The questions were blunt. A man, clearly a father, complained that military units had turned the schools into bases. Another said that the Americans had detained innocent farmers. At one point, an old man, in thick layers of robes, rose, but then turned away from Karzai and squared himself with a man who was off to the side. The old man quivered and shouted, cracking his arm like a whip in front of him as he pointed and denounced the man as a drug trafficker. The seated men nodded and cheered their approval, clapping vigorously, while Karzai raised his hands out to bring quiet again.
Only then did I see them. I hadn’t originally. But to the side was Sher Mohammad Akhundzada, along with his hated former police chief Abdul Rahman Jan. These were dangerous men to accuse openly.
And yet the elders did so, sometimes obliquely, sometimes directly, as in the case of the pharmacist appointed by the town to speak for them.
“Their hands have been stained with the blood of innocents and they have killed hundreds of people,” he said, pleading with Karzai. “Even now they are being imposed on the people.” The message in Marjah was clear: We do not like the Taliban, but Adbul Rahman Jan and his police gangs are intolerable. They steal from us and rape our children.
Almost five years earlier, at the request of the British, Karzai had sacked Sher Mohammed Akhundzada as governor of Helmand. Karzai did so reluctantly, and sometimes seemed to regret the firing. Every year since, the province had seen greater Taliban presence, more violence, and more western troops. It wasn’t hard to imagine how from his seat in Kabul, the president could conclude that removing Akhundzada had lost him Helmand, and set off a cycle of violence. But from our perspective, with Akhundzada and his men, Karzai could have order, but it would be corrupt and criminal—and thus impermanent. If Helmand landed back under the Akhundzada empire and Marjah came under the thumb of Abdul Rahman Jan, the Taliban hardly had to work to regain the people’s favor. As in 2006, and 1994 before that, the pendulum of power would swing back to the Taliban just as soon as the predations became too much for the people to bear. But if the government could unmoor itself from warlords and drug lords, and install something better, it would shift initiative to itself and the Coalition.
The people of Marjah had good reason to be afraid. Abdul Rahman Jan had already organized a thirty-five-man local Marjah shura to gain a toehold. He was actively campaigning against the newly installed governor of the district, Haji Abdul Zahir, defaming the Coalition effort, and politicking in Helmand and Kabul to get Marjah back in his hands.
Inside the mosque, President Karzai reacted carefully, his political instincts guiding him. He listened attentively to everyone. He answered complaints he thought unjustified, and he accepted legitimate criticism. The crowd continued to express their grievances to Karzai, but they were not against him. He was quick and conversational with his responses. He got them laughing at one point, and when he asked if they supported Abdul Zahir, the new district chief, the whole crowd erupted in cheers. After one litany that blamed Karzai for letting Akhundzada’s men run roughshod over the area in the first place, the president turned to one of the men whom an elder had singled out.
“Shame on you,” Karzai said simply and loudly to much applause. From the floor, it appeared to be a first step away from Rahman.
After more than two hours of tense back-and-forth, and some deft politicking, Karzai appeared to win much of the crowd.
“Are you with me?” he asked. “Do I have your support?” The president raised his own hand toward the crowd.
“We are with you,” came from the crowd. “We will support you,” some said, as many of them raised their hands back at their president.
When the meeting concluded, everyone filed out of the small mosque into the grassless courtyard outside. I sat and slid on my boots, the soles heavy with mud, as Karzai addressed the press outside, this time in English. “We exchanged views. I heard them, they heard me. They had some very legitimate complaints. Very legitimate. They feel as if they were abandoned, which in many cases is true.”