Comments on: When Optimism Is Not Warranted

By: Joshua Foust

Joshua Foust — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 19:54:20 +0000

Joel, you’re right about the naming thing. Another reader gently chided me that everyone knows Hajji Doulat as just that. My worry came into play for a few very specific reasons:

1) Hajji is ALSO a racist term used by soldiers;
2) Marlowe has a history of uncritically repeating anything the military says and attacking those who either question it or have different points of view; and
3) Marlowe never did what you did, that is, name him and then explain that “Hajji” is an honorific

So, I really don’t feel bad questioning her account. But it is good to know about Mr. Doulat.

By: Joel Hafvenstein

Joel Hafvenstein — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 06:18:45 +0000

Minor aside on the Haji/Hajji thing: some of us choose to go with the less literal transliteration because it reads more cleanly in English — depending on typeface, the double j – i combination can be almost unreadable.

When I wrote about my colleague Habibullah, I referred to him as Haji Habibullah throughout because that was all the Afghans ever called him — I don’t think I once heard “Habibullah Noorzai” come out of their mouths. Many Afghans, not just racist outsiders, regularly use the honorific and skip the tribal name.

I agree with your broader points on pundits who resort to platitudes and distortions to give a sunnier picture of Afghanistan (and US military performance) than is warranted.

By: Patton

Patton — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 03:09:36 +0000

The Most High Exalted FM 3-24 says something along the lines of “if it works here, it probably won’t work there”, which Nagl should know, and hopefully does. As for Ms. Marlowe, I remember a line from the great Lewis Black that I think applies to her: “I wonder, where can one find a drug that would make one so delusional?” She mentions that Mortenson doesn’t seem to criticize the Taliban very much, but as I recall from the book, he didn’t exactly cheerlead for them, either. He made a point of getting women educated, not something that would endear him to the Taliban. And why not focus on the teeny-tiny villages? I.e., the ones that get absolutely no attention from the central government. And to finish, the whole thing reminds me too much of a stuffy Victorian era British gentleman going on about “demned savages” who “ought to be grateful for our civilization” or some such blather. And if that’s what we’ve lowered ourselves to, I’m going to see about getting on a one way trip to Mars with some Martians. Anal probes can’t possibly be worse than that tripe.

By: steve

steve — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 03:01:10 +0000

i heard that nagl interview on NPR and was underwhelmed.

By: Joshua Foust

Joshua Foust — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 01:20:34 +0000

Well isn’t she prolific. You do realize that STILL isn’t providing reasons for optimism, right?

I like how she doesn’t get a single freaking thing about a) Mortenson’s work (which is very much in the territory of Afghanistan), or b) Afghanistan (for example: no one, not even the Central Statistics Office, says Khost has a million people—she made that number up out of thin air). Good thing she gets column inches in Forbes and the WSJ. Sigh.

By: Transitionland

Transitionland — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 01:14:28 +0000

Ann Marlowe is bashing Greg Mortenson now: http://www.forbes.com/opinions/2008/11/18/afghanistan-pakistan-schools-oped-cx_am_1118marlowe.html

He’s a “naive”, “solitary do-gooder.” His accounts of Afghanistan are “hysterical” and his book is “very anti-military.” He doesn’t devote enough space in his book to criticizing the Taliban, and we should find that suspicious.

She concludes with: “Greg Mortenson has done much fine work, but by larding his account with so much anti-military nonsense, he does not only American soldiers but also the people of Afghanistan a grave disservice. Hundreds of thousands of the children of the Pashtun belt here owe their education to the U.S. Army. Its efforts here need to be expanded and supported. And young Americans who want to help the children of Afghanistan probably can do so best by joining the group that’s doing the most for them–the U.S. Army.”

Yes. That is how she concludes.