The Rice Thresher, Vol. 97, No. 16, Ed. 1 Friday, January 22, 2010 Page: 6 of 16
sixteen pages : ill. ; page 19 x 15 in.View a full description of this newspaper.
Extracted Text
The following text was automatically extracted from the image on this page using optical character recognition software:
6 NEWS
the Rice Thresher
Former CIA agent Michael Bearden speaks to Rice students and community members about his experiences
while working in the clandestine services, as well as his assessment of the current situation in Afghanistan
Tuesday night at the Kelly International Conference Facility.
Friday, January 22,2010
Dine In | Take Out | Delivery | Catering
Join our big Italian family!
answer
All Rice students
and faculty
recievelO% off
for dine-in
and carry-out.
713.526.4499
2400 Times Blvd. Rice Village | Guglianis.com
a cia
FROM PAGE 1
as Friedman's editorials in The New
York Times, which also offered non-
military suggestions.
"You can do all you want with the
military, but unless you create educa-
tion and infrastructure ... nothing's
really going to happen," Shah said.
Throughout the lecture, Bearden
stressed the importance of finding
a solution that does not rely on
kinetic options, which he defined
as military- and weapons-centric
strategies. He revealed what he
deemed to be the "dirty secret" of
foreign politics.
"Almost everything we plan
for never happens and almost ev-
erything that happens was never
planned for," he said.
He added that he believes Gener-
al Stanley McChrystal, Commander
of the International Security Assis-
tance Force, could be the right per-
son to suture America's Afghanistan
wound, but only if McChrystal tries
something new.
Martel College sophomore Mari-
elle Schweickart said she thought
Bearden shared his extensive knowl-
edge about Afghanistan in an intel
ligent, engaging fashion and found
hope in Bearden's suggestion for a
new strategy.
"Clearly, we've used military
[strategies] for the past eight years,
and that is not working," Schweick-
art said.
This new strategy might include
extracting Afghanistan's abundant
natural resources, broadening its
agricultural environment beyond
fields of poppy and coaxing foreign
investment in industrial programs
that follow the National Security
Council's Strategy for Victory in
Iraq: clear, hold, build. Bearden
said another non-kinetic option
might be encouraging a different
approach to the education of young
Afghan men.
Schweickart saw this new para-
digm favorably, especially its con-
dition of encouraging more broad-
based education.
"[The people of Afghanistan]
need to go industrial and boost the
economy which, in worldly matters,
tends to solve problems: boost the
economy, which helps education,
which helps the people," Schweick-
art said. "It's like a waterfall."
Bearden said the youngest son in
an Afghan family is likely to attend
an Islamic religious school where he
will become a man very quickly, of-
ten by having a weapon thrust into
his hands.
"Afghan boys go from childhood
to adulthood; they don't go through
the iPod stage," he said.
Bearden also gave the audience
a quick recap of the attempted
military conquests of Afghanistan:
Alexander the Great's blunders in
330 BCE; the Moghuls' mistakes in
the early 16th century: the British
Empire's botched campaign from
1878-80: Afghanistan's rout of the
Soviet Union after a decade of oc-
cupation; and the coalition's inva-
sion of the country following the
attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Bearden
said one common theme runs
through this timeline.
"Everybody gets in easily — the
British, the Russians and later on
we would as well," he said. "Every-
body also uses the playbook of the
guy that went in before him ... but
the little secret is there's only one
playbook, and the Afghans wrote it,
so we always end up in there fight-
ing on their terms."
This concept of fighting on Af-
ghanistan's terms may hold another
piece of the solution, Bearden said.
"We have for the last several
years been training police, but I
think we always end up trying to
train men who look like Mississippi
cops, and that hasn't worked out,"
Bearden said, noting that the U.S.
should attempt to train police forc-
es to be more compatible with Af-
ghanistan's cultural norms instead
of America's standards.
Until the U.S. can postulate in
terms of the Afghan thought pro-
cess, similar to the attempts by
Afghanistan's Ministry of Defense
to build the Afghan National Army
from the bottom up, Bearden said
American efforts may be fruitless.
Before America attempted to de-
feat the Pashtun people of Afghani-
stan in October 2001, the CIA waged
its largest covert operation ever to
aid the mujahideen in their quest to
retake their country from the Soviet
Union in the late 1980s. Millions of
American dollars went into purchas-
ing weapons, training the muja-
hideen and ultimately building the
force that would defeat the Soviet
Union's 40th Army, Bearden said. He
said the introduction of the Stinger
missile in 1986 proved to be the sil
ver bullet that changed the game in
favor of the mujahideen.
Almost a quarter-century later,
the Obama administration is search-
ing for its own catalyst.
"This game is not going well, but
there is a potential game-changer,"
Bearden said. "If you give an Af-
ghan an option ... to do something
other than carry a Kalashnikov for
$io-a-day, [then] any job you could
create ... would probably be a $20-a-
day job. They would have a stake
in something and it might turn [the
war] around."
ATTENTION
STUDENTS
Look for the
Rice Gallery Trivia Card on
Thursday, January 28
Fill it out and bring it to the
gallery that night for the
chance to win a prize1
Visit Rice Gallery's Facebook
page for more information.
Rice Gallery
Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellows Program
Df. {Mania Mfr*
RICK MM IF ALUMNI WHO HAVK COMPLKTKD THK PH.D.
Jennifer (Alvarez) Dickson. '95. Ph.D. f rom University of New Mexico in English
Kadeshia Matthews, '46.Ph.D from John Hopkins in History
Vanessa Ezenwa. l>7. Ph.D. from Princeton t Diversity in f.cology & F.volutionary'
Fay Yarbrough, '97. Ph.D. from Emorv University in History
Armanda Lewis, '98. Ph.D. from Columbia University in Hispanic Studies
Michelle Nasser. '99. Ph.D. from Tulane University 111 Hispanic Studies
Evelyn Patterson. '02. Ph.D from I niversity of Pennsylvania in Demography
Reynaldo Romero 02. Ph.D. from Georgetown University 111 Spanish Linguistics. 2000
Lindsay Smith. '02. Received Ph.D. from Harvard I niversity in Anthropology . 2008"
Jessica Zaniga. '02. Ph.D. from ( omell t -niversity in Mathematics. 2008
I ri McMillan 03. Ph.D. from Yale University in African American Studies
Tonia Venters. 04. Ph.D. from University ot Chicago in Astrophysics
* first Rice MMUF to receive a Ph.D.
*+ Rice Associate MMUF
ARE YOU THINKING ABOUT
GRADUATE STUDY LEADING TO THE PH.D.?
The Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellows Program (MMUI P) at Kite University has three goals l-irst, it seeks to increase the number of
minority students, and others with a demonstrated commitment to eradicating racial disparities, who will pursue PhDs in core fields in the
arts and sciences In doing so, the program aims to reduce over time the serious under representation on the faculties of indiv iduals from
certain minority groups, as well as to address the attendant educational consequences of these disparities. Second, ii seeks to nurture these
students to be the researchers, teachers, and mentors of the highly diverse college student bodies of the future, third, it seeks to encourage
study abroad experiences as part of their research agenda the tit-Ids that the Andrew V\ Mellon foundation has targeted lor support are.
Anthropology, Art History, Classics, Computer Science, Demography, larth Sciences, Lcology, Fnglish, I thnomusicologv, foreign
I.anguages, History. Literature, Mathematics, Musicology. Philosophy. Physics. Political I henry. Religion and Sociology
Applicants should normally be completing their sophomore year as a student at Rice I niversity. Selection will be based on a number ot
attributes including but not limited to academic standing and potential, life experiences and interests, commitment to building bridges in
multicultural settings, and interest in pursuing graduate education. Students who participate in the program receive a yearly stipend ol
VU000 work closely with a (acuity mentor for two years, and are also eligible lor participation in summer fellowship programs at the end ol
their sophomore or junior years. Finalists will be interviewed Announcements will be made in March.
For more information and to download the application go to:
http://diversity.rice.edu/mellon_mays.aspx
Application deadline is February 26.2009
CONTACT:
Dr. Roland B. Smith, Jr. or Gloria liean
Office of the Associate Provost, Rice University. 713-348-5688
Upcoming Pages
Here’s what’s next.
Search Inside
This issue can be searched. Note: Results may vary based on the legibility of text within the document.
Tools / Downloads
Get a copy of this page or view the extracted text.
Citing and Sharing
Basic information for referencing this web page. We also provide extended guidance on usage rights, references, copying or embedding.
Reference the current page of this Newspaper.
Michel, Casey. The Rice Thresher, Vol. 97, No. 16, Ed. 1 Friday, January 22, 2010, newspaper, January 22, 2010; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth443188/m1/6/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.