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| No honeymoon for Hamid Karzai |
| Wednesday, November 25, 2009 |
To regain legitimacy, Afghanistan's president must commit to critical reforms and prove he deserves international support -
Hamid Karzai assumes his second term as president without a honeymoon. He faces a crisis of both domestic and international confidence, and has the option to become either a statesman or an outcast. Persisting with the practices of the last five years will make him an outcast. General McChrystal, in his new strategy, has identified the insurgency and the crisis of public confidence in Afghan public institutions as the two threats to the mission of the International Security Assistance Forces (Isaf). "Unpunished abuse of power by corrupt officials and power-brokers, a widespread sense of political disenfranchisement and a longstanding lack of economic opportunity" are singled out as the sources of the crisis. Despite the severity of the challenge, Karzai has a real opportunity to change course and get the country back on the track to progress, as it was in years following the 2002 Bonn agreement. National consensus on the need for reform and international support, if not demand, for Afghan-led change provides the platform for his course for becoming a statesman. To regain legitimacy, Karzai's most immediate goal must be the creation of a government that can deliver core functions to the people. During the flawed presidential campaigns a national consensus emerged on the need for peace and security; good governance; justice and rule of law; development, education, and jobs; peace and reconciliation; and regional and international partnerships. Were he to make a firm commitment to address these critical tasks under the umbrella of restoring Afghanistan's full sovereignty, he will be able to regain the support of both the Afghan people and the international community. The path to statesmanship requires benchmarks on military, economic and political progress. Afghan ownership can be demonstrated by setting specific targets for goals of good governance, rule of law, development and economic growth in genuine partnership with the international community. The alternative is to face international demands for removal of corrupt politicians and alleged drug dealers. Contrary to widespread assumptions, it is not the absence of capability but the exclusion of capable people from the government that has hollowed the state from within. The international forces are not in Afghanistan to create an empire or occupy our nation. They are here to stabilise the region to the point where international peace and security improves. We are grateful for the sacrifice that nations and parents in our partner countries endure. To demonstrate that Afghanistan deserves the support, Hamid Karzai should reform the security sector by offering leadership positions in the army, police, and secret service to professional officers on the basis of a transparent competitive process. These men and women can draw tens of thousands of demobilised officers into a truly national campaign against the insurgency. We have the capacity to assume exclusive responsibility for the defence of our homeland and can demonstrate our will and commitment by taking initial leadership in up to four provinces. Successful execution of a series of national programmes launched during between 2002 and 2004 show the potential of reform. National Solidarity, an ambitious programme of empowerment of the rural people through block-grants, has earned global praise, and the telecoms sector has demonstrated that the private sector can make legal money through providing services. Launching programmes to turn eight provinces and ten municipalities into models of good governance can demonstrate that the government is capable and committed to governing. The youth can be won over through programmes dedicated to job creation and enhancing the quality of education. The presidential campaign resulted in a strong consensus on the need for a framework for peace-building and reconciliation to bring the insurgents within the national fabric. Afghan leadership in this critical area is essential and our culture offers a rich repertoire of mechanisms for conflict resolution. Once the government is committed to the people's security and wellbeing, public opinion can become a strong source of leverage on the insurgents to opt for peace and justice. Both the international community and the Afghan people are sacrificing blood and treasure to create a stable Afghanistan and are hoping that Karzai will become a statesman. The responsibility is his to choose whether Afghanistan slips back into the past or moves into the future. Labels: Ashraf, Ghani |
posted by Afghan PenLog @ 6:09 PM
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| Terror Suspect Is Transferred to New York for Trial |
| Sunday, September 27, 2009 |
| Published: September 25, 2009 A federal judge in Denver on Friday ordered the airport shuttle bus driver charged in a Qaeda bomb plot held without bail and, almost immediately, the United States Marshals Service flew him to the New Yorkarea, where he is to appear in a Brooklyn courtroom next week. A federal jet carrying the man, Najibullah Zazi, 24, landed at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey shortly before 6 p.m. In shackles, Mr. Zazi was put in a police helicopter and taken to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, where he will be held until a hearing Tuesday morning before Judge Raymond J. Dearie of United States District Court. Mr. Zazi was arrested in Colorado on Sept. 19 on charges that he made false statements during a terrorism investigation, ending a week of frenzied law enforcement activity in Queens and Colorado in a case several federal officials have called the most serious terrorism investigation in years. An indictment unsealed in federal court in Brooklyn on Thursday charged him with a single count of conspiring to detonate explosives. Court papers filed in the case, arguing that he be held without bail, tracked Mr. Zazi from what a prosecutor said was his explosives training in Pakistan last year and his efforts in recent weeks in a Colorado hotel to cook up the same type of home-brewed explosives used in the 2005 London transit bombings to a trip to Queens in a rental car on the eve of the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. At the hearing Friday morning in federal court in Denver, the prosecutor there, Tim Neff, an assistant United States attorney, argued that Mr. Zazi’s extensive overseas travel, and his wife in Pakistan, made him a flight risk, which was compounded by the severity of the charge against him. Mr. Zazi, he said, was “literally off the charts in terms of the sentencing guidelines,” which would inform any court’s ultimate decision if the young man were convicted. He faces life in prison. Appearing solemn during the proceeding, Mr. Zazi was clad in a white prison smock, and he conferred at times with his lawyers, J. Michael Dowling and Arthur Folsom, softly answering the questions put to him by Magistrate Judge Craig B. Shaffer. Mr. Folsom argued that Mr. Zazi, who the authorities have said was warned by a Queens imam that that federal agents were looking for him and flew back to Denver on Sept. 12, was not a flight risk. He told Judge Shaffer that the young man could have gone anywhere. “He had the option of getting on a plane and flying to Canada or Pakistan or flying to virtually anywhere else on the planet, but he got back on a plane and flew back to Colorado,” Mr. Folsom said. Judge Shaffer, however, found that Mr. Zazi would pose a danger were he to be released, and ordered him held without bail and transferred to New York. “I find that in this instance there is considerable evidence to suggest that there are extremely serious charges,” the judge said. “The evidence would suggest not only are there serious charges, but that this defendant played an integral part in the steps and the activities that culminated in the indictment.” A 12-page detention memo filed with the indictment, which was voted on Wednesday, did not detail the precise timing or location of any intended target or targets. And while the document described in detail what it said were Mr. Zazi’s efforts to buy and work with the chemicals needed to make the home-brewed explosives, much remained unclear, including whether he or his confederates had built a bomb. People briefed on the case, however, said some investigators have theorized that the young man had built a test device and detonated it somewhere in the desert around Denver, and they have been working to determine whether he had indeed done so, and, if so, where. But there has been no question, over the last 11 days since the investigation became public, that senior federal officials in Washington, New York and Colorado viewed what they called a plot by Al Qaeda as an extremely serious threat, although it is unclear precisely when the inquiry began. In Denver, where Mr. Zazi had been under scrutiny with several other suspects, the agent who oversees the F.B.I. field office said he believed that investigators “disrupted something really bad,” but did so before agents fully understood the scope of plot and how it was likely to unfold. The agent, James H. Davis, said that left certain key questions unanswered, adding, “We are nowhere near done.” Mr. Davis, who would not discuss evidence in the case, said that leading up to the arrests a week ago, virtually all the nearly 200 agents in his office worked round the clock, assisted by Denver area police and sheriff’s deputies. “I am comfortable that we are going to be able to get our arms around this thing,” he said. Officials have hinted that more arrests were expected, but it was unclear on Friday whether any people the authorities have identified as Mr. Zazi’s associates remained at large. “The big question is they’re trying to figure out is who’s part of the bigger network,” said Representative Michael McCaul of Texas, a former federal prosecutor and the ranking Republican on the Homeland Security intelligence subcommittee, who has been briefed on the case. At the detention hearing, Mr. Neff reiterated that Mr. Zazi had e-mailed himself bomb-making instructions and had been shopping for the components to make the explosives, triacetone triperoxide, or TATP, from beauty supply stores. In arguing that the judge should grant Mr. Zazi bail, Mr. Folsom cited another issue raised in the court papers: an electronic scale that investigators found in the Queens apartment where Mr. Zazi spent the night of Sept. 10, contending that it did not indicate his client had anything to do with the production of TATP. “No traces of any kind of chemicals or production of a chemical or TATP were found in his vehicle,” he said. “No traces were found when they searched his home in Colorado.” Traces of acetone residue, however, were found in the vent above the stove in a hotel suite kitchen where the authorities said he was heating chemicals as part of the process of making the explosives. Before Mr. Zazi was arrested, he denied wrongdoing, saying in interviews and through his lawyers that he had no links to Al Qaeda or any terrorist plot. Reporting was contributed by Al Baker, Dan Frosch, David Johnston and Eric Schmitt. Labels: Afghan, najibullah, Terrorism, zazi |
| posted by Afghan PenLog @ 1:04 AM
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| Why Afghan universities don’t offer master programs? |
| Thursday, September 03, 2009 |
Afghanistan universities are not academically prepared to offer master programs in the next 10 years. There are many justifications among the academics and government officials that why they are not able to offer this program. I can think of two main reasons for this gap in the Afghanistan universities:
The primary reason is the three decades of conflict and unrest in the country which has destroyed and dismantled all the educational and academic infrastructures. These infrastructures are university setups, buildings, campuses, material resources and academics and professors. For example, most of the campuses and material resources were destroyed by the exchange of gun fires inside the cities between the jihadi parties and armed militias. In addition to the damages caused by the above militias and armed jihadi parties, the academics were forced to leave the country and look for asylum or shelter to the neighboring countries, Europe and the US. Now 8 years after the collapse of Taliban we have got some fair campuses but still the academics have not returned to the country or remained weak due to the fast – evolving technology of education and university environments.
The second factor that has helped universities not be able to offer master program is the system disorganization and traditional socialist behaviors and ideologies. Infact, the long term Soviet Union powerful presence and invasion has affected most of the Afghan nation perception of higher education, academic system and university management. Today we do not only face a challenging demand of students for graduate and PhD programs but a severe need of the market in the country for professionals and experts in any field. There are some private universities in major cities especially in Kabul, but still half of the students remain out of higher education access every year. Unfortunately the government has not been able to come up with a practical approach in handling this shortage in the higher education system in Afghanistan. On the other hand the mafias in the universities do not let new comers to join the universities as academics due to power, ethnicity or other racial and political orientations and the government proved to be very ineffective and weak to address this issue.
In summary, Afghan government has not only been able to design and implement a professional development strategy for higher education itself, but not let the private sector to join the traditional system and make universities independent to decide themselves. The only mechanism to help Afghan universities offer master programs is to train more professionals and integrate donors, private sector and new reforms in the higher education system and use all material and human resources for the demand of the new generation.
Labels: Education |
| posted by یونس انتظار @ 9:56 AM
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| Two Minutes-Of-Shame That Shook Pakistan |
| Wednesday, April 22, 2009 |
A two-minute video episode captured on a cell phone shook Pakistan when it penetrated the blogosphere and began making rounds as everybody with a mobile phone passed the footage to all the contacts in his/her phone book. The rough-and-ready footage emerged from Swat. Once a honeymoon destination, this scenic valley has, of late, become a Saudi-style puritan "Emirate of Taliban.
Read More HereLabels: A vedio from Sawat of Pakistan, Sham that shook Pakistan |
| posted by Basir Seerat @ 9:26 AM
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| Tulips flower in New Year time, |
| Tuesday, April 14, 2009 |
 The Tulip Bed
The May sun-whom
all things imitate-
that glues small leaves to
the wooden treess
hone from the sky
through bluegauze clouds
upon the ground.
Under the leafy trees
where the suburban streets
lay crossed,
with houses on each corner,
tangled shadows had begun
to join
the roadway and the lawns.
With excellent precision
the tulip bed
inside the iron fence
upreared its gaudy
yellow, white and red,
rimmed round with grass,
reposedly.
William Carlos Williams anf for more Photos see BASIR SEERAT'Labels: Basir seerat's eye., Kabul, Tulips flower in New Year time |
| posted by Basir Seerat @ 2:18 PM
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| Call for PHOTOGRAPHS |
| Monday, March 30, 2009 |
Information: photos@rubiahandwork.org
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| posted by kabulistan @ 9:35 AM
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| Wishing you a peaceful and happy new year |
| Monday, March 23, 2009 |
Let's go to Kabulistan |
| posted by kabulistan @ 1:18 PM
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| The Second Afghan Contemporary Art Prize |
| Sunday, March 15, 2009 |
Are you a contemporary artist? Do you paint, take photographs, make sculpture, films, installations or videos? Do you want to win the Afghan Contemporary Art Prize? Do you want to attend a workshop with international artists? Do you want to win $2000?
Continuing the success of last years prize, Turquoise Mountain, a cultural organisation based in Kabul, and Digistan, are organising the second Afghan Contemporary Art Prize. The Prize is open to artists between the ages of 15 – 30. We want to see the best artistic talent in Afghanistan! We want experimentation and new ideas! The Prize will be announced on 17th June 2008.
If you would like to enter this prize:
1) Please register your submission by email: prize@turquoisemountain.org
2) Send 8 (maximum) photographs of original artwork or a dvd copy of film, video or performance work to:
o Cultural Projects Department, Turquoise Mountain Foundation, 2nd Phase, Kart-e-Parwan, Behind Old British Embassy, Kabul
Send all information by 1st April 2009 and if you are selected, you must be available to attend workshops in Kabul between 25th April - 7th May, 2009.
RULES
You must be between the ages of 15 and 30 years old
You must submit no more than 8 photographs
The art work must be your own and original
The art work for consideration can be in any modern art medium, for example painting, sculpture, drawing, photography, film, video, installation art.
You must send your photographs by 1st April 2009.
All entries must first be registered by email to prize@turquoisemountain.org
All submissions must include this information: name, address, age, telephone number, education details, and answer the question: ‘Why am I an artist?’
All submissions must adhere to Islamic and Afghan cultural values
Each photograph must include information about the work of art: title, date, technique and size of the piece.
If you are selected, you must be available to attend workshops in Kabul between 25th April - 7th May, 2009.
For further information please call: 0795975183 |
| posted by Afghan PenLog @ 5:48 PM
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| A F G H A N I S T A N Annual Report on Protection of Civilians |
| Wednesday, February 18, 2009 |
Executive Summary
1. This Report on the protection of civilians in armed conflict in Afghanistan in 2008 iscompiled in pursuance of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA)mandate under United Nations Security Council Resolution 1806 (2008). UNAMA conductsindependent and impartial monitoring of incidents involving loss of life or injury to civiliansas well as damage or destruction of civilian infrastructure and conducts activities geared tomitigating the impact of the armed conflict on civilians. UNAMA’s Human Rights Officers(national and international), deployed in all of UNAMA’s regional offices and someprovincial offices, utilize a broad range of techniques to gather information on specific casesirrespective of location or who may be responsible. Such information is cross-checked andanalysed, with a range of diverse sources, for credibility and reliability to the satisfaction ofthe Human Rights Officer conducting the investigation, before details are recorded in adedicated data base. However, due to limitations arising from the operating environment,such as the joint nature of some operations and the inability of primary sources in mostinstances to precisely identify or distinguish between diverse military actors/insurgents,UNAMA does not break down responsibility for particular incidents other than attributingthem to “pro-government forces” or “anti-government elements”. UNAMA does not claimthat the statistics presented in this report are complete; it may be the case that, given thelimitations in the operating environment, UNAMA is under-reporting civilian casualties. InJanuary 2009, UNAMA introduced a new electronic database which is designed to facilitatethe collection and analysis of information, including disaggregation by age and gender.
Read mere here : MYRIGHTSLabels: Afghan Government Forces., Casualties, Children, Civilian/Non-Combatant, COM-ISAF, Humanitarian space, Injuries |
| posted by Basir Seerat @ 2:06 PM
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Document Reader: Court Papers in the Investigation
The Takeaway With David Johnston 
