Ahmed Rashid & Jef Lambrecht
Chaos in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Should the West send more troops?
General Stanley McChrystal, supreme commander of the American troops in Afghanistan, writes in a recent report: ‘Failure to gain the initiative and reverse insurgent momentum in the near term –while Afghan security capacity matures- risks an outcome where defeating the insurgency is no longer possible.’ The same might apply to Pakistan, where the army has conducted a succesful campaign in the Swat Valley, but was unable to break the strength of the Pakistani taliban, Al Qaeda or jihadi militants –who seem to be workintg increasingly under a common strategy.
Belgium, even though it participates fully in the Nato-led intervention in Afghanistan, still has to have a full fledged public debate about the deployment of troops, F16’s and development aid in Afghanistan. This MO*lecture aims to break that state of inertia by inviting Ahmed Rashid, the most respected journalist/author on the subject, to give his view on the current state of affairs in the region. Jef Lambrecht, a Flemish journalist who has been covering the region for over two decades, will respond to the lecture by Ahmed Rashid.
This evening is part of a series of lectures organised by MO*magazine. Kaaitheater is a partner of the series, and hosts this lecture evening.
Ahmed Rashid published Taliban. Militant islam, oil en fundamentalism in Central Asia in 2001. The book was the result of 20 years of lonely journalistic work in a region of the world that interested few. Until 9/11 happened. The next year he published Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia, in wich he argues that extremist movements in countries like Pakistan and Uzbekistan matter greatly for global stability in the 21st century. In 2008 he published the monumental Descent into chaos. The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia. Rashid explains in this book what went wrong in the region after the fall of the Taliban-regime, and why.
Ahmed Rashid is a regular contributor to New York Review of Books, BBC online, International Herald Tribune and Washington Post, among other publications.
Jef Lambrecht is a journalist with the Flemish public radio. He has been covering the “Greater Middle East” for more than 20 years. He recently published De heilige wereldoorlog. Halfweg de kruistocht tegen het moslimterrorisme, a caleidoscopic analysis of the turbulent worldnews that emanated from the region the past few years. This book is the third in a trilogy, with IX-XI, hoe 11 september mogelijk werd (2002) and De Zwarte Wieg. Irak, nazi’s en neoconservatieven (2003) as earlier books.
book on t 02.536 19 77 or jan.buelinckx@mo.be
organised by MO* in association with Vlaams-Nederlands Huis deBuren | partners Kaaitheater, Beursschouwburg, Vooruit, Zuiderpershuis, Canvas & 11.11.11.
