Notes on Akbar Ahmed’s The Thistle and the Drone
1. Akbar Ahmed's The Thistle and the Drone is his reading of the American War against Terrorism and its ambiguities. He is a former Pakistani Civil Servant, for a number of years Professor at American University, who identifies with the British administrative tradition and a distinguished academic anthropologist—which combined with a liberal humanist Islam and his own identity as an Pashtun aristocrat who knows everyone influences this very human book. His wife was a member of the Royal Family of Swat way into the mountains of Northern Pakistan and his father a senior civil servant. My favorite story is when I had him come as a lecturer to the Foreign Service Institute and was worried about him being late. Only to discover him sitting on a bench in reception because the secretary had not imagined...