6 responses so far ↓

• 1 ahmed // Apr 26, 2008 at 7:49 pm

  Two thumbs up ,go for it. We should give more business to CHINA compare to USA.

• 2 najmi // Apr 26, 2008 at 10:54 pm

  we need some documentry films from china to show our ppl how they do hard work to be no1 nation in the world.

• 3 Warbucks // Apr 27, 2008 at 1:06 am

  There’s clearly an array of powers at work creating the case right now for a war on the Pashtun tribal regions. These things don’t just happen in a vacuum. Wars seem to start with the careful choreography of the news media. The war masters, the maestros, start feeding their lap dogs, the press. The music is then played by the press for the rest of us to hear.

  Notice how all the papers are beginning to play the same thing about the Afghan and Pakistan border? The theme of “lawless frontier” is being played every week. The sound drowns out the reality of a noble 5000 year old culture of some 42-million people.

  We hear instead about the vilified denizens of a “lawless tribal frontier.”

  What you missed it? Well, it’s only been playing for about two weeks. You need to tune in to the inside pages. The maestros have been composing for a while longer…. Their creative juices kicked in about the time Sen. Obama, answering one of those deadly sucker-punch sound bite questions showed us his war face telling us he would take action on “high-value terrorist targets” in Pakistan if President Pervez Musharraf “won’t act.

  That’s the sunshine it took to start the war-sap flowing. War-sap is sticky stuff, its residue has been known to encapsulate the creatures that get too near and preserve them there for posterity.

  There is a legal system in place of course, in this lawless frontier. It’s been there for 5000 years. The Pashtun call the system the jirga. But its not part of the sharia law, it’s unique to the Pashtun and precedes Islam by thousands of years. But we don’t sing about that just now.

  Please, I definitely don’t want the Pashtun to start signing their homeland song either. I don’t want to learn that an 1893 border line drawn with the blessing of Queen Victoria divided a group of mountain dwellers along the Afghan and Pakistan boarder in two.

  I thought mountain ridges where proper borders. Everybody uses them. I just can’t handle the sound of another this-a-stan or that-a-stan popping up. So please, I don’t want to know about a Pashtunistan. And I definitely have no interest in anything 5000 years old, if it means Obama can catch Osama on good intelligence, bring it on! That should be Commander Obama’s war face call: “Bring it on!” Hmmmm, that sounds familiar.

  What is this Pashtuni-whatever, Pashtunwali, anyway?

  It’s a code of conduct. The Pashtun openly express somewhat defiantly, total cultural independence and have seen conquering armies and powers come and go through the millennia. Probably because of their original geographic high mountain foothold they could stand off vast armies with terrain advantage. Well it’s about time maybe for all that to stop.

  If the Pashtun just hang in there with there non-violent thesis a few more generations, they’ll be the dominant culture of the entire region with the new awakening of intellectual prowess and coming Islamic Reformation which is beginning right now. Their hopes of control over their resources, a name for themselves, and an end to fundamentalist radical Islamic persecution will fade away and they will be the dominant culture. They would be wise to muster whatever assets are needed, magically go find Osama bin Laden and turn him over to the world court thus avoiding a coming war in the tribal area.

  And, how come they sound more like American cowboys than foreigners? Darn it, if we are going to start another little war, can’t we start it with some body that doesn’t live like my great, grandfather? The old Pashtun nationalist non-violent Kahn Abdul Gaffari Kahn 1930’s photo, even looks like grandpa!

  Setting aside the Pashtun mostly pray to the same God I do, grandpa did, and great grandpa too, how on earth did they adopt the same code as the old cowboy code of the west?

  According to “lawless frontier” musical score, the first impressions I hear is Pashtun love rifles, chewing green tobacco, and appreciate a good sense of humor. So what’s not to like? I can’t go to war on that.

  If I fell out of the sky and landed in a group of people like that, I’d get along just fine, especially if I were being chased by the law. What they call Nanawateh we call asylum. Nanawateh is extended even to an enemy, just like the Cowboy Code of the Old West. Except if you are granted asylum (called Lokhay Warkawal) by the Pashtun elders as a group you’re in like Flynn! They protect you even if it means forfeiting their own lives. Man that is lawless. Imagine a code of living where a principal was so honored, that it exceeded my duty to the state. Hmmm. Now that is lawless. Isn’t it?

  Better to just seek hospitality, then they’ll treat you like a king, which makes me want to open a 5-Star hotel somewhere in the snowy peaks along the boarder if I can find a few acres for a ski-lift not planted in opium poppies, viewed on Google Earth satellite, not that anyone is actually checking the carefully cultivated fields above 6,000 feet along the borders. I would feel right at home there, not unlike parts of Tennessee or California.

  Look at the forces arrayed here. My little fantasy war is going to happen.

  The Democrats need to show they can be trusted with national defense again, be it Hillary or Obama. And McCain says fight to win.

  The second verse of the song is still being written: Floating the contingency balloon. Up, up, and awa-a-a-ay, in my beautiful ball-o-o-o-on….

  Obama or Hillary, or McCain get sworn in January 20, 2009. By mid June, whoever is President is going to make a push into the boarder regions the so-called “lawless frontier tribal zones” and “on good intelligence,” unless of course my leader does it first before June 20th. The operation will be Pakistan’s (well okay we’ll give them a few billion). It will be a fast coordinated air-ground attack with airborne US intelligence and lots of surrounding US air cover as a safety check to insure the operation stays within operational parameters. Pakistani’s will not go into Afghanistan and vice a versa. Meantime the Pakistan Navy will be backed up (some would say surrounded and outgunned) by the US Navy to keep a lid on the operation seeing to it they don’t launch an attack on India by Pakistan Islamic fundamentalist-leaning ground forces. We’ll hold India’s hand throughout the entire episode and offer security where needed.

  Up, up and awa-a-a-ay in my beautiful …. This thing’s going to happen regardless of who wins.

  You can’t deny the poetic justice in someone with a Muslim name (Obama) catching a renegade terrorist (Osama). Can you imagine the songs that we could write about that? To the tune of “Froggy went a courting.”

  Obama went a hunting and he did hunt, uh-huh
  Obama went a hunting and he did hunt, uh-huh
  Obama went a hunting and he did hunt, he hunt Osama on the Mount
  Obama went a hunting and he did hunt, un-huh. …..

  The best time to wage this little war would be during the Chinese Olympics. China would likely remain quiet with their hands temporarily full with the Olympics.

  So my fantasy, glorious, contingency war needs to be brief, violent, and force the Pashtun jirga to rethink their long term cultural interests. It needs to end with Osama in a holding tank, brought up on charges in the world court.

  If it fails? Well what do you expect from the lawless tribal frontier area in Pakistan with questionable army allegiance? Corruption is everywhere.

  I’d still like to open a 5-star hotel with some good ski-runs. You don’t suppose the opium production their so good at, has anything to do with the foolishness of some of our drug laws? Nah.

  Victor Davis Hanson says you have to look at war with a long term perspective in order to understand its meaning. Long term is real long term. It may well turn out that while many say Bush’s legacy must be a failure, history may have a completely different take on things, long after both you and I and our great grand children have come and gone. It may turn out, that doomed legacy of a Bush Presidency we hear so often this campaign-cycle ends up being written 1000 years from now as the President who started Islamic Reformation (* See Footnote) and brought freedoms that enabled thinking people to ask questions about religious practices that eventually changed the world and started the east and the west talking again.

  The Ritz, I like that franchise, a 5-star Ritz, 18-hole world class golf course, mini-conference center with A Pashtun bag-piper paying my old favorite, “The Ass in the Graveyard” with double malt scotch, in the bracing night air.

  Respectfully,
  Warbucks

  Footnote: Reformation: “Christianity has the advantage of having been able to interpret its religious texts in their historical context, thus arriving at the distinction between what belongs to the bedrock of faith and what is related to culture: a distinction that Muslims have difficulty making.” … This was a topic of discussion in Muslim and Christian dialogue in Brussels, April 17, 2008. And from Pope Benedict XVI during his visit to the US in April 15-21, while visiting a synagogue in New York, with about 200 representatives of other religions, including Islam, to the Muslims the Pope said that interreligious dialogue “aims at something more than a consensus for advancing peace.” The greater objective of dialogue is “to discover the truth” and keep the deepest and most essential questions awake in the hearts of all men. “Confronted with these deeper questions concerning the origin and destiny of mankind, Christianity proposes Jesus of Nazareth. He, we believe, is the eternal Logos who became flesh in order to reconcile man to God and reveal the underlying reason of all things. It is he whom we bring to the forum of interreligious dialogue. The ardent desire to follow in his footsteps spurs Christians to open their minds and hearts in dialogue…. Dear friends, in our attempt to discover points of commonality, perhaps we have shied away from the responsibility to discuss our differences with calmness and clarity….. The higher goal of interreligious dialogue requires a clear exposition of our respective religious tenants.”

• 4 ahmed // Apr 29, 2008 at 2:42 am

  Warbucks I read your message,too bad it didnt work on me, sorry. By the way CHINA will be the Next SUPER WORLD POWER soon. And China is also our best friend. I think trustworty friend sounds better than so called ALLY. Peace and love.

• 5 Warbucks // Apr 29, 2008 at 3:30 am

  China is perhaps already a Super World Power. We have discovered they are a composition of cultures as opposed to what we used to believe, a composition of languages based on vaious races. Their inland empires are separate cultures from coastal regions. I too hold a great affinity for China and its enfluence on me personally.

  The core point of your comment however seems to be a reflection of the complexity of developing your region economically and the understandable pinning of responsibility on US policy and presence, both of which are about to change.

  I would imagine the average person simply does not understand both the level of institutional bugs that must be addressed to access capital markets to encourage foreign investment nor the failure of the current Islamic Model to satisfy world capital markets thus encapsulating the Islamic model within its own capital market.

  The US Government should elevate the discussions with the outcome desired being the average Afghani to have a sense of what the plan is.

  Right now “the plan” seems to get power and water flowing, roads and bridges working, and streets safe again. While that is an amazing achievement in and of itself, it is costly for the West. The development of an economic plan for capital market access costs only intellectual capital and gives people long term hope for their lives.

  People need to be able to see long term with a sense of where they are trying to go, and if there are kinks in the Islamic economic model that can be modified with clerical approvals, we should diplomatically gather together top clerics and economists and street smart Wall Street underwriters, put them in a room and educate everyone to the benefits of being able to access world capital markets. Pay them, feed them, and indulge them until they bless a comprehensive capital market plan they can call the Islamic Model and the West can buy into. Once you achieve that, you open world markets to investment in ways they do not currently enjoy. And it costs essentially nothing but time, entertainment, and promotional budget.

  We have partnered with China in may undertakings and you are correct, they may indeed make a good partner in your region for many things. You are probably correct on that point.

  Respectfully,
  Warbucks

• 6 Warbucks // Apr 29, 2008 at 7:26 pm

  The idea of forging ahead with a new economic development initiative is never too late to consider by the way. Economic prosperity and the country’s ability to emerge as a prosperous contributing member of world trade remains a complex but possible concept tied to the level of stability in its institutions be they structured on the Islamic model or the Western model.

  Regarding economic development of Afghanistan, considerable Afghan effort needs to be invested in their second weakest link, a stable national dollar which works in western markets. An Afghan Central Bank could for example tie their dollar to other strong currencies, perhaps the noble, well familiar British Pound.

  The heart of the Islamic economic model of course is the issue of “interest” vs. “equity”, our old nemisis: sabat, or interest.

  You and I might be partners but not lenders collecting interest among each other.

  Such faith based moralities tied to currency, currently encapsulates the Islamic economic model from full global participation. Or, another way to look at it, discourges me from investing in you or you from invest in me, or more personalized still, you from lending to me, or me from lending to you.

  Muslims that have committed to find work-arounds to this issues of sabat still have much work to do. A functioning economic model that westerners can also buy into which satisfies Islamic morality still remains to be developed.

  Without a new economic models investment morality breaks down for the spiritually committed Muslim. So far very little progress is being made. Clerics are trying to help. There is a world wide effort to restructure the Islamic Economic Model to take it beyond “barter and partner.” Lender and barrower are notions currently out of the question, yet the concept of “lessor and lessee” have provided some positive work-arounds, approved by clerics.

  Where might we find common ground? It is worth studying the current morality of the US and how we are dealing with a massive over-built housing market. Some of our solutions such as moratoriums on loan payments, and lender encouraged and accepted losses followed by rewriting of new loans at lower levels, are solutions most similar in spirit to the notion of “Jubalee” and “equity” and “Partner” of Muslim morality. These core sentiments are not unlike Islam. We might be wise to celebrate these similarities and recognize them as pathways for economic cooperation.

  Consider the implications. A Muslim region sells tax free bonds for school construction, road construction, community hospitals, or any number of needed assets. An economic model that is approved as an Islamic Economic Model with buy-in from the West, means access also to world wide bond markets allowing me to invest in your needs and you to invest in my needs.

  A country can survive without such access but economies tend to prosper with such access. Countries floating on an ocean of oil have not needed to look closer at assisting in the development of the Muslim Economic Model. But poorer Muslim countries, wishing to be independent, determine their own future, exercise freedom of thought, moderize, dress as they wish, school their children as they decide, study the sciences as they wish, and otherwise be called a country as opposed to a Caliphate, are encapulated in the absolute closed circle of the barter and partner Islamic Economic Model.

  Talk about partnering with China. China owns, and my memory is weak here, but I believe China owns nearly 10% of all US issued debt instruments. They are one of our largest trade partners and invest considerable capital back into our treasury markets. This tied at the hip relationship has both good and bad. The good seems to be to temper etreme political wickeness, a cool-down effect that serves both ways.

  But first things first. We are going to have to drain the swamp this Spring. Stand by……

  Respectfully,
  Warbucks

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