![](\"http:\/\/cyber.law.harvard.edu\/blogs\/static\/dowbrigade\/afghaneyes.jpg\")
Framistan
\n was a made up word that our father would slip into his explanations when
\n he didn’t know
\n the real jargon, or when he tired of our incessant variations on "How?"
\n and "Why." It was especially likely to crop up in technical or mechanical
\n explanations, not Dad’s strong suit. If the car was knocking, it was
\n probably the framistan acting up. If the TV was on the fritz, it was
\n because the framistan had come loose from the grundling screw. Eventually
\n we came to understand that a framistan was an essential element in a
\n complicated and inexplicable process that worked.<\/p>\n
While the world and Despite 20 years of incessant warfare, predictions of Where are the mujadeen who threw out the Russians and One explanation is that the great internal divide in In Afghanistan., the situation is quite different. Here The two groups have been jousting for power since the The conditions set by the Constitution are the results According to these conditions, the majority of the present The bottom line seems to be that the only individuals Almost despite themselves, they seem to have stumbled article from the New York Times<\/a><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Framistan was a made up word that our father would slip into his explanations when he didn’t know the real jargon, or when he tired of our incessant variations on "How?" and "Why." It was especially likely to crop up … Continue reading
\n American public opinion have been mesmerized by the morass
\n in Iraq,
\n a
\n quiet revolution
\n of another sort is taking place in the original target of the war on
\n terrorism – Afghanistan.<\/a> Somehow,
\n that rarest of modern chimeras, an incipient Islamic democracy, seems
\n to be forming from the fog of war and the quicksand of shifting tribal
\n alliances.<\/p>\n
\n Holy War, the unfortunate quagmire that sank the Soviet Empire and a
\n great wild landscape largely beyond the control of the central government
\n in Kabul, they have successfully held elections, convened a constitutional
\n convention, and restored basic services to a level above where they were
\n before the intervention began.<\/p>\n
\n vowed to do the same with the Americans? Where are the roadside bombs,
\n the kidnappings and beheadings, the suicide murderers and death squads
\n that have turned Iraq into hell on earth? Could this gun-shy creature
\n carefully crawling from beneath the rubble actually be Peace? And how
\n did it happen, while our backs were turned, without sending 150,000 troops
\n and emptying the US treasury?<\/p>\n
\n Afghan society is different than that in Iraq. In Iraq the internal struggle
\n is between Shiites and Sunni’s, with those incorrigible Kurds kicking
\n up dust on the fringes. The intracacies of Islamic internecine
\n warfare are so complex and foreign to our way of thinking that an entire
\n lifetime of research and practice are needed to even form an opinion,
\n let alone intervene. Religion has always been the stickiest wicket in
\n working out resources sharing arrangements, and when God gets involved
\n the quest for peace often ends up in the quest for a piece of the other
\n guy. When a minority sect has held ruthless sway for several generations,
\n there is some serious getting even to get our of the way before anything
\n else can get done.<\/p>\n
\n we have a split between the Mujahedeen, who have spent the last 20 years
\n with a hot carbine in their hands, eating dirt and fighting the British,
\n the Russians, the Americans and anyone else who didn’t look, talk and
\n think like them, and the educated technocrats, who have spent the same
\n 20 years in exile, mostly in western democracies, in universities and
\n jobs, accumulating money and knowledge and waiting for the shooting to
\n stop so they could go home.<\/p>\n
\n fall of the Taliban. The current crucible of conflict is the composition
\n of the Karzai cabinet. In an attempt to reach a functional compromise,
\n the two sides reached an ingenious and novel agreement. All cabinet members,
\n they decided, would have to have ONLY Afghan citizenship (no dual citizens),
\n and a college degree According
\n to today’s New
\n York Times<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n
\n of intense rivalry among the main groups that have been vying for political
\n pre-eminence in Afghanistan in the past three years. They can be roughly
\n split into the mujahedeen, who fought in the wars of the past 20 years,
\n and the Westernized technocrats, who often spent the past 20 years abroad.
\n The mujahedeen sought to exclude many Westernized Afghans by banning
\n anyone holding dual citizenship, while the technocrats sought to exclude
\n the roughest mujahedeen by adding the condition relating to higher education.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
\n cabinet are unqualified to hold their posts in the newly elected government. For
\n example, both the Minister of Education and the Minister of Higher Education
\n have to go; the former has no college degree and the later is a dual
\n citizen of Afghanistan. and the US. In addition, major cabinet
\n members with dual citizenship, often American, include Finance Minister
\n Ahraf
\n Ghani, Interior Minister Ahmed Ali Jalali, Information and Culture Minister
\n Sayed Makhdum Raheen, and the ministers of reconstruction, urban development
\n and higher education. The governor of the Central Bank would also be
\n required to have only Afghan citizenship. At least five members of the
\n current cabinet whom Mr. Karzai had considered keeping do not have enough
\n education to continue. Among them are Minister of Commerce
\n Sayed Mustafa Kazemi, Minster of Agriculture Sayed Hossein Anwari, Minister
\n of Education Ahmad Mushahid and Minister of Public Works Gul Agha Sherzai
\n and Defense Minister, Marshal Muhammad Qasim Fahim.<\/p>\n
\n qualified to serve in the he new Afghan government are mujahedeen who
\n somehow managed to get a college education in between fighting foreign
\n invaders,
\n and technocrats who stayed in country for the duration or at least avoided
\n taking dual citizenship.<\/p>\n
\n on a formula to select the best of each group, and for the first time
\n in two generations hope seems to be rearing its hoary head in the blasted
\n landscape of Afghanistan. Of course, the perfidy of local warlords,
\n the greed of carpet bagging capitalists, the convoys of raw opium snaking
\n out of the hinterland’s inaccessible hills and the great games of international
\n intrigue all argue against a happy outcome.But compared to the living
\n nightmare that Iraq has become, the scene in Afghanistan. shines like
\n a beacon of hope and a dim distant light at the end of the tunnel. At
\n least as long as the framistan keeps working.<\/p>\n