I learned from an Afghan friend that one of my most memorable Kabul interviews, Dr. Ayaz Niazi, was killed by ISIS terrorists at his Wazir Abul Khan mosque, the city’s largest. At the end of our interview, concerned that an intimate photo with a Jewish American writer could be dangerous, we posed for a photo after he received my promise that I would not publish it. With his violent, tragic death, I share it now, along with our interview published in WAR: The Afterparty. He showed me extraordinary hospitality and warmth, his staff hosting and caring for me for four hours, then a one hour interview, then a second after he leads the call to prayer. Rest In Peace, Dr. Niazi. 

Excerpt from Chapter Six of WAR: The Afterparty, “Without Peace, We Have Nothing”

I want to speak to a local cleric about the Quran. Fawad’s close friend in school is a mullah’s son and, after several requests, he arranges a meeting. Over lunch, both Farshid and Javid dismiss meeting with a local mullah (a Muslim religious leader, scholar or teacher) as a waste of time. Instead, they insist, I should get a meeting with Dr. Ayaz Niazi, the country’s leading scholar on Islam, educated at a prestigious Cairo University. I call Fawad later to ask if he knows anyone who could get me to see Niazi. He says that’s the guy we’re going to see.

Niazi greets me at the entrance to the Wazir Abul Khan prayer hall with a small entourage, thanking me for my visit. He is in full regalia, and exudes warmth and charm. In the course of six hours, I meet a steady stream of mosque clergy and staff. One, in white dishdasha and headdress, tells me that there is greatness in my face and that I must come to Islam. I tell him flattery will get him everywhere.

Mohammed, the imam’s media producer, shows me his television production gear and downloads the Quran Explorer app to my phone. I am the first American he has met. I am treated to lunch and tea and a visit to the mosque gift shop, where I am presented with black prayer beads. The welcome is warm and expansive.

After the imam leads Friday prayers and counsels families, a weekly tradition, he joins me along with his son, Fawad, Mohammed and several staff. Maybe it’s a sort of learning moment for them as well, an American Jew in Kabul.

The imam admires my hat. “This is a Chitrali cap. You went to Chitral?” I start by asking what for him is the most important teaching of Islam and how Islam brings beauty to his life.

Islam consists of four main parts, or columns. First, faith and belief. Worship and prayers. Moral attitude. And social life, how to build relations with other people. So, it’s not just belief.

Islam has a message for each of these four parts. How we build a connection with Allah, with God. But our sense of worshiping means keeping Him always in mind, having a deep relation with Him.

I didn’t follow Islam like a blind man without any research. I have researched other religions, I have compared mine with others and then I came to the conclusion that Islam is the best religion that we can apply in every part of our life. Economic, political, family, social life, psychological life. When I accepted Islam, I felt like I don’t have to worry about anything in life, no stress, no worries. Islam brought calm and happiness to my life. Being kind to any creature in the universe, animal or human.

If Islam is the one true faith, how do you respect other spiritual paths if you believe that, in effect, they are inferior? The imam directs his media producer to start recording video and asks if that’s OK with me.

Humankind from the creation of the universe has passed through many phases. At the beginning, life was simple. Human life was all about feeding ourselves and staying alive. It’s like when someone gets a simple sickness, we need simple medicine. Allah’s books, scriptures and messengers are like doctors and medicines for humanity. In a specific period in history, there was a specific illness, so that prophet was sent to help the people to solve that problem. It’s like when you go to a doctor, he gives you a prescription with an expiration date.

And when you go back to the doctor, you get the new prescription, and the old ones are no longer usable to you.

Humankind’s problems are like diseases that need deep resolutions and solutions. When someone gets a really serious disease and he goes to a doctor, the doctor doesn’t write all the prescriptions at one time. He instructs the patient to use this medicine for 10 days and then come back. After that, he writes another prescription and he says you can’t use the first medicine anymore.

After this short period, he writes the permanent prescription that you should use forever. And the last prescription must be complete. And other religions and Islam are like this, the prescriptions that Allah gave to us. And then when the last religion came, the other religions are expired. And this is the new complete prescription.

Humankind’s problems are getting more serious day by day. If we look at the Christian’s bible, you cannot find resolution on the use of drugs. Or Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism. Islam has a resolution for preventing use of drugs and solving this problem in human society. In holy Quran, in the speech of prophet Mohammed, in Sharia. So we need a religion, a complete religion for our daily life. In the holy Quran, there are verses about science and technology. Galileo spoke about his theory of the motion of the earth.

“The Church condemned him,” I interject.

But in the holy Quran, there are verses that indirectly address the motion of Earth. In Europe, in the French Revolution, people were forced to separate law from religion. They left religion just in the framework of a church, nowhere else.

The Enlightenment. At that time there were hundreds of years of religious wars, Catholics and Protestants killing each other. One of the reasons for the Enlightenment was to stop those wars and allow freedom of religion. Do you see any benefit in that or is that an apostasy?

In the noble holy Quran, Allah said there is no pressure to force someone into Islam. (Niazi starts to speak in English and his son interrupts him. I congratulate him on his English and tell him he’s doing fine). It is totally wrong that people in the West believe that Muslims only want Islam on Earth. That is a totally wrong idea.

Islam has two kinds of citizenship. One is for Muslims who live in an Islamic state, and the other is non-Muslims who live in Islamic states and those who live outside Islamic countries. The policy of Islam and its citizens is equal about their rights and laws, for Muslims and non-Muslims. An example of this equality is if a Muslim kills a non-Muslim, he will be punished according to the laws of Islam, and he must be killed. Muslims and non-Muslims must be treated with respect.

There are radical Islamist groups in the world now, the Taliban, the Islamic State, Boko Haram, al-Qaeda that seem to justify violence against non-believers or Muslims who don’t measure up to their standards. Why does this kind of radical, more violent understanding of Islam seem to be spreading?

You started our conversation by asking me about Islam. Islam totally differs from what these Muslims are doing today. Those Taliban, radical groups, they have their personal ideas. You should ask them why are they doing such things. Is what they are doing in the holy Quran, did Allah say so, to kill people, to murder non-Muslims? You should ask them. It’s all a reaction against global policies. For example, I ask you, do Palestinians have the right to live in their territories?

I answer, “yes” and say, there is a similar issue with Jewish fundamentalism. Some Jews believe that God gave this land to them. So they owe Palestinians nothing. This seems a big problem in the world, where people are saying, “I have the truth and you don’t, so I have a divine right to oppress you.”

The world accepts that Palestinians should live with the Jews, they should make a Palestinian state. Germany agrees with them, France, England, Russia, but the United States doesn’t accept them. The U.S. accepts and supports Zionist policy. Why are they doing so? If they are doing so, Muslims must react.

When the U.S. attacked Iraq, what was the reason that they destroyed the Iraqi government? And now, they are seeing the reaction — ISIS — to what they did. There is no problem in the world between people and religions. The problem is the wrong ideas and the wrong policies against Muslims, against humanity.

What change would you like to see in U.S. foreign policy, the way the U.S. approaches the world?

The Afghan nation is thankful for the help and support the United States gave in its struggle against the Soviet Union. But after the battle was finished, the U.S. policy toward Afghanistan changed. For example, Osama bin Laden was traveling to Pakistan and Islamic groups were active. America was supporting them. But after the U.S. achieved its goals, why did U.S. policy change and become against Muslims around the world?

You said two things, One, you said the U.S. should have continued to help Afghanistan. Two, I’m curious as to why you believe the U.S. was against Muslims. Is that because of the Iraq war? I don’t think American policy changed toward Muslims. The Persian Gulf is a major source of oil, and when Iraq invaded Kuwait and threatened Saudi Arabia, many Muslim countries opposed Iraq. The second Iraq war is widely viewed as a mistake.

That was all about the battlefield, the field of war. But in the political field, with American policy in Algeria, there was a democratically elected government. Islamists were elected to run the government. Why were America and European countries opposed? The same in Egypt, when Mubarak fell, there was a peaceful and democratic election, why did the U.S. support Sisi. Israel helped the government and the Muslims were ruined there. Why did America do that?

Well, you are talking about Algeria and Egypt. In Egypt, I agree that it is problematic to promote democracy and then bring down the democratically elected government. But while the U.S. provides military aid, it did not invade Egypt. The Egyptian people felt there was chaos and Morsi was bringing the country to a bad position. They protested in the streets and wanted him out and there was an undemocratic solution, and, yes, the U.S. did not prevent it, but this was Egyptians coming to a political resolution in their country.

The muezzin begins the call to prayer. Niazi apologizes that he must go and asks me if I need more time. I tell him I have a few more questions.

After leading late afternoon prayers, the imam comes back in the meeting room. I cut to the chase, “Two final questions.”

He interrupts. He has more to say about American politics.

In President Obama’s first presidential speech in Cairo, he pointed out some important things and he said that U.S. policy was wrong toward Islamic countries and promised changes. I still remember that speech. I had so much hope when I heard that President Obama won the election and he got to the White House, but unfortunately, he failed. He didn’t fulfill his promises. I wish and I hope that the U.S. will stop solving problems from a military basis. This is not the solution. I wish that America comes to discuss with us in a diplomatic way, that it invites these radical groups to sit together to solve it in a political way, not by assassinating or creating bloodshed. Islamic countries are not only countries, they are a union of all Muslims, and the world and America must change its policy toward Islamic countries because what they are doing is totally wrong. Why did Obama not fulfill his promises?

First, I am not an apologist for Obama nor for the American government. Obama withdrew troops from Iraq, as promised. He has now withdrawn almost all troops from Afghanistan. He chose not to invade Syria. He helped rebels in Libya but did not occupy or invade the country. He resisted political pressure to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities. So there has been some reconsideration of attitudes toward Muslim countries.

We must have a new look and resolution to today’s problems. That was President Bush’s fault, that he made a grave mistake in Iraq. We and Obama must have a new look and we have to have a new approach for these problems. It is not all about fighting battles.

A few final questions. Once al-Qaeda was pushed out and the Taliban removed from power, should the U.S. have left Afghanistan? Were there positive effects from 13 years of the U.S. presence here? And should the U.S. now leave Afghanistan completely?

As far as al-Qaeda, America will never be able to defeat al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda is an international reaction to policies, and the only way to defeat or destroy al Qaeda is not the way of bullets. It depends on the Afghan people. Now, I ask you, America came here with the aim of destroying terrorism and the Taliban, and in one day they bombed and pushed out the Taliban. They came for security. Can you say that America was successful in its aim?

No.

Then what is the benefit of America to stay here when the U.S. cannot defeat terrorism? (He laughs, warmly.) So why stay? That will not solve problems. That will create more problems.

One final question, as you are a revered Islamic scholar in Afghanistan, what message do you want to give to the American people?

My message is, it’s not about Americans or Spanish or Afghans, we are a universal family, we are one, so as a brother, my message to the American people is to do not be the victim of wrong policies of the U.S. government, and the people of America should not be the victim of the wrong policies of Israel. For Israeli and Zionists, wrong ideas and policies, American youth mustn’t be killed in war in Afghanistan. All these things go back to Israel and Israeli policies. Not Iraq or Afghanistan or Syria.

We take a picture together, which he asks me not to publish, and we walk together to the door. He embraces me and says, “You must become a Muslim, and move to Afghanistan.” I answer, “Then you have to find me a nice Afghan girl to marry.” He laughs and takes his leave. His son, who translated our discussion, invites me to stay and hang out at the mosque for the evening, but I have another interview at the City Center mall. He tells me that I am welcome back, any time.

“Six Days” book review on the UK’s number three-rated jazz blog, bebop spoken here:

This is one of those books that you can’t put down although, initially I thought I’d struggle to get beyond the first page, not being a big fan of fusion and it’s practitioners.

That was then! Now, after devouring every word like someone coming off a hunger strike, I find myself listening to Bitches Brew and, if I had any any Mahavishnu albums I’d be listening to them too! Whilst I’d hardly describe myself as a convert, such is the impact of the writing, both by Gruber and Cobham, that you are drawn into the music without even hearing it!

Set over six nights at Ronnie Scott’s it describes not only Cobham’s playing behind Guy Barker’s hand picked British big band (Paul Booth is in the line-up) but also includes the before and after (fly on the wall) conversations with a lot of memories along the way.

Intriguing is the meticulous attention Cobham pays to his kit. Three missing floor tom-tom legs almost became a world (jazz) crisis. Every drummer in the universe should study Cobham’s tuning of his drums. He pitches them as carefully as any horn or string player so that he is in accord with what is going on around him.

But, apart from the description of the gig which sold-out 6 nights running, there are also his memories of the many previous highlights in his illustrious career. There was his time in the army where, by a fortuitous posting, he was able to spend time at home and do some moonlighting jazz club gigs in the evening. His big time breakthrough with Horace Silver which brought him fame if not fortune leading to the ensuing super stardom with Miles, the Breckers, the Mahavishnu Orchestra and his present status where he has annually pulled full houses at Ronnie’s for 11 consecutive years.

Needless to say, author Gruber extracts opinions from him on the various musicians he has worked with. He speaks frankly and honestly. His opinions, although never malicious, come across as genuine and observant.

To sum up, it’s one helluva book. I didn’t need to be at Ronnie’s for those 6 nights – I’ve just been there! Every unheard note and drum beat is ingrained inside me.

Enjoy the website, read the book reviews, check out my bio, read about visioning and writing coaching. I will have this glorious new book to the editor by May and then, back on track with the blog including dozens of interviews from activists around the world, Koh Phangan characters and witnesses to its magic history, and jazz legends.

We are all storytellers. Imagining the world, then sharing our tales through the written and spoken word is our genetic heritage. Come join Writers of Koh Phangan each Tuesday night at Orion’s waterfront Beach Shala for an evening of communing, writing, and sharing. Every level of writing experience welcome, including non-native English speakers. We learn, we swap ideas, and we have a ball writing and sharing on a theme, from a prompt. Bring something to write on, then shuffle in to the shala next to the restaurant, grab a mat and a bolster or two, and leave with a new story.

One of the first public pieces by the new Quincy Institute was just published in the New Republic and it is worth a read. Adam Wunische is a research fellow with the Institute and a PhD candidate at Boston College. He served two deployments to Afghanistan while serving in the U.S. Army. “The Real Costs of the War in Afghanistan” documents an issue which was a key focus of my book “WAR: The Afterparty.”

This young Afghan girl approached me on the street each day to sell me old Dari language children’s magazines. It was only on my final day in Kabul that she told me her name.

I spent a month in Kabul in December 2014, the month the U.S. withdrew all but a few thousand of its troops. Among the numerous interviews in the Afghanistan chapter is this one with a 25-year Middle East/ Afghanistan contractor which explores the question, how long does the U.S. stay to fulfill its moral and military obligations to Afghanistan?

From “WAR: The Afterparty” Chapter Six: “Without Peace, There is Nothing.”

Staying with Farshid begat my meeting with Mr. E, a long-time American contractor who prefers to be anonymous, which begat my meeting with Will Everett.

Will, a former NPR (U.S. national public radio) reporter, arrives at the Kabul Serena Hotel lobby, where he identifies me, a westerner pecking away on a MacBook Air. The other people in the lobby are either behind the reception counter or carrying automatic weapons. Will works for Roots for Peace, an NGO that clears land mines and provides farming resources such as seedlings, fertilizer, tools, and training to increase crop yields. “Mines to Vines.”

I’ve been here once before, during an ill-advised late night walk that ended up in a cul-de-sac surrounded by snarling dogs and barbed wire fences. As the sun was setting with the call to prayer beckoning from the Wazir Abdul Khan mosque, I walked past the Lycée Esteqlal and ducked into the Serena. I stayed for dinner even though the hotel was a Taliban target earlier in the year. My elderly waiter casually mentioned that he served two of the fellows involved. They were young and well-mannered. After excusing themselves for the rest room, they returned spraying automatic gunfire through the restaurant. The waiter, unharmed, was back at work the next day.

Ghafar Haidary, a former mujaheddin who fought the Soviets with sticks after their invasion of Herat, shows me the proper way to wear a traditional Afghan pakol after one of our encounters.

Mr. E arrives and the three of us dine at the Asian fusion restaurant Wild Rice, sharing a savory spread of Nasi Goreng, Teriyaki Chicken and Sweet and Sour Fish. Will suggests a possible trip to Mazar-i-Sharif. I mention my interest in the Panjshir Valley. He promises to keep me posted on his plans. And he mentions his neighborhood swimming pool, which sounds splendid. I need a place to work out. Near the City Center mall, there is a huge banner promoting a gym on the second floor. When I climbed the stairs to check it out, there was only rubble, and a fellow with a gun telling me to get lost.

Mr. E’s bottom-line assessment after 12 years in country about whether the trillion dollars spent and blood spilt was worth the effort is discouraging.

It absolutely wasn’t worth the effort. I hate to agree with Donald Rumsfeld, but coming in with a small footprint and leaving as quickly as possible would have been preferable. It would have left the Afghans to their own devices and let them figure out how to take care of themselves. The same situation that they have to face eventually anyway.

In the meantime, a corrupt apparatus was developed which happens all the time after our entries into these countries and it just severely dislocated many, many things in the country. Rather than being liberators we became occupiers.

What was the U.S. mission originally?

Revenge. So close to 9-11. And then we didn’t want to leave Afghanistan to its own devices, because that was too dangerous, as it might slip back to the same condition it was in before. So then we got into nation building, digging the hole deeper and deeper and deeper, and one thing led to another. It’s now time to get out.

To elicit further Mr. E. insights, I related how I was in Mohammed’s carpet shop the other day and there was an older gentleman present, well-dressed, excellent English, a successful merchant from a nearby province. His son is a college student in Texas, working on Rand Paul’s presidential campaign. He said two things to me. One, our problem was we put black people in the White House. Two, he said, “You American people, if you start something, you have to finish it.”

Still tweaked from his first comment, I pointed out that the U.S. has been in Afghanistan 13 years, three times longer than World War Two. My question to him was how much longer should the U.S. stay? His response was, at least another 10 years.

I countered by asking, “Where is it written that United States taxpayers need to underwrite 25 years of Afghans trying to figure out their future, assuming we are providing security you want and development that is meaningful?” Mr. E responds,

I think the media construct was an assumption that we shouldn’t have departed the first time. And that led to these unfortunate consequences and eventually to 9/11 and now we are here to do things in a proper way. And that was just a sort of common denominator media understanding of Afghanistan.

We don’t think in terms of how long that might take. We get involved, get excited as the military parade passes by with all the boys in their finery and nice uniforms. In the same way as with the aid juggernaut coming into town. Change is happening, hospitals, girls educated and aren’t we exceptional because we are helping these people?

A lot of good has been done in Afghanistan, but it’s a hole without a bottom. You could have put in five trillion dollars and you would still have desperately poor people.

But is that really central to the U.S. as it’s falling apart? Probably not.

Also, we traumatized a good portion of our youth in uniform. We train them to be killers and they see horrible things and they go back and they are members of our society.

We have remote control warfare and we develop a national case of bad karma. We are not aware of what we are doing to other people and what we are doing to ourselves. We celebrate soldiers as heroes when they are more than likely just a kid from a small town in Arkansas who didn’t have a job.

It’s part of the uncalculated consequences whenever we make these interventions. It’s multi-dimensional, the blowback that we generate. It’s happened before and before and before and we still act surprised.

In Chalmers Johnson’s book on blowback, he says, blowback is not just what comes back to you, it is when your country is doing things you are not aware of, so that when it does come back to you, you’re mystified by it.^[i]

That’s a good explanation. It’s awfully complex. The military mission was ill-conceived in the expansion of NATO outside of Kabul. It transformed us into occupiers, inevitably. So that the people resisting it became mujahedin, holy warriors. That didn’t happen until we expanded outside of Kabul. Many people warned about that, and it was still done. As a bit of insurgency ramped up outside, the idea was, we clamped down on difficulties in Kabul pretty well with NATO, why don’t we do it all over the country? And there was a lot of dissension saying this is going to have consequences. And then we had to justify that, or disguise the military presence, the nature of occupation, with economic assistance. So that ramped up the economic assistance.

^[i]Johnson, C. (2004). Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire (American Empire Project). New York: Holt Paperbacks.

You can order the book on Amazon in paperback or ebook.

And do check out the Quincy Institute. A new, rather extraordinary partnership of progressive billionaire George Soros and right-wing billionaire Charles Koch, led by one of America’s foremost foreign policy thinkers Andrew Bacevich. From their website:

The foreign policy of the United States has become detached from any defensible conception of U.S. interests and from a decent respect for the rights and dignity of humankind. Political leaders have increasingly deployed the military in a costly, counterproductive, and indiscriminate manner, normalizing war and treating armed dominance as an end in itself…

The Quincy Institute is an action-oriented think tank that will lay the foundation for a new foreign policy centered on diplomatic engagement and military restraint. The current moment presents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to bring together like-minded progressives and conservatives and set U.S. foreign policy on a sensible and humane footing. Our country’s current circumstances demand it.

In my coaching experience, while talking to aspiring writers who have a book in them, anxious to find a path forward, I often encounter a mysterious phenomenon. For a period, the idea percolated but there was not the sense of urgent drive that, suddenly, appeared, motiving the writer to act. That drive becomes too fierce to ignore and, though there is some sense of being overwhelmed, mystified at the process of starting the task, there is invariably joy and passion in the pursuit.

And then, there is a choice. To act, or to to wait for some time in the future, when execution of the task might be more convenient. In my experience, if one does not act when that passion is still fresh, it will wane. It might return, but likely will not. Why? I believe we signal something important to our psyche when we act. We tell it this is important, and so one’s inner resources, call them what you will, are activated, allowing a more forceful setting aside of distractions and doubts. We have the enthusiasm and intention to stay on the path. When we choose not to act, we send another message to ourselves, this is not important, and thus other priorities, various mundane activities get in the way. That’s why I like this quote so much.

Here’s another:

When the impetus to write a book or produce a completed creative work arises, act on it or that passion vanishes. It’s sapped of its power, and power is needed to produce something of enduring value. If you have never heard Oliver read, here she is with a favorite of mine, Coleman Barks, famous for his popular and delightful interpretations of the Persian poet Rumi.