The General’s statement

The two of them were sitting out on the patio in lawn chairs. It was hot that day, and the General had turned on a large fan that at least moved the hot air around. Not even a grasshopper stirred.

“So you think their problem is that they’re not willing to compromise? ” asked the Young Man.

“Well, they say they must get together. That is one of the first principles of Islam: towhee, oneness. Yet here they are. And there are nine of them, ten of them — all these groups! They ought to be making common cause to kick the Russians out. They are doing it, but individually.”

“Do you think it’s possible for them to stop kidnapping each other and so forth? ”

“Traditionally we have a system, ” the General said. “You and I are at daggers drawn, and our common well-wisher decides to intervene between us. He says: ‘All right, for two, three months there will be no killing, no kidnapping, no cursing.’ And it is honored. So the differences could be done away with for a limited period — up to six months.”

The Young Man shifted in his chair. “Well, will it happen in this case? ”

“The saner elements are not there, ” said the General. “The young fellows … Well, the saner elements are inside. Ninety percent of the fighting is going on inside Afghanistan by the people who are there. And those chaps who are over here, they are all very ambitious; they all want the chair. And as they are ambitious, they will probably not get together. I feel we should help the majority, the ones inside. They are starving. And they are fighting your war, my war, the war of the free world. And that help should be extended materially, economically, medically. Most of the fighting takes place May to September. The rest, Afghanistan is under all this snow. Afghanistan was never self-sufficient. And with the present circumstances, the Russians are there; they can’t do any cultivations. These winters are very hard. These winters are very hard. The Russians are so bloody stupid — or clever — that they bombed their harvest and compelled them to beg food from them. So far, the common man has been rejecting these things from the Russians. Well, how long will he go on rejecting it?

“In Panjsher, the person who is fighting there, Masoud, he is paying his own men. He has a full-fledged army of two thousand people of his own. He’s a gemstone dealer: he sells his emeralds and rubies in the United States. You see, fighting inside has to be either on a tribal basis, with individual khanates, or else with those who can afford to wage the war. We must help them, not these bloody parties.”^b

* “Thank you for submitting the manuscript, ” wrote the literary agent, “and my apologies for my slowness. I hope your intestinal parasites are a thing of the past. I do appreciate the chance to read An Afghanistan Picture Show. I only wish that I could get someone to buy it …”

† I never saw his name transliterated, and am spelling it exactly as it sounds.

‡ See Chapter 8, in which Abdullah is interviewed.

§ This interview, like many others, was conducted in Pushto. I am indebted to my Afghan translator in California (who does not wish to be identified).

‖ I have transliterated his name thus to avoid confusion with Babrak Karmal’s successor, Najibullah.

a “I am Nuristani and understand no Pushtu.” (Nuristanis are often light-skinned.)

b In comparison with their occupiers, the Afghans did quite well, for any person will always come off more favorably than the soldier who has come to dispossess him. Since by the time I wrote this book my sympathies in this matter had come to lie wholly with the refugees and the Mujahideen, I considered hiding or denying what is blighted on their leaf. However, that is not only a bad way to begin (and I am not certain, anyhow, that I would be capable of doing so suavely), but — more to the point — I think it is both unnecessary and inexpedient: unnecessary, because from our viewpoint the stench is hardly noxious, we being, in all respects, on the other side of the world, and because these things that the Afghans do are not of significant harm to anyone but themselves; and inexpedient, because pointing them out will not be “of aid and comfort to the enemy, ” the enemy having been clever enough to play on them already. Anyhow, the war is over for the moment.