Right after U.S. forces went into Afghanistan in 2001 — in those heady “Paris 1944” days of liberating Kabul and most of the country — one of my best friends put to me an urgent request. Knowing I was en route to Kabul he asked me to please bring him a “Karzai hat” upon my […]
The shooting of two American officers in the Ministry of the Interior in Kabul this last Saturday was a shocking and disturbing event. If however NATO pulls its advisors out of ministries, while understandable, it would be a disappointing precedent and undermine progress and modernization in an evolving Afghanistan. As stability in this country largely […]
I’d written earlier with some thoughts on how to cut apart the Taliban in Afghanistan from their Al Qaeda counterparts. Broadly, I’d argued that one needed to separate out the incentives and motivations (en bloc) of the Taliban from their foreign, multi-national, globalist counterparts. Separated out– as hanafis (nationalist jihadis) and salafis (globalist jihadis)– NATO […]
Yesterday’s attack in Kabul by a team of 7 Taliban members once again highlights the fragility of the Afghan government and state. Though only 5 non-insurgents were killed, 3 Afghan soldiers and 2 civilians, the militants were able to disrupt hundreds of Kabul citizens’ lives and threaten the safety of President Karzai and members of […]