A virus loses the battle in Africa

Throughout my childhood years, a sudden onset of high-temperature fever was a constant in my life.  One moment I would be playing like any other kid, and the next I would be down with a scalding temperature.

One story that I have heard my mother narrate often was about how I was delirious and calling out the gods Krishna and Rama during one of those fevers when I was a kid.  She panicked that I was well on my way out of earth.

The one that I always remember is when I worried that I wouldn't be able to sit for the Class X exams, because I came down with one such sudden fever.  In the old country's system, missing the all-important end of year exams at the 10th or 12th grade would mess up one's life.  The doctor had a simple treatment protocol: Rest, and do not do any exam preparation.  As one who never cared to spend time prepping for exams, I found the doctor's recommendation to be useless ;)

The fever weakened me a great deal though.  So, for one exam, my father escorted me to the hall and sat outside ready--in case he had to rush me to the hospital.

All through those years of sudden fevers, one of the questions I was always asked was whether I experienced any pain in my legs.  If ever I said yes to that, the expression on my parents' faces conveyed well their worries. It was all because of a fear of polio.

I was fortunate that none of those episodes had anything to do with the poliovirus.

Two years ago, I blogged that most of the world is polio-free, except three countries: Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Nigeria.

Now we are down to one.

The remaining two are in South Asia, which means that the entire continent of Africa is now free of polio.

It is celebration time.

It took quite an effort in Nigeria where public health workers literally lost their lives in their efforts to vaccinate their kids.  The virus did not kill them; they were murdered by assassins who had been brainwashed into thinking that the polio drops were contaminated medicine!

Now, Africa has gotten rid of the damn virus.

Delivering polio vaccines to every child in the African region and wiping out the wild virus is no small feat, and the human resources, skills and experience gained in the process leave behind a legacy in how to tackle diseases and reach the poorest and most marginalised communities with lifesaving services. Leadership from all levels of government across party lines, a historic public-private partnership which raised billions, millions of health workers reaching children across the region - from conflict zones to remote areas only accessible by motorbike or helicopter - and a culture of continual improvement were all critical to overcoming challenges and bottlenecks. 

If the world is committed to doing the right thing, then we can move the proverbial mountains!

Polio and COVID-19 both demonstrate that the best ways to break the chains of disease transmission are working together in solidarity, accelerating the science and continually cooperating to solve problems on the ground and improve service delivery.

It is such an effort that will be needed to fight the coronavirus.  Unfortunately, tRump and his fellow sociopaths are running ruining the government.

For now, we will forget the sociopaths and just celebrate the victory in Africa.

Bombs Away!

Legal adulthood at 18 means that our war with Afghanistan is now a fully grown adult.  A month more than 18.

Who cares about that here in the US, right?  To tRump, it is a shithole and a Muslim country.  So, there. 

As for Democrats, it is not as if Obama was a peacenik either.  He too loved to bomb the shit out of brown people:

Our Peace Prize president has now been at war longer than any other American president, and has overseen the use of military force in seven countries—Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Pakistan, Libya, Yemen, and Somalia. In the latter four countries, virtually all the force has come in the form of unmanned drones executing suspected terrorists said to be linked to al-Qaeda or its “associated forces.”
That an antiwar president has found the drone so tempting ought to be a warning sign.

Obama loved them drones!

Since Obama took office, media outlets have reported more than 300 drone strikes in Pakistan targeting al-Qaeda or the Taliban, outnumbering the Bush administration’s drone strikes five to one.

And that was merely at the halfway point of his presidency.  I suppose he truly deserved the Nobel Peace Prize!

So, in case you wonder, yes, the drone war continues on big time. Especially in Afghanistan.

As of August 31 this year, the Bureau of Investigative Journalism had documented at least 4,251 aerial strikes in Afghanistan for 2019, more than double the total for the whole of 2018. Most of these, it says, are thought to be by drones. These attacks are exacting an increasing toll on the Afghan people.

Quite an awful toll :(

I don't mean to suggest that it is easy to end our entanglement in Afghanistan.  It is not.  I don't mean to argue for any hasty and unilateral withdrawal either.  If we did, then the maniacal Taliban and ISIS will take over the entire country.

All I ask is something simple to begin with: Can be at least begin to be more involved with what is going in Afghanistan, at least to the same level of passion that we bring to the football games every damn Saturday?  Because, if we are involved, then the elected public servants will actually want to work towards a solution. Else, they have no real incentive to remind us that we continue to bomb the shit out of brown people in a land far, far away.

The killing poppy fields: Exit stage left

I wish John Oliver would devote one of his shows to Afghanistan.  You know, the country that the Soviet Union fucked up for a while, after which the Taliban screwed for a while, and finally leaving it to the US to have some jolly good fun. 

Yes, that Afghanistan!

As I noted in my op-ed back in 2008, the Soviet Union rolled into Afghanistan in December 1979, making it one awful year; annus horribilis, as I refer to it.  The countries with the international geopolitical events that year continue to be involved in geopolitical issues even now: Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia.

In everyday life, chances are that most Americans have completely forgotten about Afghanistan.  If only they knew about how much the Taliban has been winning friends and influencing people!

The Taliban have long had a powerful presence in Pakistan, where its leadership is based. In addition, both Iran and Russia have been providing some Taliban units with logistical support. It’s notable that, in parallel to the intensified military campaign, the Taliban has ramped up its diplomacy. In August, the group sent delegations to Uzbekistan and Indonesia, and Taliban representatives are frequent visitors to China.In early September, the Taliban is also sending a delegation to Moscow to take part in a conference on the future of the region convened by President Putin, who is now taking on the part of Afghan peacemaker. The US was invited but, needless to say, neither Washington nor Kabul will attend. In many countries, it seems, the Taliban are being met with open arms—and as the future victors of a war whose conclusion all now judge foregone.

putin, of course, never lets such opportunities slip past him. 

What is happening now is deeply reminiscent of how the Taliban conquered the country in the first place, during the 1993–1996 period that followed the Soviet withdrawal. In that campaign, the Taliban first secured the countryside, recruiting soldiers widely and offering the rural population the false promise of an end to the civil war even as they extended the fighting. ...  For Afghans, this present predicament is indeed a miserable moment. It appears that the international community is giving up its nation-building efforts and shifting its focus to opening relations with the Taliban. Seemingly forgotten in foreign chancelleries is how the first age of Taliban rule destroyed the country and deprived the population of economic opportunity, civil liberty, and education.

But, hey, it is not like the US really cared about Afghanistan anyway!  Why should we care for a country where men wear turbans and women wear hijabs and niqabs, right?

Unlike Vietnam, though, there are no mass American casualties, no draft, and no peace movement for the military planners and political decision-makers to contend with. The melancholy fact is that the American public is not much engaged with what happens in Afghanistan, either way. 

Mission accomplished! :(

And then there were three ...

Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Nigeria.

Pakistan and Afghanistan are neighbors. Why Nigeria, which is far away?

One word puts them in a special group: Polio.

“We are closer than we have ever been before to wiping out this virus. The next few months will tell us if we may be able to finish the job this year as this is the time when the virus is circulating"

Many of us here in the US and elsewhere suffer from the craziness that trump and his minions have been.   We have a president who openly questions whether vaccines are good!  Bill Gates says that the idiot-in-chief asked him about it--"he asked me if vaccines weren’t a bad thing because he was considering a commission to look into ill-effects of vaccines."  And what was Gates' response?  Gates said he told Trump, “that’s a dead end, that would be a bad thing, don’t do that.”  Had trump been the president back in the day, the US government might not have done anything regarding polio, small pox, ...

Thankfully, trump has come about during the end stage of the fight against polio.  Pakistan is inching towards zero.  One of those instances in real life when we begin to appreciate the mathematical idea of "tends to zero" but not yet zero. Perhaps the country might have wiped out the virus if the US had not recruited a Pakistani doctor to help find Osama bin Laden by having him carry out a fake vaccination campaign.

As we get closer and closer to eradicating polio, we need to pause and think about one of the most remarkable aspects of the vaccine: Jonas Salk did not patent the polio vaccine that he created.  He chose not to patent it.

Actually is is only two--Pakistan and Afghanistan. Because, Nigeria has not recorded a case of polio for 20 months since 2016.

If the country can make it to three years, plus a few extra months as an epidemiological cushion, it will be certified polio-free, which will also mean that the entire continent of Africa is clear of the disease. 

Imagine that; the African continent could be officially polio free in a year.  The entire continent.

Against such a backdrop, we have our eyes set on the November elections.  But, 2018 will be far more historic than a Democratic takeover of Congress if there are no new polio cases in 2019.  A big fucking deal, as Joe Biden once remarked!

Remember a country far away ... called Afghanistan?

Blogging about the warmongers led me to think about Afghanistan.  How much have we--the US--sunk in there?

Of course, the war spending is a staggering amount.  In case you forgot that amount, you might want to sit down first and hold on to a firm table or pillar.  The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq cost the US.taxpayers $1.6 trillion, according to the Congressional Research Service.  But, that is an underestimate:

A truer measure of the wars’ total costs pegs them at between $4 trillion and $6 trillion. This fuller accounting includes “long-term medical care and disability compensation for service members, veterans and families, military replenishment and social and economic costs,” Harvard economist Linda Bilmes calculated in 2013.
The Pentagon and its civilian overseers don’t like to talk about war costs, either before or after the shooting. That’s because a high price tag beforehand acts as an economic brake, making war—assuming that’s the goal—less likely.

After all that spending ...

Anyway, that was for the wars that supposedly ended.  Since then, we have also been investing in Afghanistan for its reconstruction.  How much has that been?  Even after adjusting for inflation, our spending there has exceeded the amount that we spent in Europe via the celebrated Marshall Plan.  I wonder who really benefited from all those hundreds of billions of dollars--certainly not the students in my classes who work anything between 15 and 40 hours every week in order to make sure they will not have huge debts when graduating.

So, after all that spending ...

Wasil was waiting Monday at a fruit stand in Tirin Kot, the capital of southern Afghanistan’s Uruzgan province, when he was shot dead by two gunmen. His uncle said he was 12 years old.

What was special about Wasil?

Wasil Ahmad learned to fire a gun at age 9, after his father was killed by Taliban militants.
Before long, his uncle said, the boy had become a celebrated Taliban killer, credited with gunning down six insurgents during a battle last summer.

And,

Local officials in Uruzgan and others hailed Wasil as a hero, but some said his story offered yet another example of the price paid by Afghan youth in the more than 14-year conflict.
In the first six months of 2015, the U.N. Mission in Afghanistan documented 1,270 casualties among children — 320 deaths and 950 injuries — a 13% increase over the prior year.

Yep, that is the Afghanistan today, after all that spending ...

Forgotten by the West, Afghanistan is facing a multidimensional civil war with the Afghan Taliban, which is being aided now by a plethora of groups such as al-Qaeda, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, Chechens, and Pakistan’s Lashkar-e-Tayyaba.

Oh, hey, aren't you glad that we were wonderfully distracted and entertained by the likes of Trump and Palin and more?

In at least two provinces bordering Pakistan (Nangarhar and Zabul) the Taliban are also fighting ISIS, which is trying to recruit among dissatisfied Taliban members. Not until the end of January were US Special Forces in Afghanistan given authorization to go after ISIS fighters in the country—one reflection of how lackadaisically the Pentagon is responding to the crisis there. US forces can now pursue ISIS fighters, who have been declared a threat to the US. One may well ask, What about the threat that the Afghan government has already faced from ISIS all these months as the group has built up its base areas?

Ah, do the blabbering bellicose buffoons who want to lead the Republican Party care about such details before they go to all corners of the world to kick ass and bomb people to oblivion?

Caption at the source:
12-year-old Wasil Ahmad, who was killed by gunmen in southern Afghanistan on Monday, Feb. 1, 2016

Are you, too, waiting for good news from Afghanistan?

After all the traveling to and in California, it was great to be back home and sleep in my own bed.  I care not if the mattress and the pillows at the hotel were of higher quality than what I have, but the older I get the better the sleep is in my own home and on my bed.  East or west, home is best, indeed.

I went to sleep all pumped up about the classes--have I ever told you how much I love doing what I do!  As if my regular classes aren't exciting enough for me to head to campus, I had an additional incentive.  A wonderful student had emailed me.  Students emailing is not any man-bites-dog story, of course.  But, this email had something special: "My mother would like to sit in on Monday's class; is that all right?"  What an awesome idea!  And what a coincidence that I had re-posted, from three years ago, the piece yesterday in which I had written:

I would love it if taxpayers routinely observed our classrooms and judged for themselves whether their hard-earned monies are being put to good use. 

This Monday morning, I woke up, as I always do, with NPR's news and commentaries.  It was about an earthquake in Afghanistan.  Can that country ever catch a break, right?  The later reports suggest that it is no minor shake:

A massive earthquake rocked northeastern Afghanistan on Monday with devastating tremors rippling across the region, leaving more than 215 dead amid collapsed buildings, panicked stampedes and fears of landslides. Officials braced for even more casualties.
The full extent of damage and human toll was not immediately clear as rescue teams tried to assess areas hardest hit by the quake, which had a preliminary magnitude of 7.5 and was centered in a remote area of the Hindu Kush mountains.

Even for a person like me, who has been obsessed with the world's problems ever since I was a kid, I simply needed some kind of a good news about this country that has been cursed by the cosmos, it seems.  I scanned for news about Afghanistan.  There is some good news.  You ready?  You sitting down?  Nothing breakable in your hand that could fall and shatter to pieces?  Get this:

Afghanistan have clinched a historic one-day international series over Zimbabwe after a 73-run victory

In case you don't understand that sentence, that is about the game of cricket.  Afghanistan beat Zimbabwe in a cricket match series.  That is a huge piece of good news from that country.  Why?  Let me explain with what I wrote in one of my newspaper columns six years ago about Pakistan:

The unrest and violence in Afghanistan is intricately linked to Pakistan’s. So, is there any simple metric that we could employ in order to understand whether things are getting better or worse in Pakistan, such that it can then feed into the decision-making process regarding Afghanistan?  Yes, there is: All we need to do is keep track of the game of cricket in Pakistan. As simple as that!

What is good for the goose is good for Afghanistan, too.  Well, ok, the games were not played in Afghanistan but in Zimbabwe.  But, here is the best part: to use the American sport language, Afghanistan's cricket team is a minor league team and they beat the crap out of a powerful major league team.

The national team was only formed in 2001 and while they are yet to shock one of the eight leading international sides, a series win over an International Cricket Council full member represents a major landmark.
Unable to play at home in war-torn Afghanistan, they were granted ODI status in 2011. 

Isn't that a small little ray of sunshine for you to feel good about Afghanistan?

Of course, this won't be of comfort to the hundreds who died from the quake, and the thousands who have to deal with the destruction of property.  We can help--by contributing to relief efforts, and by also wishing the country and its people well.

What could have been ... a point of no-return ... it is Pakistan!

Modeled after "How to write about Africa" was this piece on "How to write about Pakistan," in which the author noted, with sarcasm:

Pakistan is just like India, except when it’s just like Afghanistan. (Has anyone else noticed how we seem to have geographically shifted from being a side-thought of the subcontinent to a major player in the Greater Middle East? Is this progress?)

The more years go by, the more things change, the more things stay the same.  A recent piece in Foreign Policy on Pakistan's identity problem begins with:

When you hear about Pakistan, what most often comes to mind? The place where schools, markets, and neighborhoods are routinely bombed? The terrorist haven where Osama bin Laden hid for almost a decade? The “Pak” in Af-Pak? The difficult ally America can’t drop because of its nuclear capabilities? The country where Malala Yousafzai was shot? All of this is true, but there is so much more to this country of 182 million people.
The common perception of Pakistan is more similar to its neighbor in the west (Afghanistan) than the one in the east (India), the country with which it shares its history.

What a mess, since the horrific partition in 1947, which only worsened after East Pakistan became Bangladesh!  Terrible!

Who caused this mess, which has made the daily lives of the 182 million miserable for the most part?

This is a direct result of how Pakistan’s “establishment” — its military and political elite — has defined its identity. This definition emphasizes Islam above all else, and pitches Pakistan as completely different from India.

If only I believed in something after death, I will curse all those to eternal damnation!  I would wish that Zia-ul-Haq be subject to every possible torture in that hell.  The maniac got away relatively easily in an unexplained plane crash, when he should have had an exit that would have made Gaddafi's last minutes seem painless!

Thanks to all those maniacs:

Because Pakistan has disavowed large parts of its past and its identity, it is easier to define it in terms of its present struggle with terrorism. There is little else people know about it. Few people ask me about what Pakistan is really like, about life in my hometown, Lahore, the city of gardens.

Lahore.  Remember the events there thanks to which the country hasn't had any international cricket played there?  I wonder whether they have at least changed the name of the stadium. I hope so.

Zia the maniac made it uber-Islamic.  And then the drive towards the "Islamic bomb" brought Pakistan and Saudi Arabia close, and with that money came the Wahhabi madrasas too.

Since the 1970s, Pakistan’s military and political elite have chosen religious fundamentalism over a democratic plurality. The establishment has emphasized a Sunni Muslim identity at the exclusion of all other ethnic, religious, and sectarian identities. Saudi-imported Wahhabism — an ultra-conservative version of Sunni Islam that lies at odds with South Asia’s tradition of Sufi-influenced Barelvi Islam — has been making in-roads in Pakistani society since the 1980s.

The House of Saud is one screwed up government; oh well, that has to be for another day.

Pakistan could have been so different.  Even with the partition, which I will always believe was one of the worst ever ways to end the Raj.  It could have been a model Muslim country, way better a model than Turkey is hailed to be.  Had it worked out that way, odds are that Afghanistan's story would have been very different too.

If things were different, the image of Pakistan would not be one of terrorism.  Instead, it will be like this:

Will end the post with this; try watching and listening without moving your feet ever, without ever cracking a smile, without rhythmically swaying your head!

A Sikh, a Hindu, and a Muslim walked into ... wait, they live there

Do I remember the contents of each and every blog post in order to quote them verbatim?  Of course not.  But, when I am reading/watching something of interest, am I reminded of related posts in my blog?  You betcha!  Like in the post yesterday, right, about this absurd life?  I am reminded of whoever it was who said that knowing what matters is a lot more important than knowing a whole lot--to which I would add that knowing what matters is contextual.

You are thinking, "what the heck are you talking about?"  I agree that it was too long a preface for a short blog-post.  So, here it is.

I was reading this in the Wall Street Journal (ah, how this should thrill my socialist colleagues!) about the few Sikhs and Hindus left in Afghanistan feeling increasingly insecure about their lives there and, therefore, exiting the troubled nation.  Which is when I was reminded of a Sikh who was a candidate in the Afghan elections.  So, I tracked that down--it is a post from September 2010 in which I quoted one of them, Pritpal Singh Pal:

Pal says it is a common misconception that all Afghan Sikhs and Hindus are Punjabis who moved to Afghanistan from India years ago. In fact, many members of this community consider themselves to be the original Afghans who never converted to Islam. And this sense of rootedness only gives their pursuit of governmental representation in Afghanistan more zeal....

It was heart-warming to read about Sikh candidates in Afghanistan and their patriotism and rootedness.  And now I am depressed reading that WSJ piece:

Otar Singh, the head of Afghanistan’s Hindu and Sikh community and a former member of parliament, said conditions are worse under Afghanistan’s democratic government than they were during the Taliban’s severe rule in the late 1990s, when the minority group had to wear yellow arm bands that singled them out as second-class citizens.
“Under the Taliban our rights were clearly defined, and people were not cruel to us,” he said.

Makes me want to echo that line from Rodney King: "Can we all just get along?"

What the hell is wrong with us humans, right?  We are so fixated on what makes us different. Language, religion, skin pigmentation, ... seriously?

Since last spring, around 400 more Sikhs and Hindus have left, according to community leaders. Most joined the swelling Afghan community in India, their spiritual home, while some turned to people-smugglers in a bid to reach the West.
Such voyages have ended tragically. In August, 35 Afghan Sikhs of all ages were discovered in a ship’s cargo container in the British port town of Tilbury. One of the migrants, a man, was found dead. The U.K. government is currently considering the asylum applications of the others, said a spokeswoman for the British Embassy in Kabul.

How terrible!

Despite the challenges, Rawail Singh, the community leader, says he is proud of being Afghan. “I love Afghanistan because it’s my country. We Sikhs and Hindus aren’t from somewhere else,” he said. “This is where we belong.”

I wish them well.

I will end this with the same video that I had embedded in that September 2010 post, which features a popular Bollywood actor who was of Pashtun stock himself:

Tashkent and the forgotten Central Asia

Even before we studied in school anything related to the Mughal Empire and their Turkic origins, I had heard about Tashkent.  A mysterious Tashkent.  A city that was somewhere far away beyond the Himalayas.

All because that was where Lal Bahadur Shastri, who followed Nehru as the prime minister, died of a heart attack a day after signing a peace treaty with Pakistan.

Shastri's death, which happened well before my schooling began, was talked about often because there were always suspicions that it was not a natural death. Conspiracy theories were in plenty, enough and more to put to shame the theories on JFK's assassination.  After all, Shastri's death in 1966 was against a global backstage of the intense Cold War and, therefore, any number of interpretations seemed plausible.

Throughout my years of life in India, Tashkent was somewhere out there in the USSR.  In one of those republics that was far away from Moscow.

And then the world changed. The Berlin Wall fell. The mighty Soviet Union collapsed like it was all a facade. The different republics of the USSR became independent countries.

The strangest thing is that even now most people, in India and anywhere on the planet, wouldn't be able to spot Tashkent on a map. Most of us cannot even name the country where it is located, and nor will be able to name its neighbors.  Somewhere in Central Asia will be our best guess, as much as my impression was way back when I was a kid.

Here in the US, we have a good reason why we have not bothered to find out anything about Tashkent and Central Asia--they have not attacked us nor have we have gone to war against them.  Apparently, wars are how even begin to recognize that there are other countries and peoples!

But, there are plenty of reasons why we ought to pay attention to those Central Asian countries.

You notice that Tashkent is not that remote, after all?  Central Asian countries are not somewhere in outer space?

The US presence in Afghanistan for twelve years ought to have made us familiar with that part of the world, one would imagine.  But, that is asking for way too much when we are so busy entertaining ourselves with everything from college and professional sports, to reality television, to video games!

Ahmed Rashid writes, in reviewing a few books, about "why, and what, you should know about Central Asia"

Since September 11 and because of Central Asia’s borders with Afghanistan, the big powers—Russia, China, and the US—are showing a renewed interest in the region. Until now the Central Asian leaders have manipulated one big power against another in an astute and ruthless game of trying to extract the maximum benefit in loans, investment, weapons, or rent for bases.
As in 1991, Central Asia has reached a turning point and what comes next really worries it. Will the Taliban return to conquer Afghanistan and open the way for the Central Asian Islamist groups that are closely linked to al-Qaeda and have increased their forces while based in Pakistan? Will populist riots reminiscent of the Arab Spring sweep through the region? They have already done so twice in Kyrgyzstan, in March 2005 and April 2010, bringing down two presidents.
Will the weaker states, lacking economic resources, become hostage to China or Russia? Will the most important regional organization they all belong to—the Chinese-led Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO)—help them overcome instability or will it continue to help them avoid making serious reforms?

I suppose the region has been having a resurgence of sorts after the decline since the days of "conquerors of the world—Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, and Babar."  Babar, of course, was the invading conqueror who founded what became the Mughal Empire.

The region has all the ingredients for geopolitical drama: population of various ethnicities, religions, languages, political ideologies, and a couple of dictators.  Rashid reminds us about that old idea in political geography:

Sir Halford Mackinder, the nineteenth-century political theorist, viewed Central Asia as “the pivot region of the world’s politics” and “the heartland” because, he said, “it is the greatest natural fortress in the world.” He reckoned that whoever controlled Central Asia would exercise enormous power. But no power has achieved control there and the battle for influence will take different directions after 2014. One of the great dangers for the US and other Western powers will be continuing ignorance and neglect of what is happening there

Oh well, it is time to watch some ball games on television, while stuffing ourselves with inexpensive calories!

$85 billion sequester cuts? Meh! We spent a trillion-plus on wars!

So, it appears that we have given up $85 billion for Lent!

The sequester kicked in on Friday night, meaning $85 billion in spending cuts will hit federal agencies and employees during the remainder of the fiscal year — slowly at first but with greater force over time.
Congress this week will begin to focus its attention on a March 27 deadline for adopting a new spending bill that would replace the last short-term funding measure, which expires on that date. Absent a deal, the government shuts down.

It will be an interesting month of theatrics all over again.

If the fight is this intense over how much 85 billion of government spending will, or will not, have any Kenyesian multiplier effect in the economy, how come Congress pretty much came together in a wonderful sense of bipartisanship in order to spend more than a trillion dollars in Iraq and Afghanistan?  BTW, a reminder that we are talking about 1,000 billion dollars in wars, which is actually a very low estimate.  Joseph Stiglitz says it is past the two trillion dollar figure.  Three trillion, if you include the various indirect costs as well.

If the Republicans think that those trillion dollars didn't mess up our economy, then why are they fighting over some measly amounts here?  At least, we are spending the money within the country, right?  On the other hand, if the Democrats are convinced that this 85 billion will be the end of the world as we know it, then how come they merrily kept voting for the war spending in multiples of 85 billions all these years?

I am comparing the 85 billion to the gazillions we have spent on wars because, as I mentioned in a previous post, we are rapidly nearing the tenth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq.  Many commentators are offering their own reflections on the wars.  If Christopher Hitchens were alive today, I wonder if he will apologize for having enthusiastically supported the wars.  Many, like Andrew Sullivan, are tendering their apologies.  But, how does a "I was wrong" matter anymore?

Thinking about the Iraq War, one cannot ignore the much longer war that the US has been fighting in Afghanistan--the one that candidate Senator Obama referred to as the good war.  And, as President, he has proven to be a worthy successor to Bush, in terms of doing everything to screw things up.  Reading this lengthy essay by Vali Nasr was more than a tad depressing.  He concludes there:

 It was to court public opinion that Obama first embraced the war in Afghanistan. And when public opinion changed, he was quick to declare victory and call the troops back home. His actions from start to finish were guided by politics, and they played well at home. Abroad, however, the stories the United States tells to justify its on-again, off-again approach do not ring true to friend or foe. They know the truth: America is leaving Afghanistan to its own fate. America is leaving even as the demons of regional chaos that first beckoned it there are once again rising to threaten its security.
America has not won this war on the battlefield, nor has the country ended it at the negotiating table. America is just washing its hands of this war. We may hope that the Afghan army the United States is building will hold out longer than the one that the Soviet Union built, but even that may not come to pass. Very likely, the Taliban will win Afghanistan again, and this long, costly war will have been for naught. 

We will exit Afghanistan like all the other great powers did in history.  When we leave, the country will have enough trained warriors and  weapons for them to engage in attacks on "others," defined by ethnicity and religion, just like how the well trained militia are a big part of the problem in Mali. This will spill over to both Pakistan and Iran, which will make the second half of this decade even more challenging.

We will perhaps still be arguing about budgetary nickels and dimes.  I suppose we do get the republic we deserve, especially when we are the people we have been waiting for!

A year of transition ahead in South Asia. Will peace prevail?

Combining ideas from a few past posts, this is a "meta-post" on the year ahead in the Indian Subcontinent:

Beginning with this spring, it will be quite an eventful year in South Asia, to say the least. General elections in Pakistan are scheduled to be held in March. In Afghanistan, before this year ends, US troops will be drawn down to slightly more than 30,000, and presidential elections are set for April 2014.  Sometime by May of 2014, at the latest, India has to complete its general elections, given that its parliament’s term expires by then.

Will all these transitions be peaceful?

Many a pundit—this word itself having its origin in India—have had eggs on their faces when trying to predict the future. Thus, one can’t definitively answer that question and can only think through some of the major issues that could work against peace in that part of the world.

Bombs have been routinely bursting in Pakistan. As of writing this, more than eighty were killed in the last major incident in the southwestern part of the country, in the city of Quetta. In these nearly two months of 2013, more than 400 have been killed by bombs. A particularly worrisome aspect of these bombings is that they indicate worsening sectarian conflict, with militant Sunni outfits intent on cleansing the areas of the Shia. As if this internal violence weren't enough, bombs have been regularly raining from the US operated drones, above the frontier areas between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The militaries of India and Pakistan have had some tense situations at their borders, over the past couple of months. In January, three Pakistani soldiers were killed by the Indian forces, and two Indian soldiers also died. One of the dead Indian soldiers was found beheaded and the other had been mutilated. Earlier this month, another Pakistani soldier was shot dead by the Indian forces. These are symptoms of the tense, hands‐on‐the‐trigger, situation that exist at the Indo‐Pak border and in Kashmir.

All is not well within India’s borders south of Kashmir too. On February 21st, two blasts rocked the Indian city of Hyderabad, which has been rapidly growing as another information‐technology (IT) center, along with Bangalore and Chennai. Three college students were among the 17 killed, with more than a hundred others injured. It is suspected that the Indian Mujahideen carried out these blasts in response to the hanging of a terrorist convicted in the attack on India’s parliament in 2001.

Meanwhile, politicians are amping up their campaigns to project themselves in front of others to become the next prime minister of India. One leading candidate is Narendra Modi, who brings along with him a huge baggage of anti‐Islam and pro‐Hindu activities. There is enough worry that the Indian electorate, tired of corruption and weak governance, could elect Modi, despite the dark shadows of his rhetoric that invokes memories of the old national socialists and fascists of Europe.

Because of Modi’s role in the riots in the state of Gujarat, in 2002, the US has over the years refused to extend a visa for him to visit this country. Recently, the US assistant secretary, Robert Blake, stated that the US policy on Modi remains unchanged. "There is no question of changing or revising or softening.  We may revise depending on the Indian justice system completing cases against him," he said. I am glad that the US continues to maintain this position even though the European Union has softened its stance against Modi sensing his ascent.

Across the Khyber Pass, in Afghanistan, nothing seems settled. If everything goes on schedule, then presidential elections will be held in April 2014. The last elections, in 2009, were a big farce, thanks to the extensive fraud committed by President Hamid Karzai and his allies. How “clean” the elections will be this time around is anybody’s guess.

It is quite possible that all these geopolitical issues could sort out by themselves and a year from now South Asia could be calmer and more peaceful than it has been in recent years. On the other hand, it is clear that it will merely take a proverbial match to strike a huge fire, given the explosive elements in place.

With our preoccupation over Israel and Iran, and to some extent over North Korea, we don’t seem to be paying enough attention to the Afghanistan‐Pakistan‐India issues. Perhaps we are keen on bringing the troops back home with the hope that later we don’t even have to open an atlas to locate those parts of the world. But, bringing the troops home, which we should have done a long time ago, doesn’t mean that we can afford to overlook the region. We will hope and wish for a peaceful year in South Asia, with our eyes and ears wide open.

Mali: How do you say "African Afghanistan" in French?

We have now been in Afghanistan for ever and ever, it seems like.  If it feels that way, there is at least one good reason: it has been the longest war. Ever. (ht)

Don't hold your breath for hope and change, and for all our troops to return soon.  You can count on warmongers to offer arguments that will be variations of this:

Obama says Susan Lucci is pregnant with Petraeus' love child?

Colbert lets one zinger after another.

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America's Finest News Source reports on how such (s)exciting scandals are merely the preview of how President Obama plans to make his second term a lot more appealing to Americans:

It is a tragedy that Petraeus making love under his office desk is such a media event, while the wars that he conducted went unscrutinized, and continue to be neglected. The press, while happily playing the role of the government's propaganda machine, couldn't care to ask the tough questions about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, or about waterboarding, or about Guantanamo, or about the massive surveillance state we have built up, or about the extensive use of drones to kill people, including American citizens, or even about the sacredness of the military budget itself against the backdrop of the fiscal cliff. 

It is sex that sells. 

Bloody porn-addicted media and population we have become!

We may as well convert our news channels to porn channels; I suppose, in that case, Faux News will deliver nothing but hardcore porn?

I bet more Americans will now be able to name Petraeus' lover than the number that will be able to identify Afghanistan on a world map.  Imagine what we could have achieved if we had instead educated Americans about Afghanistan and Iraq: Paula Broadwell would have been an unknown Jane Doe in this vast American landscape as much as a Sriram is a John Doe.

The cost of war, as guns v. butter

The cartoonist here uses one of the metaphors that the "dismal scientists" use to demonstrate trade-offs:

How much has the US spent on the two wars, including the longest war ever that began in October 2001? 

But, don't ever suggest any reduction to the defense budget; we would rather go after those mooching unemployed!

What the f&#@ did we accomplish in Afghanistan?

The war at Afghanistan began on October 7, 2001.  In less than ten days from now, we will have completed eleven years there!

Two years ago, the following cartoon summed it up pretty well.

Of course, in the two years after that cartoon was published, Osama bin Laden was killed.

The two years since the cartoon were also the years of the "surge."  That phase ended, and US troop strength in Afghanistan is back to pre-surge levels.  What is the verdict?

The U.S. troop surge in Afghanistan ended last week. Conditions in Afghanistan are mostly worse than before it began.
That conclusion doesn’t come from anti-war advocates. It relies on data recently released by the NATO command in Afghanistan, known as ISAF, and acquired by Danger Room. According to most of the yardsticks chosen by the military — but not all — the surge in Afghanistan fell short of its stated goal: stopping the Taliban’s momentum.
Of course, that’s not ISAF’s spin. The command notes that enemy attacks from January to August 2012 are slightly lower, by 5 percent, from that period last year; and that the past two Augusts show a reduction in attacks of 30 percent. But the more relevant comparison is to 2009, when Afghanistan looked like such a mess that President Obama substantially increased troop levels. And compared to 2009, Afghanistan does not look improved.

FUBAR!

This term, I have quite a few students in my classes who are veterans of the Iraq or Afghanistan wars.  If not for the asymmetric relationship forced upon us in the classroom, I would so much like to ask them for their honest assessment of whether it was worth it. 

Hey, have people forgotten about the war in Afghanistan?

We will soon mark the eleventh anniversary of the horrific events of 9/11. The infamous day could easily be the defining moment from the primary school years of the typical freshman students whom I will soon welcome when the fall term begins.

To those freshman students, it could also mean that the US has always been at war since their earliest memories—the war in Afghanistan began in October 2001. Since then, the US military fatalities in the Afghan campaign alone recently exceeded 2,100, with the rest of the coalition suffering another thousand. And then there are the thousands who have been injured, physically or mentally or both. We have to add to all these tragic statistics the combat fatalities on the “other” side and the destruction of civilian lives and property.

Unfortunately, the Afghan war is rarely ever discussed by the major party candidates for the Presidency of the United States. Even when any reference is made, it is almost as if it is a footnote in the policy discussions.

Along with the explicit war in Afghanistan, we have also been engaged in battles in Pakistan, even though officially we do not refer to this as "war." Perhaps because a significant aspect of the operations in Pakistan is conducted by the CIA and through unmanned drones, and not by the military and “boots on the ground?” We are barely past the midpoint of 2012 and the US has already conducted 33 drone missile strikes in Pakistan. The latest drone attack was during the celebratory festival of Eidul Fitr, which concluded the month‐long Ramadan fasting.

It seems that every year, even every day, is a critical one in shaping Pakistan’s destiny, and this year is no different. The highest court in Pakistan forced out the country’s prime minister, Yousuf Gilani, after he repeatedly refused to re‐open investigations on frauds committed by the president, Asif Ali Zardari. Even though he served only for a little over four years, Gilani holds the record as the person who served the longest continuous term in that office in the country’s 65‐year history. That record, by itself, is a huge measure of the fragile political conditions in Pakistan.

Gilani’s successor as the head of government, Raja Pervez Ashraf, has indicated that he will also refuse to comply with the judicial ruling. The confrontation between the parliamentary and judicial branches will further complicate governance in a country that is rife with problems, including the US drone attacks that the Pakistani people detest.

As more and more Pakistanis feel that the country’s government has lost even its feeble abilities to govern, yet again there will be worries, internally and externally, about the military exercising its influence through a coup before the scheduled general elections in February 2013.

With so much at stake, it is quite a shame that neither Obama and Biden, nor Romney and Ryan, have anything to say about Pakistan and how they will shape their policies towards Pakistan. I suppose that when Afghanistan and the war there receive such scant attention, it ought not to surprise us that there is practically nothing said about Pakistan!

I understand that an anemic economic growth and high unemployment will mean that the focus will be on domestic issues. But, it is not that the domestic economic issues are unconnected to the military conflicts. At some point in the very near future, the US will exit Afghanistan similar to the earlier “foreign” retreats, especially those of the Soviets and the British, and by when we will have spent a trillion dollars, in addition to the trillion‐plus in Iraq.  The Afghanistan war, along with the disastrous excursion in Iraq, has been significant factors behind the rapid growth in the US debt.

Further, the Afghanistan war and, therefore, our calculated interests in Pakistan, pre‐date the Great recession by six years and continue to haunt us even after the end of the recession. Don’t they deserve at least a little bit of air time? At least more than the time we spent discussing how the female body shuts down to prevent pregnancy during illegitimate rapes?

Redefinining, forever, success in Afghanistan

I wonder why Thomas Friedman hasn't come up with more of his 'six months more for turnaround' columns!

Burn, burn, burn. Bill O'Reilly's book, that is :)

Photo 1: A box of falafel Bill's book sent to troops in Afghanistan

Photo 2: those books being burnt by the soldiers

Why?

Some jerk sent us two boxes of this awful book (SPOILER ALERT: George Washington - Patriot; George Soros - Pinhead) instead of anything soldiers at a remote outpost in Afghanistan might need, like, say, food or soap. Just burned the whole lot of them on my Commander’s orders.

Muahahaha!
(source and ht)

Pakistan+Afghanistan+US+Kashmir+India = Aaaaaahhh!

Hillary Clinton is blunt with Pakistan:

you cannot keep snakes in your backyard and expect they will only bite the neighbours

So far, it does seem like Obama and his team are doing well with the AfPak situation. Their next moves will be crucial.

Pointing out that the coalition forces and the Afghans had increased pressure on the Taliban on the Afghan side of the Pak-Afghan border, she said: “Across the border, we look to Pakistan to take strong steps to deny Afghan insurgents safe havens and to encourage the Taliban to enter negotiations in good faith.''

Where do we go from here then?  Obviously, the same-old same-old cannot continue.  What might be a different approach?

With U.S. relations in Pakistan at a low point and the two countries' strategic disagreement over priorities in Afghanistan on full display, it is time to review U.S. strategic options. One that deserves a close look is a grand bargain: give Pakistan what it wants in Afghanistan - but on two conditions: Pakistan assumes responsibility for preventing terrorism out of Afghanistan, and Pakistan agrees to settle Kashmir along the present geographic lines. This is not a panacea, nor would it be easy to execute.

Well, it won't be easy to execute.  That much is for sure.  I cannot imagine that converting the Line of Control in Kashmir into permanent borders going well in India, even if such ideas were in the back-channels negotiations. The current government is already on shaky grounds, and the fanatical BJP is already smelling blood.  In this grand bargain, the authors suggest that the US would:

give India advance notice of this announcement. U.S. support for a settlement along the Line of Control would in all likelihood pull additional international support in that direction

Yeah, right!  The BJP will win the voters way too easily by campaigning that the Congress is a nothing but a CIA stooge.

We are now into the eleventh year of the war in Afghanistan :(

Caption at the source:
A soldier prays near a tank on Dec. 10, 2001, on the hills overlooking Tora Bora, Afghanistan.

Quote (dream) of the day: on AfPakIndia

I dream of a day, while retaining our respective identities, one can have breakfast in Amritsar, lunch in Lahore, and dinner in Kabul. That is how my forefathers lived. That is how I want our grandchildren to live.

A lovely sentiment, wouldn't you agree?

That was India's prime minister, Manmohan Singh, quoted in this talk by Hillary Clinton, when she was at Chennai a while ago. (Hey, I am a tad late to this party!)

Instead, what a colossal destruction of life and property because of the unwillingness to coexist over the years since 1947!

Hillary Clinton has been the best news in the Obama administration.  After their intense primary battles, I wondered how much Clinton would be okay to being the second violinist.  But, boy has she been impressive as a team player, and as a quiet and efficient cabinet official!  Pretty much no gaffes as the Secretary of State.  While we might not agree with her policy perspectives every single time, Clinton has represented the US absolutely as America's diplomat-in-chief.  I might seriously vote for Obama if he ditches Biden and makes Clinton his running mate.

Anyway, back to the Indian context for this entry: the US-India Higher Education Summit here in DC.

This unprecedented event also highlights the importance of education between our two countries. Academic exchange programs provide deep roots for our countries' relationship. Our ties are anchored by the more than 12,000 alumni of U.S. Department of State's public diplomacy programs in India, the 104,897 Indian students studying in the United States in 2010, and the more than 2 million Indian-Americans living in the United States. And the Fulbright Program has laid the foundation for this relationship since its inception in 1950. Today's events are the next step in developing our relationship.

The State Department is actively promoting internships in India for American students:

With more than 100,000 Indian students studying in the United States each year, young people in India tend to know a fair amount about U.S. cities, culture and businesses. But fewer than 3,000 U.S. students study in India annually.

Isn't it a tragic irony that India and the US, two countries literally on the other side of the planet from each other, are able to interact to this level, while even the next door Pakistan and Afghanistan are alien worlds to Indians?  What the fuck is wrong with this world :(

Almost two decades ago, in the dead of the night, the phone at home rang.  Fearing for the worst news from India, I shakily answered it.  It was my old school mate, Srikumar.

The guy had decided to take the land route from the Czech Republic to India, but could not proceed east from Iran because Pakistan would not issue him a visa.  To make things worse, Srikumar was all out of money too.  "Can you get me an air ticket from Tehran to anywhere in India?" was his question in the middle of the night.

I assured him I would.  In the morning, I contacted my friend, Shahab, who was from Iran, who then gave me the phone number of his preferred travel agent.  A day later, Srikumar was out of Iran, over the Pakistani air, and safe in India.

As Robert Kaplan wrote:

Aryans may have infiltrated from the Iranian plateau, and together with the subcontinent’s autochthonous inhabitants were part of a process that consolidated the political organization of the Gangetic Plain in northern India around 1000 B.C. This led to a set of monarchies between the eighth and sixth centuries B.C., culminating with the Nanda Empire which in the fourth century B.C. stretched across northern India and the Gangetic Plain from Punjab to Bengal. In 321 B.C., Chandragupta Maurya dethroned Dhana Nanda and founded the Mauryan Empire, which came to envelop much of the subcontinent except for the deep south, and thus for the first time in history encouraged the idea of India as a political entity conforming with the geography of South Asia.

A long and rich history in this geography.  If only we could soon figure out how to maintain our respective  identities and yet interact in friendly manner--friendly enough to travel the old trading routes and stop at the eateries in Amristar, Lahore, and Kabul.