Simply a Nirvana Fallacy
Simply a Nirvana Fallacy:
Seeing Everything from the Prism of Islamic Extremism in Afghanistan
by Metin Turcan
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Abstract. There has emerged a vast literature at the strategic level on the COIN efforts of the CF in Afghanistan, which is generally considered as an integral part of the struggle against global extremism. Nonetheless, to see Afghanistan as a “front” in the struggle against global extremism severely distracts our focus and falsely lead us to cover all other related phenomena under the blanket of “Islamic extremism.’ The utmost aim of this article is to challenge traditional COIN wisdom available in the literature which takes “Islamic Extremism” as the single factor that explains everything in rural Afghanistan. This article suggests that the tribal and rural characteristics of Afghanistan precede the Islamic identity of Afghanistan, and therefore, the current debacle of international community in rural Afghanistan does not conform to established frames or assumptions in the literature.
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Metin Turcan holds an MA degree in Security Studies from Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA. He served in northern Iraq (1999, 2004), Kazakhstan (2003), Kyrgyzstan (2004) and Afghanistan (2005) in both fulfilled liaison and training missions. Currently, he is working as a security advisor in the Interior Ministry of Turkey and a Ph.D candidate studying Afghanistan and the changing nature of warfare in the 21st century.
All opinions expressed are those of the author alone and do not necessarily represent the views of any institution or organization the author has been associated with.
