Sarah Chayes | |
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 Sarah Chayes, 2015 | |
| Born | March 5, 1962 Washington, D.C. |
| Alma mater | Harvard University |
| Occupation(s) | Journalist, political advisor |
| Parent(s) | Abram Chayes Antonia Handler Chayes |
Sarah Chayes (born March 5, 1962) 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. [1] [2]
Sarah Chayes is the daughter of the late law professor and Kennedy administration official Abram Chayes [3] and lawyer and former undersecretary of the U.S. Air Force Antonia Handler Chayes. [4] She is of Jewish descent. [5] She graduated from Phillips Academy, Andover (1980) [6] and Harvard University (1984) [7] with a degree in history, magna cum laude. She was awarded the Radcliffe College History Prize. She then served in the Peace Corps in Morocco, returning to Harvard to earn a master's degree in history, [7] specializing in the medieval Islamic period. Besides English, she speaks Pashto, French, and Arabic. [8]
Chayes began her reporting career freelancing from Paris for The Christian Science Monitor Radio and other outlets. From 1996 to 2002, she served as Paris reporter for National Public Radio, covering France, the European Union, North Africa, and the Balkans. She earned 1999 Foreign Press Club and Sigma Delta Chi awards (together with other members of the NPR team) for her reporting on the Kosovo War. [1] After covering the fall of the Taliban and the early weeks of post-Taliban Afghanistan in 2002, Chayes decided to leave reporting and stay behind to try to contribute to the rebuilding of the war-torn country.
Chayes lived in Kandahar, Afghanistan from 2002 to 2009. Having learned to speak Pashto, she helped rebuild homes and set up a dairy cooperative. In May 2005, she established the Arghand Cooperative, [9] a venture that encourages local Afghan farmers to produce flowers, fruits, and herbs instead of opium poppies. The cooperative buys their almonds, pomegranate seeds, cumin and anise and artemisia and root dyes, extracts oils, essential oils, and tinctures from them, with which it produces soaps and other scented products for export. The cooperative is an associate member of the Natural Perfumers Guild. [9] [10] Chayes wrote an article detailing the story of the Arghand cooperative and her difficulties with the American aid establishment, which appeared in the December 2007 issue of The Atlantic . [11]
Since leaving full-time radio reporting, she has been a frequent contributor to the print media, writing for Foreign Policy Magazine , the Los Angeles Times , The Atlantic , and the Washington Post , among other outlets. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace maintains an archive of her writings. [1]
Chayes has been a guest of PBS's Bill Moyers Journal , [12] [13] WHYY-FM's Terry Gross, WNYC's Leonard Lopate, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Show , PBS's Charlie Rose, 2020 Bristol Festival of Ideas (UK), [14] and various others.
In 2010, Chayes became a special advisor to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen. In this capacity, she contributed to strategic US policy on Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the Arab Spring. [1]
Sarah Chayes is a senior fellow in Carnegie's Democracy and Rule of Law program. [15] At Carnegie, Chayes has launched a corruption and security initiative, which analyzes the structure of kleptocratic governments around the world, the other risk factors with which public corruption is interacting in specific countries, the likelihood of a significant security event resulting, and potential approaches available to different local and international actors. She conducts significant field research on this topic, hosts speakers and workshops, both in the U.S. and in relevant countries, and speaks and writes frequently. [1]
| External videos | |
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 Presentation by Chayes on The Punishment of Virtue, C-SPAN | |
| Interview with Chayes on Thieves of State, April 9, 2016, C-SPAN |
Chayes is the author of The Punishment of Virtue: Inside Afghanistan After the Taliban (2006) [16] and Thieves of State: Why Corruption Threatens Global Security (2014); [17] as well as On Corruption in America: And What Is at Stake (2020). [18]
In January 2009, Chayes wrote Comprehensive Action Plan for Afghanistan, an analysis of the dilemma in Afghanistan ca. 2009 and a plan for its resolution. [19]
In a 2011 op-ed published in the Los Angeles Times , Chayes decried the "rampant public corruption" in Afghanistan, asserting that the country "is controlled by a structured, mafiaesque system, in which money flows upward via purchase of office, kickbacks or 'sweets' in return for permission to extract resources . . . and protection." [20]
In another 2012 op-ed piece published in the Los Angeles Times , Chayes argued that the controversial Innocence of Muslims video may not be protected under the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment free speech guarantees. She contended that speech deliberately tailored in content and manner to provoke a violent reaction differs from speech that is merely offensive. [21] [22] [23]
During the October 6, 2021 episode of the BBC's Thinking Allowed (on post-occupation Afghanistan), Chayes was highly critical of the corrupt example of "democracy" set by the US for Afghans and others to follow. [24]
Hamid Karzai is an Afghan politician who served as the fourth president of Afghanistan from July 2002 to September 2014, including as the first elected president of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan from December 2004 to September 2014. He previously served as Chairman of the Afghan Interim Administration from December 2001 to July 2002. He is the chief (khān) of the Popalzai Durrani tribe of Pashtuns in Kandahar Province.
Mullah Muhammad Omar was an Afghan mujahideen commander, revolutionary, and the cleric who founded the Taliban. During the Third Afghan Civil War, the Taliban fought the Northern Alliance and took control of most of the country, establishing the First Islamic Emirate for which Omar began to serve as Supreme Leader in 1996. Shortly after al-Qaeda carried out the September 11 attacks, the Taliban government was toppled by an American invasion of Afghanistan, prompting Omar to go into hiding. He successfully evaded capture by the American-led coalition before dying in 2013 from tuberculosis.
MSNBC is an American news-based television channel and website headquartered in New York City. It is owned by NBCUniversal — a subsidiary of Comcast — and provides news coverage and political commentary. The network produces live broadcasts for its channel from studios at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Manhattan, New York City, and aggregates its coverage and commentary on its website, msnbc.com.
Bill Moyers is an American journalist and political commentator. Under the Johnson administration he served from 1965 to 1967 as the eleventh White House Press Secretary. He was a director of the Council on Foreign Relations, from 1967 to 1974. He also worked as a network TV news commentator for ten years. Moyers has been extensively involved with public broadcasting, producing documentaries and news journal programs, and has won many awards and honorary degrees for his investigative journalism and civic activities. He has become well known as a trenchant critic of the corporately structured U.S. news media.
The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is a quasi-autonomous non-governmental organization in the United States founded in 1983 with the stated aim of advancing democracy worldwide, by promoting political and economic institutions, such as political groups, trade unions, free markets, and business groups.
The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan was a militant Islamist group formed in 1998 by Islamic ideologue Tahir Yuldashev and former Soviet paratrooper Juma Namangani; both ethnic Uzbeks from the Fergana Valley. Its original objective was to overthrow President Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan and create an Islamic state under Sharia; however, in subsequent years, it reinvented itself as an ally of Al-Qaeda. The group also maintained relations with Afghan Taliban in 1990s. However, later on, relations between the Afghan Taliban and the IMU started declining.
The Bonn Agreement was the initial series of agreements passed on December 5, 2001 during an international conference on Afghanistan held in Bonn. It was intended to re-create the Islamic State of Afghanistan following the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan that followed the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Since no nationally agreed-upon government had existed in Afghanistan since 1979, it was felt necessary to have a transition period before a permanent government was established. A nationally agreed-upon government would require at least one loya jirga to be convened; however, in the absence of law and order in the wake of the rapid victory of American and Afghan Northern Alliance forces, immediate steps were felt to be required.
Atta Muhammad Nur is an Afghan exiled politician and former Mujahid Leader who served as the Governor of Balkh Province in Afghanistan from 2004 to January 25, 2018. An ethnic Tajik, he worked to educate the Mujahideen after the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, gaining the nickname "The Teacher". He then became a mujahideen resistance commander for the Jamiat-e Islami against the Soviets.
Vartan Gregorian was an Armenian-American academic, educator, and historian. He served as president of the Carnegie Corporation from 1997 to 2021.
Jeremy Scahill is an American activist, author, and investigative journalist. He is a founding editor of the online news publication The Intercept and author of Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army (2007), which won the George Polk Book Award. His book Dirty Wars: The World Is a Battlefield (2013) was adapted into a documentary film which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and was nominated for the 2014 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. In July 2024, he left The Intercept and, together with Ryan Grim and Nausicaa Renner, founded Drop Site News.
Sakena Yacoobi is an Afghani activist known for her work for promoting access to education for women and children. She is the founder and executive director of the women-led NGO Afghan Institute of Learning. For her work, Yacoobi has received international recognition, including the 2013 Opus Prize, the 2015 WISE Prize, the 2016 Harold W. McGraw Prize in Education, and an honorary degree from Princeton University.
Fazal Hayat, more commonly known by his pseudonym Mullah Fazlullah, was an Islamist jihadist militant who was the leader of the Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi, and was the leader of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan in Swat Valley. On 7 November 2013, he became the emir of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, and presided over the descent of the group into factions who are often at war with each other. Fazlullah was designated by the Al-Qaida and Taliban Sanctions Committee of the Security Council in 2015, and was added to the U.S. State Department's Rewards for Justice wanted list on 7 March 2018. Fazlullah was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Kunar, Afghanistan on 14 June 2018.
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The Leadership Council of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, also translated as the Supreme Council, is an advisory council to the Supreme Leader of Afghanistan. The supreme leader convenes and chairs the council at his sole discretion. He has ultimate authority and may override or circumvent it at any time. It played a key role in directing the Taliban insurgency from Quetta, Pakistan, which led to it being informally referred to as the Quetta Shura at the time.
The Afghan conflict is a term that refers to the series of events that have kept Afghanistan in a near-continuous state of armed conflict since the 1970s. Early instability followed the collapse of the Kingdom of Afghanistan in the largely non-violent 1973 coup d'état, which deposed Afghan monarch Mohammad Zahir Shah in absentia, ending his 40-year-long reign. With the concurrent establishment of the Republic of Afghanistan, headed by Mohammad Daoud Khan, the country's relatively peaceful and stable period in modern history came to an end. However, all-out fighting did not erupt until after 1978, when the Saur Revolution violently overthrew Khan's government and established the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. Subsequent unrest over the radical reforms that were being pushed by the then-ruling People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) led to unprecedented violence, prompting a large-scale pro-PDPA military intervention by the Soviet Union in 1979. In the ensuing Soviet–Afghan War, the anti-Soviet Afghan mujahideen received extensive support from Pakistan, the United States, and Saudi Arabia in a joint covert effort that was dubbed Operation Cyclone.
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On Corruption in America: And What Is at Stake is a non-fiction book by an author, journalist, and international expert on corruption, Sarah Chayes about corruption in the United States. The book was released on November 16, 2021. In this book, Chayes writes about how corrupt systems are organized, laws are changed by bad actors to cover their crimes, and the government is determined by these same bad actors.
Democracy in Afghanistan has been severely limited and characterized by short, unstable historical periods since the formation of the contemporary state of Afghanistan in the 20th century. Following the rise of power of Ghazi Amanullah Khan in 1919, the first elements of a democratic government in the country began to emerge, with the formation of a constitution and increased civil liberties. Amanullah's political reforms resulted in his overthrow and for much of the rest of the 20th century, until 1964, there was limited democratization in the country. With the establishment of a bicameral national legislature in 1964 by King Zahir Shah, political parties began to form; however, none of these reforms were lasting after Zahir Shah's removal from power in 1973 and the formation of an autocratic Afghanistan republic.
The best were the two Tajik cooks who adopted me, made me sit in their warm kitchen, gave me their bed and served me endless cups of hot green tea all through the night as I worked. I snuck them apricots for the 5 a.m. meal as everyone filed in to take dishes of rice in a din of clanking pots and clattering plates. How incredibly surreal—an American (Jewish!) female the pampered pet of the Taliban during the death throes of their regime.
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