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SCENEISSUE 88 - November 2011 Reading Shakespeare in Kandahar

Highland Fling: Karzai in Scotland Behind The Scenes of Kabul At Work The 2001 invasion—up close and personal

perspective • insight • people • reviews • pics • life

Cartoon scene AFGHAN IntroductionContents Afghan Scene November 2011 Afghan Scene NovemberNovember 20112011

ISSUE 88 - November 2011 Publisher: Afghan Scene Ltd, Wazir Akbar Khan, Kabul, Afghanistan Manager & Editor: Afghan Scene Ltd, Kabul, Afghanistan Design: Kaboora Production Advertising: [email protected] Printer: Emirates Printing Press, Dubai Contact: [email protected] / www.afghanscene.com Check us out on Afghan Scene welcomes the contribution of articles and / or pictures from its readers. Editorial rights reserved. Cover photo: Julius Cavendish Keep updated at: www.facebook.com/ Afghan.Scene

7 Introduction

10 Who Is The Body Builder? A Kabul at Work vignette

16 Kabul At Work Behind The Scenes Scene talks to the man behind the multi-media mapping project

22 Highland Fling: Karzai in Scotland Former British Ambassador to Kabul Sir Sherard Cowper- Coles recounts how President Hamid Karzai went to 10 Scotland in an extract from his memoir of high diplomacy in Kabul

40 Cover feature: Reading Shakespeare in Kandahar Af-Pak correspondent Nick Schifrin asks if the cost of America’s revenge following 9/11 has, as in Shakespeare’s bloodthirsty play Titus Andronicus, been too great

58 Recollections of the 2001 invasion Journalists look back on the high hopes and brutal fighting that accompanied the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan 10 years ago

22 64 In the First Person Lapis man David James talks Afghanistan

68 Be Scene Kabul party pictures

72 Afghan Essentials All you need to know about where to go in Kabul

http://stuffexpataidworkerslike.com www.manucartoons.com 40

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he reins at Afghan Scene are changing There was waking on remote outcrops at hands, which seems as good a reason dawn, or rolling over the green breast of as any to look back on three years in the central highlands without another car Afghanistan and pay a valediction to for miles, or catching a glimpse of a wolf Ta country that almost anyone who spends at 13,000 feet. There was slurping sweet any time here comes to love deeply. green tea at chaikhanas by the way, or eating partridge in the dead of winter in a There was Kabul itself—city of secret gardens, snowbound village, or sipping bootleg whisky open sewers and edgy urbanization, of in Kandahar on hot summer nights while warlord’s temples to greed and garishness, gunfire grumbled across the city. slums rising up sheer mountainsides and the bucolia of the university campus, where it all What I’ll remember best are the visceral started so long ago. At night you could listen friendships, which took no account of to tabla and rabab in rose-scented gardens, background, circumstances or nationality, or you might stumble ceremonial sword the comradeship, the shared excitement. fighting on the streets of Qala-e-Fatullah to It was better than I’d have ever imagined. mark a local boy’s engagement, or you could Staelemashe, Afghanistan. We’ll meet again. hit L’Atmo—that ubiquity where waiters in � � starched tunics served anaemic coffees and industrial-strength cocktails to the hard- bitten and the hard living. [email protected]

Afghan Scene November 2011 www.afghanscene.com www.afghanscene.com Afghan Scene November 2011 7 Scene Team Afghan Scene November 2011 Afghan Scene November 2011 Contributors Afghan Scene Magazine is proud to showcase work from the best photographers in Afghanistan

Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles was the British Ambassador to Afghanistan from 2007 until 2009. He served as the UK’s Special Representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan from 2009 – 2010. He is now BAE Systems’ international business development director, focusing on the Middle East and south-east Asia.

David Gill is a British writer, photographer and videogarpher focusing on a social documentary and overseas development. His current book project Kabul, a City at Work is a selection of over 100 original portraits. web.mac.com/shot2bits/work

Lynne O’Donnell covered the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan for The Australian, for whom she was China correspondent from 1998-2002. She was Kabul bureau chief for Agence France-Presse 2009-2010

Nick Schifrin is the ABC News correspondent covering Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Julius Strauss first travelled to the Balkans as a freelance photographer during the Serbo-Croat and Bosnian wars. Later he worked in Romania, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Greece, Sierra Leone, Afghanistan, Iraq and Russia. He now runs Grizzly Bear Ranch in a remote British Colombia valley with his wife Kristin.

Almost all of the photographs and cartoons featured in Afghan Scene are available for sale direct from the artists. Most of them are available for commissions, here and elsewhere. If you would like to contribute to Afghan Scene, or if you can’t get hold of a contributor, please contact [email protected].

8 Afghan Scene November 2011 www.afghanscene.com www.afghanscene.com Afghan Scene November 2011 Kabul at work Kabul at work Afghan Scene November 2011 Afghan Scene November 2011 Who is the body builder?

Name: Ahmad Shuja Momuzai Age: 30 Length of service: 10 years Income: none Price: $100 for gym membership Employees: Personal trainer Gyms in Kabul: 500 Location: Iron Man Gym

“We want to show the world that this is Afghanistan. A strong Afghanistan, a peaceful Mr. Afghanistan colours up Photo: David Gill Afghanistan”

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never thought, when I was younger, that eligible to compete in Mr Afghanistan. I would be competing for the title in I Afghanistan. Again there is no prize but people take it very seriously. Last year, Mr Afghanistan spent I started body building in 2006. It is a more than $10,000 on his body with protein peaceful sport, you know, no fighting. My supplements and training over a year. It is an father was also a body builder but had to expensive sport and dangerous too. He died stop because of the wars. Anyway, he told me and his brother said he was poisoned. about it and I began training. For the last two years I come second in “Mr Kabul”. He was training for Mr South Asia and people were jealous. Sabotage is common amongst I work out 3 times a day. 30 minutes in the body builders. I remember when I was a morning and evening and 15-20 minutes kid during the communist times there were at midday. If I weren’t dieting I would be 52 body builders who were being flown all pushing 140kg on my arms and 500kg on my over the world. Someone killed the pilot on thighs. I train in the Iron Man Gym but there the plane and everyone was killed. It could are over 500 gyms in Kabul. have been Iranians or Indians who were responsible. Who knows? I used to be so skinny, weighing just 60 kg. Now I am 80. I am dieting at the moment I am not scared though as this is a peaceful as you have to strip down all the fat before sport. That’s what keeps me going. We want building up muscle again otherwise your to show the world that this is Afghanistan. muscles don’t look good when you pose. A strong Afghanistan, a peaceful Afghanistan. And people are inspired by us. Last year at “When we saw The trouble is that there are no professional the Mr Kabul competition a policeman asked gyms, they are good but there is no me where I work out. The next day he joined the attacks in the investment from the Olympic Committee or the gym and stopped smoking cigarettes and twin buildings the government to make them quality gyms. hashish. You pay for the privilege. Last year 16 people and realised we won medals in the South Asian games but I When I was younger I used to run and do kick think they had to pay for their own tickets to boxing. In one fight I broke my friend’s nose could go back to compete. And there are no physiotherapists and stopped after that. If you hit your friend… to help you if you injure yourself. well it is not good to fight. Afghanistan we were happy.” Anyone can try to compete in a competition, We moved to Pakistan when I was 17 after so long as you have a good body. There I was arrested and detained in Pul e Charki is no prize – just a trophy, a medal and a prison for being Panshiri. It was tough and I The Body Photo: David Gill certificate. If you win Mr Kabul you are worked in a garment factory to help pay for

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my younger brothers’ education. It paid off worsened though. That’s politics for you. though as two of my brothers are working as interpreters for the military as their English is Life is good now however. It is more like so good. it used to be when I was a child. I love my family, my wife, my son, my sister and We used to watch beatings and murders on brothers. I love my job as a house manager TV from Pakistan. When we saw the attacks and I love training. in the twin buildings and realised we could go back to Afghanistan we were happy but But what makes me sad is when I hear about when we arrived it was hard. The city had suicide attacks. Yesterday there was a suicide regressed. During the communist regime, attack in Kunduz and 30 people were killed. Kabul was really clean and there were trees That is 30 families who will be grieving now. and beautiful buildings, none of these horrible And you know how big Afghan families are. poppy palaces. When I was a kid in those It makes me so so sad to think about their times I loved playing with my friends in the loss. A lot of people my age, all they have gardens at school. The city was a good place. ever known is conflict and their minds have It was peaceful during the Taliban but there been affected. They get angry quickly, they was no work and no freedom for women. argue… you can see it in the roads when they drive, people shout at each other all the When we returned there was no gas, no time and it makes me sad. That is why I like electricity. It was almost like a ghost town. bodybuilding; you can have huge strength Day by day it got better. Security has and maintain peace. �

Kabul: A City At Work is a multi-media project, led by a joint international and Afghan crew collecting interviews, photographic portraits and video shorts of the people of Kabul in their working Ahmad Shuja Momuzai at work Photo: David Gill environments. You can find out more at www.kabulatwork.tv

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Kabul At Work: Behind The Scenes Scene talks to British photographer and Kabul At Work supremo David Gill about his mammoth multi-media project to document present- day Kabul through the prism of the working lives of hundreds of Kabulis

Scene: Where did this whole project start? try to find publishers. Everyone thought it What was the inspiration? When did you was a great idea. But no one would really think this is what I’d like to do, and how had fund it. I just started doing it. I thought, you got to that point? ‘Build it and they will come’. So I started working on it for free in my spare time, David Gill: It kind of started when there was collecting characters, boring everybody that attack at the Indian Embassy. I’d been silly with the concept, but never giving up. trying to convince everybody that I lived And then I got a tiny bit of funding and in this amazing city and then that Indian that meant I couldn’t give up. I was legally Embassy bomb went off and Kabul was all obliged to finish the thing. And then we over the headlines and on TV, and it made made this documentary for al-Jazeera with me realise that Kabul only gets attention [Director] Oliver [Englehart] and that went when something dramatic happens. So I down really well, and that gave me lots of pitched this story to Esquire Magazine, and encouragement. So we took it to the US they ran the feature, Kabul At Work, little State Department, had a screening of it at vignettes of eight different people. When the Duck and Cover, and they thought it was they were [first] trying to put together a awesome and said, ‘We’d love to fund it.’ list, I came up with 50 suggestions. So then the editor said, ‘You should do a book.’ So Scene: How did you persuade Kabulis to let that was the genesis of it, the idea. you document their lives?

Scene: What happened next? It’s one thing David Gill: On one level it’s really to have an idea, another to turn it into straightforward, the access in Afghanistan something. is – you can just rock up. People don’t have huge amounts of gatekeepers like they do in David Gill: Well then I started working [the U.K]. If you’re talking about influential David Gill on patrol in Helmand Photo: David Gill on—I don’t know how interesting it is—you people, you just ring them up and they

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say, ‘Come round’. There are different levels prostitute, tell me about it,’—and they would. People are constantly suggesting who you Scene: Have you noticed any change in of social strata—you’ve got your business In Afghanistan, you’ll ask someone and you’ll should [profile] and the list gets bigger and yourself since embarking on the Kabul at Work magnates and your ordinary people. There’s start hearing how their tribe moved from bigger. I’d like the project to be where it just project? an American film project, they’d throw a dart Ghazni to Kabul in the 14th century, and if continues and can be part of some socio- at a map, fly there, open a yellow pages, put you don’t speak the language and aren’t part anthropological resource at universities, David Gill: Weirdly enough, I think I’ve got their finger on a page, call them up and say, of the culture it’s really difficult to construct and people can study who were the people more patient. I used to get really stressed, I’d ‘Can we come over and do a story on you?’ To a personal narrative for each of them on around this period. Giving Afghans a voice is think this is ridiculous, come on. And then you prove the point that everyone’s got a story. video. So the logistics, the language, and something I definitely want to do. And one get used to it. Getting one thing done a week And by virtue of the 30 years of conflict, the then, obviously, convincing people to tell you of the things we’re trying to do is work out is a success. Getting money out of the cash Taliban era, everyone’s got a story [here]. stories—sometimes you interview them and what everyone’s saying, and seeing if there’s machine is a good day. It’s kind of like, when They’ve been refugees, caught up in a civil they tell you one story and you go back and a common thread or an overarching theme. something goes well, it’s a lot more valuable. war. Everyone’s got some kind of incredible they tell you something completely different, Joke: if there’s one common theme, it’s that Back home people complain about their back-story. From Abdullah Abdullah to the and you think, ‘What did you tell me yesterday, life under the Taliban was better. Life under iPhones being too slow, or something. White guy selling phone cards in Medina Bazaar, I that’s complete bullsh*t.’ Interviewing women the Taliban: discuss. The sweet-maker said he people with white people’s problems. When suppose that’s the background. [The project]’s is still one of the most difficult challenges. We preferred life under the Taliban because there I go home and think, ‘Jesus!’ You complain not really about that. It’s about their lives and have a good selection of women—a general, a were no imported snickers bars. about different things, don’t you? I think I’ve how they got on with it, whether they left mechanic, a driving instructor, an actress. It’s got a lot more perspective and patience, I and came back, or whether they had to stay just difficult, convincing women that this is Scene: It’s human nature to complain. don’t know if patience is the right word. It’s because they were poor. It’s about how they a good idea. But most of the women we have more a Zen acceptance—it’s something about manage to function and get on with their found are really ballsy, so maybe that’s not David Gill: I think that has to be taken with soft temper. The Afghans have an expression everyday lives. even a difficulty. If you think of them, they’re the fact that there is no security and that’s about soft temper. And my soft temper is a lot all bonkers. They don’t really fear. No one does what people appreciate. Would you want them better than it used to be. Scene: What were the difficulties you faced a study but I think the large majority of the back tomorrow is the question, and of course once you began pulling together all the population must have some kind of mental they don’t. But even the skateboard teacher Scene: What happens next? different strands and vignettes of Kabul life? trauma. used to love it when there was a big push. He said he used to go on the roof at night, and David Gill: I don’t know if we’ll ever finish David Gill: One of the biggest obstacles is Scene: And what and when were the watch the rockets. It was like a party he said. this. It’s going to be late. There will be no running a business. Registering with AISA. moments that filled you with hope and big launch party, I’d like it to just continue. The idea of, ‘Let’s set up a business, off excitement and satisfaction and kept you Scene: Any choice anecdotes you can share? Training people up to continue the work. The we go’—it’s a huge logistical nightmare going? idea is that this will be a constantly evolving just trying to register with all the right David Gill: We just finished the gambler. mapping project. I want it to be the go-to government ministries. The main problems David Gill: I feel like I’m still at the start of it. He’s great, he just gambles on birds, he’s got place for Kabul that links to other interesting are: interviewing people who don’t talk about As time marches on and I’m in the middle of like 40 grandchildren, and borrows money projects in Kabul. A virtual Kabul. There’s so themselves in the same way Westerners the project and the website’s launched I feel off his kids, and he’s just the world’s worst much potential. You know, new journalists are do. The entire project was inspired by a as though I’m at the start. I’ve overreached gambler. And when he does win, he can’t bring always coming to Kabul and they don’t have Studds Terkel book titled ‘Working’ and he myself. Trying to encapsulate a city of five the money back into the house because it’s any ideas of their own. It could be a journalist wandered round America saying, ‘Oh you’re million people, I want to over-deliver on un-Islamic. He wants to go on Hajj but can’t resource centre. If you need a good idea, come an air hostess, you’re a steel worker, you’re a this project because I believe in it so much. because he spends all his money on gambling. and steal it from Kabul at Work! �

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ne of President Karzai’s more attractive describes as ‘Her Majesty’s Government in Highland Fling: traits was his love of walking. Every the United Kingdom’ making all arrangements Oevening, he would take a lengthy (and paying all reasonable bills), once the constitutional round and round the grounds of Guest and party have reached the shores of Karzai in Scotland the Palace in Kabul where he was effectively the UK. President Karzai, and his officials, a prisoner. On learning of both these facts, gratefully accepted the invitation on the the Prince of Wales generously invited Karzai terms we explained to them. In an extract from his memoir of high diplomacy in Kabul, to go walking with him in Scotland, staying at the Prince’s house on the Balmoral estate, But the course of true love between Britain former British ambassador and Special Representative to Birkhall, which had belonged to Prince and Afghanistan never ran entirely smooth. Afghanistan and Pakistan Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles tells Charles’s beloved grandmother. Only a couple of weeks before the President the inside story of Hamid Karzai’s highland fling was due to land in London we in Kabul Somehow, over the summer of 2007, we realised that we had a major problem. In the settled on a date for President Karzai’s visit absence of any indication to the contrary to Scotland in late November. The Prince and from Karzai’s protocol team, we had assumed President had already met several times, in that the President and his party would make London and elsewhere, but this would be the their way to Britain in an aircraft of their first time Karzai had stayed in a British royal own. But, in going over arrangements with the residence or spent such an extended period Afghans, it dawned on the British Embassy with a member of the royal family, or indeed official charged with organising the visit from any senior Briton. Prince Charles kindly asked the Kabul end that our Afghan guests were Rory Stewart (of whose Turquoise Mountain assuming that the British Government would Foundation the Prince and President were somehow get them to the UK. After all, that joint patrons) and me to stay at Birkhall too. was what happened when President Karzai visited Washington or New York: the United The Government in London saw this as a States Air Force would take him all the way chance to develop the better relationship there and all the way back. But it turned between Britain and President Karzai which I out that there was no Afghan Presidential had been tasked to build. In the latter part of aircraft, and that the ancient Boeing 727 2006 and early 2007, there had been plenty of the Presidential Palace usually chartered or indications of worryingly anti-British views on borrowed from the Afghan airline Ariana was his part. We wanted to put this behind us, and not allowed to land in Western Europe, for to introduce him to the new Prime Minister, safety reasons. Frantic further exchanges with Gordon Brown, who had taken over from Tony the Palace revealed not only that there was Blair at the end of June. We therefore turned no aircraft available, still less booked, but also the trip into what is known as a Guest of that there was no Afghan money available to Government visit: just short of a state visit, charter one, or even to pay for tickets on a Karzai at Magdalen College Oxford Photo: Sherard Cowper-Coles with what the printed programme pompously regular airline.

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to what the Afghans would see as a minor in Germany but chartered by the British logistical question. That also ruled out our Government. It had been decided that I would appealing to the Americans for help: doing travel with the party, to use the nine hours so would only complete HMG’s humiliation of the journey to build my relationship with in Afghan (and American) eyes. Somehow, President Karzai and his Ministers. Apart from at short notice, the British Government had personal aides, the other members of the to find the money for a charter flight, or party were the Foreign Minister, Dr Spanta, dream up some good reason for postponing and the National Security Adviser, Dr Rassoul. the visit. Perhaps the MOD could contribute We spent most of the flight looking out of the to the cost: after all, they had more window, or gossiping about Afghan politics, invested in Afghanistan, in both absolute with the President leading the discussion. The and proportionate terms, than any other one point at which President Karzai became British Government player. DFID had far especially animated was when he spotted that more money allocated to Afghanistan than I was reading Sir Olaf Caroe’s classic work The it could sensibly spend. Could we not ask the Pathans. Caroe had been the last British Treasury for money from the Reserve, given Governor of the North West Frontier Province the importance of a successful visit for wider before Partition, and had been asked by the British interests? If Ministers were enlisted, new Government of Pakistan to stay on in that surely the Treasury would cave in. role. His mighty work on the tribes west of Karzai in Scotland Photo: Sherard Cowper-Coles the Indus said, in suitably magisterial tones, The battle went on for the best part of a all there was to be said about the Pashtuns. fortnight. There was the usual Whitehall President Karzai sang the book’s praises. He shroud-waving: no one wanted to be the first saw himself as a kind of Pashtun paramount Nor was there any budget in London for followed by scheduled first-class flight on to to concede. No one doubted that the money chief. He believed that Britons in general, and substantial unforeseen expenses of this kind. London. Options were explored, alternatives would be found, but it was not clear from Caroe in particular, understood his people Nimble footwork by the Foreign Office’s costed: using the RAF and scheduled flights where, or whether it would be subject to better than any other foreigners. Afghan team found a Gulfstream jet available would be much, much cheaper. We tested conditions. Eventually, the teams in London for charter, and established the (enormous) the water with the Afghans: it was clear that and Kabul found some unspent Foreign Office Our reception at Heathrow’s Royal Terminal cost, including what looked like a quite President Karzai would be reluctant to travel funds that could – ‘exceptionally and without made me proud: it was a reminder of just exorbitant insurance premium for taking such by scheduled flight. And then the argument creating a precedent’, of course – be used to how good the Foreign Office’s Inward Visits an aircraft into and out of Kabul. But that was that always trumps everything was adduced: pay for the charter. machine still is. At the foot of the steps, the only the beginning of the battle. Just halfway security. How could the President be protected President was greeted by representatives through the financial year, nobody in London in the cabin of a commercial airliner, when his With Karzai blissfully unaware, I hoped, of of the Queen and the Government. He was had available the tens of thousands of pounds bodyguards needed to carry guns? what a close-run thing the whole exercise had whisked into the main building, offered tea needed to pay for a charter of this kind. been, the President and his party duly took and biscuits by a black-coated butler, while Quite properly, the FCO Director responsible I chipped in, arguing that the goodwill off from Kabul early on Sunday 21 November his party were distributed among the vehicles for Afghanistan insisted that we look at all generated by the visit would be undone if 2007 in a large and luxurious Gulfstream in the motorcade by efficient FO ladies with other possibilities: RAF to Bahrain, or Muscat, HMG adopted a cheese-paring approach executive jet, registered, embarrassingly, clipboards. The President would ride in an

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enormous armoured BMW provided and driven The next morning, President Karzai flew on by the Metropolitan Police. Drs Spanta and ahead to Aberdeen, on an RAF aircraft, in Rassoul had a limousine of their own. The order to have time alone walking with the rest of us were placed in couple of capacious Prince of Wales. I followed on British Airways. people carriers, to reduce the length of the From Dyce airport, a dark-green Land Rover motorcade. Then it was off into London, from the Balmoral estate whisked me up the accompanied by the motorcycle outriders of Dee valley. The views were breathtakingly the Metropolitan Police’s Special Escort Group. beautiful, with the leaves turning every The SEG is one of the unsung glories of official shade of dusky gold, against the darker Britain. They move the Queen, VIP visitors blues and greens and greys of the moors and senior Ministers (if they so choose and behind and beyond. Birkhall could not have have a real operational need) through traffic felt more comfortable or natural: a proper as a knife cuts through soft butter: quiet, country house, without ostentation or efficient, undemonstrative, they use whistles, extravagance, and full of family things, albeit transponders to turn traffic lights the right from a rather special family. The staff were colour and an extraordinary knowledge quietly courteous, showing me to my room, of London’s byways to make British VIP suggesting when I might like to join His Royal motorcades a model to behold. In my two and Highness and the President for tea. Hotfoot a half years as principal private secretary to from Kabul, Rory Stewart arrived soon after Robin Cook when he was foreign secretary, me, equipped for his Highland stay with kilt I experienced many motorcades around the and trews and tartan and tweeds. We chatted world: the California Highway Patrol closing, with Karzai’s Private Secretary, who was still quite outrageously, an entire freeway for the in disbelief about where he was and what his British Foreign Secretary, French motorcycle boss was doing. police banging hysterically on the roofs of cars to get them out of the way, Italian After a while, the Prince and the President Carabinieri, sirens blaring, skidding out of appeared, back from their walk. Hamid Karzai control, and, most memorably, a sweetly was beaming from ear to ear. Despite the inexperienced New Zealand motorcycle escort difficulties of negotiating the weather in a getting us lost in the suburbs of Auckland. shalwar kameez and black town shoes, he Nothing beats the understated efficiency of had had the time of his life. After tea, Rory the Met’s SEG, as they race past in relays, gave him a gift from the Turquoise Mountain holding traffic at side-roads and junctions, Foundation: a sura from the Koran inscribed threading a way for the motorcade around in the most elaborate Arabic calligraphy. traffic islands and obstacles of every kind, Then it was a bath, a quiet pre-supper chat negotiating backstreets, bus lanes and routes with the Prince of Wales (who was longing through the Royal Parks. No noise, no fuss. to be allowed to visit Afghanistan) and the Karzai about to board the Royal Flight for Scotland Photo: Sherard Cowper-Coles Pure ballet. most delicious and healthy dinner à quatre,

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surrounded by nine grandfather clocks the Bodleian Library. The Hertford porter a success. The Afghan–British relationship collected by the Queen Mother. soon put me in my place: clearly thinking was set on a new course. It felt good to be that I was a practical joker, and that the ambassador to Afghanistan at such time, On the Tuesday morning the Royal Air Force strangely dressed gentleman beside me making a difference. With the Prime Minister flew President Karzai and me back to London. was an impostor, he said firmly that the due to pay his first visit to Kabul in December, The Special Escort Group whisked us in from Principal was in a meeting and could not be what could possibly go wrong? � Northolt and on to Lancaster House for a disturbed, even for President Karzai. full-dress luncheon in the President’s honour, In the Union’s great debating hall, President given by Her Majesty’s Government. Karzai delivered a tour de force, in front of a full house of students of every size, shape Wednesday was another day out, this time in and background. It was in settings like this Oxford: the first stop was Magdalen College, that one saw his skill as a speaker who could whose beautiful tower stands guard over the inspire and communicate fluently in three approaches to Oxford and the bridge over the languages. He addressed questions, from Cherwell of the same name as the college. smooth Indians, an angry American and President Karzai was greeted there by the worried Brits, with charm and conviction. President of Magdalen and by the President We were on something of a high as we left the of the Oxford Union (an undergraduate): a home of lost causes and forgotten dreams, for summit of three Presidents. As we toured the the President’s audience of HM the Queen at President of Magdalen’s magnificent lodgings, Buckingham Palace. an impressed Afghan President commented ruefully that perhaps the President of The main event, on the last day of the visit, Magdalen was better housed, and the was talks with the Prime Minister over President of the Union more powerful, breakfast at Number 10, followed by a press than the President of Afghanistan. conference. As I had hoped and expected, the President and the PM connected immediately. Afterwards, we abandoned the motorcade Hamid Karzai responded to Gordon Brown’s and walked from Magdalen to President seriousness, his mastery of detail and his Karzai’s next engagement, a speech at willingness to listen. On a personal level, they the Oxford Union. This, I knew, was what had young sons in common, and exchanged Hamid Karzai loved: striding out cheerfully, gifts. Sarah Brown appeared with young John being greeted by startled American Brown, then aged four: Karzai was immediately tourists and puzzled shoppers just off the charmed. Sensibly, the Prime Minister spent bus from Blackbird Leys, a real politician most of the time tête-à-tête with his guest. connecting with real people. On the spur The press conference was a cakewalk. Cables from Kabul: The Inside Story of the West’s Afghanistan Campaign by Sir Sherard Cowper of the moment, I thought I would try to Coles and published by HarperPress, An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, is available now. introduce the President to the Principal As I made my own way back to Kabul, via This extract is reprinted with the kind permission of the publisher. of my old college, Hertford, just opposite Dubai, I reflected that the visit had been

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Diplomatic hardcorps | Sascha, Merja, Rudolpho, Gunnar Diplomatic hardcorps | Sascha, Merja, Rudolpho, Gunnar Northen Exposure | Kabul’s Leslie on a visit to the ThreeRoad peoplerunner much| Superfixer taller than Noor scene’s on the snapperroad to Jam| Matt, Melissa and Rima at the British Embassy Ball and Rima at the British Embassy Ball Alaskan wilderness and Rima at Nick’s farewell

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Afghan Scene November 2011 www.afghanscene.com www.afghanscene.com Afghan Scene November 2011 Feature scene Feature scene Afghan Scene November 2011 Afghan Scene November 2011 Reading Shakespeare in Kandahar The United States has won some measure of revenge in the 10 years since 9/11. But as in Shakespeare’s bloodthirsty play Titus Andronicus, has the cost been too great? By Nick Schifrin

Tigers must pray Photo: Julius Cavendish

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hank you for coming,” Prof. David Kastan SEALs shot the man who ordered the 9/11 told the half-full auditorium. “You did attacks in the head and chest. After loading Tnot have to be here this morning. I did. It his body onto a helicopter, they flew it to means the world to me that you came.” I looked Afghanistan and then to a ship at sea, where around at my fellow classmates; we were all they dumped the prepared body in the ocean. tired and dazed. The night before, the acrid, I was the first American reporter to arrive at unforgettable smell of melted steel, atomized Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad. concrete, and human remains had drifted seven My team and I aired the first video from inside miles north, from southern Manhattan up to the compound and filed 11 stories in five Columbia University’s campus. frantic days.

It was Sept. 13, 2001, and I was 21 years old. It was only after I had returned to my home in Two days earlier, I had walked into Kastan’s Islamabad, about a 90-minute drive away, that Shakespeare class before the attacks began Titus Andronicus and Kastan’s warning came and walked out after the second tower had to mind. I was sitting with a group of American already fallen. Columbia canceled classes and British friends -- journalists, NGO for two days. I spent my time at the daily workers, and diplomats -- having that familiar student newspaper, the Spectator, where I was melancholic conversation about 9/11: “Where managing editor. On Thursday morning, the were you?” And, because we now lived where first class back was Shakespeare. 9/11’s plotters had fled: “Did you imagine you’d be here, 10 years later?” “I will not make a political statement today,” Kastan continued. “But I will say this: This play No, I said. I hadn’t imagined, sitting in my we will discuss today is about revenge -- and Shakespeare class a decade ago, that I would what demanding revenge can do to a person. I end up in Pakistan reporting the death of only hope that the people who will be making Osama bin Laden. But perhaps Shakespeare decisions on how to respond to Tuesday’s might have imagined the United States would attacks read Titus Andronicus.” be “here,” 10 years later.

When he finished, the class gave him a Titus Andronicus is a play about revenge. It is standing ovation. about how a general fighting for an empire -- Rome -- finally defeats the “barbarous” Nine-and-a-half years later, I found myself Goths and returns to his capital with prisoners, standing outside a large house in Pakistan. the vanquished queen and her sons. Despite It was 1:00 p.m. on May 2, 2011, and I was a the queen’s pleas, Titus kills her oldest son to correspondent for ABC News. Twelve hours avenge his own sons’ deaths, beginning cycles earlier, the United States had finally taken of brutal violence that end in the death of I tell my sorrows to the stones Photo: Julius Cavendish its revenge. In the middle of the night, Navy nearly every major character.

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At its core, Titus Andronicus is a play about this part of town -- far from the old British-built how good people can become unhinged and cantonment of green lawns and red mansions indeed overwhelmed by the need to avenge. -- the streets were thin and gray. Autorickshaws It is about how powerful people surrender competed with horse-drawn carts. themselves to cycles of violence, how tribal and religious customs unequivocally demand Meena Bazaar was rare in that it catered to retaliation, and how two tribes’ or two families -- one of the few places in Peshawar religions’ speaking past rather than with each where you saw women in large numbers. But on other can lead to chaos. this day, there were no girls choosing colorful bangles, no women buying dresses. Most of the “Vengeance is in my heart, death in my hand, small, fragile shops were now piles of debris, blood and revenge are hammering in my destroyed two weeks before by a massive car head,” one of Titus’s enemies says before the bomb that had gutted this crowded corner of bloodletting begins. the city. The explosion was one of the most violent acts of terrorism in Pakistan’s history. Kastan was right to worry. The United States The official death count was more than 110, but has made many of the same mistakes that Titus residents said at least 60 additional bodies were Andronicus and his fellow tragedians made: never found, obliterated in the blast. prioritizing revenge and killing the enemy over helping the local populations; choosing allies The explosion coincided with a visit to Islamabad who help produce short-term gratification by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Her (security gains) but long-term trouble; refusing timing could not have been worse. The bomb to truly engage with a population that seemed in the Meena Bazaar exploded just before she so different from themselves. began to speak. The aggressive, ubiquitous Pakistani TV channels showed her news Had the Americans learned from Shakespeare’s conference in split screen: Clinton on one side, epic of vengeance, might Afghanistan and the aftermath of the explosion on the other. Pakistan, where I have lived for the last three years, been less violent and more welcoming of The Pakistani Taliban were in the middle of one the United States today? of the most violent campaigns of retribution the country had ever seen. They were blowing In early November 2009, I walked through up police and soldiers, but also bombing what had been the colorful and crowded mosques and markets full of civilians. And aisles of Meena Bazaar in Peshawar, Pakistan. yet the depravity of a Peshawar bomb clearly Every time I visited, the city always felt designed to kill as many innocents as possible ancient, mostly unchanged from how it has somehow did not stoke the city’s anger at been described for decades: filled with dust, militants. (For their part, the Taliban denied Sweet mercy is nobility’s true badge Photo: Julius Cavendish smelling of diesel fumes and baked brick. In involvement in the attack.)

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Most people in Peshawar blamed the United For years, U.S. officials have found statements that the CIA (and the Pentagon) ran the show businessman, and he was even more positive: States -- not the Taliban. Clinton’s speech about like that unfair. They have been frustrated by and that drones and counterterrorism tactics “The people who oppose America, they should developing a “partnership between the people” the anger that Pakistanis and the Pakistani were more important than the diplomats and see how they’ve helped me. And they will of the United States and Pakistan fell on deaf media often exhibit toward the United States development experts. change their minds.” ears. Residents either directly accused the -- despite billions of U.S. dollars flowing United States of planting the bomb or accused it into the country. In 2010, one U.S. diplomat In Titus Andronicus, Titus gets halfway But these vignettes are sadly rare. In most of inspiring the violence by pushing Pakistan to told me, with some derision, that Pakistani through the play before he realizes that not areas of Pakistan -- where people perceive fight “America’s war” along the Afghan border. perceptions of the United States were “a only do his historic enemies -- the Goths -- their lives as less secure and less developed collection of conspiracy theories.” seek revenge; his fellow Romans may as well. since 9/11 -- there is still a strong anti- Shams ul-Ameen, a property dealer, told me he “Rome is but a wilderness of tigers,” Titus American narrative, from the streets of slums was walking into the bazaar as the bomb went But the people of Peshawar were reacting to says. “Tigers must prey.” to elite drawing rooms. off. He was blown off his feet but survived, a basic fact: Their lives have gotten worse and he saw a scene like “doomsday.” A few since the United States invaded Afghanistan. Elsewhere in Pakistan, where the United That feeling extends even to Islamabad, the days after the explosion, he had found the A decade ago, there were no suicide attacks States sought not to avenge but to assist, the capital. In September 2008, I arrived at the body of a 4-year-old girl on a nearby roof. Like on markets in Peshawar. (There was only one population doesn’t blame its ills on Americans. swank Marriott hotel on a Ramadan evening. everyone I spoke with that day, Ameen blamed suicide attack in Pakistan before 9/11. Since A few months before the Peshawar attack, I Rubble was piled 10 feet high, electric wires a “foreign hand” for the violence -- including then, there have been some 300.) A decade visited the Government Centennial Model High sparked against pools of water and gas, and the United States, India, Afghanistan. Anyone ago, the phrase “Pakistani Taliban” did not School in Dadar, a school destroyed by the mangled iron gates poked out of the mud. but the Taliban. exist. The people of Peshawar were responding 2005 Kashmir earthquake. One student was I saw at least eight bodies. As one police to the world around them and what they saw killed and more than a dozen injured when officer walked outside, he threw up into his “These are foreign forces,” Ameen said. the United States doing. They saw CIA drone the buildings crumbled on top of them. By own hand, sick with the stench of death. “Hindus and white men together want to attacks in the nearby tribal areas. They saw 2009, the school was filled with shiny new Inside the lobby, the reception desk had been destroy Pakistan. This is an American trick. On U.S. soldiers fighting and killing in Afghanistan. classrooms, one of which displays a large crushed, a piano was thrown against a wall, the surface, they pretend to be friends, but They saw the United States pouring money plaque from the U.S. Agency for International and a fish flopped against the marble, its they strike Muslims in the back.” into developing Pakistan, but much of it going Development. The principal, Mohammad Irfan, glass aquarium lying shattered nearby. Twenty to high-priced Western consultants who did said he was proud to have received U.S. help. minutes earlier, militants had exploded 2,200 Siraj ul-Munir, whose shop was destroyed in not engage with the population and demanded pounds of military-grade explosive at the the Meena Bazaar explosion, told me he was big, expensive programs that helped the elite, “We were destroyed. We were ruined at that outside gate. worried Pakistan had no future. not the masses. And the people of Peshawar time,” he told me. “Now, we feel very, very saw the United States unconditionally pour happy with America. We now feel, ‘Long live Even then, some of my fellow Islamabad “We are wondering what will become of our even more money into a Pakistani military America, long live USA, long live Pakistan!’” residents -- who opposed the Taliban and their future generations who today ask us, ‘Father, that supported Afghan militants labeled “good suicide attacks -- blamed America. “It’s not why do these bomb blasts take place? Who Taliban,” even though blowback into Pakistan Down the road, Badr ul-Islam, an old man a good thing what they are doing, but they’re are these bombers?’ We can’t answer them,” was evident. with a long white beard, had received $5,000 doing it out of compulsion,” said one Islamabad he said. “We are innocent people. Tell us what from the United States to buy refrigerators resident of the Taliban, asking me not to we did to deserve this. It’s since the arrival of A U.S. official once admitted to me that, for for his struggling dairy business. He was not a print his name. “If my home was bombed,” he the Americans that there’s been a spike in all years, “U.S. policy in Pakistan came from government official or bureaucrat, like so many continued, “and my parents and brothers were this violence.” Langley rather than Foggy Bottom,” implying recipients of U.S. aid. He was just a private killed, wouldn’t I become a suicide bomber?”

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Blood and revenge are hammering in my head Photo: Julius Cavendish

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Revenge is ingrained in this culture. In Pashto the sound and smell of diesel generators. Men when I asked him why he thought he had been the insurgency with his opium connections. -- the language spoken by 40 million people with beards and turbans filled the markets; snubbed. “When I took my helmet off, a kid Kandaharis from other tribes associate him in Afghanistan and Pakistan, there is a saying: women, when they appeared in public, were jumped away from me... We haven’t spent with the pre-Taliban warlords who ruled “Even if I wait 100 years to take revenge, I’ve covered by burqas. enough time engaging with the people.” different parts of the province in the early made haste.” 1990s by controlling segments of road with Thurman’s orders were to get through the city For years, soldiers were suspicious of everyone the help of murder and rape. Raziq’s uncle For Pakistanis, the war launched to avenge quickly, but on the way out of town, his convoy who lived in this Taliban stronghold, and worked for a particularly cruel commander the 9/11 attacks had created a vicious cycle of 30,000-pound, mine-resistant, ambush- they often failed to take the time to connect back then; he was later hanged by the Taliban of revenge. protected vehicles skidded to a stop. On the with the people. And crucially, many of those from the turret of a tank. other side of two lanes of traffic, an empty whom U.S. soldiers did spend their time with On a sunny morning in October 2009, Capt. fuel truck and a passenger van had overturned and helped install into government positions Despite that history, the United States allied Michael Thurman, an eloquent military police after a crash. A group of people surrounded were the very people whom Kandaharis with Raziq because he provided immediate commander out of Fort Stewart, Georgia, drove two drivers who were badly injured. trusted least: ruthless warlords who had been security gains. He controlled the vital border me through the streets of Kandahar. thrown out by the Taliban. (One Kandahari crossing, and he had done this job effectively: Thurman wanted to help, so we hopped out of once joked to me that the United States had As the rest of Kandahar became increasingly Thurman was an example of a gifted, post- the vehicle and walked over to the crash site. brought “demoorcracy” into his city, purposely violent, the border town of Spin Boldak was an 9/11 breed of officer I’ve come across in mispronouncing the English word by inserting island of relative calm in late 2009. Afghanistan: men and women in their late For 30 minutes, Thurman’s medic examined a Pashto word in the middle that means, 20s or early 30s who have come of age inside the large, bleeding gash on the truck driver’s roughly, “mother-f***ing.”) Which is why, after we left his office, the a military as it fought two wars. Smart and head and the dozens of cuts on the body of the U.S. military officials I was with told me that brave, it seemed like Thurman had read every van’s driver. Thurman handed out water, teased One of those warlords is Abdul Raziq, a local Raziq was an example of what was going book about insurgency and Afghanistan. He children who nipped at his heels, and engaged police commander who at that time controlled right in Afghanistan: a strong commander was respected by his men. with local elders who had congregated to Spin Boldak, the crossing between Kandahar bringing peace to his little area. America watch. At one point he took off his sunglasses and Pakistan’s Baluchistan province. I met him needed Raziq because he could produce quick I’d come to southern Afghanistan ahead of an and helmet -- something U.S. soldiers weren’t on Christmas Eve 2009. results. But by prioritizing short-term security expected surge of U.S. troops. Forty percent of supposed to do -- so he could better relate to gains, the United States is risking Kandahar’s the population of southern Afghanistan lives in the crowd. Most just stared at him in silence. “You are welcome anytime!” he greeted us with long-term stability. The Taliban originally and around Kandahar city, and I’d spent about They did the same with me. a slightly squeaky and much younger voice than gained their popular appeal by opposing the a week with Canadian troops, the only soldiers I had expected. Despite his position of seniority, ruthlessness of leaders like Raziq’s uncle. By who were living inside the city at the time. After the wounds were dressed and the kids he was only 30 years old. “The embassy has in helping install Raziq, the United States had scattered, Thurman and his medic packed given us a lot of money! Come, sit!” became associated with such discredited If Peshawar was mostly the same after the last their gear and began to walk off. As they did, sources of power. few decades, it felt like it had been centuries not one person shook Thurman’s hand. Not Raziq’s boyishness hid a ruthless history. since Kandahar had changed. Some of the dirt- one person said thank you. In Afghanistan, Western officials -- speaking only on Like the characters of Titus Andronicus, the packed roads had been replaced by asphalt, guests are royalty; not shaking hands was the background -- have, for years, accused him United States was seduced by those who but most shops were still made of mud, as equivalent of a slap in the face. of helping run drug rings, private militias, could provide immediate satisfaction: “ease were the large boundary walls that protect smuggling rackets, and his own prisons in the gnawing vulture of thy mind, by working every house. The city rose early and filled with “They still don’t like us,” Thurman responded Kandahar. They accuse him of helping to fuel wreakful vengeance on thy foes.”

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Recently, the U.S. military stopped handing In early 2002, President George W. Bush over detainees to Raziq until it can be promised to rebuild Afghanistan in the confident he is not secretly torturing them, tradition of the Marshall Plan. as his critics allege. But his power has only grown since I met him at the tail end of 2009: Slowly, some things improved: The number U.S. forces have increasingly teamed up of Afghan children in school is, today, seven with his men throughout Kandahar province, times what it was on 9/11; almost eight times and U.S. commanders have praised him as a more Afghans have access to health care, go-to leader. Today, he has moved up from compared with 2001; and women’s gains have his position on the border. He is the now the been especially inspiring. As Habiba Sarabi, the police chief of Kandahar city. only female governor in Afghanistan, once told me while we overlooked gaping holes in the In December 2010, I sat in a small guesthouse rock where the Taliban had blown up Buddha in Kunduz, Afghanistan, near the border with statues in Bamiyan: “Women were deprived for Tajikistan. The owner was an affable German- a long time -- deprived of education, deprived Afghan who had made a lot of money working of facilities, deprived of rights. I can be a role with the cash-rich coalition and ran small model for other women, and other women in hostels on the side. On this night, we sat society can see that if a woman can be in a around a wooden table below a single light, higher position like a governor, they will feel powered by a generator, that illuminated a more comfortable and gain self-confidence.” meal of fried fish, the local specialty. I sat with my ABC News colleagues and the owner’s But over time, the United States failed to guest, a thin, 30-something contractor who deliver on that Marshall Plan promise. Just as worked at the local NATO base staffed with people in Peshawar saw their lives worsen after German troops. The guesthouse was unmarked, 9/11, many Afghans feel let down by the lack of and men with automatic weapons guarded the improvement in their lives in the last decade. front gate. Security in the city was not good. The guest in Kunduz, after we ate our dessert The guest was a serious, well-read Afghan and drank our tea, recalled a story that helped from Kunduz who lamented the state of the summarize the United States’ failures. He once-peaceful north. He believed the United remembered that on a sunny morning, the States had squandered the support Afghans troops he worked with stood proudly at a initially provided. Eight years before, when news conference, helping the local governor the war began, most in the country had open a multimillion-dollar school that the welcomed the young Americans who threw out troops had paid for and helped construct. the Taliban. Afghans heard U.S. promises and But every Afghan there -- everyone but the dreamed into the future, expecting American- foreign troops, the guest insisted -- knew Ease the gnawing vulture of thy mind by wreaking sponsored beneficence and development. the school wouldn’t last. The foreign troops’ vengeance on thy foes Photo: Julius Cavendish

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funds weren’t allowed to be used to pay A new hospital. A new governor’s house. A fire Eliot called it “one of the stupidest and most and economic growth and other kinds of for maintenance or teachers’ salaries. And station. A justice center. A visitors’ center. uninspired plays ever written.” development activities.” the Afghan government certainly couldn’t afford either. And so, eventually, the building But there was a problem: Nobody ever asked But in 2011, in Afghanistan and Pakistan, this But three years later, it seems the United deteriorated and the teachers stopped whether the Afghans wanted those buildings, revenge-driven cycle of violence does not States is no closer to this ambitious goal. And coming. The area where he worked became according to the 2009 PRT commander, Lt. seem so far-fetched. In this “post-9/11 world,” on the eve of the 10th anniversary of the more violent, leading the troops to become Col. Andrew Torelli. And they never taught the where we have seen so much barbarity, Titus 9/11 attacks, Pakistan and Afghanistan are more aggressive, leading to less education, contractors how to maintain them or how to is less shocking than ever. In many ways, Titus suffering from continuing cycles of violence. development, and governance work. use the Western construction equipment. Andronicus is a play “written for today,” as the I am making the final edits to this piece late director Julie Taymor put it -- and that was at night in a hotel with failing Internet on a “Don’t build me a school,” he implored. “Give And so, as we walked from building to building, back in 2000. trip to Peshawar. It has been a long few days. me a teacher. That’s how to pacify an area.” each sat empty and crumbling. The power In one of my first interviews in Pakistan, in On Wednesday, Sept. 7, in Quetta, militants director’s building had no water, so nobody 2008, Gerald Feierstein, then former U.S. stormed a military officer’s house and killed It was a lesson I had seen for myself the worked there. The hospital was collapsing and deputy ambassador to Pakistan, made it clear his wife and 22 others, including two children. year before in the poor province of Zabul, reeked of urine. Most medical supplies were to me that revenge was not a solution for A few days before, in Kabul, police picked up Kandahar’s neglected neighbor. unused, as the staff had never been trained. Pakistan and Afghanistan -- that “kinetic the body of an American civilian working for The fire station was never going to be filled; activity,” as the military calls offensive actions, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. He had been Qalat, Zabul’s capital, is filled with the same Qalat had never had a single firefighter. was not going to be enough. strangled to death. Pashtun ethnic population as Kandahar and Peshawar, but it has a fraction of the wealth I told that story to the dinner guest in Kunduz. “What we need to do is give people an Julie Taymor’s film adaptation of Titus -- or the charm of either city. Downtown, a He said it represented everything the United alternative narrative for hope for the future. Andronicus ends when Titus’s grandson walks simple market is filled with some cars and States was doing wrong. And that’s really much more important in out of the Coliseum where much of the action carts, but there are no tucked-away, middle- terms of how we’re ultimately going to achieve takes place -- suggesting that the next class areas. The city of 40,000 quickly becomes “They never listen,” he said of the West. “They success in that part of the world than anything generation of Romans could exit out of the rural: Just a stone’s throw from the market, only did what they wanted to do.” we’re going to do in terms of kinetic activity,” cycle of revenge. entire neighborhoods are composed of mud he said. “What we need to do is prevent them houses. But, like Kandahar, it has always been As Titus says when he feels his former allies from being drawn into extremism in the first But nobody expects a Hollywood ending for a key location on the road toward the Indian have abandoned him: “I tell my sorrows to place, and you do that through education Afghanistan or Pakistan. � subcontinent. On the city’s highest point sits the stones.” the ruins of a 2,000-year-old castle built by Alexander the Great. Down the steep hill from For centuries, Titus Andronicus was neither the castle, the senior U.S. officer on Qalat’s popular nor particularly respected by critics, Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) walked who believed the play’s barbarity was me through “New Qalat City.” It had been built overindulgent and implausible: After Titus in 2006 as a sign that the United States cared kills the captured queen’s son, her other sons about Zabul province. It was meant to be a rape Titus’s daughter and cut off her tongue sort of Emerald City, with relatively modern and hands; Titus kills her after she is raped; Nick Schifrin is the ABC News correspondent covering Afghanistan and Pakistan. This article first appeared at www.foreignpolicy.com buildings that would revitalize the town. and the list of brutal, violent acts goes on. T.S.

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The 2001 invasion - Northern Alliance visa, another $100. Julius, run,” he shouted. With two or three dozen journalists I ran, straight through the scorching exhaust in Dushanbe all trying to achieve the blast of the engine towards the side door. up close and personal same, competition for the few seats into With the plane gathering speed my friend Afghanistan was fierce. But after 48 hours pulled me in and we were on our way. a few of us stood like a herd of sheep on a Reaching the front line by any means possible, Julius Strauss looks deserted piece of Soviet tarmac waiting for back on the early days of the 2001 invasion — when, for a veteran our passage to the unknown. In late 2001, Afghanistan was still a Holy war reporter, the reality in Afghanistan was as exciting as Grail among aspiring war reporters. We had anything that had gone before An hour or two later an old propeller airplane been brought up listening to Old Timers tell drew up. It was one of the saddest looking of the Afghan-Soviet war in the 1980s and machines I have ever seen, it’s fuselage the months they spent trekking through the hen the first airplane struck the World country on Russia’s underbelly, that is the punctured by bullet holes. It rolled to a halt Hindu Kush with the Mujahideen in the days Trade Centre a decade ago, I was on a gateway to northern Afghanistan. About a and the main rear door slowly lowered. The before satellite phones and laptop computers. Wbreak from assignments. I had recently dozen other reporters, many of whom I knew, Russian officer in charge began to read out been covering the small war in Macedonia and were on the same flight from Munich. names. One by one we were summoned to Then there was the romance and savagery of the end of the Milosevic regime in Serbia. load our bags and climb aboard. I waited. the 19th Century uprising against the British We landed at about 4am. There was the usual when the Afghans massacred the entire At first, like many, I’m sure, I couldn’t quite third world scrambling and bribery and each Three of us left. Two. Then just me. The garrison in a long bloody retreat to Jalalabad. believe what had happened. I phoned the of us huddled around those colleagues who Russian officer closed his book and began foreign news desk at the Daily Telegraph spoke Russian. They seemed to have a better to walk away. “Wait,” I shouted. “There must Some of the journalists I most admired were where I worked. chance of greasing the right palms. be a mistake. I’ve got to get on that plane.” Afghan veterans at a time when being a “Nyet,” he barked. “I must,” I said. “Nyet.” His war correspondent was a brutal and usually “I can get to America,” I said. “The airports The land border to the south was closed and, hand went to the pistol at his waist. thankless calling. are closed,” they answered. “I’ll go through in an odd hangover from the Cold War, still Canada,” I ventured. “They’re closed too.” controlled by Russian troops. The Afghan pilots began to close the hydraulic After a few drinks they sometimes reminisced cargo door and the propellers began to rotate. and talked quietly among themselves about After that we didn’t talk for several days. The only way to get into Afghanistan from I couldn’t believe my eyes. I felt my heart ambushes in the passes, Soviet reprisals and They were busy in London and I was at the north was to shoe-horn my way onto an sink. In one final desperate effort, I slung my close calls in the mountains. something of a loss. I’d spent the best part ancient paratrooper plane owned and run by pack over the closing cargo door, then darted of a decade covering wars in the Balkans but the Northern Alliance. around the Russian and headlong for the side- Then, in the mid 1990s, the Taliban arrived in I knew now that period was over. What, I door just as the plane began to roll. their long, flowing, black turbans and lunched wondered, would be the fate of a wandering It was no mean bureaucratic feat. First I war by pick-up truck, a modern and Islamic reporter in the post-9/11 world. needed Tajik accreditation. That cost $20. I An old friend, a photographer who was equivalent of the blitzkrieg. ponied up $40 and persuaded the oily official already on the plane, tried to hold the door A week or so later I was on a plane to to give me an express variety - two hours open for me as one of the Afghan flight crew The reality, when I arrived, was as good Tajikistan, the forgotten, desperately poor instead of two days. Then I had to get a attempted to lever him out of the way. “Run, as the myth. Within a week I was off on a

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long tortuous drive across the north with a “Can I stay here?” I piped up. The commander colleague, two photographers and a translator hesitated barely a second. “Of course,” he I had found in the market. He could barely answered graciously. “You can stay with my speak any English, we could speak no Dari. soldiers.” In the shadow

On the third day we drove into a small dusty The next day I asked for a horse and he compound. I knew immediately that this brought me one. My very own little warhorse, was where I wanted to stay. The compound a smallish mare but feisty and fast. of Qala-I-Jangi belonged to a local warlord, a bearded Mujahid who had fought the Soviets. He was Each day for weeks I would ride up to the an avuncular and kindly man. front line to talk to the soldiers, drop in on One of the first foreign reporters into Afghanistan after an local commanders to get the latest news anachronistic alliance of CIA operatives, American air power and “How were our families keeping?” he and write my dispatches for the newspaper Northern Alliance militiamen launched their onslaught against enquired politely. “All well,” we answered. about the preparations for war, the arrival of the Taliban, Lynne O’Donnell recalls the heady hopes and vicious “Would we drink tea with him?” We would. the CIA paramilitaries, the refugees and the fighting of the early days of the invasion “Would we like walnuts?” Surely. “Did we hopes and fears of a thousand down-trodden have any wishes?” civilians. �

he siege of Qala-I-Jangi on the outskirts fortress, where they had fled after escaping of Mazar-I-Sharif in late November 2001 custody. Others were burned to death when Tresulted in one of the most horrific war Northern Alliance soldiers sprayed fuel from atrocities of the modern age. tankers on a school building where they were hiding, and then sprayed it with gunfire The massacre raised questions about the to set it alight. Many more were locked in commitment of Afghanistan’s new rulers and containers to suffocate in the stifling heat their international sponsors to the rule of law, or to be dropped from helicopters to another and cemented General Abdul Rashid Dostum’s form of certain death. The foreign fighters reputation as a brutal and ruthless warlord. reportedly killed those Afghans among them who wanted to surrender as the eight-day Hundreds, possibly thousands of Taliban siege dragged on. fighters, mostly from Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Chechnya and the Arab states, were killed There was no mercy shown during that week when the US fired missiles and dropped I spent crouched outside the Qala-I-Jangi, Julius Strauss reporting in Northern Afghanistan Photo: Julius Strauss bombs on Dostum’s 19th century mud feeling as if I was living a George MacDonald

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Fraser novel and half expecting to see Harry brought breakfast of bread, apricot jam and the Taliban’s return as inevitable, and clever financial collapse, endemic corruption, and Flashman slithering through the dirt to save an enormous pot of tea to my room at 6 commentators seem to delight in the apparent never-ending violence, few want to believe his own hide. o’clock each morning. failure of efforts to graft modern democracy that we are witnessing the last desperate onto the ancient Afghan body politic. gasps of a failed and dying insurgency. What British Special Forces roared around in utility Hope was alive in the heart of the mother even fewer want to acknowledge is that trucks, threatening to shoot journalists who of five I interviewed a couple of days after Many of those with money and connections Afghanistan’s blood- and tear-stained soil is filmed them; US Special Forces holed up in sitting at Dostum’s knee as he extolled the are leaving their country, hoping to secure the battleground for a hot war between the the sprawling compounds of minor warlords in virtues of the new, free Afghan state. She a future abroad for their children as United States and Pakistan. downtown Mazar, living on their own ready- had been a university lecturer before the Afghanistan appears on the verge of collapse made rations; B2 bombers circled overhead; Taliban’s misogynistic time, and then while and the prospect of civil war looms as an As the light of hope dims, Afghanistan is and armed CIA agents strode the walls of the forced inside her home by the cane-wielding encroaching reality. Amid political gridlock, again one of the saddest places on earth. � fort barking orders in Uzbek at the Northern vice police, had taught her four intelligent Alliance soldiers under their tutelage. daughters to tile kitchens and bathrooms, and weave carpets, so they would not starve Dostum flew north to Uzbekistan while the should the nightmare never end. fighting raged, but rushed back when the coast was clear. He invited the international In those heady days of early December 2001, media into the Qala-I-Jangi, and sat on as the defeated Taliban made their way across a high-backed chair as he surveyed the the border to their Pakistani refuges, she had destruction of his HQ, strewn with Taliban already abandoned the burkha and was looking body parts, and claimed victory. forward to going back to work and getting her girls back to school. Life was, once more, theirs Lynne O’Donnell covered the Qala-i-Jangi siege for The Australian, for whom she was China It had been obvious when the invasion began for the taking. Or so they believed. correspondent from 1998-2002. She was Kabul bureau chief for Agence France-Presse 2009-2010. on October 7 that the Taliban’s autarkic regime would soon crumble into the dust. Hope had Now, after 10 years of mistakes and misrule, been evident in the wave of an elderly Afghan the Taliban’s footfall is again heard across man who stood on the bank of the Amu Daria the north, and fear encroaches on the hopes watching the barge that brought me, and a of ordinary people to live ordinary lives. The crowd of other foreign reporters, down the women of Mazar-I-Sharif are once more river into Afghanistan from the horrible Uzbek taking refuge behind the veil, dressing for border town of Termez. the return of the illogical hatred they have already known and had thought they were It was like stepping through a tear in the well rid of. fabric of time, back to the 13th century – a sensation not dispelled by the dignified gent Ten years after eyebrows and ire were raised in a tall, grey Astrakhan hat who stood at worldwide at the tactics used to get rid the door of my guesthouse and tried to force of the murderous brutality of thugs hiding me into a burkha each time I left. He also behind religion, smart Afghan people talk of

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had my first experience of Afghanistan because it provided the best and safest in 2002 as a soldier in the British Army. return on investment. In the first person I Although fearing the worst I had an incredibly positive experience. The sense In 2008, I set up a social enterprise to David James had his first taste of Afghanistan with the British Army in 2002. of optimism was endemic and I became provide marketing and communications Six years and a second tour later, he returned as a social entrepeneur incurably infected. Despite the many support to economic development initiatives setbacks and missteps over the intervening in the Wakhan Corridor. I lived in an Afghan based in Ishkashim, at the foot of the Wakhan corridor, before finally 10 years I’m still a chronic optimist about village on the edge of the Wakhan in a succumbing to the bright lights of the big city. Here he describes that the opportunity for Afghanistan to finds its house with no mains electricity, running journey—and why he’s optimistic about Afghanistan’s future feet as a nation and fulfill its potential. water, armed guards or blast walls. I drank tea on my veranda with my Afghan On that first tour I fell in love with this neighbors and we talked about the future. extraordinary country that is like nowhere Our focus was on getting more international else on earth and developed a deep respect expeditions to visit this remote, beautiful, for the Afghan people. peaceful and desperately poor corner of Afghanistan. On my second tour in 2004/5 I became convinced that 80 percent of Afghanistan’s We got hundreds of international visitors to problems were economic. People see for themselves this ‘other’ Afghanistan— grew and invested in opium and one which bore no resemblance to anything took part in other illicit activities they saw in the international media.

Wakhi farmers threshing with donkeys Photo: David James

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One of the most memorable and talked about projects that are taking place and shows the parts of each visitor’s trip was experiencing audience how life has been changing and Afghanistan’s legendary hospitality. The visits improving with the help of the international shattered any preconceptions of who the community. Afghan people were. Over two seasons Mujeeb has visited 32 The hardest part was trying to get anyone out of 34 provinces, which has created an from the international community to support extraordinary body of work that showcases this success and having spent around Afghanistan as it’s seen by Afghan eyes. I $30,000 of my own money I decided that believe that it is actually a better reflection sustainability had to start at home. Last year I of the daily realities for most Afghans than moved to Kabul recognizing that this was the anything we see in the international media. strategic centre from where the money for The reason I bring this up is that Mujeeb positive change would come. would always come back saying, “We need to do more programs on business and economic I found a job with Lapis, a communications opportunities.” There is, he explained, a real agency that is part Afghanistan’s largest hunger among the Afghan people to find new media group. With 97 percent local staff business opportunities and ways to improve The author with (left to right) Amruddin, Gorg Ali and Malang, three of the Afghan mountaineers producing 15 hours of original content every their situation. who successfully climbed Noshaq in 2009 Photo: David James day the Moby Group is a true Afghan success story that has captured the hearts and minds As we move towards transition, this hunger good stuff is going on that we never hear we should reinforce it, replicate it and of the Afghan people. aligned with a strong media industry about. communicate it. presents us with a fantastic opportunity. We We produce a whole range of shows and are in a great position to open a dialogue Marketing communications and the media We can all come up with negative scenarios for campaigns that are changing the way between Afghanistan’s entrepreneurs, have the potential to bring to the fore how the transition will play out, and if we focus Afghans think about themselves and their the international organizations involved some of these great Afghan success stories our attention and resources on those scenarios place in the world. in economic development and the global and to help them build brands and market they will come true. If we really want Afghanistan business community. awareness. to be a success then we need to help the Afghans One of my favourites is “On the Road” a develop, articulate and communicate their positive show that turned one of our presenters, I’ve had the privilege to meet up with There has been this overwhelming urge by vision of what Afghanistan will be in 2017. Once Mujeeb Arez, into one of the most loved some of the stakeholders at The Afghan many to focus on Afghanistan’s problems that vision has been articulated we can get behind personalities in Afghanistan. The show has Investment Support Agency, the Ministry but maybe now it is time to focus on the a new generation of Afghan leaders who, with our a simple yet incredibly successful format. of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock and solutions. Wherever we find a success help, can make it happen. � Mujeeb travels around Afghanistan visiting many others who have provided great insight the local people and shows the rest of the into Afghanistan’s economic opportunities. nation the history, culture and lifestyles Although, as previously stated, I’ve always David James served on two tours of Afghanistan with the British Army. In 2008 he returned as a social of their countrymen. In each place he been optimistic about Afghanistan’s potential entrepreneur living in the Wakhan Corridor and working on economic development initiatives. He is visits some of the myriad of development I’ve been genuinely shocked about how much now a Senior Strategy Manager at Lapis

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