The Thistle and the Drone: How America's War on Terror Became a Global War on Tribal Islam

Acknowledgments

403 Acknowledgments The following colleagues and friends lent their support and knowledge to this project: Amitav Acharya, Melody Fox Ahmed, Sikander Ahmed, Malik Siraj Akbar, Darrell Akins, Karen Armstrong, Mahmood Ayub, Khalid Aziz, Durriya Badani, Thomas Banchoff, Galit Baram, Zakaria Barsaqua, Jonathan Benthall, Arthur Berger, Sarah Bloomfield, Muin Boase, Roger Boase, Nazir Butt, Steven Caton, Meghnad Desai, Lesley Dixon, Rosa Rai Djalal, Abdullah Dogar, Robert Faherty, Akhtar Faruqui, Peter Friedrich, Natalie Fullenkamp, Jennifer Gibson, Ufuk Gokcen, James Goldgeier, Louis Goodman, Stephen Grand, Dennis Guertin, Amineh Ahmed Hoti, Touqir Hussain, Khan Idris, Martin Indyk, Ekmeleddin Ishanoglu, Jianping Jia, Neldy Jolo, Jeremy Keenan, Christopher Kelaher, Edward Kessler, Faiysal Ali Khan, Ghulam Qadir Khan, Naz Khan, David Kilcullen, Christopher Kolenda, Manjula Kumar, Tim Lenderking , Ioan M. Lewis, Julius Lipner, Clarence Lusane, Vicky Macintyre, Beverly Mack, Alam Jan Mahsud, Arif Mansuri, Shabbir Mansuri, Joseph Martin, Melissa McConnell, Shadi Mohktari, Mahdi Murad, Anthony Nathe, Jane O’Brien, Josef Olmert, Thomas Parsons, Randolph Persaud, Jafer Qureshi, Safi Qureshy, Umar Riaz, Lawrence Rosen, Polly Rossdale, Said Samatar, Ermias Sahle Haile Selassie, Jack Shenker, James Shera, Kekenus Sidik, Helen Skaer, James Smrikarov, Jon Snow, Marilyn Strathern, Steve Tankel, Andrew Tucker, Wakar Uddin, Benedict Ugoeze, Agri Verrija, John Voll, Janet Walker, Ian White, Lawrence Wilkerson, Rowan Williams, Dana Wojokh, Susan Woollen, Iyad Youghar, Moeed Yusuf, Sepehr Zanganeh, and Quansheng Zhao. In particular, my warm thanks to Professor Lawrence Rosen for his comments on and encouragement for the chapters of the book as they developed, and Dean James Goldgeier who, despite his many responsibilities as the new dean of the School of International Service at American University, consistently supported this project; their support and friendship meant more to me than they can imagine. I am grateful to the University of Cambridge Centre for Gender Studies in the idyllic town of Cambridge for inviting me as the Diane Middlebrook and Carl Djerassi Visiting Professor for the Ahmed.indb 403 2/12/13 8:34 PM 404 Acknowledgments Michaelmas term in 2012 and to Jesus College for appointing me a visiting fellow in the college. The unfailing courtesy and support I received from the Centre and Jesus College allowed me to finalize the book. I would also like to express my gratitude to the Center for Dialogue, Peace, and Action in Washington, D.C. I am especially grateful to the team that worked on this project: Nafees Ahmed, Harrison Akins, Elise Alexander, Aja Anderson, Zoya Awan, Alex Christian, deRaismes Combes, James Davis, Pegi Dunsmore, Jonathan Hayden, Dylan Kaplan, Emily Manna, Frankie Martin, Laura Martin, Elayna Salak, Isa bin Salman, and Priyanka Srinivasa. Their enthusiasm was contagious. Dylan wrote to me from Calcutta to introduce himself and became a member of my team even before he joined American University, writing articles on the suffering of Muslim groups as a minority in the light of his own Jewish family’s tragic experiences during the Holocaust. Similarly, Priyanka was a passionate advocate for the communities on the periphery of her native India and even resisted her family’s plans to take her home for the summer in order to be able to work in our office. Nafees Ahmed was supportive of the project from its inception and stayed up several nights reading the entire manuscript diligently in order to make useful suggestions for its improvement. I am grateful to each and every one of them. I could not have written this book without their passion and commitment. I do want to single out three members of the team for special thanks—Aja Anderson, Frankie Martin, and Harrison Akins. Aja worked on every aspect of the project with boundless enthusiasm. My debt to my senior research assistants, Frankie and Harrison, is immeasurable. Their notes, research material, capacity to make connections between our case studies, and participation in the discussions , all within the conceptual frame I had laid out and under my guidance, contributed significantly to the study. Their intellectual curiosity, support of the project, and good fellowship were unfailing. Not even the storm that battered Washington, D.C., in the summer of 2012 could slow them down; they worked right through it. When I came to Cambridge for the autumn term as visiting professor in late 2012, Harrison’s arrival was not unlike the proverbial landing of the Marines, and he was of immense value to the project in its last, most critical , phase and the running of my office; his dealings with British lords, knights, masters, and fellows and assorted members of the Muslim community...