In the morning, the call to prayer rises from mosque to citadel, the sun lights the haze into a furnace, glowing and aglow, casting long golden shadows into dusty streets, where swallows swoop on blinking gendarmes, while above them young girls water roof top sheep and pigeon boys climb their hutches to wave great checkered flags at distant points in the sky.

Mon 17 Jul 2006 : Pit and pendulum

Intelligence and sadness may sometimes be correlated, but it seems far more in the application than in the possession for while the mind is a rope to pull one out of the pit and those in it sometimes show it to desperate degree once free and on the surface the same rope can also scale heights of love and accomplishment invisible from the narrow confines below.

Mon 17 Jul 2006 : Female mathematics

Mathematics is a systemization of communicable human thought created by brain architectures that have male-type spacial abilities and extremised by the extremes within that group. Extreme female brain architectures would create a different sort of mathematics. It won’t be created by the females currently in mathematics because they need a male type brain to thrive in the existing mathematical world. Perhaps a good cognitive neuroscientist will do it for them.

A corollary conclusion is that the current US goals in Afghanistan cannot now be achieved. This is a direct consequence of the Wikileaks. I hasten to add that I have always had grave reservations about those goals, largely because I was pretty sure that something like Wikileaks would happen: the names of collaborators is such an enormously attractive target that it would attract a lot of effort, not only by the Taliban and al Qaeda, but also by the intelligence services of countries who do not want the US to succeed in the Great Game in Afghanistan, and also by free lance secret sellers. The Taliban and al Qaeda would have paid enormous sums for the information now available on Wikileaks; only now they don’t have to, and they can apply those resources to other objectives including making hideous examples of the collaborators and their families. It may take weeks, it may take longer, but the atrocity stories are already in the making.

There are several conclusions.

First (and of lesser importance), this was an act of treason. The US cannot of course try the Australian editor of Wikileaks for treason, but I do wonder if Australia doesn’t have a case. The Aussies have lost troops in Afghanistan and if they stay around they will lose more. In the US treason consists of levying war against the United States or giving aid and comfort to its enemies. I put it to you that when the Legions are committed and the costs are billions, this is war; and little that anyone could do would give more aid and comfort to our enemies than giving out the names of our friends, converts, and informants in Afghanistan. Of course, as a matter of honor we are obliged to offer aid and sanctuary to our friends and allies and their families .

Second and more importantly, the war is now unwinnable under our present definition of win. Therefore, we need a new set of goals and a strategy for Afghanistan, and we need to start adopting it now. Whether or not establishment of a liberal democracy centered in Kabul was ever possible, it is not possible now. The Wikileaks have made it clear that Afghans who cooperate with the US must do so openly and be prepared for the consequences: you will not do so covertly. We also know from Wikileaks — of course we knew it all the time — that the presence of armed US soldiers in Afghanistan are great causes for resentment. We need to get them out of there. Up to now we have been able to generate some cooperation by means of raining benefits on those who cooperate. After the coming atrocities that’s going to be a lot tougher.