On “Held by the Taliban”
The NY Times ran a remarkable five part series this week called “Held by the Taliban” written by David Rohde, the Times reporter who, along with an Afghan journalist and his driver, spent over 7 months in Taliban captivity before escaping in June. Rohde’s account of his capture, the constant fear and threats during his time as a prisoner, the purported efforts to secure his release, and his eventual escape, read better than any Tom Clancy novel. The series is quite long but I strongly recommend it to anybody with the time and inclination. Here’s how it starts:
THE car’s engine roared as the gunman punched the accelerator and we crossed into the open Afghan desert. I was seated in the back between two Afghan colleagues who were accompanying me on a reporting trip when armed men surrounded our car and took us hostage.
Another gunman in the passenger seat turned and stared at us as he gripped his Kalashnikov rifle. No one spoke. I glanced at the bleak landscape outside — reddish soil and black boulders as far as the eye could see — and feared we would be dead within minutes.
But for me the most interesting part of the story came here:
Over those months, I came to a simple realization. After seven years of reporting in the region, I did not fully understand how extreme many of the Taliban had become. Before the kidnapping, I viewed the organization as a form of “Al Qaeda lite,” a religiously motivated movement primarily focused on controlling Afghanistan.
Living side by side with the Haqqanis’ followers, I learned that the goal of the hard-line Taliban was far more ambitious. Contact with foreign militants in the tribal areas appeared to have deeply affected many young Taliban fighters. They wanted to create a fundamentalist Islamic emirate with Al Qaeda that spanned the Muslim world.
I had written about the ties between Pakistan’s intelligence services and the Taliban while covering the region for The New York Times. I knew Pakistan turned a blind eye to many of their activities. But I was astonished by what I encountered firsthand: a Taliban mini-state that flourished openly and with impunity.
The Taliban government that had supposedly been eliminated by the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan was alive and thriving.
I find it remarkable that a man who spent so much time focused on this area of the world still did not fully understand the social, political, and geographic realities of the region. Is it any wonder that the US government is hesitating on how to proceed in defining and pursuing our best interests in Afghanistan? The story is filled with Rohde’s impression of his captors as both beast and comfort, as religious zealots and humble men of God, but always of men with deep hate and resentment of Americans and their selfish, ungodly, and hypocritical attitudes. The guards constantly watch videos of martyrs and executions :
The constant images of death seemed to be cynical efforts by Taliban commanders to numb their young foot soldiers to the prospect of sacrificing their lives. Death, the message went, was not a distant fate. Instead, it was a friendly companion and a goal.
He talks about singing with his guards who especially liked the Beatles: “”She loves you — yeah, yeah, yeah,’ we sang, with Kalashnikovs lying on the floor around us.” One night in March the neighborhood where they were being kept exploded as aerial drones released bombs that killed seven militants. The fear of the bombing and of the possible retaliation on them are harrowing.
Finally, after 7 months of promises of negotiations for their release, Rohde and the Afghan journalist felt the time had come to escape. They saw no hope for their release and, balancing the potential risks against the possibility of freedom, they took their chance and they succeeded.
I found the account spellbinding and extremely disturbing for our ignorance of the Taliban/Pakistan/Afghanistan situation. I came away shaking my head and wondering, once again, what the hell are we doing over there?
The Taliban are not nice people. Sounds like this reporter had an eye-opening experiance. Religious zealots can be friendly at times, but are very dedicated in their believes. Not all zealots seek to spread their beliefs to others they only insist that those within thier group comply with their values. We have many such groups in this country and they poise no threat and are in effect great citizens who obey the law and don’t disturb others. Others like the Taliban wish to push their beliefs on others and herein lies the rub. These guys are certainly a threat in the area and I’m afraid if left to florish……well. I don’t have the answer. Wiser men than me are left grasping for answers.
Ron Russell´s last blog ..Afghanistan: More Dollars and No Sense
No doubt David Rohde has a story to tell and i’ll give it a look see….
“These guys are certainly a threat in the area and I’m afraid if left to florish……well. I don’t have the answer….”
-if it were known, that elements within the Pakistani I.S.I. have since the war with the Soviet Union, been actively backing the Taliban in their quest for control of Afghanistan…..
it’s something I’ve heard about.
-And yes, you are right…… it(TheTaliban) is a threat to the area.
David W. Walters´s last blog ..http://davidwwalters.stumbleupon.com/review/37110033/
I came to the same conclusion as you did about the reporters. How can they have been living over there for so long and still not have grasped how radical the Taliban was. Perhaps they just didn’t want to believe it. It makes you wonder if the people in our government realize what we are really up against.
Mr Pink Eyes´s last blog ..40 House Democrats to vote against healthcare bill if federal funding for abortion is included
Thanks for sharing this account with us, Mike. The situation with the extreme Muslim factions is very different than anything we have faced. We may not fully realize the extent of their hatred towards America as a country. That Rohde could have been living in the region for so long and not understood the situation is remarkable indeed.
i wonder how many “extreme” Christian factions would be violently fighting here in America if we were occupied by a “well meaning” Islamist nation?
I don’t think you can compare what would happen in America if another country tried to invade us to what has happened in Afghanistan and Iraq. Admittedly, we probably should have stayed out of Iraq, but Afghanistan was a different story. There was no way we could sit idle and not respond to the attacks on 9/11.
Also, these “extreme” Christian factions, as you call them, would not be the only ones to stand up and fight an invasion of America. Anyone who considers themselves an American would be willing to fight for their country, regardless if they were Christian or not.
Larry correctly states:
“There was no way we could sit idle and not respond to the attacks on 9/11.”
I fully supported our Cmd.inChief in late 2001 to topple the Taliban for harboring Al Qaeda.
Yet that same Cmd.inChief allowed the Taliban to reconstitute themselves, doing little or nothing since then. We had one real window of opportunity to accomplish nation building and it has failed. Without U.S. and NATO troops, Karzi’s government would quickly fall.
So how long do we occupy Afghanistan? Until the Afghan military can stand alone against the Taliban? I wonder how long that will take. 5, 10, 50 years? All the time, our troops are targets, and with every air strike that misses its mark and causes “collateral damage”, more young Afghans join the fight against our brave soldiers. But die in vain our sons and daughters will, because eventually we’ll leave.
Sure, i’d join my fellow citizens in fighting an army of occupation. My point is, that the fundamentalist religious factions here would be in the lead in the fight against any Islamist occupiers, in a manner similar to what the Taliban is doing now in Afghanistan.
As I said earlier, you don’t have to be a Christian, or as you call us, fundamentalist religious factions, to want to defend our country. Does it matter if we would be in the lead in the fight or not? What does that have to do with being a Christian in the first place?
Thanks for your responses. A couple of things to note: first, my point about Rohde’s not being aware of the fanaticism of the Taliban was not a crack on Rohde but a way of saying, “wow, if this very smart and observant guy who is living within this hostile environment, is finding the Taliban even more radical than we all knew them to be, then are our government and armed forces also underestimating what we are up against?” There is no question that the US is hated in the region and throughout much of the Muslim world. Is an army of occupation, a counterinsurgency, or a counter-terrorist strategy going to make any long-term difference in our nations security? Or should we take the hundreds of billions of dollars we’re spending over there, bring it back home, and build our internal defenses, like better control of what comes into our country through our nations ports? I for one am more than a little tired of watching George Stephanopolus read the names of those who died in combat each week. Remember the attacks on Bush over the lack of an exit strategy — well, where’s Obama’s? We need answers to this stuff — it’s much more important than getting health care done by December.