Department of Analogies
Hamid Karzai, president of Afghanistan, is not particularly popular since his government is viewed as corrupt and incompetent. His big advantage, however, is that there’s no well-organized and reasonably unified opposition to him. It was thought, however, that Gul Agha Shirzai, governor of Nangarhar province, would probably be the strongest challenger. And Matthew Rosenberg reports that “on Friday [Shirzai] secured the support of Afghanistan’s vice president, Ahmad Zia Masood, said the governor’s long-time advisor and spokesman, Khalid Pashtoon.”
But then, as Spencer Ackerman observes, the story gets funny as Shirzai mysteriously chooses to drop out:
The governor didn’t explain his decision to drop out Saturday, even to his closest associates. He also said he was stepping down as governor, but the president refused to accept his resignation.
“Even his own brothers were cursing him last night,” Mr. Pashtoon said Sunday, saying he would no longer work with Mr. Shirzai. “This was the stupidest act I have ever seen. It’s like you were just throwing a chunk of barbecue from your mouth when you were very hungry.”
Mmm… barbecue:
I wonder how long Pashtoon is goigng to last as an adviser?
The Afghan food I’ve had is more grilling than barbecue, but I suppose it’s not worth quibbling with a spokesman capable of giving pungent quotes in multiple languages.
17 Responses to “Department of Analogies”
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May 3rd, 2009 at 6:00 pm
I don’t know afghan food that well, because I’m Pakistani, but generally food from mediterranean stretching into west asia doesn’t do barbeque persay as much as just grilling, and you add the curries once you get into Pakistan.
May 3rd, 2009 at 6:19 pm
Now the Nangahar vote is up for grabs.
Gimme my pundit license!
May 3rd, 2009 at 6:28 pm
Incompetence is bad, but I don’t see why corruption should hurt a government’s popularity. Perhaps the corruption is administered incompetently?
May 3rd, 2009 at 6:29 pm
There wouldn’t even be any bones left when I got down with that dinner.
Hell, they’d be lucky if they got their plate back.
Gaaaaahhhhhhhhh…..
May 3rd, 2009 at 6:37 pm
Barbecuing, as we’re using it here, is cooking via a slow smoking, correct? Grilling, otoh, is quicker, perhaps with more emphasis on rubs than sauce.
Maybe we need a Western-Eastern BBQ/grilling exchange program. I’d love to learn how to expand my grilling horizons into lamb. Then we can send a platoon of experts from Texas and Memphis into Kabul and Islamabad, accompanied by an airdrop of mesquite and hickory, to show them how we do it in the States.
May 3rd, 2009 at 6:54 pm
Matt, residents of the Southern United States (D.C. counts for this purpose) are not allowed to insist that the word “barbecue” should everywhere in the world mean slow cooking of large cuts of meat with low heat and lots of smoke. Drive ninety minutes to the north of your present location and it means any food cooked over fire.
Nor is this a question of “purists” with their ribs and pulled pork being correct, and to Hell with the rest of the world. The original “barbacoa” probably involved lamb wrapped in leaves and cooked over a pot of stock, like they do it in Mexico today.
By the way, Gold Star, Steven Raichlen has heard your request. You want a copy of “The Barbecue Bible,” which includes recipes he discovered on his travels around the world. Try the “onion water” lamb chops, and the spicy Afghan chicken with yogurt marinade he calls “Murgh.” I’m getting an Armenian-style vegetable salad from that cookbook off the grill right now…
May 3rd, 2009 at 7:38 pm
Pashtoon must have never been to Two Guys from Kabul.
May 3rd, 2009 at 7:56 pm
Matt, those are ribs. As any Virginian will tell you, real barbecue is shredded pork with some sauce on top.
May 3rd, 2009 at 8:08 pm
Drive ninety minutes to the north of your present location and it means any food cooked over fire.
Really? Even up here in yankee New Hampshire people seem to hew to a pretty careful distinction between barbecue and grilling. Grilling is something guys do when the weather turns nice. Barbecue is something we like, but we know we ain’t got much of.
By the way, my son is the founder and outgoing president of the spectacularly popular Grill Club at his high school.
May 3rd, 2009 at 8:52 pm
Here’s a food tip for Matt…
For good Afghan food, check out the gloriously-named Food Factory in College Park. It was my joint when I was a student…. assuming it’s still there. Very good stuff!
May 3rd, 2009 at 10:52 pm
Dan,
Yeah, try Pennsylvania for instance. My wife has a story about when she first went up to Penn for her Masters, and she was invited to a party where they were having “barbecue.” She was stunned that her classmates were going to such trouble, and offered to bring some beer. _They_ were similarly impressed that she would go to the trouble of driving out to a state liquor store…in the event, she learned that (a) you couldn’t buy a case of beer at the 7-11, and (b) hot dogs and burgers on a grill counted as “barbecue.”
May 3rd, 2009 at 10:57 pm
…anyway, I’m glad that Granite Staters make such fine distinctions, but it’s far from universal. And, even as a Southerner…or, perhaps, _especially_ as a Southerner, it really bugs me when my compatriots try to claim exclusive ownership over a word that isn’t even ours in the first place.
May 4th, 2009 at 3:36 am
Former First Lady Barbara Bush famously quiped – ‘If you sit
by the side of the river long enough you will eventually
see the bodies of all your enemies float by.’
The big question for Karzai is how long he sit by the river.
May 4th, 2009 at 8:54 am
I hope those are beef ribs being served in the picture, otherwise we may have an international incident on our hands.
May 4th, 2009 at 10:15 am
Now if Matt would put up a post quoting an Afghan leader making a beer analogy, we could get into a really *serious* discussion!
May 4th, 2009 at 10:32 am
And, of course, you will not find pork of any kind on the grill in Afghanistan: haram. They grill lamb very well. Chicken, too.
May 4th, 2009 at 11:34 am
Mmmmm…..Bamian