A Kingdom of Their Own
Page 51
4 JUMP-STARTING A COUNTRY
“dark cave that stretches”: Phyllis C. Richman, “Turning Tables,” The Washington Post, December 17, 1978, p. SM35.
“The culinary emphasis”: Ibid.
supplicants in envelopes: Peter Maass, “Gul Agha Gets His Province Back,” The New York Times Magazine, January 6, 2002.
“our country was devastated”: Letter from Kandahar governor Gul Agha Sherzai to the Kandahar District Court, Correspondence No. 341, December 17, 2002.
“Four of the five sponsors”: OPIC Small Business Center Finance Approval Memo, April 4, 2003.
“We have no data”: Deborah Smith and Dan Horrigan, OPIC informational memorandum, “AFCO International/AFCO-Kandahar Valley,” August 6, 2003.
5 BECAUSE WE SEE MORE, WE DO MORE
“Afghan government corruption”: Sarah Chayes, Thieves of State: Why Corruption Threatens Global Security (New York: Norton, 2015), ePub file.
broken tree branch: Interview with Kirk Meyer from the Combating Terrorism Archive Project, April 2, 2014. Interview can be found at: https://globalecco.org/kirk-meyer-former-director-of-the-afghan-threat-finance-cell.
“these arrests show a significant step”: U.S. Department of State secret cable, “High Level Corruption Arrests Conducted by GIROA Major Crimes Task Force,” October 27, 2009.
“New Ansari hawala network”: U.S. Department of State secret cable, “Follow-up Request—Resourcing Efforts to Dismantle the New Ansari Hawala Network and Other Illicit Financing Threats,” October 18, 2009.
involving Ahmed Wali Karzai: Tom Bowman, “Karzai’s Brother Tied to Corrupt Afghan Land Deals,” National Public Radio, February 1, 2010.
“known for being corrupt”: U.S. Department of State secret cable, “Cabinet Rumors—Ten Days Before Inauguration,” November 10, 2009.
“Sadly, the government of Afghanistan”: John F. Burns and Alan Cowell, “Patience on Corruption Is Running Out, Britain Warns Afghan President,” The New York Times, November 7, 2009, p. 10.
“you would not believe”: U.S. Department of State secret cable, “Afghan United Bank CEO Stresses His Humanitarian Activities,” February 6, 2010.
“These are powerful people”: U.S. Department of State confidential cable, “Atmar Under Pressure for New Ansari Hawala Case,” February 15, 2010.
an account of his arrest: Yaroslav Trofimov, “Karzai, U.S. Clash Over Corruption in Afghanistan,” The Wall Street Journal, August 5, 2010.
Usually, they chose to move: Untitled U.S. embassy internal memorandum from March 2011 on rule-of-law and counter-corruption efforts in Afghanistan.
The female Afghan prosecutor: Ibid.
6 GOVERNMENT IN A BOX
didn’t even have a map: Sherard Cowper-Coles, Cables from Kabul: The Inside Story of the West’s Afghanistan Campaign (New York: HarperCollins, 2012).
“Pakistan wants to rule a land”: Alexander, The Long Way Back.
“using Islamic radicalism”: U.S. Department of State confidential cable, “Codel Reed’s July 20 Discussions with Karzai,” July 24, 2008.
“If these people”: Carlotta Gall, “Karzai Threatens to Send Soldiers into Pakistan to Fight Extremists,” The New York Times, June 16, 2008, p. 6.
“meant every word”: U.S. Department of State confidential cable, “Karzai Threatens Pakistan and Means It,” June 16, 2008.
donating $50,000: Dam, A Man and a Motorcycle.
“Popalzai show”: U.S. Department of State cable, “Governing Herat: Not an Easy Task for the Taliban,” October 19, 1995.
“Taliban-designated UN rep”: U.S. Department of State cable, “Afghanistan: Response to the Taliban Letter to the Secretary,” December 10, 1996.
“little clarity”: U.S. Department of State cable, “Afghanistan: Popalzai Leader Hamid Karzai Expresses Concern About Radical Islamists,” January 14, 1997.
“on the move”: U.S. Department of State cable, “Taliban Angry, Their Opponents Support US,” August 21, 1998.
“I would go every week”: Coll, Ghost Wars.
“Our economy is in ruins”: Hamid Karzai, in The Taliban: Engagement or Confrontation? Hearing Before the Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate, 106th Cong., July 20, 2000.
“nothing undermined the legitimacy”: Thomas Barfield, Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2010), ePub file.
“not an adequate strategic partner”: U.S. Department of State cable, “COIN Strategy: Civilian Concerns,” November 6, 2009.
green army dress uniform: McChrystal, My Share of the Task.
“What is it that we don’t understand”: Ibid.
forty-five minutes on the elliptical trainer: Mashal, “After Karzai,” The Atlantic.
“prosperous but not wealthy”: Ibid.
“graceless”: Anderson, “The Man in the Palace.”
floral print furniture: Ibid.
“We’re a go”: Rajiv Chandrasekaran, “U.S. Launches Afghan Surge; Troops Move on Taliban; Coalition Stages Largest Offensive Since 2001,” The Washington Post, February 13, 2010, p. 1.
“Ever the agile tactician”: U.S. Department of State confidential cable, “GIROA Appears to Retreat on Electoral Reform,” February 15, 2010.
7 AN ORDINARY AFGHAN
“a head without a nose”: Mir Munshi Sultan Mahomed Khan, ed., The Life of Abdur Rahman Amir of Afghanistan, p. 208.
“a kaleidoscope of competing tribal principalities”: William Dalrymple, Return of a King: The Battle for Afghanistan, 1839–42 (New York: Knopf, 2013), p. 25.
“The seventh bomb”: Miles Amoore, “CIA Adds to Web of Riddles Over Killing of ‘King of Kandahar,’ ” The Sunday Times (London), July 17, 2011.
“an ordinary Afghan”: Joshua Partlow, “The Brother Karzai: Powerbroker with Grip on Kandahar Is Both an Ally and Obstacle to U.S. Strategy,” The Washington Post, June 13, 2010.
Kandahar had 110 local water representatives: Interview in Kandahar with Engineer Sher Mohammed Attai, director of the Arghandab River Sub-Basin Authority, July 23, 2012.
education in wine: Alison Arnett, “A Taste for Adventure: Once, egg foo yong was the Boston diner’s idea of exotic food. No more. Three restaurants illustrate the new upscale look of ethnic cuisine,” The Boston Globe, July 6, 1997.
“gentle spokesmen”: Margaret Sheridan, “Exotic Food from Afghanistan Has Found a Home in Chicago,” Chicago Tribune, January 30, 1986.
pumpkin dish, kaddo bourani: Maria Cianci, “Humdrum Pumpkin Does a Cinderella Act,” The San Francisco Chronicle, October 28, 1998.
“In capitalism, you invest”: Arnett, “A Taste for Adventure,” The Boston Globe.
“As the kingpin of Kandahar”: U.S. Department of State confidential cable, “Kandahar Politics Complicates U.S. Objectives in Afghanistan,” December 6, 2009.
“You can easily bribe”: U.S. Department of State confidential cable, “Ahmed Wali Karzai and Governor Wesa on Governance in Kandahar,” October 3, 2009.
“should use his authority to”: U.S. Department of State secret cable, “Scenesetter II: US-Afghan Strategic Partnership Bilateral Meetings March 13–14,” March 8, 2007.
“Both have well-known reputations”: U.S. Department of State secret cable, “The Day After, Meetings with the Candidates,” October 21, 2009.
“Given his suspected ties to narco-trafficking”: U.S. Department of State cable, “Scenesetter for November 2–3 Visit to Washington of Canadian Ambassador to Afghanistan William R. Crosbie,” October 29, 2009.
“are widely believed to profit”: Carlotta Gall, “Afghan Poppy Growing Reaches Record Level, U.N. Says,” The New York Times, November 19, 2004, p. 3.
“British hand”: Notes of Afghan cabinet meeting from November 22, 2004.
“leads the whole trafficking structure”: Ron Moreau and Sami Yousafzai, “A Harvest of Treachery: Afghanistan’s Drug Trade Is Threatening the Stability of a Nation America W
ent to War to Stabilize. What Can Be Done?” Newsweek, January 9, 2006, p. 32.
“flailing”: U.S. Department of State confidential cable, “Karzai Dissatisfied; Worried About Newsweek; Plans War Against Narcotics,” January 10, 2006.
“One of the most symbolically important things”: U.S. Department of State secret cable, “Scenesetter for President Karzai’s Upcoming Visit to Washington,” September 19, 2006.
“Nobody is that stupid”: U.S. Department of State secret cable, “Ahmed Wali Karzai: Seeking to Define Himself as a U.S. Partner?,” February 25, 2010.
8 SMASHING THE CHINA SHOP
“pre-eminent warrior-thinker”: Dave Barno, “Major General Herbert Raymond McMaster,” Time, April 23, 2014.
“to warn against hubris”: McChrystal, My Share of the Task.
“enormously soft heart”: Anderson, “The Man in the Palace.”
“Afghan families tend”: Hamid Karzai and Nick Mills, Letter from Kabul (Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, 2006), uncorrected proofs, p. 25.
six state-owned banks: Jelena Pavlovic and Joshua Charap, “Development of the Commercial Banking System in Afghanistan: Risks and Rewards,” IMF Working Paper, July 2009.
“It soon became clear”: Ake Lonnberg, “Building a Financial System in Afghanistan,” International Monetary Fund, May 29, 2003.
“required to remain politically neutral”: Memo from Central Bank governor Abdul Qadir Fitrat, “Chief Executive Officers of Licensed Commercial Banks General Managers of Permitted Branches of Foreign Banks,” January 4, 2009.
“collusion with drug smugglers”: Afghan intelligence report from the chief of Department 74 of the National Directorate of Security, “Supervision and Financial Risk Management,” October 20, 2009.
“want to remind you”: Letter from Central Bank governor Abdul Qadir Fitrat to President Hamid Karzai, February 24, 2010.
“several opportunities to learn about fraudulent activities”: “Review of USAID/Afghanistan’s Bank Supervision Assistance Activities and the Kabul Bank Crisis,” Report No. F-306-11-003-S, USAID Office of the Inspector General.
“a mere smoke screen”: From findings of fact in the case Juan Carlos Yeh Gutierrez V. Helmand Boston, Inc., before the Labor Commissioner of the State of California, signed by hearing officer Thomas J. Nagle, August 1, 2000.
“I’ve asked him constantly”: Application for state of charges from Robie Allen Thomas, District Court of Maryland, September 8, 2003.
“He grabbed me by my right arm”: Ibid.
“At the beginning I was impressed”: Mahmood Karzai’s testimony in Baltimore City Circuit Court on September 23, 2007.
“a complete disaster”: Ibid.
“clearly has great expectations for the AIC”: U.S. Department of State cable, “Afghanistan Investment Company Closing In on First Project,” February 20, 2006.
9 CLOSE COUSINS
“Each contender waited for an opportunity”: Barfield, Afghanistan: A Cultural and Political History.
large Georgian cottage in Summer Hill: Hamid Karzai and Nick Mills, Letter from Kabul (Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, 2006), uncorrected proofs, p. 23.
“expressions such as ‘turning turtle’ ”: Lamb, The Sewing Circles of Herat, p. 42.
“there was a lovely cinema”: William Dalrymple, “How Is Hamid Karzai Still Standing?” The New York Times Magazine, November 20, 2013.
“eat salad or boiled eggs”: Roland Watson, “Restaurant View of New Leaders,” The Gazette (Montreal, Quebec), December 8, 2001.
“high moral standards”: Karzai and Mills, Letter from Kabul, p. 14.
“never really bonded”: Dam, A Man and a Motorcycle.
spacious house downtown: Karzai and Mills, Letter from Kabul, p. 17.
“laid the foundation”: Nick B. Mills, Karzai: The Failing American Intervention and the Struggle for Afghanistan (Hoboken, N.J.: John Wiley & Sons, 2007), ePub file.
“glowed in the evening”: Rodric Braithwaite, Afgantsy: The Russians in Afghanistan 1979–89 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), ePub file.
between twelve and fifteen thousand: U.S. Department of State confidential cable, “Meeting with Soviet Diplomat: Part III of III—Human Rights,” June 25, 1979.
“3,000 political prisoners”: Ibid.
“frequent use of electric shocks”: “Afghanistan: Torture of Political Prisoners,” Amnesty International (New York: Amnesty International Publications, 1986), p. 2.
“I suddenly realized”: Kaplan, Soldiers of God.
10 WHO’S RUNNING THIS PLACE?
“lonely and alone man”: U.S. Department of State confidential cable, “Negative Influence of Certain Karzai Advisors,” March 2, 2009.
ten-minute break: Notes from Afghan cabinet meeting on April 21, 2003.
eight-hour Afghan government workday: Notes from Afghan cabinet meeting on March 25, 2002.
steering wheels: Notes from Afghan cabinet meeting on March 19, 2004.
age limit for mayors: Notes from Afghan cabinet meeting on January 20, 2003.
animal husbandry: Notes from Afghan cabinet meeting on September 30, 2003.
too few trees: Notes from Afghan cabinet meeting on November 29, 2004.
“diagnosed as a manic-depressive”: Bob Woodward, Obama’s Wars (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010), ePub file.
“I would not kill an ant”: Lamb, The Sewing Circles of Herat, p. 239.
carried a gun: Anderson, “The Man in the Palace.”
“The sun cannot be hidden”: Edward Zellem, Zarbul Masalha: 151 Afghan Dari Proverbs (Kabul: Karwan Press, 2011), ePub file.
“tremendous civilian casualties”: Joshua Partlow and Habib Zahori, “65 Civilian Villagers Were Killed in U.S. Military Operation, Afghan Officials Say,” The Washington Post, February 21, 2011.
“I have reviewed the footage”: Joshua Partlow, “Karzai Aides Decry Petraeus Remarks,” The Washington Post, February 22, 2011.
“With great honor and with great respect”: Rod Nordland, “Afghan Leader Questions U.S. Military Operations,” The New York Times, March 13, 2011.
“You do for me”: Zellem, Zarbul Masalha.
11 WHERE EVERYONE GETS ACCUSED
He tried Citibank: Interview with Abdul Qadir Fitrat, April 19, 2013.
“Reports by certain media”: “Reports on Collapsing of Kabul Bank Baseless: Central Bank Governor,” Xinhua General News Service, September 1, 2010.
“respectfully would like to apprise you”: Letter from Central Bank governor Abdul Qadir Fitrat to President Hamid Karzai, September 21, 2010.
“I’m not a dictator”: Interview with Abdul Qadir Fitrat, April 19, 2013.
“the prevailing culture of impunity”: Miloon Kothari, “Adequate Housing as a Component of the Right to an Adequate Standard of Living,” Report by the Special Rapporteur, United Nations Mission to Afghanistan, August 31– September 13, 2003.
“This cabinet has lost its credibility”: Notes from Afghan cabinet meeting on September 15, 2003.
forty-seven bedrooms: Karin Brulliard, “Garish ‘Poppy Palaces’ Lure Affluent Afghans,” The Washington Post, June 6, 2010, p. 1.
“The problem is with foreign relatives”: U.S. Department of State secret cable, “Karzai Looks Forward,” December 3, 2009.
Members of the Afghan air force: Maria Abi-Habib, “Afghan Air Force Probed in Drug Running,” The Wall Street Journal, March 10, 2012.
The Dawood National Military Hospital: Maria Abi-Habib, “Graft, Deadly Neglect Sting Afghan Military Hospital—Injured Soldiers Routinely Died of Simple Infections at U.S.-Funded Institution Amid Corruption Allegations,” The Wall Street Journal, September 6, 2011.
Of the roughly 2,000 corruption cases: Adam Goldman and Heidi Vogt, “Afghanistan Obstructs Graft Probes,” Associated Press, October 11, 2011.
After input from various agencies: Portions of the draft cable were read to and reviewed by the author.
12 COULDN’T BE MORE HELPFUL
&n
bsp; “nobody brought us any evidence”: “Afghan Leader Says US Visit Cements Washington-Kabul Ties,” BBC Monitoring South Asia—Political, supplied by BBC Worldwide Monitoring, May 18, 2010.
“Afghanistan will be fixed”: Joshua Partlow, “Karzai’s Defiant Stance Concerns U.S., Afghan Officials; Some Colleagues Fear His Recent Remarks May Affect Funding, Support,” The Washington Post, April 5, 2010, p. 6.
“I don’t want to be piling up”: Joshua Partlow, “In Southern Afghanistan, Even the Small Gains Get Noticed,” The Washington Post, February 9, 2010.
spent nearly a decade: Aram Roston, “How the US Funds the Taliban,” The Nation, November 11, 2009.
guarding thirty-five hundred U.S. supply trucks: figure from “Warlord, Inc.: Extortion and Corruption Along the U.S. Supply Chain in Afghanistan,” a report by the Majority staff of the Subcomittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform of the U.S. House of Representatives, June 2010.
“What is the focus”: Joshua Partlow, “Afghan Corruption Is the Enemy. Unless It Helps Us,” The Washington Post, January 31, 2010.
$100 million worth of damage: “Troops Caused 100 Million Dollars’ Damage: Afghan Officials,” Agence France-Presse, January 11, 2011.
Loy Kandahar: Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Little America: The War Within the War for Afghanistan (New York: Knopf, 2012).
13 A MOVIE STORY
“At the Kakraka Clinic”: From a September 12, 2002, memorandum for the commander in chief, United States Sepcial Operations Command. Subject: Investigation of Civilian Casualties, Oruzgan Province; Operation FULL THROTTLE, June 30, 2002, p. 58.
“What a motherfucker”: Interview with a Karzai relative in attendance at the tribal gathering, October 17, 2014.
“very deep conspiracy”: Jon Boone, “Claim of ‘Deep Conspiracy’ After US Troops Kill Afghan President’s Cousin in Botched Raid: Karzai’s Brother Fears ISAF Acted on False Information; 30-Year-Old Family Blood Feud at Centre of Allegation,” The Guardian, March 11, 2011, p. 19.