The Future of Culture IV: War Memorial

In the Radiolab episode "New Normal" that I talked about in the last Future of Culture installment, the episode began with a discussion of changing cultural attitudes toward war. Specifically, it was about a man who was surveying people about whether they thought war would ever end, whether there would ever be World Peace. He says that in the early 1980s, the answer was overwhelmingly "Yes." And today, the answer is overwhelmingly "No."

This seems indicative of the modern cynicism about everything (although the early 1980s still exists in that post-Nixon, post-Vietnam era that I at least consider the modern cynical age), but what's interesting to me is that this mindset flies in the face of certain evidence.

Actually, before we go on, I want to quibble about the question -- the question should be more realistically phrased as "Will we ever reach the point where wars are rare, abnormal events." In other words, I don't know if we'll ever reach that asymptotic event, but I do think it is an asymptote--I think we will get closer and closer to having "no" wars.

Somewhere between 1900 and 2000, war left the cultural norm in Europe. In 1900, war was considered a measure of strength of nations. By the end of World War One, we were praying that this war was the "war to end all wars." It wasn't until World War Two that this seemed to be achieved in Europe. Now, World War Two is not the complete end of War in Europe -- there were some near-wars, such as the Soviet invasion of Hungary and of the Czech Republic, and two genuine wars (the last genocides of the former Yugoslavia), but those were considered to be abnormal, and in the case of the latter, Europe actually interceded and brought an end to the war.

I was thinking about this for a very specific reason. This Sunday, I walked through Grand Army Plaza at Prospect Park in Brooklyn. The centerpiece of the plaza, pictured above, is the grand triumph arch, topped with what I feel comfortable in assuming is Nike, goddess of Victory. I feel comfortable in assuming this because nearly identical arches can be seen at the Brandenburg Gate, in Brussels, and throughout New England and Europe. Every one is a memorial to victory, a triumphal memory of war.

And that's what gives me hope: we don't build those arches anymore.

If you compare post-WWI memorials to pre-WWI memorials, you'll note that they suddenly become not memorials to Victory, they become memorials to loss. Lists of names or headstones. Nearly universally in Europe. It's a sudden, 180 degree shift of our cultural conversation about war.

Even if we were to win in Iraq--win in the most unequivocal terms; a stable democracy, no car bombs, Al Qaeda surrendering in one moment "on the deck of a battleship," as they say, etc.--even the most incredibly fantastical of victory scenarios--there will be no arch of triumph. We will simply erect a memory of those we have lost.

This is just one aspect of our cultural conversation about war. There's also Rush Limbaugh, and Band of Brothers, and the Medal of Honor games, and the coverage out of Iraq. But I find it interesting that what once was a common, "cultural" expression of memory of war has suddenly shifted. It gives me hope.

A Cogent Comment On War

One of Andrew Sullivan's many surprisingly astute readers responds to the Gaza War with an interesting philosophical discussion:

The problem with the doctrine of Just War, I would submit, is that it can only be applied in retrospect. In prospect, it is at once too restrictive and overly permissive. It requires an unachievable degree of certainty. But when leaders or their population nevertheless convince themselves that a conflict meets its standards, even though it cannot, it tends to grant them a sense of moral absolution that leads to callous indifference to the loss of human life.

No, the Israeli assault on Gaza cannot be said to be Just. Declaring it to be so is a manifestation of moral cowardice, of an unwillingness to face up to its awful price. It is merely a war: a messy, dirty conflict that injures all who are involved. It will exact a terrible toll on soldiers, militants and civilians, and there is no possible set of justifications which should blind us to that fact.

But that does not necessarily mean it merits moral condemnation. It does not mean that Israel was necessarily wrong to launch it, nor wrong to finish it. Those judgments tend to become clear only with the virtue of hindsight.

Take Israel's 2006 invasion of Lebanon. In its first week, many saw that invasion as justified. By the time it ended, it was widely viewed as a catastrophic, destructive, and unnecessary fight. Now, after two years utterly devoid of violence along the northern border, some are more ambivalent. If the conflict resumes where it left off, it will reconfirm its futility. But if Hezbollah and Israel arrive at a modus vivendi, it will be seen as having been the necessary precursor to peace. How are you supposed to know such a thing before you commit to fight, when years after the last shot, the consequences of the conflict remain unclear? Think of it, if you will, as a morality of doubt.

I am equally suspicious of the rectitude of those who unequivocally support this conflict as I am of those who sweepingly condemn it. The future is uncertain. The four conditions of the Catechism each point us in the right direction, and correctly suggest that the burden of proof must always rest with those who would resort to force. But three of the four demand absolute certitude: that the damage be "certain"; that "all means" be shown to be ineffective; and that it "must not" produce greater evils. Anyone who pretends to be able to answer these questions in the affirmative in advance of conflict is either a liar or a fool. No damage is ever certain, all means are never exhausted, and we never know in advance what toll a conflict will exact.

You have eloquently expressed your skepticism that the Israeli assault on Hamas will be seen, in retrospect, to have crossed these thresholds. I continue to believe that, if it meets its objective of clearing the way for a renewed ceasefire that is viable over the long term, it may well prove to have been justified. But I would be the first to admit that I am uncertain. I simply do not know what will happen.

The rhetoric that you and I find most abhorrent is spouted by those who experience no doubt, who see no uncertainty. It is dangerous. It lowers the threshold to initiate conflict, and leads to brutality after its onset. But the answer is not to identify a standard that would endow us with certainty; it is to recognize that certainty is always elusive, and to humble ourselves before that conclusion.

This post has calmed me down in a strange way. The certitude beforehand, the knowledge of right and wrong, is what is objectionable.

My own moral guidance has come from a passage of Albert Camus' The Plague:

The narrator is inclined to think that by attributing overimportance to the praiseworthy actions one may, by implication, be paying indirect but potent homage to the worse side of human nature. For this attitude implies that such actions shine out as rare exceptions, while callousness and apathy and the general rule. The narrator does not share this view. The evil that is in the world always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence, if they lack understanding. On the whole, men are more good than bad; that, however, isn't the real point. But they are more or less ignorant, and it is this that we call vice or virtue; the most incorrigible vice being that of an ignorance that fancies it knows everything and therefore claims for itself the right to kill. The soul of the murderer is blind; and there can be no true goodness nor true love without the utmost clearsightedness.

The IDF fancies it knows everything, and therefore claims for itself the right to kill. Hamas fancies it knows everything, and therefore claims for itself the right to kill.



The reason I bring this up is not so much to comment on Israel-Gaza, but rather to comment on how Bush's legacy may one day be restored by what happens in Iraq.

The way this standard examines responsibility for war (namely: its effects) may be kind to Bush. After all, now that we have this war, everyone is working their asses off to figure out how to salvage it. If, twenty years down the line, a mixture of our policy, international aid, and the hardwork of Iraqis manages to salvage the current levels of insanity, then President Bush will have been judged of having the foresight.

To a certain extent, you can argue that this is true. At the same time, you do need to judge the quality of the choice at the time. But I suppose President Bush is different than this, because even knowing what we knew at the time, we didn't have even a reasonable amount of evidence to go into war. And yet it was put forward with that same damaging certainty that the reader talks about.

It reminds me of why I told my suitemate I don't carry a gun for self-defense: because carrying a gun means you're going to make a choice at some point whether another person lives or dies. And I don't think I'll ever be that certain.

I've talked previously about the standards for war. The Powell Doctrine's strength, I believe, is that it gives an excellent benchmark to remain certain about war. After all, Clinton's interventions in Somalia and in Kosovo had roughly the same rationale--a few important practical elements were different, though, and that proved to be the difference between failure and success.

"Separation Between Church And State"

It's all been said. It's pointless and it'll kill people. It is incredibly disheartening. The only ray of light for me is it has drawn attention to J Street, a "pro-Israel, pro-Peace" lobby group seeking to displace AIPAC as the voice of Israel in America (and, according to a writer at Commentary Magazine, is therefore "anti-Israel"). J Street, which has the backing from the sorts of people as to make it at least seem credible, looks like a glimpse at a future in which there will be hope for the Peace Process.

My personal belief, as an Israeli who loves Israelis (no matter how hard they make it for people to like them), who also loves human beings and think they shouldn't have to die--come to after a long time of personal struggle--is that the Jewish-Muslim conflict in the Middle East (not just Israel-Palestine but Israel-Syria, Israel-Lebanon, Israel-Iran, and the upcoming Israel-Iraq which this current war is starting) will only be abated when the concept of "separation between Church and State" becomes the way--both in Israel, and in all of the Arab countries. Note: Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia have secular leadership, and they have peace with Israel. Of course, they don't have peace with their own people b/c they have no democracy.

Can Democracy coexist with separation between church and state in the Middle East? It could, one day, but we can't force it. Turkey, for instance, is an example of divorcing Islamism and state--they did it voluntarily, for purposes of stability. It still is a hotly debated political issue. But it hasn't rent their society apart the way that it threatens to rip Egypt apart.

So if you had a bunch of secular republics that were built on the principle of representation, and representing everyone--not just a "democracy" that turns into leadership by whichever mob wins elections--they could come together.

What would this mean? It would mean no "Jewish" state in the Middle East.

Major sticking point of the Camp David and subsequent accords? Right of Return for Palestinians. Why can't we grant the Right of Return? It's not economic--if such an accord were granted, the international community would trip over itself from excitement to bankroll that peace process. No question. Maybe it's a security issue. But most of all, it'd a demographic issue.

If the Palestinians return to Israel, Israel will no longer be majority Jewish. And then it would be forced to choose between Democracy and between "The Jewish State." B/c the only reason it can be a Democracy and a Jewish State is because Jews are the majority. Granted, the Jewish population is shrinking, and they make it incredibly easy for Jews to immigrate and incredibly difficult for Arabs or other Muslims to immigrate. But add in several million Palestinians returning to Israel? No question. No more Jewish majority--and therefore, no more Jewish state.

Would it become a Muslim state? Probably not. Because Jews would still be a significant voting bloc. What it would become, most likely, is a secular state.

Right now, no one wants that. the Palestinians say they want an Islamic State, the Jews want a Jewish State. So they're fighting over a two-state solution with an impossible number of conflicting demands.

You want an answer to this crisis? A one state, pluralistic, representative Democracy--built along the lines of Turkey, perhaps--that would allow Palestinians and Jews some measure of equal power. And nobody wants that. So it's not going to happen.

Is there another route? Maybe. It is less implausable, but still well into the "impossible" column. If Israel decided to ignore Gaza completely--let humanitarian aid in, keep it separated from Israel, let Egypt do what Egypt wants to do--and then negotiate a separate peace with Fatah in the West Bank--including a full scale withdrawal from the West Bank.

The West Bank is much more moderate; the West Bank has not taken any military actions against Israel. It can clearly be worked with. Abbas may not want a separate peace, and Israelis might not want to withdraw from the West Bank if Gaza is still firing on them.

This is basically a three state solution--but that makes sense, because our current reality is basically three states (Gaza, Israel, West Bank). In fact, the West Bank and Gaza are basically at a state of war--whereas Israel and the West Bank are not. So let's create a separate peace between the West Bank and Israel.

What happens after that? Well, the West Bank sees economic growth. It becomes a prosperous partner to Israel. Hamas-run Gaza probably remains a place of strife and chaos. Eventually, they'll want to know why they're being shut out. People in Palestine will turn on Hamas. They will lack the traction. Because Hamas only gains in popularity when Israel attacks. If Israel refuses to let Hamas bait it, and demonstrates that it can come to peace with a Palestinian neighbor, Hamas' legitimacy will vanish.

But what am I talking about. Looking at Israeli politicians, it's clear that that's not happening.

Colin Powell And The GOP's Future

A response to KevDog at Beautiful Futility:

I wasn’t one of those who cracked on the man for the U.N. speech. I think he was more deceived than duplicitous. The Frontline special Bush’s War makes a good case for exactly how pissed Powell was by what happened.

More recently, I think that he has been one of the leading voices of reason (sorry, Andrew) on the ills of the GOP. As a Democrat, I hope they don’t take his advice. There does need to be an opposition party, but the Republican party as it is currently formed needs to go the way of the Whigs.

A) As to Powell: I am simply disappointed that at no point he voiced his anger. I can’t remember where exactly it was sourced (The Daily Show poked fun at it), but when he received the first draft of the UN Speech, he apparently threw it up in the air and shouted, “This is bullsh**.”

Furthermore, if you look at the Powell Doctrine of the use of force, it actually seems to me that even if you believe what the Bush Administration was putting forward during the lead-up to war, the war doesn’t qualify under his own guidelines. I have a huge respect for the Powell Doctrine, and it hurts that he didn’t stand up for it when it was tested.

He should have known that. He should have investigated the plans for a post-war Iraq, and as the Secretary of State he should have realized that there was no plan. As the head of the diplomatic corps, he should have understood that there would be a more complex situation in a post-war Iraq than “being greeted as liberators;” he should have mentioned the words “shi’ite and sunni.”

Maybe he didn’t know everything. But I remember Albert Speer, in his memoirs about his time as a Nazi, saying that although he didn’t know anything about the concentration camps, he was always ten minutes away from knowing, if he really wanted to know.

Contrast Colin Powell to General Eric Shinseki. Shinseki still didn’t go as far as I’d have liked in terms of vocalizing his belief in the misguided lead-up for war. But Shinseki did not back off on his statement that we would need more troops. Powell went out there and defended the planning for the war, for the post-war; he defended Bush as going to war “only as last resort.”

I think he was neither deceived nor duplicitous. I think he abdicated responsibility. And the responsibility was his. He should know the responsibility to soldiers that the Presidential Administration has.

B) You’re right that the Republican Party as it is currently composed should go the way of the Whigs. But Democrats will be worse off if the Republican Party doesn’t take Powell’s advice. As Obama understands, if you have a smart, organized opposition that its actually in conversation with you, your ideas will get /better/. The ideas that lose out are the ideas that should lose out. If we’re actually debating on the issues in a smart and informed way from two different perspectives, Democrats may not get what they want, but their progressive positions will be better served.

The same goes for the Republican Party. Conservativism will be better served when they understand how to communicate with liberal groups and find common ground. There was an article recently somewhere about the pro-life argument for Planned Parenthood–if only they would understand that PP seeks to reduce abortions, the way that the conservatives say they want, then they should support it. There will always be fringe liberals and fringe conservatives whose ideas won’t have a place, but the mainstream of conservative and liberal thinking should come together to constructively criticize each other and create better policies.

I like Democrats, but recently I saw an ad with Nancy Pelosi and Newt Gingrich sitting on a couch, and Nancy Pelosi was telling the viewer to “Contact their Congressmen and tell them to support legislation against climate change.” And my first instinct was: “What the hell are YOU doing? Aren’t you the head of the House? Isn’t that your job? who exactly is running this boat?” Democrats have a lot of sins that I think a strong, sane Republican party can help wash out of them.

The Different Doctrines Of War

Required reading from Ezra Klein.

The question:

David Brooks is right to understand Barack Obama's national security team as the maturation of thinking that began in Iraq and Afghanistan and focuses more on building civic capacity than destroying military capabilities. This is the post-Iraq consensus between liberals and realists, and it will hold as long as the question is Iraq. But what if the topic changes? If China triggers a confrontation over Taiwan or a threatening genocide cries out for a swift intervention? Where does Gates, or Jones, stand then?

There are many different standards by which America goes to war.

Self-DefenseThere's clearly a united consensus that if the United States suffers a direct attack, we will respond in some fashion.

Powell Doctrine:

1. Is a vital national security interest threatened?
2. Do we have a clear attainable objective?
3. Have the risks and costs been fully and frankly analyzed?
4. Have all other non-violent policy means been fully exhausted?
5. Is there a plausible exit strategy to avoid endless entanglement?
6. Have the consequences of our action been fully considered?
7. Is the action supported by the American people?
8. Do we have genuine broad international support?

Unfortunately, Powell did not stand up for the Powell doctrine on Iraq (all of them except possibly 7 turned out to be wrong; 4 + 8 we knew wasn't there at the time without UN support; the intelligence community disputes most of the rest). But it is still a solid standard of going in to war, even if its architect let it fall apart.

Where do the members of the incoming Administration stand? This is a question that I would ask them if I got them in a serious interview. I think this is a standard that most of the Administration can agree upon, except with regards to the next standard.

Clinton Doctrine

"Genocide is in and of itself a national interest where we should act" and "we can say to the people of the world, whether you live in Africa, or Central Europe, or any other place, if somebody comes after innocent civilians and tries to kill them en masse because of their race, their ethnic background or their religion, and it's within our power to stop it, we will stop it."

Although I think in President Clinton's mind, this is part of the Powell Doctrine (an extension of the term "national interest"), that's a fairly controversial stance--it is difficult, but not impossible, to allege that mass genocide in Sudan will lead to American deaths, or even American national interests being defeated.

Of course, I happen to agree with President Clinton about genocide being "just cause", but I don't think that's what the Powell Doctrine means. My personal belief is that the "national interest" in point one of the Powell Doctrine should be replaced, or abutted, with "Are many innocent lives at stake?" I think that should apply equally to US Citizens, French or Indian citizens, or Sudanese.

But, of course, we have to remember the rest of the Powell Doctrine. Somalia was a failure because we didn't understand what was going on; we didn't have the plans, the necessary force, etc.

The Clinton Doctrine, I think, will be most strongly represented by Susan Rice, and possibly by Hillary Clinton. No idea about anyone else.

Bush Doctrine: according to wikipedia:

1) Unilateral action, if required
2) Terrorist-sponsor nations
3) Preventative strikes
4) Democratic regime change

The foremost, I think, is not supported by almost any of Obama's incoming Administration, nor the second one. The third has been explicitly endorsed by Barack Obama (cross-border raids into Pakistan count). I think where Obama parts ways with Bush is whether full scale war is appropriate for the preventative strike, or whether surgical strike action is better. That one may become contentious in a future situation.

The last, I think, will only gain currency if it's attached to something else; humanitarian + regime change, or imminent threat + regime change.

Guns, And The People Who Own Them

A group of friends and I sat in an Afghan restaurant today, and a rather awkward and usually upsetting thing happened: we started talking about politics. Not the usual sort of college talking-about-politics, where everyone has the same opinion and basically makes jokes at the other side's expense. I mean the kind of discussion where two people express opposing sides, and express them.

It was not an argument. As a matter of fact, when I said "rather awkward," I only mean to say that it was rather tricky to negotiate: because a polite, informed discussion is difficult to maintain, and it requires everyone involved be very careful about their words. But everyone was, and Thank God I learned a great amount about guns and gunowners.

There were six of us--five "liberals" (whatever that means in this context; we're not liberal when it comes to gun laws) and one "conservative" (see previous). And when the tides were so imbalanced, we wanted to proceed carefully so as not to trample him with the collective might of our passions.

A note about why the conversation worked before I get into the subject: everyone was actually very careful to stay within their own experience. Most people would love to throw out statistics or news articles or declarations about how the other half should live.

Instead, I got to hear the story of a young man who lives in an affluent neighborhood outside of Boston who has a gun license, and carries with him at all times (when he's in Massachusetts, where it's legal) a concealed weapon. He is my age, and in a lot of other ways not that different from me.

I'll try and introduce the issues that came up.

• Why guns: The first, obvious question is, why carry a gun at all? There are, in general, two arguments as to why you would want a gun. One is hunting, the other is self-defense. Now, those are two very different kind of weapons (most people don't shoot elk or ducks with a handgun, nor do they defend themselves with a shotgun or a scoped rifle). We focused, in this discussion, on the latter, because that's the reason our case study focused on.
• Legality: We agreed, immediately, that the two extreme positions are not plausible. There is nothing wrong with the occasional duck-hunt, so guns should not be completely banned. Nor should assault weapons or anti-tank weapons be free to any bloke off the street.
• Regulation: The young gentleman bristled a little at the amount of regulation that he had to go through. He had to apply, separately, with the local police, the state office, and the Federal government. Each one had the capacity to say no. This is in addition to a safety exam and a background check, neither of which he objects to. But even then, that license that he is granted only applies to about seven states: in others (New York for instance) this is not legal. And what he suggested, and we immediately agreed, is that a single weapons regulatory body would be more effective: it would create less unnecessary hurdles, but strengthen the government's ability to track those who have weapons. Ironically, we could agree on this regulation, because it seemed to make gun ownership easier for those that should have weapons while making it easier to track those who don't have weapons.
• Enforcement: He noted, quite rightly, that the people who do the worst things with guns typically get them illegally, and that many of those issues are not addressed by banning guns. How to address that issue is a completely different matter, but banning does not increase safety. Nor does relaxing regulation. Ironically, in our bipolar universe, the idea that neither increasing nor decreasing regulation makes the country safer is a little bit surprising.

He discussed with us, candidly, about how freely he moves around with a gun, and then he finally reached the sticking point: the point at which people on one side of the issue are distinguished from people on the other.

Sticking points are present in our most controversial issues. They're the points which are so important they cannot be compromised and very difficult to resolve. Unfortunately, sometimes the sticking point becomes the entire issue. For instance, if you make "pro-gun" or "anti-gun" the sticking point, it has much worse consequences (in terms of ruining bipartisanship) than if you make a more specific issue a sticking point. Those who cling to the 2nd Amendment in whole, allowing no regulation of gun ownership at all, are taking that sticking point to an extreme. These people should be reminded that the 2nd Amendment was provided to allow the people of the United States the right to overthrow their government by force.

The sticking point here was: should a human being be trusted to judge the situation in which a life must be taken?

This is a major issue.

Interestingly, you'll notice this framing is more wide-ranging than just this gun issue. This is because sticking points are philosophical-emotional, not political.

Issues that this sticking point intersects:

• War: When we go to War, we judge ourselves right in taking lives, and in ordering people to die.
• The Death Penalty: The death penalty states that we have the right to condemn people to death.
• Abortion: if you consider an unborn child to be alive, then the right to abortion means you judge yourself worthy of killing that unborn child.
• Gun Ownership: people who carry weapons in self-defense are preparing themselves, if need be, to kill.

Obviously, this doesn't mean that people who are in favor of any of the above are necessarily murderers. Almost everyone will concede that these issues are never actually black and white.

Some will look at those and say man cannot decide whether or not to take a life. But the truth is, man does have to decide. On the other hand, saying that man does have to decide does not mean that individuals have to decide. Society (or culture), may have to make that choice. Sometimes we decide it is necessary to take the right to choose death out of the hands of the individual. On the right, it is removing the right to choose abortion: on the left it is removing the right to choose war.

And people may rightly say that in such-and-such a case it is better to take a life (it never is right, but it might be better). But the question is, do you know.

The reason that I opposed the Iraq War was not necessarily because I was against war (World War II was a war that, on the whole, made things better in the world; Vietnam made things worse; Korea was merely a huge waste of life... etc.). But when the President embarked on a campaign of misinformation, he took away our right to make an informed choice.

That right is crucial. One of my favorite quotations about morality, which I use as my own moral compass when everything else fails, is Albert Camus' The Plague.

The narrator is inclined to think that by attributing overimportance to the praiseworthy actions one may, by implication, be paying indirect but potent homage to the worse side of human nature. For this attitude implies that such actions shine out as rare exceptions, while callousness and apathy and the general rule. The narrator does not share this view. The evil that is in the world always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence, if they lack understanding. On the whole, men are more good than bad; that, however, isn't the real point. But they are more or less ignorant, and it is this that we call vice or virtue; the most incorrigible vice being that of an ignorance that fancies it knows everything and therefore claims for itself the right to kill. The soul of the murderer is blind; and there can be no true goodness nor true love without the utmost clearsightedness.

What Camus is saying is that in order to judge the morality of an action, you need to have an accurate understanding of its effects. We tend to judge actions based on their impact. For instance, it is common knowledge that if this Iraq War ends in a stable, democratic Iraq, George Bush's legacy will be rehabilitated in the same way that Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Delano Roosevelt are forgiven their various crimes because of their successes. One quality of leadership is having to make those difficult decisions, based not on the here-and-now but on the long-term impact.

This is very difficult. Many people who mean well will make bad decisions because they are missing facts. And people will be unable to see their transgressions for the same reasons that they make them in the first place: a lack of understanding of the situation.

Now, the Commander-in-Chief of the Army (read: the President) will have to make that decision, whether he likes it or not. Both Barack Obama and John McCain have proven that. The question will remain: who will be able to see the picture more accurately?

That's not the question I set out to answer. The opinion I wished to express was merely that I don't carry a gun for self-defense because I have significant doubts in my own ability to judge a life-or-death instantaneous situation. I have doubts that I will, in the less than half a minute I will have to respond, make the right choice concerning the person whose life is my responsibility, if I take a gun into my life, whether that be the people who might come to be hurt in an accident or the person I might have to decide whether or not to kill.

This was a very fruitful discussion. The Afghan food was also very good. I recommend both to you heartily.