This piece is amazing, and highlights one truth: the amount of self-afflicted human misery in Afghanistan is truly astounding.
And it raises a lot of questions. Is Afghanistan totally hopeless? Is there something wrong with the Afghans? Is it Islam? The American occupation? Something in the water? Why would anyone choose to live in such conditions, and choose to perpetuate the institutions, behaviors, and beliefs that create such an environment? What indeed is at the root of this misery?
I would argue that the key change they need is for the people to be overwhelmingly disapproving of destruction.
If you intentionally destroy someone or something, the mob should make sure your ass is grass. You can say what you want, hang out with whoever you want - but as soon as you destroy, you're toast.
Now, ideally you let the mob pitch in to hire someone to enforce this one rule, and perhaps even add some overhead to ensure that they enforce it more-or-less fairly. And so you have taxes, police, and courts. (And if you want to be more subtle about what constitutes destruction, you can make laws, but that's optional).
Afghan society must start severely punishing destructive people. Leave punishing blasphemy to Allah. Since creation is so much slower and more difficult than destruction, the net effect will be a continually improving infrastructure and society.
EDIT: Also, I would like to put up posters denouncing denouncers and see if maybe that would help.
Behaviors that are baffling to outsiders are almost certainly adaptive within the context. Tribalism and clannism seem insane to us -- but family and local ties are likely far more trustworthy than anything related to the government, law or "Afghan society".
Obviously that sets up a pretty bad loop.
I suspect that the most important economic flows in Afghanistan are foreign aid and narcotics. The proceeds of the former are largely distributed via corruption, which requires co-operation, which is facilitated by the trust within tribal networks. Those the latter would be distributed accordingly to tribal / clan structures. I suspect "the Taliban" are basically a front for an extremely well organized drug cartel.
Notice that neither of these really depend on the productivity of the population. So the powers-that-be don't need stability to keep the goods flowing. If their economy depended on large industrial plant and skilled workers then blowing stuff up and killing people would be expensive and the society wouldn't tolerate it. But who sits in office or who harvests the poppy hasn't much to do with the goods flow. And so the gains on wrestling over the spoils are higher than those on increasing the society's overall production. That means tribal co-operation "pays" a lot better than "national" co-operation. And that co-operation is far more trustworthy.
Unfortunately this traps them in a loop where 1) the weak and just are screwed and 2) they cannot possibly build a real economy.
It's just a theory, but it does seem to explain a lot. (And it's a vast oversimplification, just a very simple political / economic model to postulate how tribalism could be adaptive. Even if that model is roughly accurate, the actual operation has to be vastly more complicated.)
(As an aside: People in the United States just have no idea what a miracle this place is, how carefully its society and government was constructed, and how easily that construction could be undermined. We take a lot for granted here, but this place didn't just happen.)
> I suspect that the most important economic flows in Afghanistan are foreign aid and narcotics. The proceeds of the former are largely distributed via corruption, which requires co-operation, which is facilitated by the trust within tribal networks. Those the latter would be distributed accordingly to tribal / clan structures. I suspect "the Taliban" are basically a front for an extremely well organized drug cartel.
While the Talibans certainly rely on drug trafficking money to stay afloat nowadays, they had essentially wiped it out while they were ruling the country.
You make some good points. I'd like to mention a couple of additional things:
- Lack of institutions and the rule of law. As long as the administration, the police, the courts are easily bribed, why would you work along official channels? Your interest is better served by leveraging your clan's resources and bribing your way forward.
- Lack of a feeling of national unity. In particular, the 1996-2001 civil war in Afghanistan between the Northern Alliance and the predominantly Pashtoun, Pakistan-backed Talibans cannot have had a positive effect.
>Behaviors that are baffling to outsiders are almost certainly adaptive within the context.
Why do you believe this? It reminds me of people who think that just because something exists, it must be useful. Some things really don't serve any purpose, like nipples on men, or belly buttons, or fingerprints.
I don't think its tribalism itself that's the problem. Heck, if the tribe is big enough we call it a nation. It seems to me that it's possible to have a "good tribe" - one that defends it's borders well, and imposes something like the rule of law within it's borders. Perhaps most importantly, inculcates a culture of non-destruction - where initiating violence is frowned upon by everyone. This tribe, I believe, could thrive and grow, and prosper.
As for the economics of the thing, I think that such a tribe could do very well. Heck, if you're right about capital flows (and you probably are) such a tribe could get (covert) American aid, etc. I imagine we'd even look the other way if they wanted to grow poppies. But still, this would be a small island, and I'm not sure if there are enough people to really man the battlements and make it work.
Because it has extraordinary explanatory power in a very wide diversity of settings. It is certainly consistent with the sciences, and anthropological science in particular.
BTW -- You (on average) ate through your belly button for months 2 through 9 of your existence. Just because you aren't using it _now_ doesn't mean it never served any purpose.
Fingerprints provide roughness and grip to your fingers. Without them, you'd have a difficult time doing simple things like holding a beer bottle with your finger tips.
You're proposing an entire tribe throw off the culture that they grew up in, social bonds that could mean the difference between life and death, and just... go all John Galt over in Afghanistan?
I would offer that the more productive industrial society as a whole has become, the more unproductive parasites of multitudinous sorts have arisen. A nation dependent on foreign aid and foreign drug-dealing could only exist on the economic periphery of a more prosperous nations, right? The evolution of Mexico is instructive here.
We're lucky that in the US, the parasites at least don't have as much of an incentive to engage in violence.
I agree that this was an amazing piece. However...
>Is it Islam?
The last time Afghanistan had any internal stability was under a fundamentalist Islamic government...so probably not?
Anyway, prescribing solutions from thousands of miles away for a culture and country with which you have no experience seems a bit arrogant.
I'm not trying to pull a generic "we're all equal, let's not judge" line on you-- I'm just saying that neither of us know much about Afghanistan. And the little we do know doesn't bode well for the success for secular institutions in that country (since the puppet governments of the USSR and USA never seem to get enough popular support to become stable).
So, let's leave the solutions to someone with better experience and understanding than a forum of internet nerds.
I think this proposal is an incredibly naive way of viewing the world.
A mob by definition is unpredictable. A mob is inherently incapable of meting out justice, it can only mete out indiscriminate punishment. A mob is susceptible to the words of a demagogue, even if those words are lies. People will always try to manipulate the mob to their own advantage.
Where does the concept of having a trial come into this proposal of mob justice? How will a mob, a concept of organization that is based entirely on conformity and the emotion of anger, be able to hold a fair trial? I don't think there has ever been a case in history in which a mob of people have held a fair trial and carried out a fair punishment.
Sure, in an ideal world mobs would be capable of being fair; however, we don't live in an ideal world. We live in a world where people are irrational and where the mob suppresses rational discussion by suppressing dissent.
Furthermore, there is something self-contradictory about a mob destroying people who destroy. A well-functioning system of justice can never be built on retribution and violence.
The idea of a mob pitching in to hire enforcers is even more ridiculous. Now what you have is a gang. Even if under this proposal these mobs eventually institutionalize into the "police" and "courts," there is now the problem of corruption.
30 years ago Afghanistan had a strong secular tradition. The West, CIA, armed and supported the Mujahideen tribal warlords of Afghanistan which has ushered in the tribal religious extremism. They've done the same recently in Lybia and are doing it in Syria. The West arms the Syrian rebels but the U.S. is now calling the leading Syrian opposition group, al-Nusra Front, a foreign terrorist organization. So my claim is that much of the Third World looks like basket cases because of Western imperialism.
Thanks, I know it wasn't always like this. And I don't think there's something genetically wrong with the Afghans. Heck, I've read the Kite Runner (which was heart-wrenching). And I've seen first-hand that they seem to do just fine in other parts of the world, and are particularly fun-loving (as hinted at in the OP's post).
My instinct says, "just leave 'em alone for a few generations, they'll figure it out". And that's what we tried, but then the Taliban set up a safe-haven for Al-Queda and we got 9-11. And then we got an 11-year-long war, the longest (and probably the most expensive) in US history.
Perhaps, though, that remains the best option. Just somehow keep an eye on money and arms that flow into the nation, and strike any training camps we detect. E.g. exactly what it seems like Israel does with the West Bank and Gaza. Of course that sucks, but our options are few.
> And that's what we tried, but then the Taliban set up a safe-haven for Al-Queda and we got 9-11.
There are far easier ways of preventing another 9-11. For example, why don't we start by enforcing intelligence sharing between the various TLAs? After all, that's why we couldn't stop 9-11.
There's a HUGE difference between Israel's position and our's. Israel is right up against the border of the West Bank and Gaza. We're on the other side of the world.
>For example, why don't we start by enforcing intelligence sharing between the various TLAs? After all, that's why we couldn't stop 9-11.
Agreed. While this is the first and most important step, attacks will get through, and we need a credible response.
>There's a HUGE difference between Israel's position and our's.
Yes, of course there are differences. But there are similarities too. The key similarity is that neither the Palestinians nor the Afghans have a strong central government that can keep it's promises to the outside world. The core pattern in Israel's interactions with Palestine has been: Palestinian authority (used to be Arafat, now Hamas) promises not to attack; some random Palestinian faction decides to launch rockets into Israel; Israel says to the world, "See?" and then viciously counter-attacks. The Israelis argue that if Palestine can't control it's people, then it gives up the right to sovereignty. And this, essentially, was Bush's justification to invade Afghanistan. He knew the Taliban wasn't directly responsible, Al Queda was. We attacked anyway.
P.S. I have very mixed feelings about Israel, so I'm not justifying anything, just describing the situation the way I see it.
Bush's justification of the invasion of Afghanistan was completely flawed. Whereas the Israelis have a geographically tethered foe, Al Qaeda can move its operations to another country (which they did by going to Pakistan). In reality, the primary country from which the 9/11 hijackers originated was Saudi Arabia - a country whose royal family includes a prince that Dubya considers a brother.
The right thing to do would have been to send special forces into Afghanistan to assassinate the Al Qaeda members responsible for 9/11, not get into a decade+ long war.
Afghanistan has been a perpetual warzone for decades now and every attempt after each war to rebuild important civil instituions (courts, taxes, police) has been poorly done. In the brief period where there were institutions and stability things were better. If from the article, “During the time of the Taliban we did not have such encounters. Everyone kept to his lane.”.
I'm trying to think of what the good people of Afghanistan can do to create good regions of Afghanistan. It seems clear that good people need to band together, get some serious firepower, and create a safe haven where the One Rule (no destruction) is strictly enforced.
It's a fascinating problem because it's almost like dealing with a zombie apocalypse. Too bad that it's real.
> It seems clear that good people need to band together, get some serious firepower, and create a safe haven where the One Rule (no destruction) is strictly enforced.
This almost exactly describes what the Taliban did. Except in their moral system, the One Rule is different than in your moral system.
>This almost exactly describes what the Taliban did. Except in their moral system, the One Rule is different than in your moral system.
Read The Kite Runner for a gripping insight into what the Taliban was. There was no rule, only naked force in the name of religious fundamentalism. Enforcement was (and is) arbitrary and brutal.
The One Rule is totally, completely compatible with Islam. However, it is incompatible with any any belief, religious or otherwise that values anything above non-destruction. The big problem in the Muslim world is, in my view, that they are confused on this point. Enforcing a prohibition of the expression of blasphemy instead of enforcing a prohibition of violence and destruction is a critical mistake, and the entire nation pays the price in perpetuity.
If the universe has anything approaching a built-in moral standard, it's this, and it's implied strongly by the second law of thermodynamics. It's far easier to destroy than to create, and so any culture that doesn't give creation asymmetrical importance is going to relegate it's followers to a life of squalor and violence.
I think I get your point, but you need to re-phrase the zombie apocalypse part.
Afghanistan is a country that has been fractured by civil war or the fight against invaders for all of its living memory and is struggling to find unity.
A zombie apocalypse on the other hand is a fictional event in which a horde of brainless demons tries to kill all humans.
I'm sorry that I've offended your sensibilities, but there is a strong parallel with the chaos in Afghanistan (or Somalia for that matter) and a zombie apocalypse. Two parallels in particular stick out: there is no strong central authority, and there is the constant threat of violence. For zombies, the violence is directed toward "eating brains" or something equally ridiculous, for Afghans the violence vector is directed toward "anyone who disagrees with me or who I or my tribe doesn't like", and seems particularly informed by Islamism and hatred of the West.
Further, the problem of 'infection' is very similar. Even if you create a "safe zone" it's not necessarily safe. Consider the recent rash of killings when our Afghan "allies" have turned on US servicemen, killing them in cold blood in so-called "Green on Blue" attacks. (About 100 servicemen have been murdered in this way in the last 3 years).
If you read the article carefully, he talks of an opposition who "offered themselves as alternate protectors and arbiters of justice" and set up a road block, all this to push the mob to execute the insurgents who attacked a bank. This is exactly what you are proposing, mob rule to attack any "destroyers".
I struggle to see how the solution to violence is more violence.
First, I think you misread the piece. That anecdote was clearly facetious. The roadblock was an empty show of force and was nothing more than more violence. There was no way that was an effective response. It was just a bad excuse for the gang to extort money.
Second, my proposal cannot be imposed from the outside. It would take a group of like-minded individuals to band together and protect a geographical region, imposing this rule on all within it. It's a safe harbor where peace is enforced with violence. Pockets of peace could arise, and then connect, and grow. If they are peaceful enough, and productive enough, their ability to sustain and fight wars will improve, naturally turning them into more powerful foes.
This, essentially, is what happened in the West. And I think that's what could happen in Afghanistan.
It is within human nature to destroy. In this case a lot of it manifests itself under an umbrella of a certain brand of Islam. I think more should be done from within Islam to combat this ideology with a more tolerant message. When it comes from within it is more likely to be heard. Then again, no one kills more Muslims than other Muslims.
The weird thing for me is that I'm an atheist, almost sometimes a militant atheist, and yet by far the only people I met doing decent work in Afghanistan were:
1) Afghan expats (generally moderately religious), like doctors from London who had moved back.
2) Christian missionaries, specifically those who had remained in Afghanistan from ~1979-2001 and beyond. To a limited extent, some (religious based) US charities as well.
Totally absent were USG organizations like DOD, USAID; the UN; various NGOs; ISAF; etc. The UN water pumps were helpful, but those I think mainly pre-dated the 2001 conflict, and in no way approach making up for the harm caused by the UNODC drug control policies.
SSF, Fab Lab, the guest house, Tim, etc. all did some worthwhile stuff, but were really an exception. In general, the only people doing anything helpful were locals and religious people.
This was slightly less true in Iraq; there were some limited positive works done by NGOs and by specific military commanders (using their under-$100k local budgets), and some worthwhile projects from CA.
Sounds like a worthwhile effort to support Internet connectivity in Afghanistan. Wish the author would create an indiegogo fundraiser to raise money to pay the fees, so that I could help support it!
So I'm not the author of that but I am the SSF engineer in charge of that network and was present while that story was unfolding. Funding is in fact one of our biggest issue these days. We've discussed doing various fund raising efforts including Indiegogo but it does not solve the real needs.
The problem is that our expenses for that network are all recurring. We can get occasional injections of money for things like gear and generators, but it is hard to find someone who is willing to pay for the bandwidth or Afghan salaries on an ongoing basis.
All of us in SSF have no income from our work over there but we all continue to support our friends in Jalalabad in every way we can. For an indiegogo campaign to be successful it actually takes a fair amount of effort and is only a stop gap solution to the problem. So we are all focused on trying to sustain ourselves while actually solving problems. I can't speak for everyone in our crew but most of us don't have the time, energy or heart to do a full fund raising campaign that we know is only a temporary solution. What we really need is a sponsor to take over bandwidth costs and the salary of our fantastic Afghan crew who works on the ground over there.
So on the off chance anyone reads that and knows of someone who might be interested in becoming a sponsor, I can be reached at trevor.ellermann@gmail.com Feel free to direct any inquiries my way.
If there is any question of my identity and involvement in Synergy Strike Force, I have ways of authenticating I am who I say I am. Also, I would not ask for any money directly. There is a large, well known, non-profit that everyone knows that would be the entity dealing with any financial transactions.
Also, if you just want to nerd out over a cool network we run outside the barbwire in afghanistan hit me up.
<< The problem is that our expenses for that network are all recurring. We can get occasional injections of money for things like gear and generators, but it is hard to find someone who is willing to pay for the bandwidth or Afghan salaries on an ongoing basis. >>
You could organize regular fundraisers in a systematic way to cover monthly recurring costs... although the feasibility depends on the amount of the costs. Can I ask how much (ballpark) the monthly costs are for bandwidth and Afghan salaries?
We could keep the network alive indefinitely for probably $2K-$3K per month. This network provides free and open internet to dozens of sites all over east Afghanistan including hospitals and schools. This is way down from just two years ago when bandwidth was $5K per month for 1Mbps.
I can only speak for myself and this is where I am at with this right now.
I don't know if you have ever done fund raising but it is very time consuming and frankly unpleasant. Also, if you start including pay for yourself in the cost not only does the amount needed go up drastically, but people start questioning your motives. That makes it even harder to raise funds. So between working jobs and spending our free time trying to make a difference in a very difficult situation, I just don't have the cycles to spend raising funds.
I think it boils down to the fact that I am an engineer and want to spend my time solving problems over there, not in endless meetings and hoping for little bits of money here and there. That is what we have been doing and for me personally it's starting to burn me out. At this point what we really need is bandwidth costs and a small salary for the Afghans keeping it running. And we need the money to be painless for us. It's a hard to find a sponsor like that.
I've fundraised for my own startups before (not fun). But a while ago, I headed up marketing for Kiva.org (a crowdfunding site for entrepreneurs, mostly in the developing world) and found crowdfunding to be a really powerful way to raise money. I also did a Kickstarter a while ago related to poverty alleviation that raised $21k... not a huge sum, but one that helped get the project going.
It sounds like you guys are at a point where you'd like to raise a year's worth of funds upfront, or you're leaning towards burning out and canceling the entire project. This is an ideal situation for crowdfunding: people have a real incentive to donate, as they know their funds will truly make a difference.
I would recommend doing an Indiegogo campaign for $25-30k to get things started. As part of it, you could promise regular updates on how things are going in Afghanistan. At Kiva, people really loved hearing from our entrepreneurs on how the loan was going.
As for marketing the piece, Peretz is a really wonderful writer. Would he be willing to write 2-3 shorter stories about the network, and the impact that it's having in Afghanistan? Then we could share them here on HN (and elsewhere), and link to the crowdfunding campaign at the end of the piece. It also wouldn't be too hard to get an article or two written about this, either in HuffPo, TC or maybe PandoDaily (I haven't worked with Pando before, but it's probably similar to TC). That would definitely drive significant fundraising... plus there are poverty alleviation blogs and social media gurus who would definitely help out.
If you're interested, I'd be glad to help you with the marketing and PR gratis... a project like this makes it incredibly easy to drive publicity and fundraising.
Either way, I wish you all the best with this important project!!
I hope you can appreciate that this is a little too public of a forum for discussing current operational details of our operation over there. I can say that we are still engaged and intend to stay that way. Hoever, with Mehrab's assassination everything has changed. On a personal note, his death is one of the hardest blows of my life.
The group was founded by Dr. Dave Warner. He was hired by to go over there and help start several schools* in the area. While over there he ended up finding the Taj Mahal, taking over the lease one it and founding the Synergy Strike Force. SSF grew into much more then just schools and has been involved in many different humanitarian projects. We are all just freelancers trying to dodge the bureaucracy that get's in everyone else's way and make a difference for the people over there.
* The schools have nothing to do with cups of tea in case anyone is curious about that.
Several people have pinged to ask what is with the name. I did not come up with it but I can tell you my take on it. The name is kind of a joke name and kind of an intentional name. It's bad enough that nobody is going to try to take over our name (which has happened), it sounds just official enough to appear legit to non-native English speakers and pretty aptly describes what we do. We spend a lot of time identifying problems and then finding the right people to solve them. When the most of the aid organizations are bound to their safe houses for security reasons they need people like us. We are outside the barbwire connecting the people who need help with the people who want to provide it. So we identify a problem and strike it with synergy to come up with solutions. We work with just about anyone on the ground in the country who is willing to work with us to solve problems and improve the lives of the Afghan people.
I must step away from the computer for a while. My email is above and I will be happy to continue discussing as much as I can here when I return in a few hours. I appreciate people's feedback thoughts on this.
The OP mentioned that there's a death sentence for two kids who were friends with Americans. I suspect that any Americans still in Jalalabad are keeping a rather low profile.
@trevore - great to see you on the thread! There are a lot of questions raised here that are hard to answer, but I can share a troubling observation. Of all the US personnel I have met in Afghanistan, fewer than a handful were engineers, makers, creators rather than enforcers, money dispensers, or supervisors. Sure, the military has its own engineers, but very few are outside the wire interacting with people. Where are the civil communication, construction, mechanical, etc. engineers? I think there is a larger role in global peer to peer diplomacy for such a cadre. I've got more stories to tell, so does @trevore, some of them are posted jalalagood.com/ --> more will come out guided by the questions you ask.
I'm really pleased to see n+1 appear on hacker news. This is a great publication. Sometimes the writing can be a little obtuse, but in general I think many hn'ers would enjoy finding out more about them.
Great story. I was expecting the team to win the tournament when a local official with no governing power stepped in and allowed them three chances to score a last-second buzzer beater though...
(Hint: 1972 Olympics)
As an avid sports fan, and very active basketball player and cyclist, the major shifts in current thinking towards evaluating the world of sports through statistical and business eyes is to me quite unfortunate. To those that make their money through that world, fine, but as a fan, I want to marvel in the achievements of athletes, not be debating whether a pitcher is over-rated because of his exFIB.
Basketball is about the battles against racism of Bill Russell and Oscar Robertson, the soaring style of Dr. J, the elan of Magic, the blue collar work of Bird, the competitive viciousness of Michael Jordan, and the physicality of Lebron.
Cycling is about the will of Eugene Christophe, the ethics of Gino Bartali, the ferocity of Eddy Merckx, the spirit of Bernard Hinault, the pain of Marco Pantani, and the insanity of Jens Voigt.
Even if we can't reach that level ourselves, it is that approach to what makes sports great that allows for events and stories like this article. Without that spirit, there wouldn't be any reason to have amateur sports to begin with. Leave everything else alone.
Actually, to the best of my knowledge, that particular stricture regarding body hair only applies to Muslims while on hajj (the trip to Mecca). This particular standard is probably more related to Pashtun culture, or to their particular interpretation of Islam.
To one extent or another, most NGOs are "missionary organizations", and are certainly threatening the way of life of the more hidebound Muslims. So I'm less surprised than some here at the conclusion of the story.
I think the question to ask is, if you're part of this existing traditionalist social structure, what's the benefit of adopting a more Western way of thinking? It is not obvious to them that Afghanistan was less fucked under Soviet influence, or is less fucked under US and other NGO influence now.
Perhaps I was downvoted because I didn't make clear the reason for asking that question. Mindsets can be very difficult to break, and telling those in power in Afghanistan, "We're going to let women vote on things and let you kids look up crazy things you don't like or even understand on the Internet!" will not help.
Better to ask the tribal leaders, "what sucks about Afghanistan for you?" and try to find the intersection of that with something along the path away from revenge killings and stonings and toward full-fledged democracy and liberty. Then iterate.
And it raises a lot of questions. Is Afghanistan totally hopeless? Is there something wrong with the Afghans? Is it Islam? The American occupation? Something in the water? Why would anyone choose to live in such conditions, and choose to perpetuate the institutions, behaviors, and beliefs that create such an environment? What indeed is at the root of this misery?
I would argue that the key change they need is for the people to be overwhelmingly disapproving of destruction.
If you intentionally destroy someone or something, the mob should make sure your ass is grass. You can say what you want, hang out with whoever you want - but as soon as you destroy, you're toast.
Now, ideally you let the mob pitch in to hire someone to enforce this one rule, and perhaps even add some overhead to ensure that they enforce it more-or-less fairly. And so you have taxes, police, and courts. (And if you want to be more subtle about what constitutes destruction, you can make laws, but that's optional).
Afghan society must start severely punishing destructive people. Leave punishing blasphemy to Allah. Since creation is so much slower and more difficult than destruction, the net effect will be a continually improving infrastructure and society.
EDIT: Also, I would like to put up posters denouncing denouncers and see if maybe that would help.