It's the tribes, stupid! (or not)

I’ve twice featured Jim Gant’s essay on the subject of ‘It’s the tribes, stupid!’ Alas, not everyone is so taken by it as I or, more recently, Generals Petraeus and McChrystal. Take Christian Bleuer, who blogs at Ghosts of Alexander from the standpoint of his studies of Afghanistan language and culture at Indiana University and Australian National University, where he’s a doctoral student. Recently he brought all the academic guns to bear on Major Gant. It’s easy to make fun of a graduate student arguing with a footsoldier, especially when it’s not entirely clear that Mr Bleuer has ever been to the ‘Stan, but his essay is certainly worth reading. It’s long, and I admit I skipped here and there. It ends with this rhetorical question: ‘And we’re supposed to expect that American soldiers can navigate all of this while embedding with a local tribal leader?’

Well, if they can’t, then we might as well bring them home, because not much is going to happen otherwise. Blue skies! – Dan Ford