More from Afghanistan

Movie poster, Peshawar, Pakistan, 2006

Two conversations in recent days, one with the head of a certain Afghan government ministry, the other with someone in the American Embassy. Both men are primarily focused on one of the most overwhelming and corrosive problems the country is dealing with today. I can’t really say what that is because it’s the topic of the story I’m reporting for a American magazine, but let’s just say it has to do with something that is popp(y)ing up in many parts of the country and, at long last, featuring in more and more of the official commentary about this place, as it should (many analysts and journalists have been talking about it for a long time, but it’s finally being recognized, in the States, by people with actual authority).

Anyway, the conversations were wide-ranging and interesting and quite a bit more encouraging than conversations I’ve had here in the past. By that I mean the people I spoke to were well and truly engaged with this place, clear-eyed and aware about the forces at work and the reality of what it will take to deal with even a few of them. I’m not saying they have the answers, but more and more there seem to be people here who know what questions to ask. And I’m not saying this alone is reason for optimism, but at least you can cross “too many idiots in important positions” off the list of reasons to be pessimistic. Or, if you want to hedge your bets, you can amend “too many” to “far fewer.”

And–the reason I’m bringing this up now–both of these conversations ended in basically the same way: Yeah, there’s a ton to do here, and I’m not sure we can do it, and I have doubts about the leadership here, and there are a lot of nefarious characters at work in their nefarious ways, but, praise be, at least we’re not in Pakistan. Words to that effect. The “because that place is really f’ing crazy” was understood.

What does it say when Afghanistan, fourth, maybe fifth-world country that it is, is now hosting refugees from Pakistan. Or that a doctor friend here recently moved his family back to Kabul from Peshawar because it was getting too crazy there and because the Pakistani Taliban was kidnapping doctors and sending them to the front lines to tend to their wounded. Or that, of course, the Taliban apparently sent a few hundred gunmen into the Buner district three-score miles from Islamabad and out-talked and out-shot the Pakistani forces allegedly entrusted with defending the place (and the country). Seriously, how mad does a place have to be when Afghanistan–where, for instance, three suicide bombers attacked the Governor of Kandahar in his house yesterday–is the better option?

I wonder what it would like if it did really implode. Hard to imagine, but we’re getting hints of it every day. The above picture is from a movie hall in Peshawar. I took it back in early 2006, when journalists had a pretty easy time wandering around and doing what we liked even though the CIA had just fired a missile into the tribal areas (Baujur, if memory serves) and killed a host of civilians (16, I think) instead of their intended target (Zawahiri). I imagine the picture is still there. Maybe the movie is still playing, a Pashtun tale of good versus evil and the noble villager who stands up to oppression. I’m not so sure that I’d be willing to go look right now, though. Like my doctor friend, the Afghan government minister, and the diplomat, right now, I’d rather be in Afghanistan.