The Land of Osama

In December of 2004, when Current was just starting to gear up, I was in its San Francisco headquarters, which had literally nine or so employees--as opposed to the 200 or so staffers up there now. One of those nine employees, David Neuman, the president programming, asked me, if I came to work for Current, I could do something on the hunt for Osama. I replied that it might be illuminating to look at the reason why the U.S. government didn't seem to be particularly trying to find him--Pakistan. It wasn't until October of 2006 that Adam, Tracey Chang, and I, having practiced doing a couple of previous, in Colombia/Bolivia and in Egypt, felt comfortable going to Pakistan. The story we brought back here is a bit murky--it's a murky place. But it gives a sense why even the Pentagon, with an annual military budget larger than the GDP of the Netherlands, shies away from taking on such populous, potentially violent, and potentially unstable in order to catch the man responsible for 9/11. And you get a sense of Pakistani government's reason for not wanting to catch him for us. I hope. It's murky.

i of course wasn't around during any of the central asian conquests of the region, nor the british attempts, nor during the cold war. the fabled khyber pass, as well as the tribal Pashtun people we met with in the piece, are not to be messed with. and as the us carefully wages its war on terror in the afghanistan, it invariably touches this part of pakistan. this is a point that's probably not lost on the pentagon.

oh, and by the way... excellent cell phone coverage throughout the khyber pass. even better than some sections of the 405 in LA.

Since we visited the northwest frontier province in pakistan, the situation has degenerated quite a bit. the bombing that we'd referenced in the piece turned out to be a sort of a start in a new wave of violence not only in that region, but in the country as a whole. large, frequent suicide bombings are on the rise.

The pakistani government and the tribal leaders had signed a truce in a bid to bring some stability to the tribal region, a grey area that sits between pakistan and afghanistan. early reports from pakistan claimed that not only was violence down, but taliban/al qaeda activity had slowed as well. but a resurgent al qaeda once again found refuge in the northwest, and earlier this year, us intel revealed that al qaeda had regrouped to an operational capability not seen since before 9/11.

the pakistani government is still very reluctant to fight here, because the perception locally is that it's simply doing the us' bidding -- and that fuels the type of violence that's been on the rise in other parts of pakistan.

Good pod. Sad what has happened in Pakistan in the past few months.

I just read the book Three Cups of Tea, a true story about a guy building schools in this same area. Check it: http://www.amazon.com/Three-Cups-Tea-Mission-Promote/dp/0143038257/ref=ed_oe_p

I bet the author would like your pod!

Adam's work continues to blow my mind. I was amazed to see that even though Adam looked like he was not Amercian, he still needed to smile at all times.

Thank you Current...for being a beacon of light for real news.....

Keep up the great work.....i will continue watching...and continue telling everyone I know about your kewl network!