Afghanistan, you were let down, again!

Cross-posted from FB:

I appreciate all the calls and messages of support I’ve received in the past few days. Afghanistan is at one of its lowest points and it all happened way too fast. The feeling now is one of painful disappointment, of being let down, of anger, frustration, and helplessness, but not surprise. Many have asked what I think…below is a summary of what I shared with a few friends. Would love to hear your reactions. Sorry in advance for the rather pessimistic view.

I apologize to the world, to all the victims, past and present, known and unknown. I apologize in particular to the indigenous peoples around the world whose lives were destroyed since the first contact, to the children of residential schools in Canada whose mass graves are now being discovered, to the slaves, to the colonized, to the victims of meaningless wars, to victims of massacres, to victims of racism (including south-south racism, think of foreign workers in Gulf countries as an example), to the women who face violence, to those killed in the name of Islam (and other religions)… to the planet that is over-polluted and overheating, to the animals we (ab)use, to the farmed chickens that never get to spread their wings, to all the victims of greed and ultra-materialism… and finally now to the people of Afghanistan.

I apologize because despite knowing about all of this and living in a democracy, I am not able to help enough. This sense of helplessness is driving many of us insane. Even the means of helping has become co-opted. If you don’t believe me, try sending $100 from average Joe in the West to Fatima in the East and see how much is actually delivered

But I wanted to make this post about the current situation in Afghanistan. For those who may not know, in a nutshell, what we are witnessing is a cheap deal, to sell Afghanistan to the Pakistani-backed Taliban for a low price: you leave us alone and we will leave you alone (and who cares about the people anyway?). Remember, this is the same Taliban that the US overthrew exactly 20 years ago (after creating them and the Mujahideen in the first place during the Cold War…with support from Pakistan and Saudi Arabia... watch “Charlie Wilson’s War” the documentary if you don’t believe me). How they became friends after two decades of bloodshed (including thousands of American soldiers killed) and billions of dollars spent is a mystery (well not really for me, but that’s a different story for a different time).

Why am I sad, but not surprised? Well at a macro level, why should I believe the US (and their allies) were there for the Afghans in the first place? If they really care about things they claim to care about (human rights, women’s rights, democracy, etc.), were/are there not other places that need these gifts more than Afghanistan?!? Or if life under Taliban was really horrible, do we have evidence now to believe the Taliban have changed (and thus we are handing over the country to them)? Will they uphold the relative gains achieved in women’s conditions? Obviously not. I am not surprised because in their calculations (mainly US), this is in their best interest at this point in time...things may change in the future, just like in any game. The truth is with everything happening in the world, one has to be blind not to see that the only God today’s superpowers worship is greed. Everything else is a façade, red herring.

To focus on Afghanistan more narrowly, nobody has really been kind to this land and its people historically, neither Afghan leaders themselves nor foreign forces. In fact, all major players have caused pain and suffering. And worst of all, they have tried to justify their injustices, including the media today that tries to paint the entire country as barbaric and uncivilized based on their superficial understanding of the people or based on few bad examples (after all, this is the land of Rumi and Bidel and Rahman Baba, the land of beauty and hospitality, of kindness to strangers…the bearded extremists we see is both a small minority as well as rather new phenomenon).

The list of wrongdoers includes Brits and Russians in the 18th and 19th century, neighboring governments, near and far, flag bearers of freedom and democracy (the US and the West), Afghan warlords (or better war entrepreneurs),... and who suffers silently? The over 90% of the population who have nothing to do with any of this BS... who know nothing about the Great Game, never heard of the twin towers, did not invite OBL or the empires to their homeland, and who leave their homes every morning with one goal in mind, to bring food to their families, just like any other human being elsewhere.

As for those who asked how to help, again, sorry, but I have absolutely no faith in any of these agencies, local or international, UN included... have seen too much corruption and waste with my own eyes to trust any of them. Best you can do right now is send cash to a local individual you trust to hand deliver to the IDPs who have left other provinces and are in makeshift shelters in Kabul... I am sure the aid agencies are "planning" their support packages, will collect millions and deliver a fraction and even that, but by then, it may be too late for many of those people in real need.

Sorry for leaving on such a bleak note, but these are the sad realities of our lives these days. I would love to be convinced to be more optimistic…bring it on

Photo Credit: Shamsia Hassani

What Being a Credentialed Evaluator (CE) Means for Development

Cross-posted at Arctic & Mountain Regions Development Institute (AMRDI) Blog

Having just obtained my Credentialed Evaluator (CE) designation, I wanted to share some personal insights on what the CE designation is, the process of applying for and obtaining this designation, and what role the designation can play in the context of international development. 

The scope and the importance of program evaluation are evolving rapidly, especially in light of increased pressure to present evidence that development is in fact working. The Canadian Evaluation Society (CES) is playing its part in professionalizing the field by offering development evaluators with the unique opportunity to earn CE designation, the first of its kind, following a rigorous screening and application process. 

This important move, which is aimed at paying careful attention to the capacity and professionalization of those who are supposed to “evaluate” development efforts, is most welcome and long overdue since the beginning of official development assistance over 60 years ago. A number of other parallel efforts at promoting and professionalizing the field of development evaluation include the following: the establishment of the International Program for Development Evaluation Training (IPDET) in 2001 and along with its several regional versions, the establishment of the International Development Evaluation Association (IDEAS), the increasing number of national societies and professional associations of evaluators (more than 100 in existence with the most recent ones being the Morocco Evaluation Association and the Albanian Society of Program Evaluation), the declaration of the year 2015 as the “International Year of Evaluation” proposed by EvalPartners and endorsed by much of the development community including various UN agencies, and last but not least, the recent popularity of CE designation. 

The credentialing program was launched in response to increasing interest among CES members in quality assurance. As a result, the CE designation is designed to define, recognize and promote the practice of ethical, high quality and competent evaluation across the globe. In a nutshell, the designation is a way to declare that the holder has provided evidence of the education and experience required to be a “competent” evaluator. Although the process of offering the professional designation at CES began in 2006 when the CES National Council put out a Request for Proposal for the development of an action plan for evaluator credentialing, the actual program was not launched until 2010. Since then, according to CES’s roster of Credentialed Evaluators, nearly 300 evaluators have obtained the CE designation. 

Although the process of becoming a CE may seem cumbersome at first sight, it is really quite straightforward for evaluators with the right mix of qualifications. To be able to apply, one needs to be a member of both CES and IDEAS. You must also have graduate level degree and at least two years of full-time equivalent experience related to evaluation, within the last ten years. In my experience, the most important and also the most time-consuming step in applying for CE designation is to demonstrate education or professional experience relating to at least 70% of 49 competencies, grouped under five competency domains, including 1) Reflective Practice, 2) Technical Practice, 3) Situational Practice, 4) Management Practice and 5) Interpersonal Practice. 

For the evaluators, the designation should help facilitate employment and contractual processes by signaling to employers the candidate’s commitment to and competence in program evaluation. The designation should especially help employers and evaluation clients by increasing their confidence in the candidate’s continued professional development, because the CE designation comes with an expiration date unless the holder demonstrates that s/he has kept up to date with the dynamic field of development evaluation by investing in at least 40-credit hours of continuing education over a three-year period. Failure to provide this evidence could result in losing the CE designation.

Similarly, the CE designation should help the broader field of international development by first recognizing the need for specialized training in ascertaining what works and what doesn’t work and then by relying on expert opinion for carrying out methodologically rigorous and contextually appropriate evaluations. A key condition for the effectiveness of the CE designation in development work is that the development community broadly, and donor agencies in particular, support, promote and make use of CE designation in all their programs and processes. Although the CE designation is well on its way to find its rightful space within the broader development context, this is just the first steps towards professionalizing the field at the global scale; much more work needs to be done to promote and ensure ethical practice and quality standards in development program evaluation.

Reflections on the CIA Torture Report

Since the release of the CIA torture report on Dec 9, 2014, I kept resisting the idea of reading that document for many obvious reasons. But after its frequent mentioning by the Afghan president Ashraf Ghani during his U.S. visit in April 2015, I finally summoned the courage to take a look at the more than 500-page Executive Summary, the only presently unclassified part of the 6,700-page complete report.

Despite the claims of the CIA, almost everyone else, including President Obama calls the CIA enhanced interrogation techniques, “torture.” As the main author and investigator of this report, Senator Feinstein says, “it is my personal conclusion that, under any common meaning of the term, CIA detainees were tortured. I also believe that the conditions of confinement and the use of authorized and unauthorized interrogation and conditioning techniques were cruel, inhuman, and degrading. I believe the evidence of this is overwhelming and incontrovertible” (p.4). Restoring hope for the humanity, and attempting to save America’s tainted image in the world, to the extent that this can be done after the fact, President Obama ended this program through Executive Order 13491 on January 22, 2009, which required the CIA to “close as expeditiously as possible any detention facilities that it currently operates and… not operate any such detention facility in the future” (p.171). The only interrogation technique allowed, after this Executive Order, was those in the Army Field Manual.

What I found most disturbing about the so-called “enhanced interrogation technique” was the hiring of two contract psychologists (James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen), who were trained in the Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) school, a special training mandatory for U.S. Air Force officers, to help them survive and resist should they get captured by the enemy. Together, the two psychologists did much of the dirty work for CIA, and after 2005 they formed a company, Mitchell Jessen and Associates, for the complete outsourcing of the program, for which they received in excess of $180 million. The two contracted psychologists devised torturous practices by reverse engineering SERE principles, which included 12 specific techniques, namely the attention grasp, walling, facial hold, facial slap, cramped confinement, wall standing, stress positioning, sleep deprivation, waterboard, use of diapers, use of insects, and mock burial. Among these, waterboarding has received significant attention in the media, as Khalid Shaykh Muhammad, the mastermind of 9/11 was waterboarded at least 183 times. But I think other practices are no less disturbing and humiliating. Examples of other practices mentioned in the report, but not part of the above 12 practices, include rectal rehydration (yes that is disgusting beyond words!), exposing to cold (in which at least one detainee reportedly died), stripping detainees naked, shackling with hands above the head for hours, etc. Sometimes detainees were subjected to torture simply for not addressing their interrogators as “sir.”

Much of the detention and rendition in several known and unknown “black sites” or detention centers around the world, were implemented in fear of and aimed at preventing another attack. The process obviously included detaining many wrongfully, who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. For example, a young unemployed Afghan man, Gul Rahman, simply shared a name with a target and was detained for his mistaken identity. In fact, he had himself approached a U.S. military base seeking employment and was detained as a result, but “DNA results later showed conclusively that the Afghan in custody was not the target” (p.133). Ironically, in one stance, the wrongful detainees including two men who were actually CIA informants, but because their sent messages to CIA were not translated until after they were detained and tortured, they were subjected to a taste their own medicine, one to which they were setting up indirectly subjecting many other people. A few of these lucky mistaken cases were later released, with minimal compensation. Perhaps one of the largest compensations went to a German detainee, Khalid al Masri, who was released in May 2004 with “14,500 Euros, as well as his belongings” (p.129). I call this probably the largest compensation because the compensation for others were not spelled out, but simply called “minimal.” The officers involved in the mistakes were never reprimanded, because such mistakes were accepted as part of the package. In fact, regarding the CIA wrongfully detaining innocent individuals and rejecting accountability for the mistakes of officers involved, a notification said “with regard to counterterrorism operations in general and the al-Masri matter in particular, the Director believes the scale tips decisively in favor of accepting mistakes that over connect the dots against those that under connect them” (p.129).

Rather than building on these details, I would prefer to discuss the reactions to the document and their potential implications. We know, or at least can know upon reading further, those reactions published in the public domain. But there is a whole another set of reactions that one cannot, for all intents and purposes, be practically even identified, but are extremely important nonetheless. I would put those reactions along a continuum. On the one end of this continuum lie those completely siding with those commonly known as “terrorists” or Islamic extremists. For the terrorists, the extremists, and their sympathizers, this report is but just one instance of successfully removing the cover hiding the “West’s” injustices, against which they (the terrorists) have long waged a holy war. This is the perfect fuel for their fire, as it just validates their simplistic message that the West is out there to get the Muslims. On the eve of releasing the report on Dec 9, 2014, there was obviously expected backlash by angry and shocked Muslims around the world and the US embassies had taken all precaution against it. But while the much feared short term backlash is important, what should be even more worrying is the longer term impact of exposing such graphic details that could reach the hands of the media savvy extremists. We wouldn’t be surprised, therefore, if we see a dramatic rise in their recruitment rates and the garnering of even more support from those on the ideological fringes. For example, it suffices for them to show the video of one crying man, one of many wrongfully detained innocent individuals, as broadcast by the media to literally creating a whole new generation of uninformed but emotionally charged and mentally brain-washed ready-to-die brave hearts.

On the other end of this spectrum lie those siding with the United States in general and even the CIA in particular for not just justifying the acts of torture by keeping the American people safe and averting further attacks, but more importantly for still continuing to be the torchbearers of justice, truth and freedom. After all, it was still an American Senator, Dianne Feinstein, the Senate Intelligence Committee chair, who initiated the investigation five years ago and brought it to fruition. One can just imagine what she went through pulling this off the ground, because as we know, it took her almost five months of negotiations with the White House, who was more an ally and less of an opponent to her endeavors, to let the report be released to the public. I truly believe she is fully deserving of all the credit that she has received and will continue to receive for the courage, bravery and perseverance she demonstrated, because we all know it is not easy to speak truth to power or attack the monster, which is exactly what she and many others did in this instance as they have done in many other instances in the past. All of this is testament to the presence of another side, one that the manipulative leaders of the extremist groups, don’t want the masses to know, just as warmongers on the right don’t want the voice of the many millions of so called “moderates” to be heard by the general public in the West.

Even within the report, it is not hard to see traces of “humanness” within CIA agents. As gory, inhumane and disturbing as the interrogating techniques were, there were people, including CIA officers, who were extremely uncomfortable with and disgusted by the horrific practices they witnessed. The report talks about many detesting the idea, some even crying as torture took place, thus indicating that even some of the most impervious and thick-skinned people do have some traces of empathy in them. It was this humanness of some that resulted in this and other instances of whistle blowing, which will hopefully help achieve the main purpose of the report, which was for this to never happen again.

Dreaming of a day when the significantly large masses in the middle take the center stage from the minority of extremists on the far right and the far left.

A call for the return of sanity in thinking about Yemen and the entire Muslim world

Many countries, especially Muslim majority countries in the Middle East, these days are contemplating (although some have already arrived at their utterly thoughtless and even un-Islamic conclusion of siding with one group vs. another) their position in regards to the crisis in Yemen, following the flee of the Yemini president to Saudi Arabia after the uprising of the Shia-led Houthis. With Iran supporting the Houthis and Saudi Arabia and their allies supporting the ousted president, Yemen has practically turned into a battle-ground between extremist Shias and Sunnis, a division that has its roots in Islamic history, but not in the Quran, the book that all Muslims, including Shias, Sunnis and every other off-shoot, believe in and revere immensely. 

At the end of the day, the Shia-Sunni divide, like many other things, is as big or small as you make it. If one looks for differences, there surely are uncountable differences, just as there are differences WITHIN each of these two group. But if one looks at the similarities, there are many overarching similarities, which I argue are much more pivotal to the Islamic belief than the hairsplitting differences, the magnitude of which is far from equally distributed among each group. E.g. not all Shias attribute the same level of divinity to the Imams, just as not all Sunnis interpret a given Hadith in the same manner. The common themes, which should unite all parties, is the belief in one and the same God, one and the same prophet, one and the same Quran, the five pillars, etc. Now thinking Muslims have to decide if is it worth going to war and killing each other on the basis of the claim that one group differs in their devotion to a certain companion of the prophet, while turning a blind eye to all the fundamental common elements briefly mentioned above. 

Back to present, these days many other Muslim majority nations are asking themselves the tough question that once Bush had famously asked, whether they are with the Saudis or against them. I argue the right question to ask is not which side of the line one stands on, but to question the line itself, its existence, its politics, and most importantly the consequences of choosing a side, which requires much needed soul searching than being put forward as simplistically as was Bush’s question on the eve of the US invasion of Afghanistan after the tragic event of September 11. Just as in retaliation to the events of 9/11 the US alone has lost nearly as many soldiers as were killed during 9/11 - not to mention the multi-trillion dollar cost of war, the astonishing suicide rates of US soldiers and PTSD among the survivors, the lives lost of the other coalition forces during the last decade, the thousands and millions of innocent Afghan lives lost and those continuing to get killed and maimed, etc. – the choosing of sides in the crisis in Yemen and the rest of the world for that matter, will not have significantly different results. We often forget that golden lesson that violence begets violence and we often forget that at the end of the day, it is ordinary human beings who pay the most in such conflicts. Both the Houthis and the Saudi-led airstrikes continue to take way someone’s father, mother, sister, brother, child or other family members. A recent BBC article reports on the killing of at least 62 children by Saudi air strikes. 

The world leaders, and especially the Muslim world leaders, need to stop falling in the trap of choosing sides in war and ultimately being held (at least in front of the God that they claim to believe in) responsible for the tragic consequences of war, and instead choose peace. Yes, it is as simple as that to a sane person. 

Killing of a Woman over Quran Shocks Afghans & Prompts Reflection

The tragic incident on Thursday March 19, 2015, when an innocent young woman was brutally killed by an angry mob in Kabul, has received significant attention both in Kabul and outside Afghanistan. She was beaten to death and later put on fire for allegedly burning the Quran, an allegation that turned out to be fallacious upon police investigation. While the incident itself was extremely tragic and inhumane, what is even more important is the potential implication it has for the future of the country as a breeding ground for extremist ideologies.

The incident was shocking in more ways than can meet the eye. To begin with, the beating of a woman by men in public flies in the face of the once deeply ingrained Afghan cultural value of relating to women not just as equals to men, but in fact venerating them above men. A trivial but culturally significant example from Afghanistan’s “Golden Era” as late as the 1970s will illustrate the point. What would typically have happened in a bus full of people as soon as a woman came on board? More likely than not, more than one man would have vacated his seat to allow the woman to sit down. Even today, women are not expected to wait at the end of the line at government offices, at airport check-in or in other public places. After all, Afghanistan was heir to the same Islamic tradition, in which one wife of the prophet, Bibi Khadija, was among the richest merchants in 7^th century Arabia, while another wife, Bibi Ayesha, was the greatest narrator of prophetic knowledge. The puzzling question how come we managed to move forward in time 14 centuries but fall behind in our practice by more than that, and whether the trauma of the last three decades explains the 14 centuries of lagging behind?

 

Secondly, this incident happened in broad daylight, in a holy place, in the middle of downtown, and most importantly in the full sight of several armed Afghan police officers, and thus is not an act that could be easily swept under the carpet. The footage shows that the perpetrators included young and old, bearded and clean-shaven, traditionally-dressed as well as in Western clothes, and even reportedly a few other women. For the extremists, this is their dream come true that even 14 years after the end of the repressive Taliban regime, people’s mentality is still as susceptible for their misleading message as ever.

So far this has been abhorrent enough, but what is even more upsetting is the fact that several people - apparently progressive, open minded and educated - put their stamps of approval on these barbaric actions. One example is Dr. Muhammad Ayaz Niazi, who is the Imam, or religious leader, at the Wazir Akbar Khan Mosque in one of Kabul’s most well-to-do neighborhoods. In his Friday sermon, the day after the attack, he justified the barbaric act under the premise that when the sacred is under attack, one does not have time to check for evidence of the alleged offender’s mental state. Here, he was referring to media reports that said Farkhunda was suffering from mental disorders. Later it was revealed that Farkhunda’s father had said this about her deceased daughter under pressure from the Kabul Police Chief, because not saying so would have put the family’s life also at risk of the mobs, against which the police was unwilling or unable to provide protection. Although Dr. Niazi later attempted to take back his words, his retraction was too little too late. Instead of apologizing for jumping the gun before hearing the full story, he, rather contemptuously, assumed people wouldn’t have paid close attention to his words during the Friday sermon - which has been broadcast all over social media thanks to technological developments - and he outrightly denied having justified the act at all.

It is important to notice that almost all those who condemn this act do so on the basis of the fact that a) Farkhunda was innocent because she did not in fact burn the Quran, and b) Farkhunda was in fact a practicing Muslim and a student of theology. One could further ask the question, although not in Afghanistan without fearing a similar retribution to the one that Farkhunda faced, “what if Farkhunda had indeed burned the Quran and that she was not a practicing Muslim. Would the society have then justified the treatment she received?” If yes, which I fear is the likely answer, we have a lot to worry about, as this would be even worse than what the Taliban regime would dictate. One need not be a scholar of Islamic jurisprudence to know that in Islamic (Sharia) law, even the worst offender has the right to be heard by someone considered competent enough to make such life and death decisions, not by ordinary people on the streets, half of whom are almost certainly illiterate, and also unlikely to be able to read or understand the meaning of the Quran that they claim to be defending. The same Quran that says killing one innocent soul is like killing all mankind. If Dr. Niazi is right that one must act right away when the sacred is under threat, then what is the need for the police or the judiciary or even the religious verdict of an Islamic scholar, i.e. himself? Such mentality has enormous ramifications for the enforcement of law and order, and completely undermines the concepts of a civil society. This is not tolerated in any modern society and this is not condoned according to Islam, which they all pretend to be defending.

Every coin has two sides and there is potentially some light at the end of this dark tunnel too. For example, the news of this event has already spread rapidly both within Afghanistan and outside its borders among the Afghan Diaspora through social media. The event has also received significant media coverage within the country, making headlines for five consecutive days. Both the attack and Dr. Niazi’s remarks have been denounced throughout the community. Candle light vigils and mass demonstrations have taken place across the country, with abundant participation by members of the civil society and especially women activists. In an historically unprecedented move, Farkhuda’s funeral was carried only on the shoulders of women to her final resting place, a culturally and socially significant act that is traditionally exclusive to men. The demonstrators gather in thousands and demand not only justice and punishment for the perpetrators, but also naming the street where the incident took place after Farkhunda. If successful, this is going to be an historic win for the moderates in a country often represented by the extremists.

Since we now know what sparked the violence was an exchange between Farkhunda and a Talisman writer (Ta’weez Nawees), a superstitious practice traditionally believed to use Quranic verses to heal illnesses and solve many other problems, the practice has come under closer scrutiny in the last few days, which has the potential to open people’s eyes to their false promises, often fake prayers and sometimes hurtful practices. It’s worth mentioning that this and other similar practices, including all kinds of sorcery, fortune telling, foretelling and magic, are forbidden as understood by the majority of Muslims, including Muslims in Afghanistan. However, ironically enough, the practice is widespread and expanding.

One can only hope that the tide of good will overbear the potential for darkness to the already grief-stricken and war-ravaged Afghan society. 

On a lighter note, although really far from light, the poet of Fardin Fakher’s song seems to have hit the nail on the head by wondering why is it that the world is contemplating about the stars and the planets and we continue to get murdered in utter ignorance! 

Greg Mortenson and Official Development Assistance: Who is the Real Villain?

Also cross-posted on AMRDI blog 

Any discussion of mountain region development would be incomplete without considering the now controversial ex-mountaineer Greg Mortenson. Best known for his award-winning book, Three Cups of Tea, Mortenson has probably done more for development in the remote mountainous regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan than any individual or organization. Now, however, he is dismissed for having spun “Three Cups of Deceit” instead.  Jon Krakauer, another ex-mountaineer and Mortenson’s most ardent critic, alleges Mortenson a liar and corrupt individual who has embezzled charity money for his own personal use. Which is it? And what does any of this mean for Afghanistan-Pakistan regions in question?

Mortenson’s fall from grace started with renewed scrutiny over some of the early passages in the Three Cups of Tea and subsequently the financial (mis)management of his Central Asia Institute (CAI) – founded in 1996, long before most North Americans had the slightest interest in this region. The turning point was the “60 Minutes” episode that publicly disgraced Mortenson. Though he has recently begun to reemerge from the shadow and move forward with his original mission, Mortenson and CAI have cruised largely outside of the limelight, and in disgrace, ever since. 

Two allegations stand out. The first, as noted, regards fabrications in his account of what happened after his unsuccessful attempt to climb the K2, the world’s second tallest mountain. The second regards the financial mismanagement of CAI funds. Of note, and in response to these allegations, a new documentary pushes back, defending Mortenson vociferously. 

So which account should we believe? Though I’m in no better position to judge than anyone else, I am sympathetic to Mortenson, and skeptical of those who have been most ardently critical. Let me first clarify that there is no doubt that both his storytelling and CAI financial management were flawed, as even he himself has admitted on several occasions. So then why do I remain sympathetic to Mortenson?

First, I am from this part of the world and I know the region on a deeply personal level, and I have a feeling that on net, Mortenson has done much more good than harm through his work at CAI for the people of Afghanistan & Pakistan. There is ample evidence that he has built functioning and effective schools, especially for girls, in places where there were no schools before. Second, I tend to assess the allegations from a bird’s eye view and not through stand-alone tidbits, which I think can be, and clearly have been in this case, quite misleading. For a person who has almost single-handedly pursued valuable work in these remote regions, does it really matter if his encounter at a village in Korphe was just a few hours or a few weeks long? How do these allegations fare in the broader scheme of things? Consider some recent events and new information:

The Montana attorney general (CAI is based in Bozeman, MT) conducted a comprehensiveinvestigation in this regard and the result was a fine of about $1 million that Mortenson had to pay to CAI, while also stepping down as a voting board member. So all this fuss about him ended with just a million dollar fine? This figure alone pales into comparison with both a) how much good he has done in the region for two decades, and b) how much aid money has been wasted by the more “official” development sector whether right, left or center.

The U.S. alone has spent almost a trillion dollars in Afghanistan since 2002 and the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) has repeatedly reported that billions of development dollars can no longer be accounted for. Some specific cases of this far more egregious mismanagement include:

• Stability in Key Areas (SIKA) Programs: After 16 Months and $47 Million Spent, USAID Had Not Met Essential Program Objectives http://www.sigar.mil/pdf/audits/SIGAR%20Audit%2013-16-SIKA.pdf
• Afghan National Security Forces: Additional Action Needed to Reduce Waste in $4.7 Billion Worth of Planned and Ongoing Construction Projects http://www.sigar.mil/pdf/audits/SIGAR-Audit-13-18.pdf
• Forward Operating Base Sharana: Poor Planning and Construction Resulted in $5.4 Million Spent for Inoperable Incinerators and Continued Use of Open-Air Burn Pits http://www.sigar.mil/pdf/inspections/SIGAR_14-13_Inspection_Sharana%20Incinerators.pdf
• Balkh Education Facility: Building Remains Unfinished and Unsafe to Occupy After Nearly 5 Years http://www.sigar.mil/pdf/inspections/SIGAR_Inspection_14-24.pdf
• Pol-i-Charkhi Prison: After 5 Years and $18.5 Million, Renovation Project Remains Incomplete http://www.sigar.mil/pdf/inspections/SIGAR-15-11-IP.pdf
• SIGAR Audit: U.S. Unable to Gauge Progress of $77 Million Investment in Afghan AG Ministry -Capacity Building at Ag Ministry Vital to Afghan Farmers, Private-Sector Development- http://www.sigar.mil/newsroom/ReadFile.aspx?SSR=7&SubSSR=28&File=pressreleases/11/2011-oct-20-pr.html
• Afghanistan's National Power Utility: $12.8 Million in DoD-Purchased Equipment Sits Unused, and USAID Paid a Contractor for Work Not Done http://www.sigar.mil/pdf/audits/2012-12-18audit-13-2.pdf
• Imam Sahib Border Police Company Headquarters in Kunduz Province: $7.3 Million Facility Sits Largely Unused http://www.sigar.mil/pdf/inspections/2013-01-29-inspection-13-05.pdf
• Special Report 15-10-SP: Poppy Cultivation in Afghanistan: After a Decade of Reconstruction and Over $7 Billion in Counternarcotics Efforts, Poppy Cultivation Levels Are at an All-Time High
• And many more. 

What Krakauer did was necessary, but one can’t help but wonder if he had any personal grievances against Mortenson, and why we as a society don’t scrutinize every case of fraud and corruption in the field of international development, as we did in this case.

Mortenson was admittedly terrible in his financial management, but was it fair to disgrace him to this level for his mistakes? Do we even think about the consequences this ordeal had on the communities in remote regions of Afghanistan-Pakistan? Could it have been handled differently so that he would learnt his lessons, pay for his mistakes, and even make it a lesson to others in the development industry, without the added psychological trauma, shame and disgrace to his name? What is a greater sin, that he actually builds 100 schools but claims (intentionally or otherwise) that he built 120, or that no more schools to be built (and by extension, no additional girls getting an education) in another village as a result of these allegations and the subsequent plummeting in CAI donations? Again consider the graft and mismanagement that has permeated, and indeed characterizes, so much of what we consider “official development assistance” by governments and larger organizations in the same region, with far less impact on the well-being of the people.

I will close with one of his famous quotes as food for thought, which sums up his worth in both words and action and which I think is much bigger than all the accusations (though unfortunately even this quote has sometimes been used against him):

“War will ultimately be won with books, not with bombs.”

-Najim Dost

Aid Scholar

AMRDI Central Asia Specialist

Why am I optimistic for Afghanistan beyond 2014?

Am I the only one who sees light at the end of this tunnel?!?

Almost everyone, both inside Afghanistan and outside, is deeply worried about the year 2014 for Afghanistan. I, however, am not only worried, but am quite optimistic about the prospects of the country beyond 2014. Those who are worried about 2014 cite two major events that could make or break the future of the country, namely the presidential elections in May and the withdrawal of the foreign troops from the country in June. A third item added to the agenda is now the signing of the BSA or Bilateral Security Agreement with Afghanistan and the US.  

I am optimistic about the future for precisely the same reasons that others are worried, namely the election and troop withdrawal. The election is a good sign because regardless of who comes to power next and how democratic the process will be, we know for a fact that Afghanistan has come a long way, with regards to capacity building, from 2001 and Afghans will be able to run at least decent or good enough government. After all, everything is truly relative. We can’t expect a perfect transition of power (especially since this is touted to be the first ever in our history, a view with which I disagree, but that is a different topic) and we can’t expect even close to a perfectly functioning government in Afghanistan, at least not in my life time and with the current education system. But if we look back in 2001 or 2002 and fast forward to 2014, both the face and the inner workings of governance has changed, mostly for the better, making us believe that decent governance is possible with the given levels of human capital in the country. Ask anyone in the government and they would be happy to give you all the statistics in all sectors of the country. Don’t ask them about the quality, though!

Now to the second point, i.e. troop pull-out, I am not so worried about this factor because I know their presence was not much helpful for the country anyway, so one can’t rationally expect their departure to be detrimental. The foreign troops can be and have in fact been helpful in one regard – a deterrence force to prevent extremist groups, such as the Taliban, from taking over the country by force as they did in mid 1990s. But one may say, zero option will take that deterrence force away, to which my response is, if zero option were to be exercised, I, too, would be worried, and in fact, extremely worried. But although I see zero option a possibility, I think it is a remote and a lot less probable possibility. Whether or not it is a bluff remains to be seen, though.

I think a more REAL concern l lurks behind all the cries about the troop withdrawal, and that is the fear that the troops will take away with them all the lucrative contracts that they offer, which gets passed down through multiple layers of sub-contracting, thus feeding every circle, and their circles, in the long chain. Does that sometimes include people like myself? Probably, but again, that is not the point here! At its peak, the US expenditure alone in Afghanistan has reached nearly $100 billion a year (this includes both military and development budget)! Imagine pumping dollars, five times the country’s GDP, in a year, and what do you get out of it? Many problems, chief among them being corruption! So my argument is that troop drawdown will certainly tighten the dollar’s faucet, which will reduce its accompanying side effects, including corruption, which has not only made Afghanistan notorious in world stage but has made life difficult for the most vulnerable segments of the population.

"Failure" in Afghanistan?!?

Nearly twelve years after the war in Afghanistan and about a year away from the scheduled troop drawdown from the country, some have decided it is finally time to look back at the international community’s performance. Steve Walt has gone so far to call the U.S. engagement in Afghanistan a “failure.” He blames the light footprint for the failure. Vali Nasr sees Obama and his small circle of advisors as the main culprits in his upcoming book, the Dispensable Nation. The Europeans are being even more daring in their analysis by drawing parallels between the current situation and the failed Soviet invasion about three decades ago. And again to their credit, they show some humility by insisting that they have always thought the situation in Afghanistan is “unwinnable” by military means alone.

So who is really to be blamed for the failure in Afghanistan? Well, it depends how far back one wants to look into history and the unfolding of events. Was it the British for their drawing the infamous Durand line more than a century ago dividing Pashtuns on two sides of the border? Or was it the Soviet invasion, which further led to the American creation and support of the Mujahideen, then called “the freedom fighters”? Or was it Bush for not handling the situation diplomatically when the Taliban leader asked for evidence before they could hand over Osama Bin Laden after the tragic events of 9/11? Or was it the collective of the international community for not doing enough to either build Afghanistan or even win hearts and minds despite billions of dollars being wasted in the country in the last twelve years? Maybe it is all of the above!

What is needed most importantly is to learn from history and not repeat past mistakes, which unfortunately happens all the time. Had the international community exhibited more humility at the start of the invasion, they wouldn’t be in such desperate situation that they are now in Afghanistan that they can’t turn their back and leave without leaving another legacy of failure, and even worse, an Afghanistan even more fragile, divided and vulnerable than before.