Craig Davis | |
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Born | Craig Steven Davis |
Nationality | ![]() |
Education | BA, MA, PhD |
Alma mater | Indiana University Bloomington |
Occupation(s) | Author, Development Specialist |
Spouse | Mirna Davis [1] |
Children | 4 |
Craig Steven Davis is an international development and anti-corruption worker, specializing in the Muslim world, and author of multiple publications, including The Middle East for Dummies. He has worked in the developing world, primarily the Middle East and South Asia, as a government employee and USAID contractor. In 2009, he was the subject of accusations in Pakistan and left the country out of concerns for his own safety.
Davis studied at Indiana University Bloomington, where he earned two PhDs, in Near Eastern language and culture and religious theory. He conducted fieldwork on Afghan education in Afghanistan and Pakistan in 1999-2000, as a Boren graduate fellow.
In 2002, Davis joined the United States Department of Labor, [2] as an International Education Program Specialist for the Bureau of International Labor Affairs. In July 2003 The Middle East for Dummies, a 316-page paperback in the for Dummies line, was published.
For 10 months in 2003 and 2004, while employed by the US Department of Labor, working through the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), he served as a labor advisor to the Iraqi Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs. [3] In this role, he helped establish 26 vocational training centers around the country, rewrite labor laws, and rework government salaries. He was injured in the October 26, 2003 attack on the Al-Rashid Hotel in Baghdad. [4]
In April 2005 Davis joined the USAID-funded Iraq Civil Society Program as Anti-Corruption Director. Despite significant challenges, including partner staff assassinations, he supported NGO programs that trained over 8,000 Iraqi officials on corruption and its mitigation and created a network of civil society organizations. [5] After leaving Iraq, [6] he served as the Director of Civil Society Programs at the International Research and Exchanges Board (IREX) [7]
While working in Pakistan in 2009 for Creative Associates Inc., a USAID implementing partner, allegations were raised that Davis was a Blackwater representative. The charge was initiated by Nation columnist Shireen Mazari [8] and Ahmed Qureshi, a journalist and conspiracy theorist. [9] As evidence, the similarity in acronyms between Creative Associates International, Inc. (CAII) and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was cited. According to some reports, Davis was the victim of a campaign by the Pakistani government to blacklist certain journalists and NGO workers. [10] Mazari raised the accusations when she worked for The News International . The US Embassy objected to the charges and the editorial leadership determined that the story was inaccurate. Mazari consequently left The News International to work for the Nation and decried US Ambassador Anne Patterson for interfering in Pakistani media. [11] Wall Street Journal reporter Matthew Rosenberg also left the country after similar allegations connecting him to Blackwater put his safety at risk. [12]
Davis believes that one way to reverse the growing anti-American sentiment among local Muslims in Afghanistan and Pakistan is by respecting and working within the traditional madrasa system. [13] He has written that reform to the education system in Afghanistan and Pakistan is critical to its stability. [14]
Davis's passion is studying medieval Islamic culture in South Asia. [15]
Zalmay Mamozy Khalilzad is an American diplomat and foreign policy expert. Khalilzad was the U.S. special representative for Afghanistan reconciliation from September 2018 to October 2021. Khailzad was appointed by President George W. Bush to serve as United States ambassador to the United Nations, serving in the role from 2007 to 2009. Khalilzad was the highest ranking Muslim-American in government at the time he left the position. Prior to this, Khalilzad served in the Bush administration as ambassador to Afghanistan from 2004 to 2005 and Ambassador to Iraq from 2005 to 2007.
A Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) was a unit introduced by the United States government, consisting of military officers, diplomats, and reconstruction subject matter experts, working to support reconstruction efforts in unstable states. PRTs were first established in Afghanistan in early 2002, and were used in Iraq as well. While the concepts are similar, PRTs in Afghanistan and Iraq had separate compositions and missions. Their common purpose, however, was to empower local governments to govern their constituents more effectively.
The Shinwari are an ethnic Pashtun tribe of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Among the greatest poets of the Pashto language in the 20th century was the late Ameer Hamza Shinwari, also known as "Hamza Baba".
The Northern Alliance, officially known as the United National Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan, was a military alliance of groups that operated between early 1992 and 2001 following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. At that time, many non-Pashtun Northerners originally with the Republic of Afghanistan led by Mohammad Najibullah became disaffected with Pashtun Khalqist Afghan Army officers holding control over non-Pashtun militias in the North. Defectors such as Rashid Dostum and Abdul Momim allied with Ahmad Shah Massoud and Ali Mazari forming the Northern Alliance. The alliance's capture of Mazar-i-Sharif and more importantly the supplies kept there crippled the Afghan military and began the end of Najibullah's government. Following the collapse of Najibullah's government the Alliance would fall with a Second Civil War breaking out however following the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan's (Taliban) takeover of Kabul, The United Front was reassembled.
Sarah Chayes is a former senior associate in the Democracy and Rule of Law Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and former reporter for National Public Radio, she also served as special advisor to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The 1992–1996 Afghan Civil War, also known as the Second Afghan Civil War, took place between 28 April 1992—the date a new interim Afghan government was supposed to replace the Republic of Afghanistan of President Mohammad Najibullah—and the Taliban's occupation of Kabul establishing the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan on 27 September 1996.
Reconstruction in Afghanistan refers to the efforts to improve Afghanistan's governance as well as physical buildings and infrastructure following the overthrow of the First Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan by the United States. These efforts involved various groups including supranational organizations, the Afghan government, the US government and other foreign governments, and civilians. These efforts also include training civil administrators, improving essential services and public safety, supporting civil society and self-determination, and promoting the rule of law and economic development.
The following lists events that happened during 2002 in Afghanistan.
The following lists events that happened during 2004 in Afghanistan.
Dan Grant was the Deputy Assistant to the Administrator for Pakistan in the Office of Afghanistan and Pakistan Affairs at USAID. He oversaw a portfolio concerning energy, stabilization, education, agriculture, and public health.
Mohammad Haneef Atmar is an Afghan politician and former KhAD agent. He served as the Minister of interior until he was removed from the Ministry by Hamid Karzai in the wake of attacks on the June 2010 Afghan Peace Jirga. Before that he worked with several international humanitarian organisations and served as Minister of Rural Rehabilitation and Development and Minister of Education. In 2011, he was part of the Right and Justice party. During his time in office, he has visited several countries to get funding to stabilise Afghanistan.
This is a list of activities ostensibly carried out by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) within Pakistan. It has been alleged by such authors as Ahmed Rashid that the CIA and ISI have been waging a clandestine war. The Afghan Taliban—with whom the United States was officially in conflict—was headquartered in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas during the war and according to some reports is largely funded by the ISI. The Pakistani government denies this.
Sayed Hussein Anwari was an Afghan politician. He was a Shia and came from Mohammed Asef Mohseni's Harakat-e Islami.
The Hazaras have long been the subject of persecution in Afghanistan, including enslavement during the 19th century and ethnic and religious persecution for hundreds of years. In the 20th and 21st centuries, they have also been the victims of massacres committed by the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Hazaras have been systemically killed and discriminated against socially, economically, and culturally with specific intent, argued by some to constitute genocide. The Hazaras primarily come from the central regions of Afghanistan, known as Hazarajat. Significant communities of Hazara people also live in Quetta, Pakistan and in Mashad, Iran, as part of the Hazara and Afghan diasporas.
Matthew Rosenberg is a Pulitzer-Prize winning American journalist. He worked at The New York Times from 2011 to April, 2024. He spent 15 years as a foreign correspondent in Asia, Africa and the Middle East, and was expelled from Afghanistan in August 2014 on the orders of President Hamid Karzai, the first expulsion of a Western journalist from Afghanistan since the Taliban ruled the country.
2003 in Afghanistan. A list of notable incidents in Afghanistan during 2003
International Relief and Development, Inc. (IRD), renamed Blumont, is an organization that purports to provide relief, stabilization, and development programs worldwide. In 2015, IRD was the subject of a Washington Post investigation that highlighted the organization's performance and management of taxpayer money. Among other irregularities, the organization had charged the US Government $1.1 million for staff parties and retreats at exclusive resorts. In January 2016, IRD announced that it was changing its name to Blumont and relocating to Madison, Wisconsin.
Chemonics International Inc. is a private international development firm based in Washington, D.C. It was established in 1975 by Thurston F. (Tony) Teele as a subsidiary of Erly Industries. The employee-owned company offers a variety of services globally and with more than $1.5 billion in USAID contracts in 2019 is the largest for-profit recipient of U.S. government foreign aid. As of 2019 the company has approximately 5,000 employees in 100 countries.
The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan was a presidential republic in Afghanistan from 2004 to 2021. The state was established to replace the Afghan interim (2001–2002) and transitional (2002–2004) administrations, which were formed after the 2001 United States invasion of Afghanistan that had toppled the partially recognized Taliban-ruled Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. However, on 15 August 2021, the country was recaptured by the Taliban, which marked the end of the 2001–2021 war, the longest war in US history. This led to the overthrow of the Islamic Republic, led by President Ashraf Ghani, and the reinstatement of the Islamic Emirate under the control of the Taliban. While the United Nations still recognizes the Islamic Republic as the legitimate government of Afghanistan, this toppled regime controls no portion of the country today, nor does it operate in exile; it effectively no longer exists. The Islamic Emirate is the de facto ruling government. The US–Taliban deal, signed on 29 February 2020 in Qatar, was one of the critical events that caused the collapse of the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF). Following the deal, the US dramatically reduced the number of air attacks and deprived the ANSF of a critical edge in fighting the Taliban insurgency, leading to the Taliban takeover of Kabul.
The 20-year-long War in Afghanistan had a number of significant impacts on Afghan society.