The New York Review of Books: Afghanistan: What Troops Can’t Fix

The war has gone on for sixteen years, and as recent meetings at the United Nations General Assembly demonstrated, it has become even more complicated than the one fought by Bush or Obama. Afghanistan faces a number of growing internal threats: terrorist attacks, loss of territory to the Taliban, economic collapse, corruption, growing public disenchantment, and an internal political crisis as warlords and ethnic politicians challenge the government of President Ashraf Ghani. But the gravest new threat is regional. At least three nearby states—Pakistan, Iran, and Russia—are now helping the Taliban, according to US generals, Western diplomats, and Afghan officials I have spoken to. [...]

At the same time, President Trump has ruled out “nation building” and made no mention of economic or diplomatic support for the Afghan government. America’s NATO allies now emphasize a political solution to the war and peace talks with the Taliban, but there was no hint of compromise or interest in negotiations by Trump. The only avenue left for negotiation is the Taliban office in Qatar, which has been used for the past six years by multiple mediators, including representatives of the United Nations, the US, and several European countries. Now, however, according to The Guardian and diplomatic sources, it appears that Presidents Trump and Ghani agree that the office should be shut down. That would mean closing the last open access to some Taliban leaders, and it would make any future negotiations with the Taliban movement even more difficult and entirely dependent on Pakistan. [...]

In the past, Afghan-related initiatives taken by US presidents, whether at the UN or at NATO summits, met with immediate backing from European and other allies. This time, there was not a single ally who publicly praised or endorsed Trump’s Afghan policy. The tepid applause from world leaders for his UN speech spoke volumes. Only NATO’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, belatedly welcomed the sending of more US troops in an interview with a wire service. (NATO’s own deployment of some four thousand troops in Afghanistan will continue.)  [...]

In reality, the US strategy offers little help to Ghani with the multiple crises he faces at home, where politicians and warlords who once supported him are in revolt and demanding that he either carry out promised reforms and hold elections or step down. The country is in the throes of a severe economic crisis, and there is no apparent plan for dealing with either the tens of thousands of internal refugees who have been displaced by the war or the nearly one million refugees who have arrived in Afghanistan penniless after being forced out of Pakistan and Iran.  

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The Atlantic: Gay and Mennonite (MAR 18, 2015)

Since the first Mennonites arrived in America from Germany in 1683, the denomination has gone through many schisms, often over issues of tradition and modernity. At one time, it was buttons vs. eyehooks on blouses, and whether women should have to wear bonnets; more recently, it’s been women’s leadership in the church and acceptance of those who identify as LGBTQ. Each time a split happens, a new version of the faith is created, while an older version is preserved as if in amber—even now, many people associate Mennonites with anachronisms like horses and buggies, when in reality, this kind of traditional lifestyle is only followed by roughly 13,000 American adults, called Old-Order Mennonites. (People often confuse Mennonites with the Amish, too; although both groups are part of the Anabaptist tradition, meaning that they baptize believers as adults rather than infants, Mennonites were historically followers of Menno Simons, a 16th-century preacher.) [...]

Since 2005, nine churches in the Allegheny Conference have made the choice to walk away—mostly over the issue of women’s leadership in the conference. Currently, the conference is led by a woman, Donna Mast, and many of the churches that left over this issue did so before she became the leading minister. “Do I take it personally? No I don’t,” she told me. “I grew up with the understanding that women should not be in pastoral leadership positions. I ran from the call that I was sensing from God. I ran as hard as I could, until the day when I decided that it was more difficult to be ostracized from God than to follow God into areas where I didn’t understand where God was leading.” [...]

Mennonite Church USA, has seen declining membership over the past half decade—a drop of roughly 16,000 adult members and 45 congregations, or 15 percent of its members. This doesn’t necessarily reveal what’s going on in the denomination as a whole. According to 2010 research by Donald Kraybill, a professor at Elizabethtown College, American Mennonites belong to roughly 60 different organizing bodies, and some of the more traditional groups are growing rapidly because of their high birth rates. [...]

“Sometimes I think those Lancaster Conference bishops had it right in the 1920s and 30s when they said no radios—nobody’s allowed to listen to the radio, because you’re going to get influenced by worldly music,” Lapp said. “Our congregation is quite traditional in our worship: We sing out of hymnals, we have an order of worship, and yet we’re seen as progressive theologically. I think that is actually true in many areas of the Mennonite church: The folks who have progressive theology are holding onto the tradition in terms of worship, wanting to get back to what it means to be Anabaptist.”

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Quartz: The far right is reeling in professionals, hipsters, and soccer moms

Last Sunday (Sept 24), German voters put a far-right party into parliament for the first time since the Second World War. Right-wing nationalists Alternative for Germany (AFD) won 13% of the vote, easily overcoming the 5% threshold needed to enter the German Bundestag. A previous study (link in German) showed that AFD supporters come from different social classes, including workers, families with above-average incomes, and even academics. The study concluded that what was common among AFD voters was their dislike for Angela Merkel’s so-called open-door policy to refugees. [...]

In France, the far-right Front National (FN) enjoyed support from almost 40% of voters aged 18-24-year-old in the run up to the election. Marine Le Pen, the leader of the FN, courted young voters by taking up traditionally left-wing causes, such as women’s rights, and championing the welfare state (albeit for French citizens, and not foreigners). At the end of the first round of the election, 21% of young people cast their vote for Le Pen (young voters had broken for the far left candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon in the first round). But by the second round of voting, which saw Le Pen against Emmanuel Macron, the former won 34% (paywall) of the vote among 18-24-year-old. [...]

It’s not just men shoring up right-wing populists. Le Pen was backed by a quiet army of women. Le Pen’s attempts to rebrand her party has clearly had an effect on women; a study by French pollster Ifop found that women made up 48% of voters who have voted for the FN previously. Women played an important role in the US too. While women did vote overwhelmingly for Hillary Clinton, white women did not. Overall, 52% of white women voted to elect Donald Trump. That figure jumps to 62% when looking at non-college-educated women. [...]

Yes, angry, working class men disillusioned by globalization have supported right-wing populism. But so did the hipsters, the soccer moms, and well to do suburbanite, highlighting the deep chasms in societies across the Western world.

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Al Jazeera: Emmanuel Macron wants reforms for post-Brexit EU

Macron used the speech at Sorbonne University in Paris on Tuesday to argue the case for institutional changes, initiatives to promote the EU, and new ventures in the technology, defence and energy sectors. [...]

Macron's proposals for a post-Brexit shake-up include a Europe-wide "rapid reaction force" to work with national armies, and plans to give the 19-member eurozone a finance minister, budget and parliament.

He also called for a new tax on technology giants such as Facebook and Apple - accused of paying too little corporate tax on their businesses in Europe - and an EU-wide asylum agency to deal with the refugee crisis.

He even raised the prospect of major changes to the Common Agricultural Policy, the EU's giant farm subsidy programme, which has historically been defended by France and its powerful agricultural lobbies. [...]

Following Tuesday's speech, Juncker, head of the European Commission, the EU's executive arm, praised Macron, saying the bloc required "courage" to move ahead.

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Haaretz: Israel Is Right to Support Kurdish Independence. It Is Also Unwise

And yet, while we should all be in favor of a free Kurdistan, the support of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and many other Israeli politicians for Kurdish independence in recent weeks was both premature and unwise. For a start, the whole point of a referendum is to ask what the people think. The result is almost guaranteed to be overwhelmingly in favor of independence, but endorsing a “yes” vote in advance is blatantly interfering in the internal affairs of another country. 

Beyond the historical friendship between the two nations, it is clear why Israelis are supporting the Kurds. Kurdistan is located at the strategically critical junction of Iran, Iraq and Syria – the area where Iran is hoping to establish its “Shi’a Crescent” land corridor, which would allow it to transport arms and fighters directly to Hezbollah’s strongholds in Lebanon. A free and pro-Israel Kurdistan on Iran’s borders will not only stymie Iran’s designs but will also be a major strategic asset in the region. But Iran, along with Iraq, which is loath to lose the oil-rich region, and Turkey, which is anxious to prevent any form of Kurdish independence that could influence the much larger number of Kurds living within its own borders, is determined to stop the establishment of Kurdistan. By openly supporting the Kurds, Israel is only creating a situation in which Iran and Turkey will find independence that much harder to stomach. [...]

The Kurds in northern Iraq still won't have a state the day after they vote for independence. The land-locked autonomous region is surrounded by countries that oppose it breaking away from Iraq. The only way it can continue to trading with the world is through Iran, Iraq or Turkey, all of which have already taken steps to closing their borders and air space. At least one of those three countries will have to come to terms with Kurdish independence in order for Kurdistan to become a reality, which is why the United States and other Western nations which may support independence in principle have all counseled the Kurds to wait with the referendum.

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