Hiding in the Poppies
Reporters always look for the best story to tell, and sometimes that search puts them in the middle of more action than they ever anticipated. In the July 9th and 16th double issue of the New Yorker magazine, Jon Lee Anderson tells the story of his visit to Afghanistan. While covering the problems that come along with US efforts to eradicate poppies in the country, he found himself under attack:
Policemen were already busy whacking and crushing poppies, using sticks and A.T.V's. They were spread out over several hundred metres. Unlike the day before, there were no children or any other civilians in sight. As I walked along a trail between the poppy fields, gunshots rang out. Men began running, taking cover, and looking up toward the village on the bluff; the firing seemed to be coming from the mud-walled compounds there. Kelly, the ex-cop from Arizona, yelled at me to take cover. I headed toward a stand of trees with Aaron Huey, the photographer who was travelling with me; from there we could no longer see any other Americans. A group of six or seven Interior Ministry policemen-almost all of the local police had disappeared as soon as the shooting started-ran past with their guns drawn, and we followed.
Anderson's article is titled, The Taliban's Opium War, and it reads like a thriller. Check it out in the July 9/16 edition of The New Yorker magazine. If you have questions for him, about the trip, the story, or what it's like to get caught up in a gunfight, let us know.
12:59 PM ET | 07-17-2007 | permalink
