the_taliban_shuffle_-_kim_barker

He laughed. Some journalists felt that they could only tell the story of
Afghanistan if they met the insurgents, if they spent time with them,
and maybe they were right. But I wasn’t that reporter, maybe because I
was more of a chicken. The price tag on foreigners had also just
jumped dramatically. If an Italian could be traded for ve Taliban
prisoners, including a top commander’s brother, what would the next
foreign victim go for? And who would the ransom money be used to
kill? No story was worth it. We talked to the Taliban over the phone,
by e-mail, or, with one savvy spokesman, instant chat. For me, that was
enough. I didn’t want to risk either of our lives for this war, which at
this point seemed doomed.
Adding to my doubts about the present course was the fact that
NATO seemed tone-deaf to criticism, especially to any complaints
about civilian casualties. All the dierent countries seemed to have
dierent myopic goals. For Canadians, the war was simply in Kandahar;
for the British, the war was Helmand; for the Dutch, Uruzgan. People
joked that the three provinces should be renamed Canadahar,
Helmandshire, and Uruzdam. Rather than coordinating with central
command, each country seemed to do what it pleased. This was
obviously dangerous. A Canadian success, if not coordinated across
provincial lines, could mean danger for either the Dutch or the Brits.
The safety of the troops seemed to be paramount—not the mission.
(Maybe because the mission was unclear.) In Helmand, the British
troops even briey broadcast a radio advertisement, telling Afghans that
neither foreign troops nor the Afghan army were eradicating poppies.
The cynical takeaway: If you want to attack anyone for cutting down
your poppies, attack the Afghan police. Not us.
When I tried to talk to a NATO ocial about these issues, he
dismissed me and told me that the radio ad wasn’t a story. Weeks later
at L’Atmosphère, I told the same ocial about a civilian casualty
allegation involving a young Hazara salt-factory worker shot in his side
after NATO troops responded to a suicide attack in Kabul. Neighbors
and Afghan police said overzealous NATO forces shot the Hazara man
and others—something that had happened in the past after similar
attacks. The Hazara man even had an X-ray showing the bullet, which
he couldn’t afford to remove.
“My idea is this,” I told the NATO man, leaning on the bar. “You take