Quote Originally Posted by slapout9 View Post
Ken,that was a masterful response!
Agree completely. What you laid out is very hard to get across to folks--It may be instinctually apparent to those with time in the region abd sometimes that makes it even harder to explain to Westerners who have not had the opportunity to really adjust to non-Western ways.

I was teaching some last week doing OEF update overviews for the OCs as we have an OEF rotation soon. I always start these things with the idea of Afghanistan as a tribal region versus a nation state and then relate all the issues back to that initial premise. You can see the light bulbs go on these days very quickly, especially compared to 3-4 years ago when most had never been exposed to these cultures. Two years ago many had but they were undergoing the "cross-cultural backlash" where the shock of the cultural differences prompts dislike among many if not most. Now they are old hands and they understand more and see the seams and oppostunities where effective cross-cultural interaction is possible and productive.

One young man came up to see me after one class to talk tribal relations versus a central government, which Afghanistan unlike Iraq has never really had. He was very astute because he was a Native American from the Civilized Tribes of Oklahoma. I asked him to join SWJ. Hopefully he will.

Best

Tom