Comments on: Book Review: Decoding the New Taliban, Antonio Giustozzi editor

By: Julia M

Julia M — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 07:04:07 +0000

Cool, thanks, i’m sold. You can look forward to your sales commission when i go out and buy a copy as soon as i can.

By: AJK

AJK — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 17:38:56 +0000

It’s really pretty different. I guess the best way to put it is “Decoding” is more of a panel, while KKL is more of a single speech. Giustozzi isn’t furthering his views as much as he’s saying, “Alright, here’s some of the latest information, do what you will with it.”
I think Empires of Mud is supposed to be more of a sequel to KKL. Giustozzi’s biggest point to hammer is that the “Neo-Taliban” is still very loosely related to each other and still a lot of local movements tied together. The Quetta Shura doesn’t have as much control over everyone as they’d like, I suppose. But I’m not up to speed on my Giustozzi, I have to say.

By: Vykromond

Vykromond — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 14:11:28 +0000

The ‘jihad textbooks’ are also referenced in this story by the Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A5339-2002Mar22

By: Julia M

Julia M — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 09:14:59 +0000

How does it compare with Giustozzi's 'Koran, Kalashnikov and Laptop'? That's where he really began to formulate his ideas on the neo-Taliban - how have they developed since?

By: Joel Hafvenstein

Joel Hafvenstein — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 09:11:10 +0000

While it’s true that the neo-Taliban can’t perform all the functions associated with a state (and the old Taliban scarcely tried), they’ve shown their capacity in two of the governance functions that are most important to ordinary Afghans: protecting people in Taliban areas from extortion by armed commanders, and arbitrating community disputes that resist solution by traditional means. As long as the police and judiciary of the Karzai administration remain corrupt and ineffective in providing those key services, the Taliban will have a tremendous governance advantage. (That’s before we even start talking about their Code of Conduct and the ombudsman’s office in Kandahar which takes complaints about violations of the Code — rough and ready accountability, to be sure, but better than 90% of the government).

By: DE Teodoru

DE Teodoru — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 05:00:56 +0000

Some time back I asked if, on his last visit to Beijing, Obama asked China to go easy on our debt so he could impliment a health plan and China said, fine but put more troops in Afghnaistan. So, I asked, are our mom and dad soldiers now China’s mercenaries?

Proof, proof, give us proof, someone asked. Then a few days later this appeared:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/30/world/asia/30mine.html?pagewanted=print

Yea, almost anything Giustozzi writes or edits is GRADE A. But he also shares my view of what a worthless venture is the Musical Chairs Petraeus plays with our Kabul Command as kick off to his Republican Presidential Campaign is blood liberally drawn from a dangerously hypovolemic nation. Old Dave is used to a DefDep where money is no object but those days are far behind for our greedy “entrepreneurs” (pejorative term French for taker-in-between) caused us more bleeding than binLaden would have ever dared to dream. So far the American peole have seen so much incompetence in our military, especially our intel
http://www.cnas.org/files/documents/publications/AfghanIntel_Flynn_Jan2010_code507_voices.pdf
leaving our mom and dad soldiers intel blind, language deaf and culture dumb, shooting fearfully in the dark– just like in Iraq– and in our massive civil service and entrepreneurial “counterterrorism bureaucracy” has dropped the ball so often in trying to rival the old professional anti-Communists of yore that time has come to pull back our lines of defense, cut back our expenditures and recognize that if we leave Afghanistan the Shanghai Accord will have no choice but deal with the issue. Indeed, expecting our giving up and going home, Karzai has for a while been negotiating with the Russians.

9/11 was a reaction to our Mideast politics. If we draw in our claws other will do so too. Forward leaning is nice if you don’t do it blind, incompetent and broke. The days of the empire are over. The only question left is whether we get to control our future on leave it to others.

By: Toaf

Toaf — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 08:51:04 +0000

Sounds like a good read. It’s on the list.