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	Afghanistan"s uncertain future by Prue Lewarne ABC News, IWPR   Prue Lewarne: In the city of Kabul, high above the chaos, far from the noise of war, dusk is deceptively peaceful. But while the rhythms of the marketplace continue here unaltered, elsewhere there is change, massive change, for some, dangerous change, as the West negotiates its long goodbye and peace talks with the Taliban, sometimes on, sometimes off, climb the political agenda.   Amrullah Saleh, Fmr Head, Afghan Intelligence: It has the potential to lead to civil war, yes. It has.   Prue Lewarne: The modest office, the lone staffer in the corner, belie the status of the man. Amrullah Saleh is Afghanistan"s former spy chief, until 2010 in charge of national intelligence. For him, when the Taliban suspend talks, it proves the folly of engaging with them.   Amrullah Saleh: Taliban look at it this way: they say, "OK, 10 years. For them it"s not a peace process; it"s another mile to dominate the country.   Prue Lewarne: Down an icy Kabul lane live a family with whom the Taliban have had their way. Muhammad and his wife Melika (phonetic spelling) fled their home province of Bamyan when the Taliban were in power. He finds work as a labourer when he can. They have just two rooms, but they glow with pride, laughing that after three girls, this little boy, child number four, is definitely their last. What he doesn"t know is that his Asiatic features will mark him out as an Hazara, a member of Afghanistan"s most persecuted community, which is Shia, not Sunni and so set upon by the Taliban.   Muhammad (translation): They were coming into our villages. They were in their four-wheel drives. They did not get out. They just kept on randomly shooting in the houses, in the mountain, everywhere. For three days they were just killing everybody.   Prue Lewarne: Shakiba listens to the family history, the story of why other kids have grandmothers but she does not.   Muhammad (translation): When they came, I escaped. I came to Kabul from the mountains. When everything was on fire, my mother tried to save the house by throwing down the firewood burning on the roof. That"s when they shot her.   Prue Lewarne: High above Kabul lies the path to a man who was certain that the ravaged and the ravager can be reconciled. He knows the Taliban; he was one himself. The former Taliban deputy minister for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice now sits on the Government High Peace Council, scorns on-camera interviews, but today relents, just as long as the woman in the room sits at the back. Peace is achievable, he says, though Afghan women, they may have to sit up the back as well.   Maulvi Qalamuddin, Fmr Taliban Minister (translation): If the peace negotiations are in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey or Afghanistan, there may be some restrictions on whether women can participate or not. There may be some place where women can"t go. That"s why I"m saying maybe.   Prue Lewarne: Maulvi Qalmuddin bristles at any suggestion that women were treated badly in the past.   Maulvi Qalamuddin (translation): You haven"t seen one of them. Someone"s told you. You heard it from the media, you heard it from those who were against the Taliban. You cannot show me one woman in all of Afghanistan who was punished by the Taliban. I was the person in charge.   Prue Lewarne: Fawzia Koofi remembers things differently. She is a member of Afghanistan"s Parliament and its deputy Speaker, a single working mother who receives male constituents in her home. Two years ago, the Taliban tried to kill her.   Fawzia Koofi, Deputy Speaker, Afghan Parliament: You can die at any second. And the bullets were everywhere in my car. I initially tried to hide myself by throwing myself under the seat after the vehicle. They wanted to kill me because I"m somebody for them and I"m proud of that if I"m somebody to Taliban. And if they think that I"m against their beliefs, I"m proud of that.   Prue Lewarne: What Fawzia Koofi is not proud of her is her president, Hamid Karzai. Talks she says are a game on his side as well.   Fawzia Koofi: Peace talks with Taliban has always been used politically. Sometimes President Karzai uses that against international community to demonstrate that he is one step ahead of others; sometimes he use it against his political opponents to say that, "OK, if you don"t listen to me, I will ring Taliban tomorrow." So, there is no actual process as such that you trust it and there is like a start and an end to this process. I haven"t seen that.   Prue Lewarne: So what do today"s Taliban think? Well the classified NATO report stated the Taliban 2012 based on 27,000 interrogations of some 4,000 captured Taliban came to this conclusion: "Taliban commanders and their rank and file members increasingly believe their control of Afghanistan is inevitable, and though they suffered severely in 2011, their strength, motivation, funding and technical proficiency remain intact." In which case, some ask, would they really be interested in talking peace? We went to Kabul"s main prison to ask one of them.   Abdul Aziz is indeed today"s Taliban. Incarcerated in Policharki Prison, he is neither bowed nor broken and he is certainly not offering peace. Merely scratch the surface and out tumble extraordinary predictions.   So, do you expect that the Taliban will win and come back to Kabul?   Abdul Aziz, Taliban Prisoner (translation): Sure. If the foreign troops leave, the Taliban will come back to Kabul soon.   Prue Lewarne: You say that the Taliban will come back to power in Kabul if foreigners leave. How quickly will that happen?   Abdul Aziz (translation): I believe in one to two months the Taliban will capture Kabul.   Prue Lewarne: It is the smile that says it all.   Abdul Aziz calmly returns to his cell, confident the Taliban will prevail and adamant there will be no peace talks until all Taliban prisoners are set free and the bounty is taken off Mullah Omar"s head.   In the camps of the displaced all the talk of victory, of talks started, stalled or suspended rings hollow and obscene. This is where war washes up, where plastic shoes suffice in mounds of snow, where the feeble undertake the futile and pain is all around.   Mirrilam fits his surname well. Ramjan means sorrow, yet somehow he faces destitution smilingly. Mirrilam and his family are Pashtun, same as the Taliban, from the south, same as the Taliban, and he respected them when they were in power.   Mirrilam (translation): During the Taliban if you had a bag of gold, there was no-one to steal it from you or take it from you anywhere be it the mountains or the desert. The Taliban had that effect on people.   Prue Lewarne: They are here because this is better than being caught in the crossfire in their home province of Helmand.   Mirrilam (translation): If one Taleb were to shoot from behind my house, there will be air strikes on our house and our children will be under the dust.   Prue Lewarne: It is perhaps Afghanistan"s most common refrain: that all of this suffering somehow is someone else"s fault, yet at least in part the evidence keeps rolling in that it is.   That same classified NATO report found that senior Taliban leaders meet regularly with Pakistan"s intelligence agency who advise on strategy and relay any Pakistan Government concerns. Said one detainee, "The Taliban is not Islam, the Taliban is Islamabad."   Amrullah Saleh argues it"s Pakistan that should be attacked.   Amrullah Saleh: You have 27,000 reports showing that the headquarters of your enemy is headquarters of Pakistan Army. So hit it.   Prue Lewarne: And yet you know that ... ?   Amrullah Saleh: Don"t sell us.   Prue Lewarne: But you know that would bring about a region conflagration.   Amrullah Saleh: Well, if that is the big problem, so why the West should sell us out to appease Rawalpindi?   Prue Lewarne: Because you don"t have nuclear weapons.   Amrullah Saleh: Exactly. We are poor; our blood and our dignity is not count. You have come to the point, exactly.   Prue Lewarne: As night falls, Fawzia Koofi"s daughters sing their way through their homework, laughter fills the house and death hovers close. Their father died in a Taliban prison. The girls were in the car during that failed assassination. Now their mother has set her sights on the presidency and they all know the potential cost of public service.   Fawzia Koofi: I got a letter from our security: "The Haqqani group would like to assassinate you, so please take some measures." And it"s very funny because you know that you will be assassinated; what measures can you take in a situation that they already cut into our bedrooms of our politicians when they wanted to kill them? So you are never sure that they might be under any identity, any clothes, any face that will come to your house. And especially when you know that something is going to happen, like every moment that thing will happen.   Prue Lewarne: And yet you"re smiling. You"re laughing!   Fawzia Koofi: (Laughs)   Prue Lewarne: This is not funny!   Fawzia Koofi: Do you want me to cry? (Laughs). Before I get killed?   Prue Lewarne: So as the West searches for the ending to its story, for Afghans it feels more like another beginning, for this nation which lives amidst heavenly beauty, but has walked its journey for so long through hell.   * Below is a link to the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) Afghan page. In 2002, IWPR established Pajhwok, the nation’s first independent news agency. IWPR’s current focus in Afghanistan is on strengthening in-depth reporting through the creation of a network of media centers of excellence across the country. Visit the related web page
	How Wealth Reduces Compassion by Daisy Grewal Scientific America   Who is more likely to lie, cheat, and steal—the poor person or the rich one? It’s temping to think that the wealthier you are, the more likely you are to act fairly. After all, if you already have enough for yourself, it’s easier to think about what others may need. But research suggests the opposite is true: as people climb the social ladder, their compassionate feelings towards other people decline. Money can shift emotions, and not always in a good way.   Berkeley psychologists Paul Piff and Dacher Keltner ran several studies looking at whether social class (as measured by wealth, occupational prestige, and education) influences how much we care about the feelings of others. In one study, Piff and his colleagues discreetly observed the behavior of drivers at a busy four-way intersection. They found that luxury car drivers were more likely to cut off other motorists instead of waiting for their turn at the intersection. This was true for both men and women upper-class drivers, regardless of the time of day or the amount of traffic at the intersection. In a different study they found that luxury car drivers were also more likely to speed past a pedestrian trying to use a crosswalk, even after making eye contact with the pedestrian.   In order to figure out whether selfishness leads to wealth (rather than vice versa), Piff and his colleagues ran a study where they manipulated people’s class feelings. The researchers asked participants to spend a few minutes comparing themselves either to people better off or worse off than themselves financially. Afterwards, participants were shown a jar of candy and told that they could take home as much as they wanted. They were also told that the leftover candy would be given to children in a nearby laboratory. Those participants who had spent time thinking about how much better off they were compared to others ended up taking significantly more candy for themselves--leaving less behind for the children.   A related set of studies published by Keltner and his colleagues last year looked at how social class influences feelings of compassion towards people who are suffering. In one study, they found that less affluent individuals are more likely to report feeling compassion towards others on a regular basis. For example, they are more likely to agree with statements such as, “I often notice people who need help,” and “It’s important to take care of people who are vulnerable.” This was true even after controlling for other factors that we know affect compassionate feelings, such as gender, ethnicity, and spiritual beliefs.   In a second study, participants were asked to watch two videos while having their heart rate monitored. One video showed somebody explaining how to build a patio. The other showed children who were suffering from cancer. After watching the videos, participants indicated how much compassion they felt while watching either video. Social class was measured by asking participants questions about their family’s level of income and education. The results of the study showed that participants on the lower end of the spectrum, with less income and education, were more likely to report feeling compassion while watching the video of the cancer patients. In addition, their heart rates slowed down while watching the cancer video—a response that is associated with paying greater attention to the feelings and motivations of others.   These findings build upon previous research showing how upper class individuals are worse at recognizing the emotions of others and less likely to pay attention to people they are interacting with (e.g. by checking their cell phones or doodling).   But why would wealth and status decrease our feelings of compassion for others? After all, it seems more likely that having few resources would lead to selfishness. Piff and his colleagues suspect that the answer may have something to do with how wealth and abundance give us a sense of freedom and independence from others. The less we have to rely on others, the less we may care about their feelings. This leads us towards being more self-focused. Another reason has to do with our attitudes towards greed. Like Gordon Gekko, upper-class people may be more likely to endorse the idea that “greed is good.” Piff and his colleagues found that wealthier people are more likely to agree with statements that greed is justified, beneficial, and morally defensible. These attitudes ended up predicting participants’ likelihood of engaging in unethical behavior.   Given the growing income inequality in the United States, the relationship between wealth and compassion has important implications. Those who hold most of the power in this country, political and otherwise, tend to come from privileged backgrounds. If social class influences how much we care about others, then the most powerful among us may be the least likely to make decisions that help the needy and the poor. They may also be the most likely to engage in unethical behavior. Keltner and Piff recently speculated in the New York Times about how their research helps explain why Goldman Sachs and other high-powered financial corporations are breeding grounds for greedy behavior. Although greed is a universal human emotion, it may have the strongest pull over those of who already have the most.   * Daisy Grewal is a research psychologist at Stanford University
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