According to Ozodlik and information from the Choriev family in the US, on 17 June 71-year old Hasan Choriev was taken away by local police in his home distict of Shahrisabz, Qashqadaryo province. He is being held without charges and in an undisclosed location. So far local authorities refuse to comment, or to even confirm that the elder Choriev is in their custody: this is the second time in twelve months he has been arrested.

Choriev’s son, Bahodyr, founded the Birdamlik (Unity) opposition party, whose activists inside Uzbekistan are frequent targets of arrest and intimidation. Birdamlik has adopted some unusually successful and novel approaches, including campaigns to educate people about the constitution of Uzbekistan so they can demand that leaders follow the law, and silent protests in which activists participate by dressing in white-colored clothing on specific days. These less traditional tactics and Bahodyr’s status as a US political asylee seem to particularly unnerve the government of Uzbekistan. Choriev returned to the country in 2009 to try to hold a party congress, and while security services allowed him to enter and gave him relative freedom of movement, activists and family members with whom he met were frequently beaten and intimidated by the SNB.

As Birdamlik adjusted tactics over the past year, the elder Choriev became increasingly a subject of interest for local authorities. In November of 2012, he was fined some $11,000 dollars for “slandering local authorities.” According to Birdamlik’s Uzbekistan chief Malohat Eshonkulova, Hasan Choriev was “escorted” by police this week to “speak with the local prosecutor” about complaints he had allegedly directed to President Karimov himself. No one has seen him since.

The elder Choriev is not in good health, and his family fears for his safety. As Registan veteran Sarah Kendzior pointed out in a recent article for AJE (and the shortly forthcoming 2013 Nations in Transit report for Freedom House) a 73 year old man arrested last year after filing a complaint in the Ferghana region against police brutality suffered a heart attack while in custody and received delayed treatment that nearly cost him his life. Like Choriev, he was arrested for violating a local ordinance “against complaining.”

The Uzbek government consistently expresses frustration with their inability to clear human rights hurdles in order to gain approval for defense assistance from the US Congress and remove remaining sanctions or limitations imposed by other bodies. Events like these seem likely to complicate those relationships for both sides.

This is another guest post from Alisher Abdug’ofurov, a young ethnic Uzbek Kyrgyzstani who lives near Jalal-abad. Many thanks to Alisher for offering the first perspective from the region on the future of US policy–and for reminding us that if we don’t engage, others will.

Since the announcement of withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan there have been many disputes about US policy in Central Asia after 2014. These disputes still continue. I don’t know what decisions the United States will make, but nevertheless I think it is very important to continue an active foreign policy in the region. There are several very important reasons.

First, the United States should prove in practice that promoting democracy and human rights are among the main directions of its foreign policy. In the period of the Soviet Union, Central Asian nations were disconnected from the world and knew America only from one side: as an enemy of the Soviet Union. After independence thanks to international organizations the U.S. and Europe made a name as promoters of free speech, human rights and democracy. For thousands of young people they become a land where dreams come true. But after 9/11 and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the authority of the U.S. in Central Asia began to decrease. The fact that Afghanistan and Iraq are Muslim countries also gave cause for some people to refer to America as an enemy of Muslims.

The Arab Spring and cooperation with repressive regimes of Central Asia give cause for many people to think that the U.S. is ready to capture any oil-rich country and cooperate with any regime if only they are loyal to Washington. For example, not so long time ago Hosni Mubarak in Egypt was one of the main allies of the U.S. And the fact that the U.S. suddenly supported the Egyptian opposition once again gave cause to think about double standards of the U.S.

Of course, we should not forget the role of Russian media. The influence of Russian media is still strong in Central Asia whether we want it or not. Several Russian TV and radio stations broadcast as local channels and they are very popular. People are used to watching international news on these channels. Since most of these TV and radio outlets are Russian state-owned channels, information there is based on the foreign policy of the Kremlin. I think you can already guess that on these channels there is not much positive information about US foreign policy. The Arab Spring, for example, is shown largely as a special operation of U.S. intelligence to offset outcomes undesirable for U.S. politicians, rather than a protest of civilians in these countries against dictators.

So If America wants to regain his good name, it will have to consistently promote human rights and democracy. In any case the U.S. is a more democratic country than even the most democratic country in post-Soviet region. Therefore, America can play a key role in helping the values of democracy take root in Central Asia. But this process must be peaceful, without supporting the color revolutions. In the example of Kyrgyzstan, we have seen that revolutions don’t yield good results. On the contrary, people now have a belief that you can only come to power this way. I think the U.S. should support democratic changes and human rights in this region in general, but not specific politicians or parties.

Secondly, the US has an important role to play in the balance of power in the region. As soon as its economy began to grow significantly, Russia began trying to restore the old colonies to its circle of influence. Organizations such as CSTO/ODKB, Customs Union and Eurasian Union are examples of this. With Kazakhstan already in this circle, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are going to join. Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan are abstaining for now, but if after 2014 the U.S. will not have an active policy in Central Asia these counties can also be drawn into the integration projects of Putin’s Russia. If we take into account what is happening with Russia in terms of democracy during the rule of Mr. Putin, it is easy to guess that these unions will not be based on equality and will not be so different from the Soviet Union. Also we should not forget about China, which is not averse to increasing its influence to region.

Third is the issue of safety and security. Today we know that the U.S. will have a contingent in Afghanistan after 2014, but this contingent will not be very large and terrorist groups can become more active. Now in Central Asia only Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan have a real army that can fight a war with terrorists. But they are also maybe not prepared to fight for very long with terrorists who are more experienced after war with NATO. That’s why the U.S. should continue to be one of the main actors in the Central Asian region even after 2014.

This is just what I think. I welcome your comments and ideas below and look forward to the discussion.

This is a guest post from Alisher Abdug’ofurov, a young ethnic Uzbek Kyrgyzstani citizen living in Jalal-abad. He wrote to share his opinion on proposed new legislation restricting women twenty-two and under from traveling abroad without special permissions. We look forward to hearing more from him in the future.

Yesterday on June 12 Kyrgyzstan’s parliament adopted a very interesting and–I would say– strange resolution. According to the legislation, now girls who are under 22 years cannot leave the country without the permission of their parents.

The initiator of this document, Yrgal Kadyralieva (Social Democratic Party of Kyrgyzstan), has stated that it was developed to preserve the moral values, to prevent a demographic crisis, limit the risks of exposure to human trafficking and sexual violence, and protect the reproductive health of citizens. According to her, the state must protect its young citizens from various dangers. In particular, Kadyralieva reports that there are cases where young girls from Kyrgyzstan gave birth outside the country and leave the kids in the street.

We will not even talk about the fact that the resolution directly violates constitutionally guaranteed rights. The decision is already quite strange, I’ve got enough questions on the resolution itself.

I wonder why they decided to impose a restriction up to 22 years, and not until 21 or 23, for example. I mean that even after 22 years there is no guarantee that a woman going abroad will not be subject to abuse. Or after 22 is a woman “unfit for sale,” if we talk about the prevention of human trafficking? And if the parents give permission to travel, does that mean the girls cannot be sold or raped in another country?

This document can also be considered from the point of view of gender discrimination, as the resolution prohibits only girls from leaving. But on the same questions, are young men fully protected from the risks and dangers?

The deputy says herself that the resolution does not prohibit anyone traveling abroad, but only introduces some restrictions in the form of parental permission. I don’t don’t know about Ms. Kydyralieva, but for me a 22 year old woman is old enough to be responsible for her own actions, and even more to solve problems on her own. In addition, I’m not sure that parental permission will change something because the parents also have no idea of what challenges may face their daughter abroad. Maybe I’m wrong, but I think that with parental permission and the resolution the government wants to absolve themselves of the responsibility to protect its citizens abroad. If something happens with someone they can say that they were told about the risks and dangers, and if despite this parents gave permission they will have to solve their own problems.

Here I can add, too, that this resolution may give a way for corruption to increase: now border guards might have a chance referring to the document to extort money from women wishing to travel abroad.

Another interesting point is that this resolution aims only to “protect” women who want to go abroad. The fate of girls who are subject to the risks listed in the text seems not so interesting to our elected representatives. After all, here at home in Kyrgyzstan too many girls are subjected to various forms of violence. Many girls married by their parents’ permission become victims of domestic violence.

The resolution, which was accepted yesterday, has already received many negative comments. For example, the Ombudsman of the Kyrgyz Republic Tursunbek Akun said that the document is not legal because it is unconstitutional and violates human rights. A number of human rights defenders and non-governmental organizations have also expressed their outrage at the adoption of this resolution and said that they intend to draft a letter to the president.

At the end, I would like to say a few words about the initiator of this document. Personally, I feel hurt that the initiator of this resolution is woman. In many countries, female legislators are fighting for women’s rights. But here in Kyrgyzstan they are the initiators of such discriminatory documents. This raises the question of what good it did to make changes to the election code that forced political parties to nominate women candidates–through which Yrgal Kydyralieva today sitting in the deputy chair. When these changes were made the initiators hoped that more women in parliament would address problems of women more widely and protect women’s’ rights. But now they are making laws that violate them instead.

UPDATE: Today on the website of parliament the legislation was posted without mention of age or parental permission. There only general issues to protect migrants. Maybe it is result of such negative reaction from activists and the public.

The Registan’s new managing editor, Noah Tucker, has asked for contributions on why Central Asia should still matter to Western policy-makers and funders, especially American ones, after the occupation in Afghanistan ends and the post-9/11 era officially ends. I think it would be best if Central Asians wrote for themselves,* but I’ll take the opportunity to put the first word in.

My academic training is in philosophy, religious studies, and history, but by profession I’m a journalist. So, from my perspective, the argument boils down to two very, very basic points: historical consciousness and cost effectiveness.

Judo’s lesson for the past and future

If you know the history of religions, ideologies, and great political systems, then you know that Central Asia has been the axis of the world. I briefly studied judo, and the most important lesson I learned was: when wrestling, don’t pay attention to the eyes and the head, pay attention to the waist. And he who controls the waist, controls the match.

The United States may be licking its wounds right now, but ultimately it still believes that it has an historical mission to bring liberty and unity to the world. These are not just nice ideals or, at best, political principles; they are a story about the nature and purpose of human beings. And there are certain regions where the very viability of this story is put to the test. Central Asia is one of them; arguably, it’s the most important one.

And the best thing is, it doesn’t really cost a lot of money to study, explore, and influence this region. Central Asia is still transitioning out from communism, and in many ways has yet to shed the command-economy mentality. At the same time, it is not an entirely undeveloped place, for the Soviets did leave an infrastructural legacy behind (problematic and decaying though it may be). That means: fantastic real value for every nominal dollar spent. The millions the American government spends on just one missile — or for that matter, the hundreds an American citizen spends on just one gaming console — would have an incalculable impact on five whole countries.

America, don’t drink the kool aid

By now, I’ve spent four years outside of my homeland, bouncing between Belgium and Kyrgyzstan. When I think about the professional plight of my colleagues back home in the United States, I find that I want to ask our countrymen to consider the following:

In our era of neo-liberal “austerity”, an ethos of unashamed and miserly penny-pinching has taken hostage our society’s policy-making process. Government leaders decry regional studies, language studies, the social sciences, etc. etc, anything not empirically measurable and materially profitable as not worth the investment. But how much money does it really cost our society to pay for a philosopher, a policy analyst, an anthropologist? Nothing when compared to the public money being spent on the academic-corporate-military research projects that result in private patents that ultimately only benefit the very few, massively violate our individual and collective privacy, and drive the logic of imperium that has made so much of the world despise us.

This is not to pitch a false battle between the so-called “soft” and “hard” sciences, because a lot of the hard sciences are also suffering. Environmental toxicologists, particle physicists, computer scientists, etc., get passed over and tossed aside for grandiose projects that, upon close inspection, really boil down to yet another version of Viagra. Nor is it to engage in a polemics about the pros and cons of military spending, universities embracing a corporation model, Adam Smith’s “invisible hand”, etc. etc.

No, my point is: don’t believe the hype, don’t drink the kool aid. Austerity is not efficient, nor shall it make for a better economy, nor shall it help the United States remain potent and important in the world in a truly fair, uplifting, and non-exploitave way — the way in our heart of hearts we Americans really want to be.

Central Asia: the canary in the coal mine

And in this sense, Central Asia emerges as the canary in the coal mine: basically, how we decide to treat this region — literally, how we decide to spend or not spend money on it — shall reveal not our general priorities as a society, but the priorities that the powers-that-be want us to have, and to some extent how we have let those powers win. And those priorities are: do as you’re told; spend money; shut up; let the world descend into division.

The powers-that-be would rather suck Central Asia dry of its natural resources and have us turn a blind eye to not only the negative material effects that this has upon Central Asians, but also the negative spiritual effects that it has upon we Americans and the wider world. So, they insist upon promulgating a false narrative that the region is “marginal”, “obscure”, “exotic”, etc. In the name of your better selves as a nation, don’t listen to them.

* Registan.net хочет Центральной Азии писателей. Электронная почта Ноем.

* Registan.net орталықтың азиялық авторларын қалайды. Электрондық пошта Ноем.

As many regular readers have noticed over the past few months, Registan has nearly fallen silent. There are several reasons for this, as I’ll discuss below, but the core message is that it is time to reboot and we need your help. During this period I will take on the role of managing editor, but the site continues to belong to its original owner and founder, Nathan Hamm.

Registan has consistently been (I think) the most vibrant and genuine independent English-language forum for issues affecting the people of Central Asia and Afghanistan since Nathan founded the site in 2003. The fact that this site has sputtered in the past few months is in part a troubling symptom of waning interest in the region and faltering engagement between the US and Central Asian society in general.

Although the region was sadly a blank on the map to most of the outside world until the fall of the USSR, in the two decades since many well-trained researchers and professionals from the US, Europe and Central Asia have together successfully created the basis for better and better scholarship and policy advice on the region and built meaningful ties between our societies. In spite of these gains, as the war in Afghanistan winds down, Congress cuts funding for research and education in the region and the various government offices and agencies that supported Central Asia sections now turn their attention elsewhere, those of us who continue to care about the region and US engagement with it (or vice-versa) face a steeper burden of proof that it matters and deserves attention.

The lives of our friends in Central Asia and Afghanistan matter in a deeply personal way to many of us who have written here and been part of this community–which is another one of the things that has always set Registan apart. We have never had an agenda other than to write about and discuss the things that we think are important and worth attention. As a site we have never had a political platform (despite occasional accusations to the contrary), we have no funders who push their agendas on us, and we have no editorial board: comments are moderated only in extreme cases, and once an author is approved to post (or a guest post is accepted) content is entirely under his or her control.

Last year our regular authors gathered together in the same room for the first time for our conference in DC. During those few days it became clear there that if Registan has a single underlying theme or purpose, it is to question prevailing narratives and misleading assumptions about the region and the people who live there that can lead to bad policies and make a difficult situation worse. Our underlying message has often been “not so fast, it’s more complicated than that,” pushing back against oversimplifications and sloppy reporting that relies on tropes and stereotypes.

This site, its authors and commenters have never been afraid to call out policymakers, dictators (and their progeny), politicians, police, military officials and of course other media on all sides when they try to bend the world to fit into comfortable or exploitable narratives. At times many of our authors have written under carefully protected pseudonyms (including me, during the years I lived in Uzbekistan and began writing for the site in 2004) because the work they publish here could have endangered them, their jobs, their co-workers or their families in the region.

Even more importantly, we have tried to give Central Asians and Afghans whose voices aren’t heard elsewhere a chance to be heard, and this has also at times meant not excluding voices that support governments or policies that many of our regular authors harshly criticize. We have always tried to be a platform for genuine speech, and for openness to all perspectives as long as they were expressed with respect for the site and others who write and comment here.

New Economies and a Post 9-11 Central Asia

Why, then, has this community begun to fall apart? The first reason is that many of our regular authors from the past several years when the site grew to its peak participation level have finished grad school, have small children and regular jobs (or are looking for them!). Registan has always been an all-volunteer effort–none of us are paid to write here–and many of the authors who have contributed some of the best original content here now have to focus their work on publications that pay. Many of our other semi-regular authors are either buried in stringing together fellowships to finish their PhDs or are trying to make it as adjuncts or associate professors and feel pressure to save their best ideas and new work for paywalled academic publications.

As several of our authors like Joshua Foust have described elsewhere, it has been difficult or at least unstable at best for many of us to make a living doing research and writing about Central Asia. Changes in the economy of journalism, policy analysis and academia–combined with waning funding and interest in the region as the war in Afghanistan and the 9-11 era in general come to an end–have pushed many of us to expand our topical focus or move on to other things entirely in terms of actual, paid work. This is the decision that Nathan Hamm, the founder and chief editor of Registan has had to make, and some of the lag in activity here over the past few months reflects that tough decision for him and his need to step back from the site for a time and concentrate on his new professional plans and on his family.

In that interim, I will step in as managing editor for the site. Registan has meant a lot to me in the last decade and if you are reading this that likely means it has to you, too. I believe we have made a unique contribution to the public discourse about Central Asia—such as it exists— and over the last two years in particular we have become a bridge between policymakers, scholars, NGO staff and other regional professionals. Nathan has built something valuable and worth keeping that I don’t want to see fade away, and I hope you feel the same way. The site was always only a platform. The people who participate here make all this possible, and we need you if we hope to continue.

I also believe that this is a vital time to keep this community alive. Official and public attention to the places we care about show signs of waning. Many of us joined the site while working for NGOs or Peace Corps in the region or studying in grad school programs at Title VI regional studies centers like the ones at Indiana, Washington, and Harvard. Now, though, Peace Corps has all but disappeared from Central Asia, many NGOs have closed up shop and moved elsewhere, and Title VI National Resource Centers are struggling to fund their students and programs.

We are in a period of transition in which if we don’t stand up for the importance of Central Asian and Afghanistan studies they may not be able to sustain momentum, and what so many have worked so hard to build may begin to fade. In the past few weeks I’ve talked to friends from the primary Central Asia research universities across the country, and all are struggling with the same things—making due with sharply reduced Title VI funding and convincing their host universities that Central Asian studies is a worthwhile investment. As the “old guard” generation of Central Asia scholars retire, their positions may not be filled again in spite of the fact that they succeeded in training a generation of well-qualified specialists they hoped would carry on their legacy.

This is not to be overly pessimistic, or to say that our field is dying, but I believe this is a moment in which if we cannot convince the public and policymakers that the places and people we care about are still important we may wake up one day soon and realize that most of our cohort have had to take jobs doing very different things. The curious enthusiasm for the newly independent states of the 1990s has long passed, and the urgency of the 9-11 era and the war in Afghanistan is quickly disappearing. Most of us always believed that the region was important in and of itself, but we could also admit that our own interest in it was heavily sponsored by those who saw it had strategic or commercial importance.

Now the burden is on us to continue to convince the rest of the world to care, and if we can’t, the things we care deeply about—like the plight of people in Southern Kyrgyzstan living in fear of their own police and judges, or of Uzbeks in Andijon or Tashkent afraid every day that their business could be raided and they could be jailed and tortured, or people of all ethnicities afraid to meet with friends to pray or talk about books or politics—could fall to the wayside again, with no one interested in their voices or their fate. These are only a few issues I care about from personal experience, and I want this site to continue to be a place where all of you can continue to share your own, especially for those of you who call the region home.

Why You Should Contribute (and I Don’t Mean Money)

In light of all this, I’m going to kick off the “reboot” by contacting many of you who previously contributed and gently pester you to come back now and then, to update us on your new research or projects: the site has always, for me at least, been an excellent place to sketch out new ideas, to build interest in new projects, and make connections with others who care about the same things I’m interested in. I am also issuing a call for new contributors, will try to recruit people I know whose voices we are interested in hearing more of, and would welcome suggestions from all of you. I’m happy to announce that we have a new intern, Reid Standish, and I’m especially interested in recruiting several new authors who would like an opportunity to build a public profile for themselves earlier in their career.

For those of you who feel pressure to save your best ideas and new research for conferences and journals, let me make this simple argument that I will echo from another of our former regular authors, Sarah Kendzior: giving the wider public a preview and giving more people an opportunity to engage with your work is always worthwhile, and you are not forced to choose between the two. Posting here is an opportunity to reach an audience of policymakers, professionals and the rest of the world who can benefit from your hard work and insight but would likely never see it even in a cross-disciplinary journal like Central Asian Survey and won’t be among the ten or twenty people who turn out listen to even your most brilliant presentation on a rainy Sunday morning in Bloomington or Columbus.

In the next few days I will also ask for contributions sharing your perspectives about why Central Asia still deserves investment and attention, and about why the region continues to be important to the rest of the world in the near and medium term. I want to gather and publish here many different angles and perspectives, including voices from the region. With your help we can continue what we have built here over the past decade and most importantly help keep interest and attention to the people and places we care about from fading away.

To say that Kyrgyzstan has been riddled with controversy lately would be an understatement. Protests in the Issyk-Kul region spiraled out of hand over the foreign-owned Kumtor mine and in response, a state of emergency was temporarily declared. Moreover, on June 6, one of Kyrgyzstan’s Deputy Prime Ministers, Shamil Atakhanov, resigned following a scandal over the early release of reputed crime boss, Aziz Batukaev, who later fled to Chechnya.

Batukaev’s release has come amid a highly publicized government anticorruption campaign led by President Almazbek Atambayev, who has made combatting the issue a priority since taking office in December 2011. Due to this confluence of scandals, the impunity of organized crime in Kyrgyzstan has once again been shifted into the spotlight.

Batukaev made his name by being a central figure in the drug trade during the chaos of the transition to independence from Soviet rule. He quickly amassed power and became a major crime boss in the country. Eventually, he was arrested in 2006 and sentenced to 16 years for racketeering as well as the high-profile murders of a parliamentary deputy and a state prison official.

In early April, Batukaev walked out of Naryn prison and was escorted to a chartered plane, which then sent him off to Chechnya. The official reason for his release was his deteriorating health, but this narrative was quickly debunked. Following Batukaev’s premature release, the issue of governmental corruption was brought up in parliament. The May 29 debate unearthed evidence of Batukaev’s good health, even showcasing photographs of the crime boss smoking a cigarette, while sitting next to a table full of alcohol and platters of food in his prison cell. The parliamentary debate eventually culminated with Deputy Prime Minister, Shamil Atakhanov’s resignation.

But beyond parliamentary proceedings, the question remains, just how cozy are organized crime figures with politicians in present-day Kyrgyzstan?

Under former President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, organized crime bosses were rumored to operate with exceptional impunity and it was widely suspected that former President Bakiyev himself played a significant role in the heroin trade. This was exemplified, when Bakiyev famously disbanded the country’s Drug Control Agency (DCA) in 2009, following a high-profile seizure of Afghan heroin. Bakiyev was ousted from power after violent public demonstrations in 2010 and is now in exile in Belarus.

Since assuming office, President Atambayev has tried to distance himself from this reputation, but Kyrgyz politics remains very much an old boys club. Despite the 2010 change of executive power, many parliamentarians and high-up officials remain the same as during the Bakiyev-era, a fact that has left President Atambayev’s public fight against government corruption toothless.

Still, President Atambaev has frequently accused politicians of harbouring ties to Batukaev, as well as another alleged major crime boss, Kamchybek Kolbayev. Kolbayev is currently facing a lengthy prison sentence and began standing trial in Bishkek on April 18. Kolbayev’s current trial, however, is not his first. Back in 2006, while serving a 25-year prison sentence, Kolbayev somehow managed to secure his release and then vanish off the radar of law enforcement. The following year, state prosecutors closed all investigations into his activities.

This made Kolbayev’s return in December 2012 all the more confusing. It is still unknown if he was extradited from Dubai or whether he returned by his own will. Regardless, it is likely that there is more going on here than is apparent at the moment.

Kolbayev is no small fry in the Kyrgyz underworld. In 2012, the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned him for his alleged connections to a multi-national drug trafficking and organized crime network known as the “Brothers’ Circle.” Moreover, Kolbayev is widely suspected of having orchestrated demonstrations in Kyrgyz prisons from abroad in January 2012, where thousands of inmates across the country stitched their mouths shut as a form of protest for better living conditions.

However, it is widely suspected that the demonstrations are related to attempts to reform the prison system that was underway in January 2012. In its current form, the prison system is open for control by organized crime bosses. Bosses can pay off wardens and attribute favours to prisoners serving time, ostensibly gaining access to a loyal criminal workforce further down the road.  The demonstrations were seen as a display of control and a message to deter would-be reformers. Given that Kolbayev was able to wield this kind of influence over the phone in Dubai, it is unlikely that being behind bars will curb his influence.

Even so, President Atambayev has been able to achieve some very modest success in his fight against government corruption. According to Transparency International’s annual index, Kyrgyzstan’s score has risen from 164 to 154 out 174 countries while under his watch. Still, this progress is nothing to boast about. Kyrgyz institutions still remain weak and the power of the state is contested in some parts of the country.

As such, just as under President Atambayev’s predecessors, the symbiotic relationship between criminals and politicians in Kyrgyzstan has been able to continue. Until this relationship can be fractured, figures like Aziz Batukaev and Kamchybek Kolbayev will continue to make a mockery of law and order in Kyrgyzstan.

One of the more fun things I get to do as a would-be writer and pseudo-analyst focusing on Afghanistan is guest blog for the Afghanistan Analysts Network. Collectively they’re a group of people with a deep, direct knowledge of events in Afghanistan, and I have nothing but the utmost respect for their work. The fact that they let a hack like me have a go at posting with them on occasion is still cause for genuine wonder on my part. This last week I took a look at the recent Center for New American Security report on the state and future of Afghanistan. Spoiler alert: no snark here. This is as close to genuine analysis as I get.

 The report breaks its assessment and suggestions down to three focal points: the current security situation, the current political situation and a look at the future of US military involvement in post-2014 Afghanistan. The usual platitudes abound, including the always-troubling assertion that more dead Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) are a sign of positive progress. The report also makes some suggestions with regard to a post-2015 “Enduring Force,” and outlines the supposition that the international community needs to take a more direct role in Afghan politics during the 2014 election process. This last bit of suggested US interference in the electoral affairs of a sovereign nation picks up on a co-authored op-ed article by Flournoy and O’Hanlon published on 16 April 2013 in the Wall Street Journal. It is in this section the report moves from banal to troubling, as it advocates for direct intervention in the Afghan democratic process.

More on that last part in a bit but this from their security situation assessment:

Finally, for two to three years after 2014, the United States may need an additional force package of several thousand personnel to help the Afghans finish building their air force, their special operations forces and certain other enablers in medical realms, in counter-IED capability and in intelligence collection.

Using the phrase “may need” avoids the appearance of committing thousands of troops to post-2014 Afghanistan. The reality is that the Afghan Air Force (AAF) and Afghan Special Operations Forces (SOF) are a long way from being able to operate independently. It is true that recent air assault missions have been conducted by the Afghans themselves, but always with US support in the form of Apache attack helicopters and other assets. As a skillset, being able to provide close air support (CAS) or close combat attack (CCA)(1) is far more complex than moving troops and supplies. Training the Afghans for those missions alone is going to take years, and aircraft capable of conducting those missions are only a small part of the weapons’ systems available to the ANSF.

Also worth noting is the buildup of Afghan SOF (see my earlier analysis for AAN here). US SOF are likely to be active in the region for years to come, and acting as “advisers” to Afghan SOF allows the execution of a wide range of counter-terror (CT) missions while operating in that advisory capacity. What is of concern here is the accountability for such forces with the drawdown of a large scale international presence in Afghanistan. Whether Afghan SOF will continue to operate under the same strict guidelines imposed by their American trainers or will conduct themselves as they have allegedly done in Wardak province remains to be seen, but this should concern both international observers and SOF mentors alike.

There’s more to be said about the AAF’s rotorwing capability, but in theory it’s going to be key to ANSF success in the future. More murky is the future of SOF in Afghanistan: recent revelations in Wardak indicate that US-supported Afghan SOF have been engaged in some pretty significant human rights’ violations. Whether that affects the US footprint in Afghanistan remains to be seen.

Beyond the security situation, Allen and company have some recommendations for political actions in Afghanistan by the US. Given the authorship, advocating for interference in Afghan sovereignty was pretty much invevitable.

Fourth, the international community should give technical, moral and if necessary financial support to fledgling Afghan political parties – provided they have inclusive, multiethnic memberships and platforms and promise to eschew violence.

There is no way to interpret financial support to Afghan political parties other than insurance that election outcomes will best serve US interests in the region. Apart from the fact that Afghan law bans foreign financial support for Afghan political parties, Karzai and others will see any of this as support for groups with strong ties to the old Northern Alliance, which will do nothing to bring stability to the process.

And they’re not done with “money as a weapons system,” not by a long shot.

Funds for local economic activities could be used by Kabul for subsequent leverage as well. This pocketbook approach to enforcing respect for central authority is of course a time-honored Afghan method.

The only time-honored Afghan method for dealing with a central authority is to try to overthrow said authority: that has always been the challenge with a Kabul-centric approach to Afghan government. Still, for those that would seek to rule, including those groups ostensibly forming “federalist” platforms, the seat of power is in Kabul, and as such it is still very much the “brass ring” in Afghan politics. I would also argue that the “pocketbook approach to enforcing respect” is a more polite way of saying “corruption and patronage,” which theoretically is not a phrase one would want to associate with efforts at insurgent reconciliation.

What’s unfortunate about this report is the lack of a clear path to Afghan sovereignty. It spends the first part spinning the same platitudes observers from Afghanistan have come to except from ISAF and sources like CNAS, and then gets lost in the not-so-subtle advocacy for establishing another US puppet in Kabul. If this were just the case in Afghanistan, that would be worrisome. However, this has been US standard practice for so long when dealing with developing governments that this kind of construct comes as a surprise to no one.

This rollicking frolic of informed thought first asks whether America is ready to start playing the Afghan version of “Let’s Make a Deal,” a pop culture reference made with the same deftness one used to associate with the late Ted Stevens. Implied in that question is the supposition that the United States has only begun to think about beginning negotiations, and that the American effort in Afghanistan was always meant to achieve total victory, rather than a settlement agreed to by various stakeholders in Afghanistan’s future. It also allows the reader to extrapolate that Pashtuns are the only ethnic group with which the US need concern itself as it looks forward to a post-2014 Afghanistan.

The first pearl of wisdom from the “cultural anthropologist” is this:

“Every deal is precisely as strong as the relationship on which it is built.”

The takeaway that should be our key learning going forward is how different Pashtuns are from people in one vital respect: they value relationships over any deal. This is in stark contrast to people, who are always able to compartmentalize their personal and business lives. Pashtuns are unable to make this distinction, and insist on having a relationship beyond a simple business transaction. To help Americans better leverage this “relationship” concept, Blank offers the following “key points”:

A Pashtun deal is NOT a transaction. This point is best summed up in the closing sentence of the paragraph:

“To make stronger deals, Americans must learn to forge better relationships.”

This is the kind of wisdom that elevates RAND analysis beyond the scribblings of those who have spent far too much time “on the ground.” In a world where deals are made every day with soulless banks and car salesmen, it would serve us well to remember that there are those who grasp the value of relationships. That Americans, having been enormously successful with the approach in the past, can no longer rely on limited interactions like Key Leader Engagements to strengthen their negotiating position with the rugged Pashtun, but must spend time on “relationships.”

“A deal is for now, not forever.” Blank flexes his intellectual humility here, using an outside source for this pithy saying: anthropologist Charles Lindholm, who conducted “fieldwork” among the native people in Pakistan’s Swat Valley. Since both countries’ names end in “‘stan,” what works in one will unfailingly work in the other, regardless of other considerations. The idea that any deal with the Pashtun is not a permanent arrangement is troubling for those readers accustomed to Western mores of agreements without deadlines or the ability to re-visit said agreements. It’s no wonder that the Pashtuns, with their relationship-based approach, will never fully appreciate the value of ironclad negotiations.

The currency that matters is honor. In yet another sign that the backward ways of the mighty Pashtun can never be reversed, Blank explains that these fiercely tribal people will choose familial relationships over any deal made with a foreigner. Putting family first over arrangements made with non-family members is such an alien concept to Americans that there is no way this chasm could be bridged. And the Americans can never hope to counter the generations-long relationships of groups like Pakistan’s ISI, which are (per Blank) viewed by Afghans as a tolerated, if not terribly liked, partner, and not as an outside influence destabilizing the security of Afghanistan.

Concluding his briefly comprehensive course on the mysterious ways of the Pashtun, Blank moves into an assessment of how the Americans could be more successful following the drawdown of troops post-2014.

A smaller footprint may win Americans more friends. It is in this paragraph that Blank excels, since he paints for the reader a picture of Pashtun tribal structures that can be easily understood: the Pashtun elder as mob boss. Given the relevance of the Mafia in Western society, this comparison of Pashtun life to the likes of Puzo’s Godfather will resonate with readers, who should realize that Pashtuns are essentially criminals. Exotic, inscrutable, admirable, but criminals nonetheless. It’s the sort of simplicity that will aid in furthering US causes moving forward, since dealing with the nuances of family-related allegiances would take more time than Americans actually have at this point.

More money, more problems. Blank pulls the curtain aside a bit more here, and shows us the Pashtun’s ”unquenchable appetite” for Western cash. This falls perfectly in line with the “Pashtun mafia” construct, and by itself explains the root causes of the corruption afflicting Afghanistan. Since they had no desire for cash before, in much the same manner that the white man brought firewater to Native Americans, foreigners have brought cash to the Pashtun. In order to counter this, the US must work on the “water” that “nurtures” the “growing plant” of the relationship being built with the Pashtun. “A constant stream of small gifts” is in order, which would fall in line with the shrinking budgets, which when they were more robust were intended to buy Pashtun goodwill.

Fewer guns, more glory. For those readers still doubting the value of RAND analysis to decision makers, their unparalleled access is revealed: Blank introduces us to the endemic deafness afflicting Pashtuns, describing F-18s that Pashtuns only sense “after the bombs have reached their targets.” Unfortunately, he offers no suggestion how this virulent health problem should be addressed, but does go on to detail the perception of foreign Special Operations Forces (SOF) by the Pashtun, and how it should be leveraged in order to gain their respect.

Since Pashtuns see any combat from the sky as cowardly, they would naturally gravitate toward a greater SOF presence on the ground post-2014. These are a people who dismiss the use of aircraft, instead gleefully embracing the need for night operations and the detention of assorted family members. There is no concept the Pashtun understand better than extra-judicial proceedings when it comes to family: if the US decides guilt, then no amount of izzat or Pashtunwali can possibly stand in the way.

Afghans will take the lead. Based on Blank’s assessment, where the US has failed miserably is in equipping Afghan military forces: the US wants them to wear boots, while they are perfectly content to operate in flip flops. This is true whether one is in Kabul or Kandahar: chappals reign supreme as chosen Afghan footwear. What should have happened all along is to let Pashtuns do things the Pashtun way, and Blank makes it clear that a Pashtun would never debase himself to the point of typing up a report or conducting surveillance.

Given the insurmountable depth and breadth of Blank’s analysis, his consultation with a cross-section of Pashtuns allows for a rare glimpse behind the Pashtun curtain, and is sure to inform a generation of future RAND analysts. It’s a world the West can never fully comprehend, and he closes with this chilling prediction:

“After years of talking past our Afghan friends and foes alike, perhaps we will be forced to learn how to talk to them.”

On so many levels, and for so many reasons, let’s hope not.

While preparing for our latest cycle of training workshops in Central Asia this year, my team at NewEurasia and I have made an unhappy discovery about Wikipedia: its English-laguage resources on journalism are organizationally scatter-brained, are dishevelled content-wise, and worst of all, hardly exist in any of the languages of Central Asia (and frequently, most other languages).

What does exist in Russian or Kazakh (one hardly ever sees another Central Asian language) tends to be lopsided, perfunctory, or just downright strange — turns out that Russians and Kazakhs are more interested in gonzo journalism (Kaz. and Rus.) than in traditional reporting…

This find was made after talking with a Central Asian colleague about the proverbial “inverted pyramid“. When I first mentioned the concept, my colleague looked at me like I was talking about an ancient Egyptian curse. I immediately went to Wikipedia to find out what the concept would be called in Russian, and that was when I realized it wasn’t in the website.

From what I could see, it was nowhere in the Russian Wikipedia, not even the page on news style (cf. here). My colleague joked that perhaps instead of teaching journalism, we should offer workshops in “Fear and Loathing in Dushanbe”.

Now, I’m notorious as something of a cultural relativist among my more ardent Western/Westernizer compatriots, but I don’t totally dismiss the notion of something universal. The inverted pyramid is a case in point: a simple and elegant training tool for journalists new and old, with vast applicability. One need not completely abandon personal, cultural, or regional idiosyncracies in order to adhere to it. Yes, it does mean one cannot go 100% gonzo — although even then, if one reads Hunter S. Thompson carefully, he also occassionally adheres to it.

This journalistic pharaonism is not just limited to the standard news report, but also convertible into other formats — have you noticed the way I’ve written this post? (*cough) As a philosophy student, I’ve even tried using it in my various course papers (much to the chagrin of my professors, who consider journalism to be “cheap philosophy”… well, anyway!)

The inverted pyramid’s invisibility beyond the English Wikipedia is very problematic, to say the least. However, this isn’t the only problem. Wikipedia’s portal on “Journalism” and especially “Newswriting” in English and the languages of Central Asia (not to mention many other languages) appear to be in abysmal shape. Consider the following examples:

1. The English-language “Journalism” portal has a quite diverse list of 67 pages, ranging from concepts like “aberrant decoding” to the “Gambia Press Union”. The Kazah-language version of the portal has 58 pages, almost all of which are devoted to specific journalists.
2. The crucial “Newswriting” portal, which links to pages concerned with journalistic style and methodology, barely has 14 pages in English, and does not exist in any other language. Moreover, many of the pages listed in this portal are not really relevant to the specific issue of news-writing, e.g., “Churnalism” and “Bus plunge”.
3. Several of the English-language pages included in the “Newswriting” portal have no equivalent page in a Central Asian language (or any other language). Extremely important lacunae are the “Fact checker” and “Headlinese” pages.
4. Conversely, the English-language language entry for “Editorial independence” is a mere paragraph, whereas the Russian entry contains some more information (the only other version, in French, is extremely extensive). However, the Russian version focuses upon a specific type of editorial independence (i.e., within a privately-owned media context).

Note that I don’t mind gonzo journalism — actually, I kind of dig its epistemological inversions. However, it is of little utility to the inexperienced journalist, much less his/her audience. So, I think that I’m going to organize something via NewEurasia and the Central Eurasian Scholars Media Initiative to fix this situation. Contact me if you would be interested in helping out: schwartz [at] neweurasia [dot] net

(Full disclosure: I designed the jpeg currently gracing the English Wikipedia entry. I’ve also edited some portions of its text.)

First, a question:

Nobody is claiming all is coming up roses in a country devastated by decades of conflict. But not everything has gone wrong, either. So perhaps the more interesting question — and certainly a more underexplored one — is this: What went right?

Indeed, what is going right? For starters, let’s ask the Afghans.

A poll by Rasmussen at the end of December found that 33 percent of American voters believed their country was going in the right direction. By contrast, a poll of some 6,000 Afghans conducted by the well-regarded Asia Foundation found that in 2012, 52 percent of Afghans thought their country was on the right track.

The Asia Foundation is “well-regarded” since their annual survey helps promote the narrative that the effort in Afghanistan isn’t wasted, and that the billions we’ve spent on this country are getting things done. And it’s true that the 52% he references is an increase from previous years. Where this falls apart is in the methodology used by the surveyors: 24% of all respondents to the survey live in the Central/Kabul region. So fully 1/4 of the people being interviewed are living in the most secure/best-funded part of the country. Naturally their responses are going to be skewed to the positive. The “52%” further breaks down when examining the percentage of respondents by province: Kabul accounts for 15% of all respondents, and the next highest percentage of respondents by province is Herat, with 7%.

It gets even more complicated when looking at the reason some sampling points had to be changed. In 2012′s survey, 16% (or 168 total sample locations) had to be changed for security reasons. This was a 5% increase over 2011, and was equal to the high set in 2010, at the height of the coalition troop surge. What does this mean for the survey?

The replacement of 168 out of 1,055 sampling points for security reasons means that some areas with high levels of insecurity could not be accessed by the field survey team. This, in turn, means that the opinions of those living in insecure areas are likely to be underrepresented in survey findings. This year, the total number of sampling points is 25% higher than in 2011, 2010 and 2009. This is at ACSOR’s recommendation to spread sampling points more widely and decrease the margin of error.

That last point is telling: they sampled more places, and what they found was a 5% increase in insecure locations. Bottom line: they’re interviewing people in the most secure areas in the country. The main reason people thought Afghanistan was headed in the right direction? Security, with 41%. Next up? Reconstruction/rebuilding, with 35% of the vote. Which makes sense, since, over time, the areas of greatest focus when it comes to reconstruction funding have been those parts of the country that are the most secure.

Bergen then walks us through some of the positive changes in the Afghan economy:

Afghanistan’s GDP in 2001 was some $2 billion — about the size of Burkina Faso’s. In a decade, GDP has gone up to $20 billion (though much of it is attributable to foreign aid). Today, one in two Afghans has a cell phone, which they use for everything from getting their salaries wired to them to making utility payments. There are also now dozens of newspapers and TV channels. Where once Kabul’s streets were largely silent, they are now a bedlam of traffic and thriving small businesses.

So Bergen admits that the growing GDP is due mainly to foreign aid. And while it’s true that 50% of Afghans have a cellphone, it’s also true that only 1/3 of the country has access to electricity, so making those utility payments isn’t really a great metric, either. TV channels? Sure, they are there, and in abundance, but with 33% electricity access, is that really such a big deal? If you can’t keep the lights on, is TV that high on your list of priorities?

His last sentence here, though, is the one that makes me twitch worse than the idea that they’re remaking Point Break: all that traffic in Kabul? It’s a sign of poor security, not economic growth. I regularly hear from Afghans that they can’t go back to their home villages because of the provincial security situation. I’m fully aware that the small circle of Afghans I deal with isn’t a scientific sampling of the population, but the bustling streets of Kabul are also home to several IDP camps. There’s a reason those camps aren’t in say, Kapisa, or Ghazni: they’re refugees, not residents.

So we’ve covered feeling good about feeling good, economics…what’s next? How about governance? Let’s keep it real, people: Karzai‘s not so bad, when you compare him to the alternatives, right?

Karzai should also be judged by his immediate predecessors. Let’s recall Taliban leader Mullah Omar, a dimwitted religious fanatic who turned his country into an international pariah; the warlords who preceded him; and before them Mohammad Najibullah, the communist puppet who replaced the Soviet occupiers when they retreated in 1989 and ended up being hanged from a Kabul lamppost seven years later.

So his argument here is that Karzai’s better than a Soviet puppet and an oppressor of all things fun. As for the hapless Najibullah, given that we toppled that Soviet regime in the first place, we probably had something to do with that. Since we, well, financed that little revolution. But nice touch on the Mullah Omar aspersions. You stay classy, sir. Dimwitted or no, his Taliban did manage to run their own country for a while.

Then of course there’s the basis of good governance: elections.

By both regional and Afghan historical standards, Karzai is a reasonably competent leader who — despite his feckless image in the West and despite being in office for 11 years — retains considerable popular appeal. In the last Afghan presidential election, when the votes were finally correctly tallied, Karzai had received 49 percent of the vote against dozens of challengers. By contrast, Obama prevailed in the 2012 election against one challenger with 51 percent of the vote. And Britain’s David Cameron leads Britain despite his Conservative Party only receiving 36 percent of the vote in the 2010 election that made him prime minister.

Bergen’s actually using the 2009 election as an example of how much Karzai is loved. Since that election was viewed by both Afghans and foreign observers as deeply flawed, it’s hardly surprising that he beat out a disorganized mass of “dozens of challengers.” Karzai is widely seen as a Western-supported construct who managed to steal that election from all comers, and that win was not due to his overwhelming popularity.

Bergen goes on to discuss insurgent attacks, another fine example of how well things are going here:

That war is not going as badly as you think, either: In 2012, for instance, Taliban attacks dropped as much as a third compared with the year before. Is this just NATO cooking the books? Nope: These figures come from the Afghanistan NGO Safety Office (ANSO), an organization that has collected data about violence in Afghanistan for many years and is far from a cheerleader for the military. In a 2012 report , ANSO stated that the sharp drop in violence is “the first reliable indicator that the conflict may be entering a period of regression after years of sustained, and compounded, growth by all actors in the field.” In January, three U.S. soldiers died in Afghanistan — the lowest monthly American casualty count in four years.

Except that ANSO’s report from the 1st Quarter in 2013 (which, admittedly came out after this article), shows attacks way up from the same period the previous year — 47%, in fact.

Countrywide, the number of attacks by the armed opposition has grown by 47% on Q1 2012, challenging the linear logic that the shrinking IMF presence will result in less military determination by the IEA.  Instead, the opposition has demonstrated an effective transition to domestic targets while consolidating its position in the East.   This increased conflict activity has resulted in NGO staff and projects being impacted in 39 separate incidents this quarter, a 63% increase over Q1 2012, denoting a return to the levels recorded for the equivalent periods in 2011 and 2009.

So while attacks on foreign military forces have diminished (which isn’t surprising, given the reduced coalition footprint — makes it hard to shoot people when they’re not actually there anymore), attacks have instead shifted to the civilian population. Good news if you’re ISAF. Bad news if you’re an Afghan. Finally, though, Bergen asks some smart questions:

Could that momentum return? Some smart commentators on Afghanistan worry that the Afghan civil war will renew itself after the United States and other NATO countries withdraw combat troops at the end of 2014. In an influential July report in the New Yorker, veteran war correspondent Dexter Filkins described how Afghans are girding for another civil war, and he quoted a former U.S. official based in Kabul as saying, “A coup is one of the big possibilities — a coup or civil war.”

This is overwrought.

Here, Bergen and I very much agree. Things here are not going to be as bad as some observers (and admittedly many Afghans) make it out to be, but it won’t be as good as NATO/ISAF want it to be. And I absolutely do not hate this.

Afghanistan is not hopeless. Forty years ago, it was a country at peace with itself and with its neighbors.

Maybe, not too long from now, a new generation of guidebooks will again be raving about the joys of springtime in the Hindu Kush. Nothing, not even a failed state, lasts forever.

While I agree with Bergen’s conclusions regarding the post-2014 hysteria that’s all the rage in some Western media outlets,  he’s missing the point, chasing metrics that measure nothing tangible. The fact is that we just don’t know enough about what’s really going “right” here to point to any solid indications of how things will be in Afghanistan post-2014. That’s because so much of that “right” is dependent on the future commitments by foreign governments. The international community has made quantifiable commitments to the future of Afghanistan, but it’s going to take quite a bit of effort (and money) to maintain the gains made until now. The fact is, there are signs of genuine progress here: foreign investment, developing security forces, and improved life expectancy for the Afghan population. Maybe next time, Mr. Bergen, you can tell us more about those.