The Punishment of Virtue

by Sarah Chayes

  Two months after the Twenty-fifth Infantry Division arrived in Kandahar, in the spring of 2004, I received an e-mail message from a highly competent female Civil Affairs sergeant named Heather. She had been tasked by high command to gather some material on local tribes and wondered if I could help. I had to laugh. I forwarded to her the crib sheet I had written up in Hawaii six months before. Heather sent it to Colonel Pedersen, verbatim. He commended her, giving no sign of ever having seen it before.

  When I had my first long chat with him, I found that he had spent the two months since his arrival in Kandahar closeted almost exclusively with the new governor—not Shirzai by then, but Shirzai’s close friend, the former minister of urban development, Yusuf Pashtun.

  I suggested a few tribal elders whom Pedersen should really meet with for contrast. In the absence of Zabit Akrem and Ahmad Wali, who were both out of town, Akrem’s elder, former crack anti-Soviet commander Mullah Naqib, was an obvious pick—Mullah Naqib, who had been a direct contact of the CIA during the anti-Soviet Jihad; Mullah Naqib, who had shot down three Soviet helicopters with U.S.-supplied Stinger missiles and who had actually returned the unused ones after the war was over; Mullah Naqib, who was appointed governor of Kandahar after the Taliban surrendered, but got shouldered out of the way; Mullah Naqib, the owner, for all intents and purposes, of Arghandab district, and the acknowledged leader of swathes of population all through the districts that counted militarily: Ma’rouf, Arghestan, Maywand.

  Pedersen had never heard of him. There was no information on him available in any database. The U.S. Army, I discovered to my disbelief, had no institutional memory at all.

  It has caused me to wonder ever since: how is it that an organization as rich in capacities and resources as the U.S. government can so neglect the fundamental task of learning?

  Afghans don’t believe in incompetence. When I would argue its preponderant weight in any given outcome, they always waved my words away, reaching instead for a theory, a tale of conspiracy or alliance, to explain U.S. actions. Akrem alone seemed intuitively to understand. I asked him one day how it had felt, back when the Taliban had finally fallen, to have to obey Mullah Naqib’s command of nonviolence, to be forced to allow Gul Agha Shirzai to seize control of Kandahar.

  Akrem surprised me: “We were overjoyed,” he answered. Then he explained. “We thought the Americans had a plan, that their support for Shirzai was part of a plan. We thought they were going to lay the foundations of a good government, a government that would be inclusive, acceptable to all the tribes.”

  In the beginning, Akrem assured me, such a proactive form of nation building would have been easy for the Americans to pull off. “The people were so fearful. They were fearful of the Taliban, and they were just plain fearful because there was no courage left to them. Anything the Americans did would have been accepted.”

  But slowly, said Akrem, the unruly Afghans roused themselves and began to examine the situation. “Gradually the people realized that there was nothing there. And they became rebellious. They realized the Americans had no plan at all—not for the government of Kandahar, not for Gul Agha Shirzai, not for anything. And they realized that President Karzai had no plan either, no idea.” Akrem used the English word to give the notion weight. “And now,” he concluded, “the government of Afghanistan is a government in name only.”

  CHAPTER 24

  MISFIRE

  SPRING 2003

  I CONFESS. I had a further reason for rushing to Kabul to meet Coalition commander Dan McNeill that April of 2003. I wasn’t going merely to satisfy his curiosity and to expound my theories, yet again.

  Two long months had passed since Qayum and I had written up that plan: How to Fire a Warlord in Eight Easy Steps. The real reason I went to Kabul was that I wanted to lay it on the general. I wanted to gauge his reaction. I wanted to see if he would in fact be willing to play the part we had assigned to him.

  The plan provided for consultations between President Karzai and U.S. military officials. And it assumed that the U.S. military, so consulted, would help. I was pretty sure the United States would indeed provide such assistance to the president, if properly looped in. But I did not exactly know it. A one-on-one with General McNeill was my chance to find out.

  For, nothing was advancing. American and Afghan officials were still locked in their spellbound waltz, dancing around each other.

  Out of patience with the reticence in official quarters, I took it into my head to do the parties’ turkey talking for them. I answered to nobody, so my actions could not really spark a diplomatic incident, or get me fired or anything.

  “General,” I waded in, “a hypothetical. Let’s say President Karzai wanted to dismiss one of these warlords—Governor Shirzai, just as an example. And let’s say he approached you on it, asking for your help. Let’s say he had some very specific tactical support he needed—not open-ended green-on-green kind of help, but some specifics. Park a couple of tanks by Razziq Shirzai’s compound in the no-man’s-land between Gate 1 and Gate 2 at KAF, for example. Or step up the patrols you already run along the border by Spin Boldak. What would you tell him? Could you do it?”

  General McNeill did not say yes—exactly. His answer was more roundabout than that. I was putting him on the spot, and there was that note taker named Tim. What McNeill said, in substance, was that his mission was to pursue and catch members of the Al-Qaeda network and to create a safe and secure environment for rebuilding Afghanistan. And that—while he had to be careful not to attract too much attention—if he stayed below the radar operated by his superiors at Central Command, there was a lot he could manage to do within an imaginative interpretation of this mission.

  It was all I needed. I knew the Americans would come through if asked the right way. I communicated as much to Karzai’s chief of staff.

  I was elated. I had closed the loop.

  And then…I had to leave. It was almost physically painful. I was being ripped up by the roots just when everything was finally starting to happen. April Witt’s article was still setting off time-release explosions like a fire in a munitions warehouse. I had McNeill’s expression of concrete support. My Ghiljais had been received in Kabul and on the base in Kandahar. The base commander was alert and listening. And finally, a direct channel was opened up for Akrem. The pot was nearing the boil, and damned if I wasn’t required, by previous engagement, to go back to the United States.

  Anyway, I had hepatitis. In fact, I could not sit upright long enough to attend a children’s workshop we were hosting at ACS. When I arrived at the airport in Dubai, I had been peeing yellow for two days. I looked in the stainless steel ladies’ room mirror and was impressed with my tan. “Mom,” I said on the phone. I would never have called her from an airport; I must have been worried. “If you take vitamins, does your pee turn yellow?” I could hear my sister Eve’s voice in the background. A pause. “You’ve got jaundice, dear,” my mother answered evenly. “Sounds like hepatitis.”

  You’re supposed to be laid up for weeks with hepatitis. I had to talk at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government three days after I made it to Boston. In a major concession, I spent two of those days in bed, before launching into the most suicidally frenetic U.S. visit I have ever survived.

  At ACS-Boston we had hired a publicist. It was kind of second best to throwing ourselves into intensive fund-raising, which no one much enjoyed. Sue Dorfman was a short, tough, big-hearted broad who did her job well, meaning she booked me solid.

  Harvard’s Kennedy School kicked things off. It was their Forum series—heads of state had preceded me at that podium. It was just about in my front yard, thank goodness, so I was not too intimidated. I had to cling to the lectern to stay standing. I remember it as not one of my most stellar efforts, but it seemed to go down OK. I received a kind letter afterward from the Forum director.

  Then it was editorial meetings with newspapers—the Boston Globe, the Christian Science Monitor, the New York Times, the
Washington Post— contacts with such glittering potential partners as Physicians for Human Rights, radio interviews, naturally, and a few on TV, a visit with our beloved supporters in Lincoln and Concord, school trips to see kids who were interested in joining our sister-school program or who had already collected boxes of pencils and notebooks, meetings at the Pentagon and with congressmen…

  And all of this for what? What was the objective? Consciousness-raising about Afghanistan? About Afghans for Civil Society? Grandstanding?

  And I saw how this publicity stuff can take on a life of its own—how easy it is, even with good intentions, to get caught up in it. One becomes confused. Appointments are felt as obligations. A responsible girl does not miss them, and so she shows up—and performs. I remembered Bill Taylor telling me at the U.S. embassy in Kabul once, how impressed certain people were that I had chosen to drop a life at National Public Radio that offered a lot of public exposure, celebrity even, to work more discreetly and concretely behind the scenes. Well, what was Bill thinking now, I wondered. The loss of his respect was a painful price for admission to this circus. I tried to assuage my conscience with the thought that we were focusing some attention on the key issues in Afghanistan. We did get a few editorials into big newspapers.

  One day, the road show was leaving for Washington. Eve had decided to stay behind. My support group consisted of our administrator, Ayse Yildiz, a funny and unflappable Turkish American artist who once death-lessly remarked: “Here we are, a bunch of kids from dysfunctional families, working at a dysfunctional organization, trying to fix a dysfunctional country”; and Amir Soltani, originally from Iran, penetratingly intelligent and as sensitive as fine crystal. Revolutions aside, Amir and I had discovered the first day we met that we had lived almost identical lives. He was irreplaceable solace and goad to thought during a tumultuous and soul-searing time.

  We were late. We were running through the airport in Providence, Rhode Island. We weren’t fast enough: we missed our cheap flight on Southwest by just over three minutes. We looked at each other, catching our breath. Amir and Ayse could take the next Southwest plane. I had to speak at the National Press Club Newsmakers series at two o’clock that afternoon. I would have to find another carrier. We bought a $400 United ticket to Reagan National. Next crisis: I had checked my damned bag. A first. And, another first, I had followed my mother’s advice to wear something “comfortable” to travel in—read slovenly. I was going to have to buy some togs the second I hit the ground. There was a Banana Republic right around the corner from the National Press Club, praise the Lord. Never have I been so efficient. Light wool slacks, an appetizing brown herring-bone, a bit too flared at the bottom for my absolute taste, but hey. Thirty-five bucks. Shopping bag dangling from my elbow, I rode up in the elevator and, introductions barely complete, asked the Newsmakers moderator to show me the ladies’ room. And I emerged, like Cinderella, presentable.

  Despite the prestige that Sue Dorfman had drummed into my head, I knew this talk was not a really big deal. I used to be a journalist. No reporter with anything to do goes out to a lecture in the middle of the afternoon, and then writes about it. I was not the least surprised to see only about fifteen people sprinkled through the auditorium. And so I prepared to let loose. My Letter to Washington about the warlords and terrorism and the role of Pakistan was more than a month old. As is so often the case with epiphanies, everything in it seemed self-evident now. I was wound up like a toy mouse. And no one, I thought, was listening.

  I put absolutely everything out there, my tirade only interrupted by Amir and Ayse, who came in halfway through, lugging our suitcases, trying to clamber discreetly into seats in the back. I was on about warlordism being the source of insecurity in Afghanistan, warlordism and terrorism linked hand in hand, Gul Agha Shirzai answering to both Pakistan and the United States, Pakistan’s double game—the works. I got encouraging looks from a Voice of America delegation sitting in the front row, whose elderly team leader alternated between nodding in energetic agreement and falling asleep.

  Later that evening I found out, ice water drenching my back, that VOA had made an eight-and-a-half-minute story out of my talk. I used to be a radio reporter, and I know: eight and a half minutes lasts approximately as long as the Jurassic Age. The thing was broadcast in Persian and Pashtu in, of course, Afghanistan. I called up VOA and asked nonchalantly what they had used. “Oh, the stuff about the Kandahar-to-Kabul highway,” they replied comfortingly. Right.

  Someone told me during those frenetic days, on the phone from Kandahar, that Gul Agha Shirzai had actually gone to President Karzai to complain about me. I thought it was a joke.

  Meanwhile, it did seem that at long last some of the warlord governors were on the verge of being fired. In telephone conversations, Qayum changed his focus away from Shirzai and toward the defense minister, a much bigger fish. When I asked why, Qayum told me Shirzai was a “done deal.” I got confirmation from my friend Roy Gutman, an illustrious former Newsday and Newsweek reporter with whom I had mightily enjoyed working in Bosnia and Serbia. Roy said that on a flight back from Kabul, he had talked to the U.S. special envoy, who had told him Shirzai’s replacement was already chosen.

  I learned that preparations were under way for a big governors’ meeting in Kabul. They were being summoned, a round dozen of them. They were going to get the riot act, maybe several of them the ax. I started hopping up and down. There was no way I was going to miss this. I called in to President Karzai’s chief of staff every day, ready to change my airplane ticket and race back for the show. It was happening. Everything was moving in the right direction.

  Then, suddenly, on the phone one day, the chief of staff’s tone of voice was not the same. “Uh, I don’t know, Sarah,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s going to work. The Americans are backsliding.”

  It was not possible. General McNeill had promised me. How could he be backsliding? But the chief of staff could not be cajoled out of his disappointment: it seemed that the U.S. invasion of Iraq a few months back was having an impact on people’s enthusiasm. The Americans just did not want to take risks that might tie down troops in Afghanistan. Iraq was the main concern.

  I needed a second opinion. I e-mailed General McNeill. I was trying to make travel plans, I told him. Were there any fireworks upcoming in Kabul that I might not want to miss?

  The general wrote back: “Enjoy the spring flowers in Harvard Yard.”

  That, to my dismay, sounded like a signal. “I copy,” I sent back. And I stayed in Boston.

  Sure enough, the governors’ meeting was a bust. Twelve notorious warlords gathered in Kabul, and President Karzai kept them there. I held my breath. Karzai made a thundering speech at the Supreme Court, threatening to resign, to bring down the government and call a new Loya Jirga, if they would not change their ways.

  I knew the market value of this kind of threat, and I suspected the governors did too. On May 20, 2003, they signed a solemn oath to President Karzai. From now on, they vowed, they would send every bit of the money they were collecting in customs dues up to Kabul. They would obey Karzai’s orders on the double, and they would refrain from pulling knives and guns on one another. Gul Agha Shirzai had been the first to leap to his feet and swear fealty. He boasted that he was making more than a million dollars a day in customs. From now on, all of it was Karzai’s. Cross his heart.

  Karzai’s chief of staff tried to put a good a face on things: “They agreed to send every penny to Kabul,” he told April Witt for her story in the Washington Post. “When the president submitted the list of requirements, all of them said they would comply with no objections at all.”1

  Well, of course they would say that, I thought. This is Afghanistan.

  Many intelligent observers were impressed, however. New York Times correspondent Carlotta Gall described Karzai’s “new firmness,”2 and several foreign friends of mine in Kabul applauded. April was a bit more circumspect: “If honored,” she emphasized in her article,
the pledge would bring many benefits. “But the agreement has no enforcement provision, and it remains to be seen whether it will have any effect on the warlords and provincial authorities throughout Afghanistan, who routinely act with independence and impunity.”3

  As for me, aware of what had really been in the works, I knew what a climbdown this result was.

  The first thing I wanted to do when I arrived back in Kabul was to find out what had gone wrong. I made the rounds. The U.S. embassy, President Karzai’s chief of staff, and Interior Minister Jalali were my chief sources.

  Their stories, of course, diverged. “They ganged up on us,” complained Jalali of the Americans. “They told us everything short of ‘Don’t do it,’ spelled out in capital letters.”

  Karzai’s chief of staff described U.S. civilian and military brass, several of whom had flown in from Washington, virtually lining up outside President Karzai’s office to deliver messages like: “Have you thought through all the implications of this?” “Our troops are tied up in Iraq now.” “This just isn’t the time.”

  Faced with such explicit reservations, there was no way the Afghans could go ahead, the chief of staff told me.

  At the U.S. embassy, I got a slightly different picture. Zalmai Khalilzad, Washington’s special envoy and later U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, had asked President Karzai to detail his plans. “There’s checkers,” Khalilzad had reportedly told Karzai, “and there’s chess. When you play chess, you calculate your moves, two or three in advance.” The Americans, it seemed, had suggested some scenarios that might transpire if the warlords were fired. And they had asked Afghan officials to think about them: “What if…? Orif…? Orif…?” And the Afghans’ response had been a little vague.