C.M. Sennott's Notebook:

Why one Afghan village tells you everything you need to know about how bad things are over there

So here is why the small, remote village of Ganjgal in Afghanistan tells you everything you need to know about why the U.S.-led occupation of the country seems so doomed to so many.

Ganjgal is a rocky, hillside village in the Kunar Province, not far from the Pakistan border. Four U.S. Marines were killed there last week in an ambush. McClatchy Newspapers correspondent, Jonathan S. Landay, an excellent combat reporter, was embedded with the unit that entered the village in the Sarkani district and walked into the ambush. Landay's harrowing account is required reading in order to understand just how bad things are over there.

I have a unique background on Ganjgal. I reported from the small village for The Boston Globe on the fifth anniversary of 9/11 and it provided the centerpiece of my reporting on the perils of the U.S.'s "forgotten war" in Afghanistan. It was 2006, and I wrote about how insurgents fired rockets down on the Forward Operating Base (FOB) that is adjacent to the village. The attack shook us and we awoke to U.S. and Afghan forces returning fire into the darkness at an unseen enemy. The local U.S. commander was surprised by the attack because the village was considered sympathetic to the Americans who were set up in the FOB next door. In fact, in the trite shorthand that goes with war, the US commander called them "our friendlies."

Back then, I met with the village elders from Ganjgal in the following days and learned how  the attack went down. It turned out the village had permitted — or at least not stopped — Pakistani militants setting up the rocket attack because the village was angry that several of its elders had been captured and detained. These men from Ganjgal were being held in Bagram on no charges, the village elders told me. There were allegations of torture and brutal treatment. There was a mistrust brewing between the village and the FOB and you could feel it taking shape back then.

Now, it is my understanding from several sources who have been on the ground there in recent months, that  those same village elders who were detained have never been released from Bagram. So it is perhaps no surprise that there is an open hostility between Ganjgal and the nearby FOB.

In every village in Afghanistan where insurgents are engaged in battle against the U.S. and the coalition, there is a back story like this one. The only way the U.S. will ever be effective in Afghanistan is for its troops to know these back stories, to understand where the hostility of that village comes from. And then, to have the courage and the wisdom to honestly investigate whether in fact its village elders were wrongly accused and unlawfully detained.And if they establish that is the case, they should work hard to correct the error and secure the men's release. That will go a very long way in turning that village around to become what General Petraeus calls, "reconcilables," or what the local commander I met two years ago called , "our friendlies."

He sure wouldn't use that term for the residents of the village now.

The Taliban as organized crime; and why an American mob boss must be rolling over in his grave

BOSTON — In the end of the day, the Taliban are not a lot different than any other organized crime  family.

And so it's good news that the U.S. government is finally getting that, even if it did take our Kabul correspondent Jean MacKenzie's story to wake them up.

As we reported Wednesday, the federal government announced an investigation and Congress declared it would hold public hearings this fall spurred by MacKenzie’s investigative piece about how American taxpayers’ money is ending up in the hands of the Taliban.

You have got to read this piece which was credited on CNN, CBS, Reuters, HuffingtonPost and all over the blogosphere and different websites. It was one of those stories that staggers the mind. The headline says it all: “US taxpayers funding the Taliban?”

MacKenzie’s reporting focuses on what has long been an open secret in Afghanistan, that the Taliban has established what is essentially a protection racket in which it takes a cut of up to 20 percent from contractors receiving hundreds of millions of dollars for development projects in Afghanistan. Twenty percent.

That’s a big cut even for the mafia. The Italian organized crime families traditionally took only 10 percent of the construction industry in the cities in controlled.

I was thinking about that Thursday morning as I walked near our headquarters here on Atlantic Avenue in Boston and saw one of the last great mafia funerals.

The black limos were lined up along the narrow streets of the North End, this city’s Italian neghborhood. And there were flatbed trucks filled with fresh cut flowers. And wise guys in black suits with sunglasses were standing solemnly as the casket of Gennaro “Jerry” Angiulo, one of the most powerful mafia figures in New England, was loaded into the hearse.

Angiulo died a free man, but only after serving 25 years in federal prison on a litany of charges including racketeering, gambling and loansharking. He was 90 years old.

The scene got me thinking about the federal government’s long fight against organized crime in America and what it can teach us about the struggle against the Taliban.

When you boil it all down, the Taliban are criminal thugs and the sooner the U.S. treats them that way, the sooner the U.S.  will begin to have impact in Afghanistan.

Think back to the 1930 and '40s, and the old gangster movies and "The Untouchables." It was only after the federal government stopped fighting a war against the mafia and starting trying to cut off their money supply that they succeeded in breaking their hold on cities like Chicago and New York and Boston.

It’s time for the U.S. State Department to start thinking that way about the Taliban. Go after the money. To his credit, U.S. Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke gets this idea, but Washington has been slow to move on granting him the auditors and investigators he has requested. And meanwhile the Taliban continues to brazenly carry out its protection rackets and pocket what is estimated to be at least tens of millions of dollars in money that was meant to build bridges and roads and other public works.

The Taliban are an armed insurgency for sure, but they are also a corrupt crime family, not unlike the mafia, that uses fear tactics to control its population and fund its organization. Like the mafia in Little Italy, the Taliban is beloved in the Afghan villages because it offers security and a sense of belonging. The North End has always been the safest place to live in Boston. And the community has always looked out for each other, even if that meant keeping your mouth shut when the police asked questions. After all, “Cosa Nostra,” means “Our Thing,” in Italian.

That really is not that different from the Pashtun villages where the Taliban holds power, and where locals keep their mouths shut when U.S. troops ask questions. It is "their thing." They know the people, they keep the peace, they protect the collective culture and their way of life and they quite simply kill anyone who gets out of line or threatens their hold on power. Angiulo would have understood that. But he never would have understood 20 percent. In the old world of the mafia, that is just not gentlemanly. It’s not honorable.

Jerry Angiulo must be rolling over in his grave.

"... the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die."

"Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy, which sustained him through temporary periods of joy."

They are the words of the Irish poet, William Butler Yeats, and they seem as if they were penned for Senator Edward M. Kennedy, who persevered through tragedy and always did so with a great sense of humor and a love for laughter.

There are many things to say in remembering Senator Kennedy. There's the passion for helping the downtrodden, the commitment to human rights, the determination to carry the torch for the ideals and the dreams of his brothers, John and Robert. And there are the burdens of tragedy, the lost opportunities for greatness, the failure to achieve health care reform in his lifetime, the scandals that caused so much harm to himself and those who were scandalized.

But in the search for the enduring traits that Kennedy leaves behind, humor should not be overlooked. He liked to laugh and his laughter and playfulness cut across all boundaries geographic and otherwise.

That should be remembered as the somber tributes continue and the country prepares for a world-class Irish wake.

I had a chance to see Ted Kennedy in one of his last public appearances in Boston prior to his diagnosis for brain cancer.

It was at the Kennedy Library in Boston in early May, 2008 at the annual gathering for the Profiles in Courage award which honors leaders in public service in America. And there was Ted, looking great in a tuxedo, and on stage with his beloved niece, Caroline.

I will hold that memory of the way he worked the room and convinced everyone there that he knew them and somehow managed to conveyed a knowing sense of compassion with a wink and a handshake. I’d covered Kennedy on different issues, including his stand on Northern Ireland, the war in Iraq, but also the family’s darker side, including the rape trial of his nephew William Kennedy Smith, an allegation that came out of a night of hard partying in the family’s Palm Beach, Florida estate on Easter weekend.

I’d seen him and studied him and taken notes on what he said in many settings, but it never ceased to amaze me how he worked a room.

Maybe they were just the gifts of a lifelong politician, but something far deeper was there as well. It was a genuine passion for the little guy, a fighting spirit that was always framed by genuine laughter and joy.

On the stage that night, Ted Kennedy sang a Broadway show tune and danced a soft shoe and the whole time he looked like he was having the time of his life. All the remembrance and the tragedy and the weight that surrounds the Kennedy Library was there, but he danced on like the old Irish ballad, the Lord of the Dance, and it felt in that moment like he would always be there. It was just a few weeks later that his diagnosis of brain cancer was announced.

I would see him again, but not laughing. Instead he was focused and serious and impassioned and that was the night of his endorsement of Barack Obama for president in the heat of the Democratic campaign.

Last August, he went on to deliver what was his last great speech during the Democratic Convention. Kennedy spoke powerfully and delivered an address that echoed his famous 1980 convention speech that is now echoing across every broadcast honoring him from America to Africa and Asia and Latin America and Europe and the Middle East.

“For all those whose cares have been our concern, the work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die.”

Those words will echo for a very long time, and so will his laughter.
 

 

The world remembers Sen. Kennedy

BOSTON — Sentator Edward M. Kennedy’s death has touched every corner of the world. He is being remembered by leaders in the halls of power and by people in city slums and rural villages whose lives were empowered and improved by the Kennedy family’s ideas and dreams and its great hope as articulated by the senator and his brothers, John and Robert, that America could be a light to the world. An outstanding multimedia rememberance of Kennedy's life and his legacy can be found at The Boston Globe. Here is a sampling of some statements about Senator Kennedy and his life from around the world.

U.S. President Barack Obama
"Michelle and I were heartbroken to learn this morning of the death of our dear friend, Senator Ted Kennedy. For five decades, virtually every major piece of legislation to advance the civil rights, health and economic well-being of the American people bore his name and resulted from his efforts. ... I valued his wise counsel in the Senate, where, regardless of the swirl of events, he always had time for a new colleague. I cherished his confidence and momentous support in my race for the presidency ... I've profited as president from his encouragement and wisdom. ... An important chapter in our history has come to an end."

U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown
"Edward Kennedy will be mourned not just in America but in every continent. He is admired around the world as the Senator of Senators. ... He led the world in championing children's education and health care and believed that every single child should have the chance to realize their potential to the full."

Former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair
"Senator Kennedy was a figure who inspired admiration, respect and devotion, not just in America but around the world. He was a true public servant committed to the values of fairness, justice and opportunity. ... I saw his focus and determination first hand in Northern Ireland where his passionate commitment was matched with a practical understanding of what needed to be done to bring about peace and to sustain it. I was delighted he could join us in Belfast the day devolved government was restored. ... My thoughts and prayers today are with all his family and friends as they reflect on the loss of a great and good man."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
"Senator Kennedy has been a friend for 30 years, a great American patriot, a great champion of a better world, a great friend of Israel. ... He will be sorely missed."

Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen
"Throughout his long and distinguished career in politics, Ted Kennedy has been a great friend of Ireland. He has used his considerable influence in the world's most powerful parliament for the betterment of this island. In good days and bad, Ted Kennedy worked valiantly for the cause of peace ... He played a particularly important role in the formative days of the Northern Ireland peace process in the 1990s. He has also been a strong advocate of US investment in Ireland. America has lost a great and respected statesman and Ireland has lost a longstanding and true friend."

Northern Ireland Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness
"Edward Kennedy was an opponent of conflict and he was someone who was very forthright in all of his views. And that is something that I always respected. He was someone who was hugely important in contributing, for example, to advising President Clinton at a time when President Clinton was being advised by a very powerful body in the State Department not to give a visa to Gerry Adams. Senator Kennedy's advice was to the contrary. Whatever his views on Irish Republicanism and the conflict and on the IRA prior to 1994, he certainly was hugely supportive."

John Hume, Northern Ireland politician
"He had enormous input ... He was in regular contact about the situation in Northern Ireland. He had a great influence encouraging the British government to work together with the Irish government to solve the Northern Ireland problem together."

Nelson Mandela Foundation
"We mourn, with his family, and the United States of America, the loss of a champion of democracy and civil rights. His made his voice heard in the struggle against apartheid at a time when the freedom struggle was not widely supported in the West. We remain grateful for his role."

World reacts to Sen. Kennedy's death

BOSTON — From Berlin, where President John F. Kennedy’s words still echo, to Belfast, where the Kennedy family played a key role in brokering peace, to Cape Town, where Robert F. Kennedy made a historic speech, the Kennedy name is known the world over.

And yesterday the world mourned the loss of the last surviving son of an Irish-American family from Boston that suffered triumph and tragedy, sometimes scandal, and came to define American politics. 

Senator Edward M. Kennedy, the last of the legendary political dynasty of brothers and one of the most effective legislators in recent history, died Tuesday night.

Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat who was known as the “lion” of liberalism, was 77 years old.

The death of Sen. Kennedy, who had been suffering from brain cancer, was announced by the family Wednesday morning from the family compound at Hyannis Port on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The news came even as the family was gathering to mourn the loss of the senator’s sister, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, who died two weeks ago.

GlobalPost will be taking reports from around the world on the Kennedy legacy and GlobalPost Washington correspondent John Aloysius Farrell will be compiling a remembrance of the senator he covered and the legacy the Kennedy family leaves across the globe.
 

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