines who were on their second tour.
Moreover, Pollock and Rider were successful entreprenuers. Rider owned franchise restaurants and Pollock was an engineer who ran a waste management company. They were used to uncertainty, taking risks, solving problems, dealing with complexity and scale.
Gobin also had a leg-up on most 1st Lieutenants. He was prior enlisted. He had more experience than his peers and quality experience as an RTO. He was next to a company commander for two years before he went to college and Office Candidate School.
In the modern Full Spectrum war, the training should also encompass a full sprectrum of experience or as many varied experiences as possible. The full variation needed can not be had in each individual, that would be improbable if not outright impossible, but a within a battalion it could be possible.
The military of Victorian era Britian could be a loose model on how to obtain this range of experience.
In my prepration for my Afghanistan expedition--it will probably be my last I have been reading voratiously. Much of the reading is from books written by British officers and administrators like Caroe, Elphinstone and Warburton. It is mixed with a healthy dose of histories of the Great Game.
In this era it was not uncommon for officers to take extensive leave where they would become correspondents for the leading newspapers of the day, travel through foreign countries and take part in expeditions sponsored by the Royal Geographic Society.
These leaves allowed officers to gain experience outside the staid and formal regimental system of the British military of the time.
In the U.S. military, officers will often leave the formal military to pursue a graduate degree or take a fellowship or assignment in another governmental agency.
To prepare officers and staff ncos for the ongoing full spectrum enviroment, I propose this be expanded and almost universalized.
It is not uncommon for officers and staff ncos to pursue an MBA. A degree with more application to warfare than one would imagine at first blush. But why not let them take a year or two to test the skills earned in the classroom in the business world? Let an officer try his hand at starting a business or working for a medium sized company. That officer would be in a great position to help build an economic activity in a city in Iraq. The lessons in decision making, leadership and analysis would transfer well to the military.
Instead of having Foreign Area Officers based out of an embassy, give Lieutenants a plane ticket and some cash and ship them off to any country outside of North America and Western Europe and force them to live by their wits for year. They will return as subject matter experts in a culture and speaking the language almost fluently.
The idea would also apply to the non-combat arms specialties. Logistics and supply could work in transportation, import/export and distribution companies. JAG officers could work in District Attorneys offices, or as Public Defenders or any firm that would have them. Public Affairs officers and NCOs would gain valuable experience as general assignment reporters for local TV stations and small daily papers.
It would not be a fellowship or glorified internship. It would have to be a sink or swim experience. Since the military loves to quantify and measure things to standards, the rating of the performance of the sojourn tour would establish the degree of difficulty of the sojourn and compare the success or failure to the degree of difficulty. Working for an established company is not very difficult. Starting a business from scratch is very difficult.
The sojourn tour would not be a one-time tour. In the infantry track it would fit nicely between platoon and company command then another while on brigade or battalion staff.
Full Spectrum warfare requires officers and NCOs with a full spectrum of experience--real life experience.
The only way to get that experience is to get outside the military, government and university. Soldiers need to placed where organizations and individuals are forced by the market and circumstances to to adapt, be agile and innovate.
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Dec
16
2008
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Written by JD Johannes
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Tuesday, 16 December 2008 |
Are you a libertarian/conservative millionaire frustrated by the bias of the media?
Are you looking for a business opportunity that may or may not make money?
Then I have a deal for you. How would you like to buy your own ABC affiliate?
That's right. You can be the proud owner your own TV station in Topeka, KS. Forget Twitter Tweets, and blogs, and streaming video, you can have your own broadcast signal and have a direct impact on North East Kansas.
More importantly, you can have a larger impact nation-wide.
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Read more...
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Dec
13
2008
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Written by JD Johannes
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Saturday, 13 December 2008 |
Sayyid Ahmad Shah is the original modern Mujahidin leader.(1)
Born Ahmad Brelwi in the tumble-down village of Bareli, he was, in teenage years, a follower of the notorious War Lord Amir Khan.
When Amir Khan's forces broke up after the war, Ahmad adopted the title 'Sayyid' which means he is descended from the Muslim prophet Mohammed.
The newly identified Sayyid Ahmad Brelwi's fervent religious beliefs, piety and charisma gained him a following. He denounced many supposedly corrupt forms of worship in Islam and urged a return to the Quran.
Sayyid Ahmad then went on the pligrimage to Mecca, the Haj, and spent four years studying at the Hejaz where his thoughts were reinforced by the Arabian Wahibi school of thought.
He returned after his sojourn and called upon the faithful to wage war against kufars--the non-muslims.
He visited his old War Lord leader, then journeyed through Khandahar, Ghalji and eventually found his largest body of loyal followers in the Yusufzai and Khatak.
The Yusufzai and Khataks, ablaze with tribal pride that demands the expulsion of foreigners and a large dose of religious zeal, followed their new leader who took the name Sayyid Ahmad Shah.
This was the first modern Mujahidin movement. The foreigners were not Americans, or NATO troops, or the Soviets or even the British.
The foreign unbelivers to be expelled and exterminated were Sihks of the Kingdom of Ranjit Singh. The year was 1828.
One hundred and eighty years ago, in what are now known as the Federally Administrated Tribal Areas of Pakistan, the banner of Jihad, the Mujahidin, was raised.
I was reminded of Sayyid Ahmad Shah by the semi-coherent ramblings of the 'New Thought Movement' guru Deepak Chopra and his son Gotham Chopra as they sought to explain the root causes of Islamic terrorism.
Gotham cannot see past the CIA's involvement in the Soviet/Afghan war of the 1980's. Deepak cannot go past the partition of India and creation of Pakistan in 1947.
This rather shallow view of history is convinient for many as it allows them to ignore the fact that violence under the banner of Islam is nothing new and not caused by anything Western.
For more than 1400 years, Muslim warriors have been offering the same bargain orginally made to the Persians and Romans by Khalid bin al Wahid:
"Now then, embrace Islam so that you may be safe, or else make a treaty of protection for yourself and your people and agree to pay the jizyah. Otherwise, do not blame anyone but yourself, for I have brought you a people who love death as you love life." (2)
Khalid was not waging war through Mesopotamia and the Levant in response to poverty and lack of educational opportunities in Dar al Islam.
Sayyid Ahmad Shah was not waging a battle against Western Imperialism. His service under the War Lord Amir Khan was as a mercenary paid for by the British.
Sayyid Ahmad, as a Mujahidin, rallied the faithful "against the tyrant [Ranjit Singh] who was represented as an unbelieving idolator." (1)
The only difference between the Taliban and Sayyid Ahmad's 'Hindustan Fanatics' and Khalid's armies and Al Qaida is weaponry. The AK-47 has replaced the matchlock and the bomb has replaced the sword.
The root cause of Islamic violence is and always has been Islam.
(1) Caroe, Sir Olaf 'The Pathans'
(2) al-Tabari 'The History of al-Tabari Volume XI: Challenge to the Empires'
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Dec
11
2008
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Written by JD Johannes
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Friday, 12 December 2008 |
Information may want to be free, but the people who collect, package and deliver it need to get paid. The way they will be paid in the future may be an old and well established business model.
Not so long ago, when I was fresh out the Marines, I walked into one of the most profitable and well respected businesses in town--WIBW-TV in Topeka, Kansas.
The internet barely existed then and though cable TV existed, there were few channels and large minority of the public still watched TV through a crazy metal thing on their roof.
But even then, the signs were showing.
WIBW won the Neilson ratings year in and year out, but the total number of viewers steadily declined.
I worked my way up through the ranks from photographer to producing the 6 and 10pm newscasts. It was then that I became privy to the market reasearch studies offered by consultants who told us what kind of news should be aired.
General Managers and News Directors had been following the advice of consultants for years, but the total number of viewers kept dropping.
In the winter of 1998 I saw the flaw. The consultants were polling a random sample of people who owned telephones and televisions--everyone--and using those results to guide the priorities of news coverage. They still thought of news as a mass market product like soap, gasoline, luandry detergent, toothpaste, cars and deoderant. Things that people have to buy and that everyone will buy.
But news is a niche market. With the rise of cable news and newspapers putting content on the internet the core consumer had options. They no longer needed to tune in at 6pm and 10pm.
If a newspaper is going to put its content online, why on earth would I buy the print edition?
Two things happened at the same time. Options for the core consumer fragmented the model and the cadre of the core consumer contracted.
Everyday the for past few weeks I have been following the drama of two people whose last names I did not know until I finally broke down and googled them. But their faces were on the cover of US Weekly or some magazine like that perfectly positioned at eye level at the self-checkout stand of my local grocer.
I had no idea who this man and woman were and why anyone would pay the cover price to learn more about them. But obviously people do or I would not be treated to the exploits of Heidi and Spencer who apparantly are the stars of some reality show on MTV.
Talk about niche market segmentation. A magazine cover targetted at people who watch a niche type program on a niche network.
While no one needs to know anything about Heidi and Spencer, there are people who want to know and for some reason will pay the cover the price.
The news, important information, like what the Federal Government is doing with $700 Billion dollars is something the public needs to know. Information that will have a direct impact on your life like the amount of crude oil being extracted from Iraq is something the public needs to know. But the market is showing us that they may not want to know.
Responding to market conditions the people and entities that gather, package and deliver information are contracting--gathering less and delivering less.
Information will become scarce. Those who want to know and need to know will pay for it. Information will become a commodity available only to those who pay for it and price will be steep.
A system like this already exists parallel to the dying mass market media. It is common on Wall Steet and to serious investors and commodoties traders. Services like it are already used by major corporations and law firms. It can be found in nearly every state capital in the U.S.
It is the specialized subscription news letter and news service.
In Topeka, the State Capital of Kansas, there is a one-man news organization who makes a tidy living covering the legislature and politics in depth. His name is Martin Hawver. He is the writer, editor and publisher of Hawver's Capitol Report .
Several hundred lobbyists, politicians and political operatives subscribe to his report. The subscription fees have paid Martin's mortgage for two decades.
Martin Hawver sells a particular type of information to a customer who needs it and wants it enough to pay for it.
Hawver's Capital Report is the localized version of Charlie Cook's reports or Stu Rothenburg's reports or the subscription reports of pollsters.
The future of hard news, pure information, will be specialized and by subscription to those who need it enough to pay for it.
That information will be far more accurate and in-depth than the mass market news being given away now for free. Investment bankers and private equity firms are not going to pay for opinion. There will be hybrids, brief summaries that can draw enough clicks to get some advertising dollars, but the full purpose of the site will be to up-sell into another level of information access.
The mass market products that survive will also have to be purchased. They will be magazines like the New Yorker whose lengthy, well written features are more suited to be read on paper than on a screen. Or the Sunday New York Times which can only truly be enjoyed in your hands while sitting on the couch.
These products though, are not mass market. They are for a niche. A niche that will pay for it and for whom advertisers can micro target.
News organizations like the New York Times and Associated Press with contacts infrastructure around the globe will quit giving their information away for free and get out of the mass market business. The people who really need to know what is going on Thailand will gladly pay for it.
The world will then become a black hole for all but a few news purchasers.
In a darker vision, those with large enough interests will hire out the gathering of information to freelance fact finders. There are some companies who already perform this service along with security and risk analysis under the rubric of 'corporate intelligence.'
Those who already really need to know, are already paying for it.
The age of cheap information is over. The only free information that will be available in the future will be heavily laden with opinion, gossip or associated with celebrities or products to be sold.
Those who gather, package and deliver information have to pay the mortgage. And they will find a way to get paid. Information may want to be free, but gathering it is not.
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Dec
05
2008
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Written by JD Johannes
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Friday, 05 December 2008 |
This item from Powerline caught my eye. Specifically the name of the captured terrorist: Ansari.
Ready for a lesson in obscure and possibly irrelevant Muslim/Arab/Afghan/Indian history?
The 'Ansari' were people from Medina, in the Arabian peninsula, who follow the prophet Mohammed during his flight from Mecca. Families who use the name 'Ansari' do so because they claim to be descended from the families who orginally joined Mohammed.
Whether or not any true Ansari made it to Afghanistan during the Muslim invasions we do not know for sure, but there was a group of purported Ansari popped up around 1550 AD in the mountains near Peshawar.
These Ansari formed a schizmatic sect that orthodox Muslims consider heresy called the Roshanis. (There is dispute on whether these back woods men were truly Ansari. They may have adopted the name to lend credibility to their cause.)
For two generations they were a constant thorn in the side of the Mughal Empire in the areas of the Kyber and what is now Waziristan.
These Ansari/Roshanis were eventually subdued and presented themselves in surrender before the Emperor Shah Jahan in Dehli. The Emperor allowed them and their followers to migrate to the Deccan provinces where they served the empire--often under arms carrying the banner of the empire. Whether they carried on their heresy is not fully addressed, but the British chronicler of things Afghan, Sir Olaf Caroe, points to the notion they came back to Orthodox Muslim beliefs and practices.
The Deccan Provinces are in the southern peninsula, below the Narmada river.
If the Afghan/Peshawar Ansari were relocated to the Deccan provinces, that would explain a terrorist with the Ansari name popping up in Mumbai.
Or, he could be taking the Ansari title as a Nom de guerre--a signal to those who know their Islamic history that he sees himself as one who is a true follower of the prophet Mohammed. In the world of the Islamic extremist, following the ways of the unique Quranic generation, which the true Ansari were members of, is the highest of goals.
Now, is any of this relevant to anything? I will not make that leap. But it does show that there is more to events of today than what happened yesterday.
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Dec
02
2008
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Written by JD Johannes
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Tuesday, 02 December 2008 |
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In close quarters with friends I will occasionally quip that the solution to the current unpleasantness in Afghanistan to create the country that always should have been--Pashtunistan.
Pashtunistan would run from the plains of Afghanistan, over the Duarnd line to the plains west of the Indus. This would be the tribal areas of Pakistan the mountain regions of Afghanistan populated by the Pathan tribes.
In my not so serious statement, I suggest Afghanistan, Pakistan and the NATO countries multi-laterally declare the new state and promptly declare war on it. Preferrably at the same press conference.
Quite the joke, eh?
Except at least one smart person has a serious variant on it.
In today's Washington Post, Robert Kagan poses the variant on my Pashtunistan scenario writing, "Have the international community declare that parts of Pakistan have become ungovernable and a menace to international security. Establish an international force to work with the Pakistanis to root out terrorist camps in Kashmir as well as in the tribal areas."
The idea of Pashtunistan is nothing new. Since the partition of India into Pakistan there has been an effort to formalize Pashtunistan. The effort has waxed and waned over the decades, but maybe its time has come.
Afghanistan is not a country, it is an amalgamation whose borders were drawn by Russia, Iran (Persia) and Britain. Historically to be an Afghan meant to be a Pathan, a Pashtun to the extent that in the 1964 constitutional Loya Jirgah, it had to be clarified that being an Afghan meant being a person native to the borders of Afghanistan. Throughout the history of Afghanistan, no leader ever really, and definately no foreign force, subdued and controlled the Pathan tribes of the mountains and hill country on either side of Durand line.
Most invaders by-passed the region on their way to or from India.
The Pathan areas have always been a law unto themselves following the Pashtunwali, the code of the Pathans and their own clan and tribal governance.
The difficult part of the recent battles in Afghanistan are what they have been for every foreign invader or Afghan Shah--the Pathans of the hills and mountains. Western Afghanistan is rarely a problem.
My solution, often spoken in jest, is actually based on what has happened in the region for mellenia. Mujahideen fighting the Soviets used the tribal areas of Pakistan as a rear base much as the Taliban do now. The British, while at times able to hold the plains in the 19th century, never controlled the hills, let alone the mountains. None of the great classical empires Persian or Greek controlled the mountains.
You can fight your way through the mountains, you can hold a mountain pass for logistical purposes or even buy off a tribe that has lived in the cliffs above a pass for centuries--but no one has controlled the whole of Pashtunistan. The partition only exacerbates the problem as there are rear areas on either side of the Durand line. If Pakistan gets serious, go west, if NATO and Afghanistan gets serious, go east.
But even this over simplifies the problem because the Pathan hillmen are not the problem per se. It is their guests who use the mountains as a staging area and safe harbour for a war against civilization who are the problem.
The true solution lies in the answer to this question--how do we convince the Pathans to turn over their guests?
They key to the solution--if there is one--lies in the mellenia old Pashtunwali, the code of the Pathans. Crack the code, and you will be able to crack the Pathans.
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Dec
01
2008
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Written by JD Johannes
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Monday, 01 December 2008 |
In the aftermath of the attacks on Mumbai, some people are waking up to the presence of radical Islam in India.
The intellectual foundations of modern Takfiri Islam can be traced to India through the Deobandi School of study to Hassan al Banna and the Muslim Brotherhood to Sayyid Qtub and the current machinations of Ayman Zawahiri. But the story goes back further than that.
In 1539 an Afghan Khan originally named Farid seized control of the Mughal Empire taking the name Sher Shah.
Afghan rule was nothing new to parts of the subcontinent. Pathan (Afghan) Sultans of one type or another had feifdoms in India since the 13th century. Sher Shah's sweep to power over the remnants of Babur's Mughal Empire in many ways was a restoration of power for the Afghans in India according to the British Diplomat Sir Olaf Caroe.
Afghan Muslims nominally ruled India until a revolt was staged against the British in 1857. The British crushed the revolt and what little left of the Muhgals placing the British Raj in power.
The Deoband school of Islam was founded in 1866 by Muhammad Qasim Nanautawi as the Darl Uloom Seminary. The purpose was to restore Islam to its roots, to what many modern Takfiris including Qtub and Zawahiri call the ways of the "unique Quranic generation." Those would be the ways of Mohammed and his original followers--the prophet and his companions.
The crushing of the Muslims in India was another milestone of the West crushing Dar al Islam, which at one time spread from Spain to Indonesia.
Only with a return to the ways of the prophet and his companions, so the theory goes, would Islam once again rise to power and its rightful position in the world.
(The Pathans in Afghanistan always followed a more conservative version of Islam--at least in form. The British Diplomat Montstuart Elphinstone wrote of women wearing Burquas in 1815, more than 50 years before the Deobandi movement.)
The events of last week were not of the making of the last few years or for that matter the 20th century.
Much of the history of India is that of the Raj versus the Khan or the Shah. The Queen, though having a massive sway for three and half centuries, is but a blip in the sweep of history.
History churns on and to understand a news even today, we must often look deep into the past. If the past is understood well enough, the potential future can be understood as well.
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