mehru
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We Gave Him A Lot of Money
Posted by Amy Davidson
Its official: We have no idea who anybody is in Afghanistan. Maybe thats why we have so much trouble figuring out what were doing there, and why. American and Afghan officials were deep in negotiations with a man they thought was Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour, one of the most powerful Taliban commanders. (Thats assuming we even understand their hierarchy.) It now looks like hes an impostor. From the Times:
Its not him, said a Western diplomat in Kabul intimately involved in the discussions. And we gave him a lot of money.
So who was he? The Times mentions the possibility that he was a Taliban agent or a freelance fraud. The Washington Post adds Pakistani military-intelligence agent and lowly shopkeeper from Quetta. That leaves tinker, tailor, sailor, and beggarman as unclaimed options. An Afghan official that the Post spoke to left it as, He was a very clever man. (And some Afghan officials, according to the paper, still hope he might know the mullah or maybe talk to him sometimes.)
The Times called it an episode that could have been lifted from a spy novel, and the Post a daring ruse, but in some ways its more at the level of the trick play that a Texas middle-school football team pulled off this monthits all over YouTubewhen the quarterback pretended he wasnt quarterbacking, and just walked straight through the lines. But this impostor didnt have to walk very far:
The fake Taliban leader even met with President Hamid Karzai, having been flown to Kabul on a NATO aircraft and ushered into the presidential palace, officials said.
Thats fitting: The fake Taliban leader meeting with the fake democratic leader, in an event we paid for and stage-managed. How many American soldiers risked their lives to get him safely to Kabul?
And then theres this passage, from the Times article:
Last month, White House officials asked The New York Times to withhold Mr. Mansours name from an article about the peace talks, expressing concern that the talks would be jeopardized and Mr. Mansours life put at risk if his involvement were publicized. The Times agreed to withhold Mr. Mansours name, along with the names of two other Taliban leaders said to be involved in the discussions. The status of the other two Taliban leaders said to be involved is not clear.
If the Times had printed the name, would we have found out a month sooner that we were being played? Hard to say. This is not to fault the Times in this case, or to say that our government should never ask a paper to hide the identity of someone who might get killed or that media outlets should generally say no, when there is good reason. (Not all names, like those of children in certain cases, should be published.) But one would think that White House officials, before asking the Times to be quiet about what it knew, would have had solid knowledge of whom it was they were protecting. Or are such requests made casually, about things that arent really secrets or even truepart of the overclassification of our wars? That would be a problem. How are reporters supposed to know when a story might really get someone killed, or when an Administration is trying to save itself from embarrassmentand, as a result, carry on with policies that themselves cost lives? There is a point, in all things, when responsible compliance comes to mean complicity in our own governments recklessness.
Close Read: “We Gave Him A Lot of Money” : The New Yorker
Posted by Amy Davidson
Its official: We have no idea who anybody is in Afghanistan. Maybe thats why we have so much trouble figuring out what were doing there, and why. American and Afghan officials were deep in negotiations with a man they thought was Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour, one of the most powerful Taliban commanders. (Thats assuming we even understand their hierarchy.) It now looks like hes an impostor. From the Times:
Its not him, said a Western diplomat in Kabul intimately involved in the discussions. And we gave him a lot of money.
So who was he? The Times mentions the possibility that he was a Taliban agent or a freelance fraud. The Washington Post adds Pakistani military-intelligence agent and lowly shopkeeper from Quetta. That leaves tinker, tailor, sailor, and beggarman as unclaimed options. An Afghan official that the Post spoke to left it as, He was a very clever man. (And some Afghan officials, according to the paper, still hope he might know the mullah or maybe talk to him sometimes.)
The Times called it an episode that could have been lifted from a spy novel, and the Post a daring ruse, but in some ways its more at the level of the trick play that a Texas middle-school football team pulled off this monthits all over YouTubewhen the quarterback pretended he wasnt quarterbacking, and just walked straight through the lines. But this impostor didnt have to walk very far:
The fake Taliban leader even met with President Hamid Karzai, having been flown to Kabul on a NATO aircraft and ushered into the presidential palace, officials said.
Thats fitting: The fake Taliban leader meeting with the fake democratic leader, in an event we paid for and stage-managed. How many American soldiers risked their lives to get him safely to Kabul?
And then theres this passage, from the Times article:
Last month, White House officials asked The New York Times to withhold Mr. Mansours name from an article about the peace talks, expressing concern that the talks would be jeopardized and Mr. Mansours life put at risk if his involvement were publicized. The Times agreed to withhold Mr. Mansours name, along with the names of two other Taliban leaders said to be involved in the discussions. The status of the other two Taliban leaders said to be involved is not clear.
If the Times had printed the name, would we have found out a month sooner that we were being played? Hard to say. This is not to fault the Times in this case, or to say that our government should never ask a paper to hide the identity of someone who might get killed or that media outlets should generally say no, when there is good reason. (Not all names, like those of children in certain cases, should be published.) But one would think that White House officials, before asking the Times to be quiet about what it knew, would have had solid knowledge of whom it was they were protecting. Or are such requests made casually, about things that arent really secrets or even truepart of the overclassification of our wars? That would be a problem. How are reporters supposed to know when a story might really get someone killed, or when an Administration is trying to save itself from embarrassmentand, as a result, carry on with policies that themselves cost lives? There is a point, in all things, when responsible compliance comes to mean complicity in our own governments recklessness.
Close Read: “We Gave Him A Lot of Money” : The New Yorker
lol didnt mean to cause confusion i thought every one here knew that smiling face.
