Registan.net

Months ago, both Nathan and I expressed our discontent at the Instapundit’s linking to rather shrill and misinformed sources on Central Asian goings on (in that case Russian energy politics, a subject near and dear to my heart). Nathan was far less “visibly” angry, having fatigued of such things, and the credulous ripples that spread throughout the Rightosphere, at a far slower rate than have I, and he couched it in terms of “fighting the perpetuation of wrongness.” He noted:

I just find it interesting that the new media elite and those surrounding them are reproducing the shortcomings of the old media they love to criticize… In the blogosphere though, the diminished discussion of Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Russia is just as bad as ever. Part of me wants to throw up my hands and say, “What’re you gonna do?” But another part of me is bothered by this and thinks perhaps those of us inclined to do so should spend a bit more time combating inaccuracies about this region in at least some of the widely read blogs.

I’m afraid I took that idea to heart, rather viciously slamming the Instapundit’s coverage of Central Asia, Pakistan, and Afghanistan again, again, and again. The Instapundit even responded, at first with hurt (at the “bashing,” as he put it), and later with a request for posts and blogs he should read. All well and good… except that these mistaken, and quite frankly misleading, posts continue to be flung about through haphazard links to his friends—the lion’s share of whom seem to prefer assumption to fact when dealing with Muslim countries.

Today, he linked to a piece by superwarblogger Michael Yon, who makes the following eyebrow-raising assertion: “Iraq is looking better month by month. But at the current rate, surely we shall fail in Afghanistan.” Much of that dispatch is him quoting himself from 2006, which was already years late to the opium-funded mess of our limp approach to rebuilding the country, and, I would argue, needlessly negative. While I share a certain degree of pessimism, there remains—according to the latest Asia Foundation survey—a great deal of internal optimism that the country will be righted. Of course, I can’t blame anyone for looking at the country and despairing, especially with the shoddy-at-best reporting that seems to emerge from the chaos (a major reason I get so frustrated when clearly wrong things are not just repeated but asserted with such zealotry).

Yon’s post, however, would have barely registered, aside from pleasant surprise at the brief glimpse of partial correctness about Afghanistan on Instapundit’s blog. Alas, Professor Reynolds had to pile the blame-mongering on Pakistan (which, again, is partially correct, though it misses the point), some useless Strategy Page garbage about opium, and then blamed it all on NATO.

I sent him an email (which I cleaned up for easier readability):

Glenn,

I noticed you posted about some frustrations on the mission in Afghanistan. Over at Registan.net, we’ve been covering the ways it has been faltering for years, as well as a series of policy prescriptions for how to right it. The most salient to the thrust of your post is this piece on what’s going on in Pakistan’s tribal areas, and urges caution about drawing too many conclusions too quickly.

But beyond flavor, I have to point out that with the possible exception of pointing fingers at Pervez Musharraf, your links to analysis are almost entirely flat out wrong. Strategy Page in particular seems to confuse cause and effect—poppies are a symptom of severe instability and a wrecked infrastructure, not a cause; similarly, for centuries Pashtun tribal politics (called “Pushtunwali”) have provided appropriate, non-violent means of conflict resolution and justice, and it is only in recent decades, as we deliberately imported Saudi-style Salafism into the tribal regions, that things got out of hand. In this analysis, corruption is likewise both a cause and symptom, though to conflate it with opium and the Taliban (or even to conflate the Taliban with Pashtunwali) is a mistake.

Similarly, the bit about NATO is at best sort of true: while it is true the European countries have been stingy in their commitments, so have we: to date, Afghanistan has received a total amount of aid from us equal to what we send to Iraq every few months. From the start, it was crippled, underinvested (the first year of occupation only had a few million dollars allocated toward development and reconstruction, and already troops were being siphoned off to invade Iraq), and ignored—by both the media and by the Bush administration. It’s a bit silly to complain that NATO doesn’t shell out when we can barely be bothered to.

Anyway, just thought you’d like a countervailing opinion.

Cheers,
Joshua Foust
http://www.registan.net

So far, no correction has appeared. I am not normally interested in carping about some blogger ignoring my emails, but tonight—many hours later, with many posts in the space in between—the Instapundit published a post cleverly titled “GETTING IT WRONG,” about a big newspaper’s apparent inability to correct the record when it misreports something (in this case, the ridiculous and over-hyped Scott Thomas Beauchamp affair).

And so, the circle is complete. Is such a thing—becoming what you most joyously oppose—inevitable?

Update: Instapundit updated his post, and seems pissed I noted he does the same thing the gawd-awful MSM does—that is, not respond instantaneously to criticism. Then again, they’re not the Instamedia, they’re the MainStream Media. He’s the only one who claims to be “Insta.”

The Instapundit also takes issue with me calling Michael Yon a “superwarblogger.” Well, if he has “spent a lot of time in Afghanistan, he’s got a lot of contacts there, and he’s got a good track record,” wouldn’t that make him… a superwarblogger? Anyway, I have no beef with him (my relatively minor quibble is nothing compared to, say, what I’ve noted of large outlets like UPI). So I really don’t know what the Instapundit is going on about. As usual.

Stumble it!