Matthew Hoh in Louisville

Wednesday, Matthew Hoh was in town speaking to the Louisville Committee on Foreign Relations. A former marine, Hoh attained a measure of fame in September 2009 for becoming the first U.S. official to resign a policy position in response to America's Afghanistan policy. Hoh had been serving as the top civilian official from the State Department in Kabul Province.

LCFR events have long been "off the record," but Hoh didn't really talk about anything that hasn't been reflected in his public remarks and interviews.

Perhaps most importantly, Hoh talked about the publicly available findings of the Afghanistan Study Group, which in August 2010 produced A New Way Forward, Rethinking U.S. Strategy in Afghanistan (pdf). Hoh served as the group's Director.

Prominent signatories (group members, presumably) include thinkers from across the political spectrum -- from noted peace studies scholar David Cortright, progressive economist James K. Galbraith, and historian/blogger Juan Cole to conservative journalist Arnaud de Borchgrave. A number of realist IR theorists are also on board, including Michael Desch, Bob Jervis, Bob Pape, Barry Posen, and Steve Walt.

As Hoh emphasized in Louisville, the report concludes with a 5 point plan:

1) Emphasize Power-Sharing and Political Reconciliation.
2) Scale Back and Eventually Suspend Combat Operations in the South and Reduce the U.S. Military Footprint
3) Keep the Focus on Al Qaeda and Domestic Security.
4) Promote Economic Development.
5) Engage Global and Regional Stakeholders.

Read the report to learn more about the Group's diagnosis of why America's strategy in Afghanistan is flawed -- and for more detail about these recommendations. I found the entire argument quite similar to my long-time and persistent criticism of the Iraq war. US troops make good targets and are viewed as foreign occupiers by much of the population. The insurgency gains by the US presence -- and none of the on-the-ground fighting has anything to do with the effort to prevent terrorist attacks against western targets since those are planned and executed by a loose network of individuals far from the battlegrounds.

I sat at Hoh's table at lunch and we talked briefly about his experiences in the 18 months since he resigned. My hand was still raised when the meeting adjourned, so I didn't get to ask a final question:

Just how seriously is official Washington taking the Afghan Study Group's recommendations?


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Radio appearance: dissent

Wednesday, January 30, I'll be a guest on the local public radio program "State of Affairs." You can listen live on the web at 11 am ET. The station is WFPK, 89.3 FM in Louisville.

The topic is "The Role of Dissent in Islam and America" and I'll be sharing time with Professor Anouar Majid, author of A Call for Heresy; Why Dissent Is Vital to Islam and America. This is the blurb about the program:

It's funny thing, dissent - there are times when expressing dissent with our leaders seems very patriot or noble, and yet there are other times when it is seen as disloyal and subversive. And the more fundamental a society becomes, the less dissent is tolerated, but the more it seems to be needed. And lest we think this just happens in Islamic countries, let's take a good look at America's tolerance for dissent in the past few years. Join us on Wednesday as we discuss the role dissent does, can and should play in Islam and America.

I'll be drawing on my recent academic work on counterpublic spheres and anti-war protest. This is taken from my 2006 ISA conference paper abstract:

"counterpublics"...invent and circulate discourses in opposition to those featured in the mainstream. Counterpublic spheres potentially make the predominant public sphere more inclusive and open to dissent. Some empirical attention is directed at the apparent success of the anti-war counterpublic, as reflected in their distinct minority status immediately after the 9/11 attacks in regard to war in Afghanistan in fall 2001 through opposition to the Iraq war in 2006.

Tune in if you can.

Update: I enjoyed the program. Listen to the archived version here.


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