Pak-ghanistan

Chris Dierkes

Chris Dierkes (aka CJ Smith). 29 years old, happily married, adroit purveyor and voracious student of all kinds of information, theories, methods of inquiry, and forms of practice. Studying to be a priest in the Anglican Church in Canada. Main interests: military theory, diplomacy, foreign affairs, medieval history, religion & politics (esp. Islam and Christianity), and political grand bargains of all shapes and sizes.

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4 Responses

  1. Mike Schilling says:

    [Afghanistan] does not have the history of the strong centralized state that Iraq did

    1. This is true.
    2. Considering that Iraq’s history as a strong centralized state is basically the same as the former Yugoslavia’s (a strong enough dictator can overcome its natural tendency to fragment along ethnic lines), it’s quite a statement.Report

  2. Scott says:

    People forget that before the Soviet invasion, Afghanistan wasn’t doing that badly as countries go. As far as Karzai goes, he is running scared as he doesn’t believe the US is in it for the long haul and who can blame him as Obama has pledged to start pulling out in 2011?Report

  3. Jaybird says:

    Are we willing to do the things that are necessary to change the culture?

    If not, what in the heck are we doing there at this point? OBL isn’t even on the radar anymore, we can take any hill we want but we lose it the second we step off of it, and I don’t know if we’ve bombed more poppy fields than #3 members of Al Qaeda.

    Why are we still there?Report

  4. Michael Drew says:

    This is, as Glenn Greenwald might put it, a perhaps not wholly unrelated observation, but does is it as jarring for anyone else as it is for me when watching the footy when Martin Tyler or whoever announces that “this match is being broadcast on the Armed Forces Network to U,S, military personnel serving in more than 175 countries around the world”? Now, to be fair, in a lot of cases that probably comprises pretty much just Marines guarding embassies. But still. Whoa.Report