Afpakinam

For George McGovern it's déjà vu all over again. Scott Atran argues:

We need to bring [a] perspective to Afghanistan and Pakistan...that is smart about cultures, customs and connections. The present policy of focusing on troop strength and drones, and trying to win over people by improving their lives with Western-style aid programs, only continues a long history of foreign involvement and failure. Reading a thousand years of Arab and Muslim history would show little in the way of patterns that would have helped to predict 9/11, but our predicament in Afghanistan rhymes with the past like a limerick.

Last week, Tom Englehardt mapped nine surges in Afghanistan.