David Rohde’s extended account of his hellish seven-month-plus captivity in Afghanistan and Taliban-held Pakistan is running this week in the NYT. Part one is here. It’s about as gripping a narrative as you can possibly imagine, and a testament to the man’s extraordinary bravery and sacrifice.
Rohde took a risk in interviewing a Taliban commander because he felt duty-bound as a journalist to get their side of the story. Needless to say he got a lot more than he bargained for. If any good can come of it, it’s his ability to offer us a stunning, probably unprecedented level of detail and insight into this horrific gang of murderers.
For one thing, we’re often told that in contrast to the Karzai government and its various warlord allies, the Taliban and other Islamist insurgents are somehow incorruptible. Nicholas Kristof advanced this idea in a September 5 column, arguing that many Afghans are impressed by “the Taliban’s personal honesty and religious piety, a contrast to the corruption of so many officials around President Hamid Karzai.” Rohde, however, writes the following:
As the months dragged on, I grew to detest our captors. I saw the Haqqanis as a criminal gang masquerading as a pious religious movement. They described themselves as the true followers of Islam but displayed an astounding capacity for dishonesty and greed.
That’s just one example of Rohde overturning conventional wisdom with some firsthand, all-too-personal experience. Read on.
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