#brian gruber

[briangruber]

The Sad, Sad World of US Military Interventions

Expect Big, Ugly, Unanticipated Consequences to the Bombing of Iran

What I learned traveling around the world to the scenes of a half century of U.S. military interventions

[groobamusic-blog]

(Grooba)

[briangruber]

An "Afterparty" Review From Iraq

I was delighted to see one of my favorite interview subjects from Iraq, Professor Farsi Nadhmi, post favorable comments about "WAR: The Afterparty" on his Facebook page.  I've since been contacted and 'friended' by a number of his colleagues, sharing thoughts about the book.  I have attached the interview with Farsi as a PDF on the Patreon crowdfunding site. You can download it here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/5728981?alert=1

To get the book, go to:

http://www.amazon.com/WAR-Afterparty-Brian-Gruber/dp/1530435404/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1461357373&sr=1-1&keywords=war+the+afterparty

Facebook's translation feature is imperfect, and perhaps someone can provide a more complete rendition, but here are his comments:

"A new book about the sins of the administration of America across the continents, including in Iraq..!

(an interview with the author within the chapter on Iraq)

• Issued before the days of a book in the English language, Who can translate is entitled to: (a world tour in half a century of military interventions in the American).

• The book is an important document on the overall survey of political and social developments that have occurred in a number of countries, including Iraq, in the aftermath of war or the interventions of America.

• The Author is an American journalist left Brian Gruber, who conducted a global tour included a number of countries that have suffered from the military interventions of America, where many survey conducted interviews with political figures and civil intellectual in those countries who lived experiences of war in their countries. Countries:Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panama, Serbia, and Afghanistan, India, and China, and Iraq.

• I was among Iraqis who made their perceptions in this book about the role of the post-9 April 2003, and what role played by the occupation in being the authority of the current political Islam

This interview is published within the pages (355-363) from the book.

• The book is available in paper within the site Amazon.com to those wishing to acquire it. It can also be downloaded from the site itself after the inauguration programme of Kindle download and buy the book for a visa card.

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Patreon is a crowdfunded sight for artists seeking alternative ways to fund creative projects. By becoming a 'patron,' you assist in extending the Afterparty project, with the creation of new content and promotion throughout the year. I intend to drive across the United States (and back) during the general election campign to promote the learnings of the project. Your support of a buck or two (or more) for (at most) weekly paid posts helps make that happen. Visit https://www.patreon.com/briangruber for more information or to make a pledge.

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WAR: The Afterparty is a round-the-world tour through countries that have received American military forces in the pursuit of freedom, democracy, justice, and the free flow of commerce. In Southeast Asia, the Greater Middle East, the Balkans and Central America, author Brian Gruber records oral histories from political and religious leaders, writers, teachers, mothers and combatants who witnessed history from the other end of the gun barrel.

Do we accomplish in war what we say we will? After the party is over, what are war’s real effects?

This is the story of the Afterparty, in the words of those uniquely able to make an assessment.

[briangruber]

The Grove's David Sibbet on Visioning and Visual Thinking

In my years of executive and startup leadership and consulting, I have utilized and been exposed to a range of strategic planning and visioning methods. I have spent a lot of time with the tools and process of The Grove Consultants International, including two workshops on site at their idyllic Presidio headquarters. The second of my workshops was with the organizations’s founder and president, David Sibbet, a thoughtful and accomplished human being who has carved out new ground over the decades in the area of strategy and meeting facilitation.

help with writing essays

I caught up with David after his all day “Visual Leaders” event and he was kind enough to spend some time together late on a Friday afternoon.  We talked about his vision for The Grove, the story of the founding and growth of his group and his unique insights into the concept of visioning.

David’s original idea for The Grove was to have a place to explore the practice of graphic recordings for meetings. He had done leadership development work for several years and felt that there was a lack of attention to the long cycle of change. The Grove would be like a learning-by-doing business school… and he could be one of the main students. There was not a well-developed plan about how to do it, just that people were responding to a visual way of working. About three years in, they started running workshops in 1980 to introduce people to the idea.

David Sibbet, The Grove

David had an epiphany that the real clients in those early days were management consultants doing strategy work that needed to differentiate. Sibbet then spent eight years learning the strategy business. The vision of marrying the consultants with a product company and sharing the methodology with the world then developed. The Grove considers itself a visual meetings company. In the late eighties, the vision for the Grove emerged, as a group that would transform the art of collaboration worldwide. That was “our North Star.”

In the nineties, Silicon Valley tech companies were growing rapidly, and there was a lot of emphasis on inventing new things. Sibbet observed that traditional strategic planning is biased toward an analytical and historical approach, which is not good for entering new markets, when you need to balance that with foresight around a desired future. That’s the vision part. Taking the best tools of strategy work and marrying them with the best tools of visioning, which is foresight oriented, and seeing how you can apply those insights in action.

Eventually, a visioning tool for personal development was built as well as people who worked with templates for strategic visioning thought that this would be a great way to think through one’s own life. Here’s David telling his story:

The Grove's David Sibbet on Visioning and Visual Thinking was originally published on War: The Afterparty

[briangruber]

Goodbye Persian Gulf, Hello Kabul

Sunday afternoon, November 30, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates

I’m sitting in the cafe of the Islamic Museum of Sharjah writing and preparing for my trip to Kabul. I am excited and nervous. There is not much left to prepare. That’s the advantage of a backpack. Everything fits inside and, worst case, you smash it all in and worry about the niceties on the other side.

Till today, I had no lodging locked down for Kabul. I went from carefree and curious to worried. No one returned email. No one. I got through to four places, finally. One told me to call his “fixer” to set up my booking. I did, and the fixer didn’t speak English. Another said, sorry, they shut the place down. A third was an expensive hotel with security fit for a full frontal assault. I put in a tentative booking, thinking I can always stay there a day or two while I look for a guest house. I’m told it’s easier to do such things in person. A second full price hotel comes available, similar bunker security features (sniffer dogs!!).

Then, today, the dam breaks. I find a guest house recommended by Lonely Planet. The price is right. There appear to be no amenities. Bed. Bath. Door. Roof. Any questions? And after a failed effort to use couchsurfing.com in Central America, I score two Afghan hosts. Both are in their early twenties. The first, Sami, is an interpreter for the U.S. Army, and speaks fluent English. He wants to move to the U.S. (“How-stun”) and insists he will take care of me.  In fact, he will pick me up at the airport, take me to the guest house, and personally check it out. If I don’t like it, he will take me to other places. Then, when I’m ready, I can move into a private room at his place. Big relief. I even get a second response via Couchsurfing. Another young Afghan, he wants to learn about American business and entrepreneurship.

I talk to Pip, an Aussie writer introduced to me by X-Media Lab’s Megan Elliott, and she gives me an hour briefing on life in Kabul. Afterward, she apologizes for some of the stronger security warnings, and assures me I will be “AOK.” Then, she sends me the Twitter feeds of four journalists and locals that I should follow. She recommends precisely the guest house I found.

Kabul has a very small number of hotels. Everyone else stays at guest houses. The one I want most will not answer my calls. It is a favorite of journalists and, at one time, the preferred hotel of Osama bin Laden when he visited Kabul. I will not name locations while in country, if that’s OK with you.

Friends such as Harris Taback and Terry Hamlin send me news of insurgent incidents (I know! I’m keeping up!) and we have periodic discussions on the calculus of safety versus mission. I have a standard answer: number of kidnappings or killings of American noncombatants in Kabul not associated with a contractor or NGO (virtually none); the nature of targets such as embassies or police stations or upscale hotels or restaurants (I’ll stay away from those, mostly); people on the ground say, be careful, listen to warnings, but Kabul is relatively safe.

My daughter Andrea suggests I don’t go during our Thanksgiving call. She seems satisfied with my explanation of the safety issues.

So, why go to Kabul?

The project included Afghanistan from the beginning. The stories are not in Dubai. The original plan included Iraq—impossible to get a visa and every part of the country is now at risk. Iran offered a lot of visa roadblocks and there was not enough time to get one in the US, but I found a way in through the Kish Island resort. There would be restrictions against talking to locals casino and i would have to pay for a government minder. When I asked to visit four cities, i was told I would have to pay my “guide” $170 per day. I don’t think so.

Afghanistan is a vital story. We have been there for thirteen years, our longest war. One trillion dollars spent. And while December is supposed to mark our final withdrawal, we may maintain a presence for months or years. The 9/11 attacks were planned here. We promised peace and freedom and prosperity, and now, it’s take to do an accounting.

Monday, December 1

I board FlyDubai flight 303 at 9:35am. Heavy traffic got me to the counter at 8:33, two minutes before the cut-off. Why do I subject myself to these last minute sprints to the gate? A woman behind me in a black hajib with a loaded metal cart keeps pushing into my calves. Now she is moving her cart in front of me  and begins hovering over the counters. She chooses the one directly in front of me. As the FlyDubai attendant says goodbye to the previous customers, she makes her move, so I step in front of her and present my passport, announcing, “Kabul!”

I take my window seat. The man in the aisle seat is reading Foreign Affairs. There’s a cover story entitled, “What Have We Learned? Lessons from Afghanistan & Iraq.” I’m reading “The Case for Withdrawal from Afghanistan,” a terrific compilation of essays by Nic Turse.

Maybe I’ll figure it all out before the plane touches down.

Now the fellow wants to know about my MacBook Air. He gave his 13” to his 14-year old daughter (he laughs, “she’s causing a lot of trouble”) and is thinking about another.

Jasneet is an engineering officer for the UN. After a few years in Afghanistan, he went back home to Delhi for a 9-5 job. His wife noticed how edgy and bored he was getting, so when an offer came in, they agreed, time to return. I ask him if the magazine offered any new conclusions.

“Most of it is familiar to anyone with an interest in geopolitics. The US should not have gone into Iraq, and lose its focus on Afghanistan. There was no strategy for what to do in Iraq after the invasion. Bush only went in because he wanted to finish what his father started.”

After Kabul, Jasneet is heading to South Sudan.

“That’s an actual war zone. Kabul is pretty safe.”

I rattled off my list of places and situations to avoid and used the term ‘street smart.’

“That’s the key. Get a good driver who knows English.”

Did the US and NATO accomplish anything in 13 years in Afghanistan?

I think the younger generation doesn’t want the Taliban anymore. They’re fine with religion, prayers five times a day, but they want something more for their country than what the Taliban are offering. They don’t want to live in the 17th century, or the 9th century.”

That’s an expensive outcome for a trillion dollars spent.

“Afghans welcomed the foreign presence for the first few years, but then became disenchanted. They saw all this money coming in, and very little of it was getting to them. You know, it looks like a lot of money, but only twenty percent of it is spent locally. You hire an agency to do the work and they take fifty percent for overhead, then each layer of contractors want their 10-15 percent cut, and pretty soon you are down to a much smaller amount.”

I thought of the security costs, and the costs of procuring from out of the country. That’s assuming the warlords or militias or local leaders are not taking a cut. And I heard the Taliban get paid off to ensure the roads are safe for transport.

I look out the window. Snow covered mountains through the clouds. An announcement in an unfamiliar language over the loudspeaker.  A city in the distance.

Time to shut off all digital devices.  We’re landing.

Actually, we’re not. The plane swoops up, in a steep climb.

“We just went from 5,000 feet to 11,000,” says my seat mate. I look at the video screen in front of me. It’s at 12,000. Then, we’re at 13,300 and I’m imagining the causes.  Jasneet comforts me.

“I once flew into Kabul and they had to divert to Peshawar because two rockets landed near the airport. I hope they don’t take us to Peshawar.”

Jasneet is Indian. Peshawar is in Pakistan. I get the impression Indians are not warmly welcomed in Peshawar.

The mountains are beautiful. My mind is racing. We seem to be circling back.

Ten minutes later, we land. Jasneet flashes me an ironic smile.

“Welcome to Kabul.”

[briangruber]

Lunch With Naim: "There’s No Future Here"

I walk past Shar-e-Naw Park, enjoying curious sights. A vendor selling various fowl, exhausted ducks in the bottom cage, scrawny chickens in the middle and two pissed-off hawks on top.

I am a target for beggars. My style was at first apologetic, patient, empathetic, but today I largely ignore them. A brief gesture, a wave of the hand, a “No”.  On the way to the juice bar, I draw a crowd. A boy selling blessings for a dollar, via smoke from an incense burner,. A woman in a tattered blue burka, another in a silky black one. A boy selling gum. And a fifth holding a large stack of paperback books, selling me one title at a time. Persian phrases? “I have no interest in learning Persian phrases.” The colorful history of Afghanistan? “I have a stack of books on the subject, no, thank you.”

I have a nickname. I”ve been in the Shar-e-Naw area long enough for street vendors to wave hello on my daily walks. Shopkeepers ask where I”ve been, and a posse of little kids swarm me to practice English. I walk by the corner juice bar (a big thing here), and the juice guy yells out, “MR. HOLLYWOOD.” I think I”m incognito with my Arab kaffiya, Afghan pakol hat and sunglasses, but I”m pretty obviously a gringo. I surmise that it’s safest to stay in an Afghan neighborhood. I see few westerners during my strolls. The juice guy’s name is “Pure”. I say, pure heart, pure mind, and he likes that. His friends surround me on the corner. They are all wise asses and their grasp of English is poor but there is always someone for real-time translation, with a lot of gestures. And laughing. At me, probably. The old guy in the group says he is from Panjshir and is wearing a cocked pakol, Massoud-style. They offer to drive me to the Panjshir Valley. I am determined to stay in Kabul but if I did a day trip, it would be there. I want to see Massoud’s tomb.

The juice guy prepares my daily mix—carrot, pomegranate, apple. I tell him I’ll be back for it in five minutes while I drop off my cleaning. The laundry shopkeeper, who sports an elegant head wrap, is not there. But his kid is, a pre-teen boy who has a handle on some English. It’s my third visit, so we greet other with smiles. I am, once again, a novelty.

He catalogues my delivery, doing his best with English, while writing in Dari in his receipt book. A T-shirt. Two shirts. One pair of pants. A sweater. It’s 1pm, so he tries to tell me, not today, not today. Tomorrow, I say. Five o’clock. His father shooed me away yesterday when I came at 4:20.

There are a variety of food barkers on the park pavement, making soups and kebabs. One of them shouts at me in broken English.  He points at the slowly roasting kebabs. He names an Afghan dish that I don’t recognize. He is persuasive. “I’ll have one.” His friend asks “1K, 2K how much?” “1K,” I answer as he ushers me inside. I’m now careful with food ordering as Afghans bring heaping piles of food when I am not specific. An over-the-top feast still comes in at under ten dollars; a street side meal at a buck.

The restaurant is part butcher shop, part temple, part hangout for young men chatting on their ubiquitous mobiles. There are Islamic decorations and quotes on the lime green walls. I start taking off my shoes to sit on one of the platforms, when an old fellow beckons. He is in his seventies, his friend the same. They are sitting on light blue plastic chairs at a folding table with a dark red, floral table cover.  “Sit,” he says, and offers me barbecued chicken and naan. Every meal here is served with a foot-long oval or circle of naan. Kabul is pre- gluten-free.

I ask his name as his friend tosses a piece of chicken on my plate. “Naim. I’m Canadian.”

Naim left Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation, first to India, then Canada. After ten years in Toronto, he was asked to leave, presumably a visa problem.

“I’ve been here a year.” He reminds me a little of my father, not in appearance but in mannerisms. The philosophical shrugs, the grudging acceptance of life’s weird turns. “I left during the Soviets. Left my house, everything. Now I come back to Shar-e-Naw and I can’t get my nbso online casino house back.”

“Is there a legal process for reclaiming it?” I ask, calculating his chances of navigating the system. “I’m sure the current occupants are not eager to leave.”  This was a serious problem in Iraq when Kurds returned to reclaim their homes, taken from them by Saddam during his Arabization drive.

He takes a pull on his bright red can of Coke and struggles to come up with the right language. “I went to the judge. I paid a lot of money.” His face is deeply lined. He passes judgment on modern Kabul. “I don’t know. There’s no future here.”

He lightens up when I tell him where I’m from. He is a big fan of San Francisco, and rattles off cities he visited while living in Toronto. “Chicago, New York, California. My brother lives in San Diego.”

I asked why he doesn’t go live with him. “You could even go through Mexico. I hear it’s easy,” I joke. “You even look a little Mexican.” Naim laughs and puts out a stream of Dari and English that I can’t quite get.

The fellows on the far platform have started afternoon prayers. They are bowing and rising on the mat just a few yards away. I am fascinated by my daily encounters with public prayer. Shopping at the City Center mall?  Oops, better wait, because the aisle is blocked by 20 men in business attire observing the call to prayer. Muezzin calling from small, local mosques and grand temples five times a day. I like it. It imbues the streets with ancient verse, a constant reminder to stop, give thanks, reflect, to approach the divine. In one of my mosque visits, I was told that the marked rows of faithful are intentionally close. Rich, poor, everyone equal before God. This was another reason given for separating men and women. “Wouldn’t it be distracting?” And, yes, when I am in the back of a yoga class full of lithe female bodies, I’ve been distracted. No mention, though of five thousand years of patriarchy, or the treatment of women as property in certain cultures. Though in every encounter I’ve had in the Muslim world, there is fierce insistence of the equality of women.

I point to an imposing looking photo of a military man on the wall. “Who is that?” I ask, accustomed to seeing Massoud, murdered by al-Qaeda two days before two planes hit the World Trade Center towers.

“I don’t know,” he says.

“And don’t care?” I ask. He nods. He has seen too many mujahedin commander photos on too many walls. He asks the waiter. The picture is the father of the restauranteur.

A heavyset fellow sits cross-legged on a large chair in the shop window. He wears a pakol, my adopted headgear. He speaks to me in English from time to time. His colleague smiles sheepishly at me. Speaking of sheep, there are animal corpses hanging from vicious-looking hooks, ten feet away. There are alternatively 1, 2, 3 guys talking and not doing much work as far as I can see. Maybe it’s an HR meeting! There are big hunks of meat and bones in pots. And huge knives.

There are no women anywhere to be seen. None eating, none serving, none bullshitting out front. A Dari music video channel plays melodic music.

I offer Naim and his pal some of my lamb chops and salad. They decline, and get up to leave.There are so many great pictures that I pass up. I’m told some Afghans object to picture-taking from strangers. I thought of buying a Narrative Clip. It’s a square tile that you attach to your clothes, taking pictures every minute, memorializing your day.  It was suggested to me that a white man claiming to be an “independent” writer taking unwelcome pictures of Kabulis might not be a good idea. I shoot some photos, but discretely. I ask the stout fellow with the long knives if I can take a photo or two. He’s on the phone but grunts something that I interpret as yes.

I was going to look for a cafe with wifi to spend the afternoon writing. One of the waiters is looking over my shoulder, fascinated by my MacBook Air. I think I’ll settle in here a while.

[briangruber]

I Asked New York Times CEO Mark Thompson About the Future for Young Journalists

I asked New York Times Company President and CEO Mark Thompson whether this is a good or a bad time to be entering journalism. The exchange took place at the recent Abu Dhabi Media Summit. The audio recording of the Q/A is below and here is the transcript of his response.

My daughter just graduated with an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College, right up the street from you. Is the future bright for young journalists or has the ecosystem for young journalists collapsed?

It’s a really interesting question. For me, it’s never been easier in a way to become a journalist, and indeed to focus your journalism in ways that potentially millions of people can see it.  You see on platforms like YouTube incredible pieces of fresh, original journalism, where you can get to millions of people without having to go through the sort of gatekeeper of a broadcast network or a traditional newspaper.

But careers are harder. I do think that being a journalist is becoming somewhat more like becoming a novelist or becoming a singer or becoming an actor. You can still have a wonderful career. But the uncertainties and the economics look very different from when journalism always felt like an elite industrial job, where you have these very, very profitable platforms, these newspapers, and journalists could unionize hard drive repairIn some cases, best-data-recovery.com recovery from hard disk is only the first step, after which you must perform a hard drive repair. and they would get a share of the benefits. I think that’s changing somewhat.

Though I would certainly hope that, where we can, we are keeping some institutions where the great strength and depth of journalism, a kind of collegiate sense of values and professional discipline is really important. There is a danger that you will end up in the US with a rather brilliant academic structure training journalism with exactly that kind of collegiate quality and heritage, and then the graduates will go out in this kind of complete mud storm where it is very hard for them to get further professional support. One of the things that I am very proud of is that the New York Times is still recruiting great young journalists and, although not with the certainty of twenty years ago, we are giving them great careers. And we have in our newsroom great journalists in in their twenties and great journalists in their seventies.

https://soundcloud.com/brian-gruber-2/nyt-question

[briangruber]

"War: The Afterparty" Book Project Now On Patreon Crowdfunding Platform

“War: The Afterparty” is now on Patreon. From the Patreon.com site, “Founded in May 2013 and based in San Francisco, California, Patreon was created to enable fans to support and engage with the artists and creators they love. Empowering a new generation of creators, Patreon is bringing patronage back to the 21st century.” The video below tells the story. The Afterparty round the world tour of the scenes of U.S. military and covert interventions was funded by a Kickstarter campaign. We raised over $10,000 via 62 backers. It was the most popular print journalism project during its campaign, the second most popular journalism project and the second most popular U.S. journalism project. Patreon will allow us to invest in editorial, production and design, as well as promotion when the book comes out later this year. You can check out the Afterparty Patreon page, and Patreon in general, at www.patreon.com/briangruber