Ask a Pakistani why Afghanistan matters

If you want to know, ask somebody: (ht: smallwarsjournal)

Afghanistan: Seven Fundamental Questions by Major Mehar Omar Khan

I know we live in a world that is real and is moved by minds – thinking, manipulating, conniving, conspiring, calculating and masquerading minds. Our world therefore seldom has a place for ‘sentiments’ – pure, sincere, honest and spontaneous as sentiments are. But when it comes to war in Afghanistan, I am not deterred by the tyranny of the trend. I like, in fact I am forced, to think through my heart. What else can you do when you see images of your countrymen; innocent and unsuspecting men, women and children; ripped apart by other human beings exploding in their midst almost on a daily basis? How can I not worry about my daughter when I see a pale and empty face of a mother in Kabul or Peshawar, bent like a broken branch of an old, dried up tree; over the dead body of her child? How can I not cry when the soul of my nation is hit and hurt by violence that is so inextricably linked with bloodshed beyond the snaky Khyber Pass? For us in Pakistan, the ongoing struggle in Afghanistan and astride Durand Line is the most seminal endeavor of our history. If this war is won, the entire world stands to benefit. But if it is lost, one country that will be hurt the most is Pakistan – my daughter’s home and her future. War astride the Durand Line is therefore so personal to so many of us.

This war is also extremely personal for thousands of American mothers who await and pray for the safe return of their sons and daughters: bright young men and women who deserve to live and who must never be wasted just because someone considers it politically expedient to continue to muddle along and because setting the course right needs some statesmanship and may also involve some political cost.

Major Mehar Omar Khan, Pakistan Army, is currently a student at the US Army Command and General Staff College at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas. He has served as a peacekeeper in Sierra Leone, a Brigade GSO-III, an instructor at the Pakistan Military Academy in Kakul, and as Chief of Staff (Brigade Major) of an infantry brigade. He has also completed the Command and Staff Course at Pakistan’s Command and Staff College in Quetta.

The weightless administration is even further out of touch

At some point, you hope the administration will find the time to prevent a possible wave of shootings of Americans by Muslims.  You know, to go along with the duty description of Department of Homeland Defense

The U.S. Homeland Security secretary says she is working to prevent a possible wave of anti-Muslim sentiment after the shootings at Fort Hood in Texas.

Janet Napolitano says her agency is working with groups across the United States to try to deflect any backlash against American Muslims following Thursday’s rampage by Army Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, a Muslim who reportedly expressed growing dismay over the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The shootings left 13 people dead and 29 wounded.

Meanwhile the President’s tone-deaf teleprompter gets it wrong again

Obama, often described as “cerebral” by the mainstream media, should know the difference between the Medal of Honor and the Medal of Freedom, especially since he personally awarded the latter to Crow.  Don’t expect his blunder to receive wide coverage.  It’s not something he can blame George Bush for.

A Reflection on my professor’s commentary on my mid-term assessment

On engaging more with fellow class members:

i think on the engagement piece, i have to look to hook in more to where my peers are rather than where i want them to be.   I have to start from their position and proceed rather than trying to drag them to my position.

I think a lot of the frustration comes from the mixing of cohorts.  Whereas our cohort’s research questions are mature and proceeding, with mentor  relationships being fairly well developed, it’s easier for us to focus on classwork whereas the newer cohorts are still filled with so much uncertainty, and also may have less of a doctoral persona forming that they can feel overwhelmed. I think that tends to explain the vast majority of the “Yeah great point! You go girl! postings” Early on,  the emotional support is much more important because the research hasn’t matured yet.  That may also be an area where i can offer more value to the other cohorts and look for engagement.  I will continue to offer resources  as I find them.

On the subject of my students and helping them develop a  personal credo,

I have been spending a lot more time on helping them develop a “field grade officer” persona;  it’s usually a role they have not really thought about before, and it needs deep reflection to develop. So I have them write a management philosophy (distinct from a leadership philosophy which they write in other classes). I make it a point to discuss the all important mentoring role and what it takes to develop lieutenants and captains for their crucial roles. Its part of the tribal wisdom and culture that binds our profession together.  Its really a bit deeper thana  profession in the “professional” sense, as elements of “tribe” come in to play. Especially with the growing sense that we are an Army at war, but not a nation at war.

On the Ft Hood killings:

The incident earlier today is especially troubling for us, as the entire school remained riveted to the tube looking for info on names and families, scanning for people we might know. 9/11 was similar although much more horrific, by several orders of magnitude.
So, yes, the credo is an essential element of what I try to encourage in them (I would have said “teach” even just a year ago). Part of opening up myself and my thinking and writing to public inspection, the vulnerability of public writing, and the encouragement of voice is a way to try to model the behaviors I hope for them to develop. The relationships with students that extend beyond graduation to their next assignment are the most gratifying. I live for the chance to be of some help to them when they are in their next unit.

My son inducted into the National Honor Society tonight:

My son was inducted into the National Honor Society tonight, his speech was hilarious.  We were talking about the Allegory of the Cave tonight to and from the ceremony, as I had found an hourlong CD of commentary on it at the store while searching for something else.  there are elements of that i will probably weave into my Hadot paper, since the Allegory is kind of departure for Socrates, as he plays the unusual role of taking a position rather than dismantling someone else’s logic. To me, the Allegory has always sounded more like Plato talking through Socrates, tahn Socrates speaking himself, although we can never really know, since Socrates was content to just talk

Our hope is changing in the wind

The New York Times reports:

The group’s calculations last week put the number of American jobs at a little more than 300 — most of them temporary construction jobs, along with about 30 permanent positions once the wind farm is operating. Mr. McGarr told The Wall Street Journal that more than 2,000 Chinese jobs would be created by the deal.

Now that’s NOT the kind of change we want to believe in. I applaud Kos for telling the truth and being outraged

Reflections on critiquing the writing of others

Giving feedback about the paper is a way to show who you are and how much you care about the author.

Suppose, in your opinion,  the author has made a glaring error in logic or has not supported the thesis, or mischaracterized an opposing view, and because you are concerned about hurting their feelings, you don’t say anything.

How are you helping them? By letting their paper out into the world?

If you were right about the paper, and didn’t tell them, shame on you.

If you were wrong about the paper, that should emerge in the continued dialogue between professionals and now you have a chance to sharpen your own tool. You miss that chance if you don’t CRITIQUE THE PAPER, NOT THE PERSON.

If you comment on the paper without regard for the human who offered their vulnerability, their knowledge, their insights, THEMSELVES to you, try remembering to walk a mile in their shoes and ask yourself, before sending, have I been fair? have I been constructive? What is the tone of voice I used?

If you would say things anonymously about the paper in a double blind, but not to their face, that says more about you than about the paper you are critiquing.

Envision the paper as it leaves their hand and lands on a community table of knowledge for consideration. Focus on the paper on the table, not the person who offered it. The paper is not the person; restrict yourself to examining what has been offered. Don’t assume you know anything about their feelings or how they might take it. They have offered a piece of academic writing. Your duty is to evaluate it academically, while remembering there is a person on the other end, eventually.

The author has given us all a gift. Respect the gift by giving it your best critique: with support, with care, with your best work.  Respect the author for their gift and vulnerability. The critiques we offer are more important than anything we are likely to write on our own, and we will do a lot more of them than our own writing.

If you are an author, recognize the boundary between your Self and your paper. Be clear about what you are asking for when you offer it for review. If you want self-esteem more than honesty, you’ll get both, but not as you might want it.

War is hell

From The Fourth Star: Four Generals and the Epic Struggle for the Future of the United States Army. 

The book chronicles the careers of four different generals (GEN John Abizaid, GEN George Casey Jr, GEN Peter Chiarelli, and GEN David Petraeus).:

A few weeks before he was scheduled to depart, Abizaid was walking on a craggy ridgeline with a Peshmerga commander when he noticed three Iraqi corpses, their bodies covered with burn marks and their eyes gouged out.

“Why do you torture everybody?” he asked. “Why not just kill them?”

“Nobody fears death,” replied to commander, his rifle slung over his shoulder and a scarf wrapped around his head. The survivors, he explained, need to see mutilated bodies of their fellow soldiers so that they understood what could happen to them if they fought the Kurds.

A reflection on “intentional living”

 

Consider Socrates’  choice to join the army and constrain himself to the dicispline and regulations of the army in defense of Athens. he made a choice to submit to those constraints because he made a principled value judgment that it was worth giving up some of his freedom and comfort in support of a higher value for him: defense of Athenian democracy.

I dont equate  a “philosophical life” with  a life of complete autonomy and unlimited choice.  The philosophica;l life is worthwhile precisely because it helps us make the tough tradeoffs in a way that are consistent with our values. Your decision to wear the uniform and accept the constraints allows you to support other values you place higher than the freedom to wear PJs.

You probably have decided that a choice to wear PJs might prohibit you from earning a living to supoprt your self and family and achieve other goals you value more than maximum comfort.

To me the philosophical life comes from a desire to live intentionally, to make choice son the basis of your own values, and not simply as an animal life form reacting instinctively and thoughtlessly to random environmental pressures. To live intentionally is to ask of your self, “which intentions?” and “what values?” and “what tradeoffs?” It is then fair to examine our decisions for consistency and integrity.

Principles mantter precisely because of the consequences they lead to.  To select principles without consideration of the consequences begs the questions about the values that would allow such a decision.

Living a “full time philosophical life” in this schema, becomes an extraordnary effort: to live intentionally in all things?! and with consistency to set of carefully chosen and prioritized principles?! thats the work of a lifetime for sure, a worthy goal. Its an ideal that led the Stoics and the Buddhists to ask of themselves, each in their own way, what’s the difference between want and need? They came to different conclusions, as did the Epicureans etc  but they all shared the goal of living the examined, consistent, intentional life.

Thanks for your patience to let me think out loud

Reflecting on criticism and “Silent Philosophy”

Silent Philosophy

The world is full of critics – there has never been a shortage of critics! If you ever try to do something new you will definitely attract critics. The words of critics can take away all our inspiration and leave us wondering how to respond. However, if we can respond with silence, we maintain a great dignity. The critic wishes to provoke us, but by maintaining silence we are showing that it is beneath our dignity to respond to their false criticisms. It is like they are trying to give us something, but by refusing to accept their gift, the negativity remains with them. By maintaining silence we remain completely detached from their negativity. We can just concentrate on doing the right thing.

There was a young aspirant who wished to learn the meaning of life so he traveled to meet the most famous philosophers of his age. The first philosopher gave a very great and lengthy explanation on the meaning of life. The aspirant was suitably impressed and awed by the magnificence of his deliberations. However, straight away this theory was criticized by another philosopher. He cogently pointed out many deficiencies in his system; instead he pointed out another philosophy, which he argued was far superior. Like this several philosophers came to argue their case for having the best philosophy. Some said truth could not be discovered in this life, others said that truth was in a particular book. However, with so many conflicting philosophy’s the aspirant just became confused.

The aspirant decided to travel deep into the forest where he came across a yogi deep in meditation. His face expressed a countenance of deep equanimity, peace and, contemplation. Eagerly the aspirant asked the yogi what was the meaning of life. To this question, the yogi did not flicker even an eyelid, but continued in his deep meditation. The aspirant was disappointed, but remained inspired by the consciousness of the yogi. The next day he came back and his repeated question, the yogi maintained his silence. It was then that the aspirant realized the meaning of life could never be explained in words. At this point he began to learn meditation himself.

Sri Chinmov

 

so, how did the critics go from offering analytical insights, ie alternate points of view from their perspective to “false criticisms”? Isnt that classification the same thing we are accusing the critics of doing? Judging?
And if the criticisms have validity, why is silence an appropriate and improved response than engagement?

I dont accept silence as an improvement by default. That exchanges the value of “dignity” for one of “mutual engagement”, and i dont see that as an improvement necessarily..

If we take the position that dialectic, the exchange of thesis and antithesis, [producing synthesis is a way of creating knowledge not accessible to either individual on their own (and this is the basis of social construction of knowledge), the strategy of silence is a rejection of fellowship and engagement and pursuit of knowledge.

If we reject that knowledge can be pursued, and sit in silence whenever queried, then we are house plants, and are not using the gifts we seem uniquely to possess in the animal kingdom.

That position rejects the Socratic method of inquiry for example.

I accept that there is argumentation for the sake of argumentation and that anything can be deconstructed. I reject argumentation as an end and consider a lot of post-modernism and critical theory as a waste of oxygen. I reject disengagement for the same reason.

There is a philosophical school in China known as the Legalists who took the argumentative tricks of the Greek Sophists for example to an absurd extreme. they would argue that “a white horse” is neither “white” nor “a horse” since the linked words created a unique entity that neither word alone could properly represent. They anticipated critical theory by 1500 years, and were just as useless for real people living lives, and seeking “right thought and right action”.

Why would i choose not to try on the insights and considerations of trusted others? of careful arguers? am i so sure of my own judgment all the time that I can be completely confident that i can write off disagreement as “false criticism?” That makes us only as smart and wise as we individually are.

That also happens to be poor evolutionary behavior. we have evolved successfully on the basis of social cooperation and sharing. we know this from evolutionary biology and anthropology. Voluntarily opting out could be seen as an evolutionary backwards step.

I conclude that it matters how and why we engage in constructive criticism. I acknowledge that something that may be truly classified as “false criticism” should not be rewarded with opposition, but that we cannot a priori distinguish between good and bad criticism until after we have enaged in good faith dialogue

A reflection on action research “storytelling”

What follows is a 1st person, stream of consciousness  reflection written to my mentor & committee chair.  

I describe  what it was like to record a 10 min video “telling the story” of  some preliminary findings emerging from my action research cycles into curriculum and adult learning. 

The video is hosted  at YouTube.

It will be shown at an international conference in Athens, as part of the Collaborative Action Research Network (CARN) annual conference, as part of a bundle of reports from the Future(s) of Education project, an international  participatory action research network.  

Dr Alana:  

i am just glad to get it out of my head  

i had a real out of body experience recording that one;  

i  am a very effective briefer in person, because i can read the audience pretty well.  

i have recorded hundreds of mini lectures etc for my business and for use here at the college on various topics.

i have never, ever needed more than a single take to record, decent and sometimes even inspired voice-overs  until  last night and that briefing.  

I literally needed about 30 takes to get thru it; most i stopped when less than a minute into it because the tone just didn’t feel right

 i think it has to do with being a fish out of water, and the difficulty i felt in trying to tune my story for an audience i couldn’t see, but more importantly didn’t have empathy for

because the audience characteristics still feel fuzzy to me, i couldn’t call up the right tone, voice, persona to apply  

 this caused me to have almost a split personality in the moment, when i am ordinarily dialed in

 i had a “talking part” and a “look ahead part” that is concerned with shaping the transition to the next point/slide  

but now i had a disconcerting 3rd part that was trying to anticipate the possible reactions of an unfamiliar, and hard to imagine audience  

this is what made me feel so out of sorts

 until i “wore out” the last, 3d part and was able to trust in just telling the story, and accepting the vulnerability of knowing that i couldn’t know the audience, i found i just couldn’t get thru it.  

this is the same phenomenon I spoke with Prof Mike Wesch, the digital anthropologist at Kansas State University, and world thought leader on social dynamics in social media: the camera eye represents the unlimited, unfathomable infinite future of all possible audiences across time and space who can be looking in on the “telling moment”.  

in a sense, its like coming face to face with the unblinking eye of God and wondering what she is thinking  

 it is trust that lets us get thru that moment, the accepting of vulnerability, that creates the empathy that hopefully fills the story, as told, with hope.  

that’s a clumsy way of trying to express my meaning of the risk and vulnerability to “telling” and why it can be such a powerful learning moment, and why we need to model it, embrace it, encourage it, and support it. 

Your “producer’s draft” was exactly what i needed to be able to get out of my own comfortable fishbowl; 

you gave me a bridge to the audience that i could not create on my own.  

this has become an interesting reflection to me already  

please put the video on the website, and any or all of this reflection as you deem suitable  

have a great time at the conference!

Reflecting on the military as a way of life

I think it can be, but not necessarily so, especially in the West with its  materialistic and secular values.

Example: I know people for whom military service is a passion, some for whom it is a profession, some for whom it is employment, some for whom it was better than time in jail.  Some find the military as an option when there may not be other options around.  Some seek ewxcitement and thrills;  some serve out of a sense of dty and tradition to family. For them, service is expected.  Some enter from a sense of drama, some are seeking…something.  I know some for whom the military was a chance to start something new, with a new name.

Reasons for continuing to serve are as varied as the reasons for joining, and it is normal to see reasons change through time, as circumstances, and life experiences, and life phases change.

For me, service was a coming together of familial tradition, educational opportunity, a desire to do “walkabout” and a way to establish myself in my career apart from the automobile and steel industries which had been home to all my kin. I had taught for a year in highschool after college graduation but was sure I was not prepared for a career as a HS teacher when I saw what 40 yr old HS teachers looked like in the teaachers lounge.

After entering, and having my romantic notions of service exploded, i found a sense of color-blind, achievement based excellence that was very attractive in 1980. Here was an organization explicitly committed to sevrice to the nation and others, with a foe who represented a clear and present existential threat, and where what you did mattered more than who you were or where you were from. Not perfect by any means, but filled with good people trying to do their best.

I found myself adopting a career orientation as I decided to go to officer school and committ to a career of service.

As you know from my “Big 5″ the warrior role is important for me, in the sense of beginning weith self mastery, and then servic ein defense of the defenseless. This for me feels like a calling, a duty that transcends every other value I have. Duty, for me is my dominant value, and it is expressed in service to others. My decisionto reitre a few years ago came after deep reflection on the tipping point between duty to family and community, and uty to the nation and Army.

For those whom the military is a way of life, I’d say they are spoken to by the martial values, and the code of conduct and the comraderie of friends whose love for each other is forged in fire; friends for whom they would give their life without thinking, whose names and memories they can never forget.

I think it can grow to be a way of life; the experienceof many retired soldiers is of a deep hollow inside when they hang up the uniform, and there is a surreal sense of disconnect and separateness that is very difficult to name and deal with. The Band of Brothers captures this sense very well. Veterans have an unspoken conenction that is a comfort at these times, and i cannot attend a parade, and see the old timers marching or watching with the old timers and the youngsters troop past wearing our colors.  I get a disembodied feeling at these times. I get misty when I hear the national anthem sung properly, and “Taps” makes me break down. And i wait by the front door of the college at 5 o’clock so i can hear the cannon fire and the sound of Retreat echo across the lawn.

So I would say, yes, the military can be a way of life for some, if it chooses you.  I wouldnt say we really choose it, we seem to be chosen, or at least there is a natural fit