Understanding Afghanistan and Pakistan today starts with grasping the basics about their interconnected histories, including the roles other powers have played in this region. The situations we see today have deep roots. Some of the story lines are sadly familiar, with mistakes and tragedies repeated.

These are excerpted, sometimes paraphrased, from the concluding chapter of Descent Into Chaos – The U.S. and the Disaster in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia by Ahmed Rashid.

Ali Gohar, MA ’02, is working to update the traditional system of jirga in the border areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan. He believes passionately in the core function of jirga, whereby certain elders are recognized in their communities for their wisdom and ethics; these elders gather to make community-wide decisions, resolve problems, and dispense justice.

The two-hour car trip from her home in a suburb of Washington D.C. to graduate classes at EMU’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding in Harrisonburg, Va., is a minor inconvenience for Suraya Sadeed, an Afghan-American woman who has spent days on horseback and foot to oversee the delivery of relief supplies to destitute Afghans, who [...]

Experience shows that use of armed force results in more violence and resistance.  — Saeed Murad Rahi, MA ’07 Senior Advisor, Rule of Law Stabilization Program
The Taliban and al-Qaeda are major threats to the stability of Afghanistan. But no military can solve this problem once and for all. The long-term answer lies in building up [...]

We need to change the psyche and attitudes of people. –Nadeem Masih, Executive Director, Human Welfare Organization
The 15 Pakistanis who responded to a January 2010 query from Peacebuilder magazine did not mince words: Conditions in their country are spiraling downward.
“If a day passes by without a bomb blast or a suicide attack, that becomes a day [...]

Dr. Lisa Schirch, director of the 3D Security Initiative and EMU professor of peacebuilding, and Chic Dambach, president and CEO of the Alliance for Peacebuilding, prepared this summary for Peacebuilder of their extensive list of recommendations for policymakers considering changes to the U.S. Foreign Assistance Act in 2010.

By David R. Brubaker
I was invited to Afghanistan for a week-long consultancy in June 2009 with an organization funded by USAID to bolster Afghan-run businesses. The organization is called Afghanistan Small and Medium Enterprise Development (ASMED), a program implemented by DAI, based in Bethesda, Maryland. Its more than 75 staff members, drawn from five regional [...]