the_taliban_shuffle_-_kim_barker

guilt, mixed with a feeling of possibility. My social life had not hit a
mud wall in Afghanistan. There were parties, a scene, places to wear
little black dresses. There was potential here, even if that potential
resembled a cross between a John Hughes high-school movie and
Sinclair Lewis’s Main Street, given the small foreign community and the
inevitable cliques, with do-gooders, guns for hire, and journos
approximating brains, jocks, and goths. I knew what I needed to do. I
needed to go shopping.
Zalmay Khalilzad clearly felt as optimistic, at least about the country.
Not only was he the U.S. ambassador here—he also happened to be
born and raised in Afghanistan. Khalilzad was not a normal diplomat,
not a typical ambassador. Zal, as he was known, liked to get his hands
dirty. During the large gatherings to pick an interim president in 2002,
Khalilzad, then the Bush regime’s representative, had been accused of
strong-arming the country’s former king into abandoning any political
ambitions, paving the way for Karzai’s selection. Since then, Zal and
Karzai seemed to have become best buddies; they talked on the
telephone daily and frequently ate dinner together.
Zal liked control. He rode in the cockpit of the U.S. military C-130
Hercules whenever he traveled. “He likes to watch,” his press aide once
told me. He didn’t just sit in the embassy and announce aid—he ew to
the provinces and handed out windup radios to women himself. At
meetings between Afghans and Westerners, Khalilzad translated, making
sure everyone understood one another. At public events where, for
diplomatic reasons, Khalilzad spoke English and used an interpreter, he
corrected his interpreter’s translations. Zal also fed o the media like a
personality feeds o a cult. He threw elaborate press conferences at the
U.S. embassy, ashing a wide-angle grin and swept-back graying hair
and often calling on reporters by name. Every journalist, from the
edgling Afghan reporter to the Norwegian freelancer, was invited and
served sodas and water. Surrounded by attractive young female aides in
hip, occasionally tight clothing, dubbed by some as “Zal’s Gals,” and
always slightly late for any event, Khalilzad cultivated the air of a
diplomatic rock star. He kept answering questions long after “last
question” was called, long after his aides stole glances at their watches.
“We have time,” Zal would say. “Let them ask more.” He always
smiled, even when talking about tragedy.