I did review that piece, which was also riddled with factual and logical errors. I reject Johnson’s arguments as being out of synch with the vast majority of scholarship on the subject, disconnected from history, and too reliant upon easy tropes and stereotypes. Click the below link:

http://www.registan.net/index.php/2008/05/07/digging-deeper-into-the-pashtun-tribal-areas/

The section on Pashtunwali is riddled with misconceptions and further inconsistencies. On page 59, one paragraph describes the tribal code as “uncompromising” and “so profoundly at odds with Western mores that its application constantly brings one up with a jolt.” A Pashtun, Johnson and Mason explain, “must adhere to this code to maintain honor.”
In the next paragraph, Pashtunwali is “intrinsically flexible and dynamic,” and has such profoundly-at-odds-with-the-West social codes as self-respect, independence, justice, hospitality, forgiveness, and tolerance. They then proclaim the hill Pashtuns “the real Pashtuns” because they carry knives, and claim that all insurgencies in the area always start in the hills because of “nang culture,” which of course ignores insurgencies against the British, Soviets, and Pakistanis.
On page 60, Pashtunwali goes back to being a “critical set of obligations” imposed on society, one that all Pashtuns embrace. This entire section falls prey to what the wonderful blog Afghanistanica termed, “wonderful Rudyard Kiplingesque hyperbole” that is so common to Western writing about a social code that is about as rigid and adhered to as chivalry.

And so on.

Their more recent paper in Interionational Security quarterly, No Sign Until the Burst of Fire, seems to differ with their earlier assessment. In the newer paper they say the Taliban is spreading among all Pashto speakers.

They say that the Taliban and the tribalists are enemies, and that the Talibs are, through assassination, intimidation, and probably sometimes regular methods, pushing former tribal leaders out of the way.

They also suggest that the tribal leaders, to some degree, represent Pushtun nationalism, something the old Kings of Afghanistan used to use as a lever against Pakistan, who responded by promoting Islamism in the same region.

Bummer that their earlier work earns so much of your ire, since their newer piece comports well with my understanding of how things work.

Probably won’t seem worth your time, but if you could review the piece I linked to, I would appreciate it.