The Taliban Shuffle_ Strange Days in Afghanistan and Pakistan - Kim Barker [23]
Farouq looked at the burn marks in the room. He was quiet, which meant he was upset. When he talked loudly or gruffly, that meant he was fine. I had messed that up in the past. “He was an old man,” Farouq said. “He was completely innocent. How could this happen?”
Nasir looked at me, as if I had any answer. He always did that, even though he rarely understood me, and he usually just started laughing at anything I said.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Scared soldiers, the middle of the night, sudden movement. Someone fired. Messed up.”
“But how could the Americans mess up like this?” Farouq replied. “They have the technology to see who they are shooting. He was an old man. Someone should go to prison.”
The U.S.-led coalition spokesman described Khan’s death to me as “an unfortunate incident” but insisted that the soldiers violated no rules. The press release also said soldiers captured three insurgents suspected of being involved with roadside bombs.
And that was it. The military never put out another statement, one that said that all three supposed insurgents were released within days. Or one that said no bomb-making equipment was actually found in the compound. Instead, the soldiers found one “Jihad Against America” pamphlet, one Kalashnikov assault rifle, a 9-mm handgun, and ammunition. It was actually not a significant haul for a compound of sixty people—in fact, such a weapons supply in a country like Afghanistan, where every man was allowed to keep a gun, was the equivalent of bringing a slingshot to a mortar fight.
Khan’s death was a kind of breaking point. At a meeting with President Bush, Karzai asked for more coordination between Afghan and U.S. forces on raids. The Afghan defense ministry publicly criticized the U.S. military for the very first time. A wedge had started to form between the Afghan people and the international forces. The implications were obvious, though no one but Afghans seemed to notice them. The Pashtun code was based on honor, hospitality, respect, and, most important, revenge. An entire clan was obligated to take revenge for wrongs. This was eye-for-an-eye justice, or more accurately, a hundred eyes for an eye, which was why tribal disputes tended to last for generations. The Pashtuns had a proverb about a man taking revenge one hundred years after a slight to his ancestor, and fretting that he had acted in haste. Shooting an old Pashtun man in his home, even by mistake, violated a Pashtun’s core beliefs. Revenge was compulsory; not taking revenge would brand Khan’s male relatives as cowards. Every perceived injustice in the Pashtun code could conceivably create ten more militants. Even if God willed a death, God also willed a fitting revenge. That was the way of this world. Predictably, we would later learn that one of Shayesta Khan’s sons ended up in Guantánamo.
We spent three days in Khost before starting the long drive back to Kabul. About halfway up the bumpy mountain pass, on a road that still had not been paved, our SUV started to strain, utter strange noises, and then, horribly, grind to a stop. There we were, more than two hours outside of Khost, stranded halfway up a mountain. Afghanistan had no AAA. This pass had no phone reception.
“This is not good,” I said.
“No,” Farouq agreed. “This is a bad area. It’s known as the Bloody.”
“The Bloody?” I repeated. “It’s a mountain pass known as the Bloody? Seriously?”
Farouq nodded. “Not because of the Taliban. More because of thieves. Lots of robberies along this pass. It’s easy to hide and stop people. Even kill them. That’s why it’s called the Bloody.”
I was carrying $3,000 in cash, my computer, various equipment.
Farouq and Nasir argued. Then they announced their plan: They would pour water into the radiator—a move that had fixed one of our broken-down cars in the past. They would also dump oil in the oil pan. Other vehicles passed