In the West, media coverage of Afghanistan and Pakistan is framed by military and political concerns, resulting in a simplistic picture of ageless barbarity, terrorist safe havens, and peoples in need of either punishment or salvation. Under the Drones looks beyond this limiting view to investigate real people on the ground, and to analyze the political, social, and economic forces that shape their lives. Understanding the complexity of life along the 1,600-mile border between Afghanistan and Pakistan can help America and its European allies realign their priorities in the region to address genuine problems, rather than fabricated ones.

This volume explodes Western misunderstandings by revealing a land that abounds with human agency, perpetual innovation, and vibrant complexity. Through the work of historians and social scientists, the thirteen essays here explore the real and imagined presence of the Taliban; the animated sociopolitical identities expressed through traditions like Pakistani truck decoration; Sufism’s ambivalent position as an alternative to militancy; the long and contradictory history of Afghan media; the simultaneous brutality and potential that heroin brings to women in the area.

Moving past shifting conceptions of security, the authors expose the West’s prevailing perspective on the region as strategic, targeted, and alarmingly dehumanizing. Under the Drones is an essential antidote to contemporary media coverage and military concerns.

How depressed do I want to be?

"After the fall of the Taliban, instability reigned across Afghanistan. However, in the small town of Istalif, located a little over an hour north of Kabul and not far from Bagram on the Shomali Plain, local politics remained relatively violence-free. Bazaar Politics examines this seemingly paradoxical situation, exploring how the town's local politics maintained peace despite a long, violent history in a country dealing with a growing insurgency."

At the heart of this story are the Istalifi potters, skilled craftsmen trained over generations. With workshops organized around extended families and competition between workshops strong, kinship relations become political and subtle negotiations over power and authority underscore most interactions. Starting from this microcosm, Noah Coburn then investigates power and relationships at various levels, from the potters' families; to the local officials, religious figures, and former warlords; and ultimately to the international community and NGO workers.

Offering the first long-term on-the-ground study since the arrival of allied forces in 2001, Noah Coburn introduces readers to daily life in Afghanistan through portraits of local residents and stories of his own experiences. He reveals the ways in which the international community has misunderstood the forces driving local conflict and the insurgency, misunderstandings that have ultimately contributed to the political unrest rather than resolved it. Though on first blush the potters of Istalif may seem far removed from international affairs, it is only through understanding politics, power, and culture on the local level that we can then shed new light on Afghanistan's difficult search for peace.

Oh, I can just imagine my grandfather's reaction to the "famous Turkish ruler" bit...

It looks (from a Google snippet) that my grandfather is mentioned, but of course the library doesn't subscribe, and I'm not sure I want to pay $35 for this.

"a male snow leopard rarely exceeds 100-120 pounds — hardly more than a big pet dog."  Are you thinking what I'm thinking?

"develop tools [for] automated interpretation, quantitative analysis, and visualization of social networks.... social networks [are models for] terrorist cells, insurgent groups, and other stateless actors whose connectedness is established not [by] shared geography but [by] correlat[ed] participation in coordinated activities ... apply emerging methods for edge finding and cluster analysis to detect, characterize, and predict the dynamics of social networks. ... application in tactical contexts... foundation for cultural intelligence - understanding the stability, governance, and economic indicators of a region ... 2012 Plans: Develop techniques for simulation, visualization, inference, and prediction of social network dynamics; ... for modeling the interactions between and within cooperating/competing/conflicting social networks, sub- networks, and super-networks and for predicting the merging and splitting of social networks; Evaluate ... on real-world social-cultural-network data."

I must say that the few lines in the budget document were a hell of a lot clearer about what this is _supposed_ to achieve than the Wired article itself.  But I do not have a good feeling about this project, at all.  (At the very least, for $30 million, you could teach a lot of soldiers Dari and Pashto, or recruit a lot of Afghan informants.)

The big picture up to is simply adorable.

"accomplished scholars, humanitarian workers, politicians, and journalists—most with extended experience inside Afghanistan—examine the realities of life for women in both urban and rural settings. They address topics including food security, sex work, health, marriage, education, poetry, politics, prisoners, and community development. Eschewing stereotypes about the burqa, the contributors focus instead on women’s empowerment and agency, and their struggles for peace and justice in the face of a brutal ongoing war."

"Most histories of nineteenth-century Afghanistan argue that the country remained immune to the colonialism emanating from British India because, militarily, Afghan defenders were successful in keeping out British imperial invaders. However, despite these military victories, colonial influences still made their way into Afghanistan. Looking closely at commerce in and between Kabul, Peshawar, and Qandahar, this book reveals how local Afghan nomads and Indian bankers responded to state policies on trade. 
British colonial political emphasis on Kabul had significant commercial consequences both for the city itself and for the cities it displaced to become the capital of the emerging Afghan state. Focused on routing between three key markets, Connecting Histories in Afghanistan challenges the overtly political tone and Orientalist bias that characterize classic colonialism and much contemporary discussion of Afghanistan. "

Master's anthro thesis, applying Hirschman's _Exit, Voice and Loyalty_ to Pashtuns in northern Afghanistan post 2001.

Someone's digitizing the photos from my grandfather's book!

This looks extremely promising, not least because Barfield was studying Afghanistan _before_ 2001: "introduces readers to the bewildering diversity of tribal and ethnic groups in Afghanistan, explaining what unites them as Afghans despite [their[ regional, cultural, and political differences.... [G]overning these peoples was relatively easy when power was concentrated in a small dynastic elite ... delicate political order broke down in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries when Afghanistan's rulers mobilized rural militias to expel first the British and later the Soviets. Armed insurgency proved remarkably successful against the foreign occupiers, but it also undermined the Afghan government's authority and rendered the country ever more difficult to govern as time passed...."

1960s and 1970s photos from Afghanistan, mostly Kabul.

Too essentialist.

"entanglements of medieval elites in the regions that today comprise Afghanistan, Pakistan, and north India ... ranges in time from the early eighth to the early thirteenth centuries ... considers the role of material culture ... coins, dress, monuments, paintings, and sculptures ... The book explores modes of circulation--among them looting, gifting, and trade--through which artisans and artifacts traveled .... It analyzes the relationship between mobility and practices of cultural translation, and the role of both in the emergence of complex transcultural identities. Among the subjects discussed are the rendering of Arabic sacred texts in Sanskrit on Indian coins, the adoption of Turko-Persian dress by Buddhist rulers, the work of Indian stone masons in Afghanistan, and the incorporation of carvings from Hindu and Jain temples in early Indian mosques."

The eminent Hellenist Frank Holt reviewing the book of the traveling exhibition from the Kabul museum. "We may earnestly hope that, indeed, Afghanistan now has a brighter future that will give it a firmer grip on the endangered relics of its past. But as upbeat as this book and exhibition are intended to be, we must remember that rejoicing for the survivors of any tragedy must be tempered by remembrances for the lost." --- by which he means the lost _artifacts_, not lives...

James Wimberley's suggestion; buy up the Afghan opium crop and use it as medical morphine.

Dear God.

But it's true, we're not human. We are simply biding our time until you go extinct, when we will fight it out with the cockroaches.

I can't say I care much for Yoshi's music (owing to a general tone-deafness w.r.t. hip-hop), but, c'mon, this is cool.

More detailed story about the (apparent) Bamiyan oil paintings.

Great moments in Afghan Buddhism, encore

Barnett Rubin's interesting comments on the previous link

Fashion photo shoot from northern Afghanistan in 1968.

"A brief examination of the people of actually existing Afghanistan indicates that they do not lack capacity. If they lacked capacity, they would be dead by now. "

Aaronsw reports from, possibly, the most beautiful conference venue in the world.

Organic cosmetic products from a cooperative near Kandahar. No direct sales yet but a list of retailers. (There's one in Pittsburgh, near the Strip.)

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Juan is in fine form here.

Archaeology in Afghanistan

Cosmetics; availability outside of Kabul unclear

Very cool photos of Afghanistan, Azeribaijan, etc., etc.

Pigs at the Kabul zoo. Plus more very good photos

"Network-centric warfare": not actually any good at dealing with a decentralized opponent. (Oh, the DARPA meetings I sat through about "joint battlespace 2020"...)

"Pack your bags and start your Afghan vacation!"

1981 Rand report by Alexandre Bennigsen

Col. Kelley reviews books on Soviet and mujahideen strategies and tactics during the Soviet-Afghan war, for _Parameters_ in the spring of 2000.