Bill McClellan is probably the most popular columnist at the St. Louis Post Dispatch. Not the best, that would be Dave Nicklaus. Bill does a mix of local and national stories, more local than national, and is probably best known for his tales of ne’er do wells, and he has quite the soft spot for hard luck stories.

A couple of years ago he wrote a column about Johnny “Taliban” Walker Lindh (which is no longer available) where he had quite a lot of sympathy for Mr. Walker. I have sympathy for Mr. Walker to the extent it appears he went to Afganistan and fought for the Taliban before September 11 2001. Poor judgement and a very bad choice to be sure, but not treason. But in making his case, Mr. McClellan had to go for the icing on the cake, so he claimed that Mr. Walker had every right to be confused because the US was friendly with the Taliban at the time because of the Taliban’s anti-drug stance, and as evidence of that friendship was the 43 million dollars the US paid the Taliban:

“At the time he went to Afghanistan, our government liked the Taliban government. At least, we were giving them money because we thought they were allies in our War Against Drugs.”

Despite being repeated ad naseum in 2001-2003, the United States never did provide the Taliban 43 million dollars. Robert Scheer, as was his wont, twisted some facts into this fiction and once a “respected” newspaper prints it, it must be true.

So when I read this lie repeated again, I went into full attack dog mode. Namely, I wrote a letter (Okay, email). It’s what I do. When an op-ed contributor to the Post Dispatch had made the exact same claim earlier, I wrote the letter to the editor linked above.

So Mr. McClellan and I had the correspondence included below the fold. In summary, while Bill never exhibited a smug or insulting manner (upon re-reading, if anybody was smug and insulting, it was me) but he dispayed an astonishing vagueness, disregard for facts, and a touching yet misplaced reliance on his feelings and cynicism. In the end he agreed that he was wrong (probably just to stop the emails) but of course there was no correction or mention that an important thesis in his column now rested on empty air.

Now on to the correspondence:

I carefully marshalled my facts, my links to supporting evidence from respected sources, and I even provided in my conclusion why I thought this was important (and still do) — there seems to be no way to correct bad information once printed.

Dear Mr. McClellan, 

In a column a couple of weeks ago, you wrote about John Walker: “At the time he went to Afghanistan, our government liked the Taliban government. At least, we were giving them money because we thought they were allies in our War Against Drugs.”

We didn’t give money to the Taliban as part of the War on Drugs. That is Scheer (http://www.robertscheer.com/1_natcolumn/01_columns/052201.htm) fabrication. What we did do is provide humanitarian assistance, mostly wheat and other food, worth 43 million dollars to Afghanistan. This assistance went to the United Nations and non-governmental organizations, and Secretary Powell at the time made it quite clear that not a penny would be going to the Taliban regime because in his words, they “have done little to alleviate the suffering of the Afghan people, and indeed have done much to exacerbate it.”

This assistance brought the total US humanitarian aid to Afghanistan for the year to 124.2 million dollars, and was a continuation of similar aid provided by the Clinton administration. The US was the largest aid donor to Afghanistan for both 2000 and 2001. You can these facts for yourself at CNN (http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/05/17/us.afghanistan.aid/index.html) which provides a contemporaneous account or Dan Kennedy at the Boston Pheonix (http://www.bostonphoenix.com/boston/news_features/this_just_in/documents/01839506.htm) who debunked Scheer’s account.

Jason Blair was a fool; guys like Robert Scheer can drip misinformation into the media over years without ever losing his ability to do so. And the way the media is set up, once the information stream is polluted, there is no way to clean it up. People will be citing this bunk in good faith until no one remembers the Taliban.

Kevin Murphy

I thought I kept it short and factual, thus perfect for the busy columnist. So I was happy to get a reply, just dismayed at the contents.

Kevin: I read the LA Times piece and the CNN story. I could not call up the Boston Phoenix story. But after having read those first two, it seems to me that things may not be as black and white as you indicate. Couldn’t both stories be true? That is, we were giving them “humanitarian aid” — just as the CNN story said — but perhaps we were their biggest donors precisely because, as the LA Times story said, we saw them as allies in our War on Drugs. I’m not sure about this, but it certainly seems possible, if not likely, to me.

Bill wants to hold on to what he wrote while trying to claim we’re both right. How can we gave money to the Taliban like Bill claims be right at the same time we didn’t give them a penney as I claimed? I guess if I were a columnist at a major newspaper, I’d understand. Also note the confusion of the motive – allies in the War on Drugs – and the action – providing money to the Taliban. So if you have the motive right, you must have the action right? It was such an unsatisfactory reply that I had to write again.

First, you seem to be unclear as to who the “them” are – of all the organizations we gave money to in Afganistan, none of the them were the Taliban. So you’re assertion that we gave the Taliban the money is simply wrong. (See Colin Powell’s announcement of the aid: http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2001/2928.htm). From that announcement:”Our aid bypasses the Taliban, who have done little to alleviate the suffering of the Afghan people, and indeed have done much to exacerbate it. We hope the Taliban will act on a number of fundamental issues that separate us: their support for terrorism; their violation of internationally recognized human rights standards, especially their treatment of women and girls; and their refusal to resolve Afghanistan’s civil war through a negotiated settlement. ”
Hardly the the ringing endorsement of an ally.

Second, the reason we gave the money to the UN agencies and non-governmental agencies is clear – people were on the verge of starvation in Afganistan. (See Anne Applebaum’s article in Slate: http://slate.msn.com/id/105417/). From that article:

“War and politics have compounded a natural crisis: Afghanistan is now experiencing a second year of drought and may be on the brink of a terrible famine. The World Food Program thinks the drought has severely hit 4 million people in the country: Kenzo Oshima, the U.N. undersecretary-general in charge of humanitarian affairs, has said that 1 million are at risk. The numbers vary widely because no one actually knows what is happening in the interior of the country, where refugees report that they were surviving on boiled grass. ”

Giving food to starving people is something that enjoys broad support in this country.

I know what you’re thinking – what about that line in Secretary Powell’s announcement:
“We will continue to look for ways to provide more assistance for Afghans, including those farmers who have felt the impact of the ban on poppy cultivation, a decision by the Taliban that we welcome. ”

While an intriguing line, it doesn’t contradict that fact that we didn’t give money to the Taliban, and that food was the main thing provided (most of the 43 million was food and not money). To me it indicates an awareness that an anti-drug program is not without costs to people outside the US, and that the US is willing to help out – not that the Taliban was an ally in the War On Drugs (a war I’ll note in passing that I don’t support). If we wanted to reward the Taliban, wouldn’t it have made sense to have provided them with something other than insults?

While we are all free to draw our own conclusions from the available facts, you cannot change the facts — even in an opinion column. We didn’t give a penny to the Taliban, and any claim that we did, for whatever reason, is false. To leave out that most of the aid was food and what cash was provided was for food and food related aid while Afganistan was in the midst of a famine is misleading.

Kevin Murphy

Okay, more facts, and I’m clearly rebutting (1) money to the Taliban, and (2) aid was quid pro quo for being part of the War on Drugs. Clear, persuasive, and impossible to misconstrue. Hah, was I ever wrong.

You seem to miss my point, Kevin. We were giving aid to Afghanistan while the Taliban were the government. There is no denying that — whether the aid was mostly food or all food, and whether the aid was given indirectly — from our hands to the UN to the Afghans. We were giving the Afghans aid. The secretary of state made explicit mention of the fact that the Taliban was restricting the cultivation of poppys, a decision he said we welcomed. I’m not making any of that up, nor am I changing facts. Is it that far-fetched to think that we give aid based on whether we approve of specific actions a government takes? I think we often give aid based on whether or not we think somebody is playing ball with us. Perhaps I am just too cynical, and you might argue that we would give aid to anybody whether we liked their policies or not. But I can think of several famines in which we did not rush forward with aid. We often use foreign aid as a carrot. I have never thought that was so wrong. Is it your argument that the present administration is less concerned about international politics and more altrusitic than former administrations?

Bill seems to skip right over all my facts and clear statements of what my argument is and when I don’t agree with him, feels I’m the one missing the point. And his response is a classic of muddleheaded thinking. It’s Dowdism (the elimination of the inconvient and the rearrangment to suit the quotor) applied to thinking. Note the repetition of unfounded assertions. Note the restatement of a clearly made argument into something completely different at the end. It’s pretty clear to me who’s missing the point (and it ain’t me).

I’m not missing your point. Your point was that John Lindh could have been confused about our feelings for the Taliban: “At the time he went to Afghanistan, our government liked the Taliban government. At least, we were giving them money because we thought they were allies in our War Against Drugs.”You have ignored my points and provided no supporting facts.

You said we were giving money to the Taliban. There is no denying that we didn’t. Trying to equate providing food and money to the UN and NGOs, and giving cash to the Taliban is wrong. Would it have been the same thing if in the 60’s the USSR had given money to the Weather Underground or the Nixon administration? I mean, it’s all Americans. According to you it would be the same thing.

Would giving food to the Afgans indicate that we liked the Taliban government? Just the opposite, since we made clear that we were giving the food to NGO’s and the UN precisely because we didn’t like the Taliban.

We gave food to starving Afgans. This is a payoff to the Taliban how?

The Taliban outlawed poppy cultivation. Powell said we’d work on ways to help out Afgans, including the farmers hurt by that ban. That would mean we were trying to make the farmers allies, not the Taliban. Powell indicated that until the Taliban stopped being the Taliban, not only wouldn’t they get anything from us, we would continue to support UN sanctions against them. Maybe you and I have different definitions of “ally”.

We provide monetary and military aid directly to governments pretty much completely based upon international political concerns. But that isn’t what we are talking about here. We’re talking about food aid here – and the only time I know that we’ve withheld food aid is in North Korea where for several years we asked for better accounting and NGO access and never got it. Doctors without Borders pulled out of North Korea because they said the food aid was only going to supporters of the regime (http://www.msf.org/countries/index.cfm?indexid=22D113E8-BEC7-11D4-852200902789187E). I don’t think this administration is much different than any recent ones when it comes to providing famine relief by and large without regard to the current relationship between the two countries. If you’re a deeply cynical person, you might consider food aid to a country we dislike in our best interests as it would tend to undermine the recipient.

If you could think of these famines where we haven’t rushed forward, could you do me the favor of telling me? As I tell my wife, I’m not a mind reader.

Kevin Murphy

Okay, I got snippy. But at least I’m providing facts and clear reasoning. Could I have been any more clear? I thought the reasoning by analogy would be a big help, but apparently not.

Okay, Kevin. We’re not getting anywhere. I’m a little more cyncial than you, that’s all. Maybe we don’t do things in our own self-interest. As far as famines go, I could go back to the terrible famine in the Soviet Union under Stalin or to the more recent one in Somalia in which we intervened only after it was on television for months. But if you want argue about what constitutes aid, and whether or not our motives are absolutely altrusitic, I know I can’t change your mind. Thanks for the notes.

There’s our problem, I’m insufficienty cynical. So is being more cynical right? I guess in this case. We aren’t arguing about what constitutes aid, but who it’s going to. We aren’t arguing about the degree of altruism of our motives, but what they were. I suppose some debate teacher taught Bill this technique – divert attention from what’s said by restating it incorrectly. Or maybe he’s that stupid. But hey, at last I have some verifiable claims from Bill – even if they are pretty much a tangent. I don’t know about you, but the impression I get of Bill’s fact gathering technique is trying to remember back to what he learned in junior high or what he read somewhere that made an impression on him. The idea of actually trying to do a little research, especially the internet, never seems to have entered his head.

You are right, we aren’t getting anywhere. But it isn’t because I want to argue about what constitutes aid, or how altruistic our motives are — I don’t. It’s about simply getting facts right. It’s a sad day when the top columnist at a major newspaper can’t see that giving food and money to organizations not connected to the government in a country is not the same thing as giving money to that government. All the other stuff is interesting but not pertinent. You cannot say we gave money to the Taliban for any reason and be accurate for the simple reason we never gave money to the Taliban.I will comment on your two examples – we did send food to Somalia, and when it was used as a weapon by Somali warlords, we sent in the Marines to insure its proper distribution. Rather than an example of where we withheld food for political reasons, Somalia shows both our willingness to provide famine relief and the limitations thereto.

As far as reaching back to the famine under Stalin in the early thirties, I’m not sure what you want. The soviet regime maintained that there was no famine, and used people like Walter Duranty to reinforce that message (hey, when do you think the NYT will give back the pulitzer for his lies? Just curious). In a sense they were right – there was no famine, there was murder by starvation. When a country’s government is deliberately starving certain of its citizens for policy reasons, I’m not sure what you want the US to do. Invade? We did that in Somalia, but I’m not sure we could have been very effective in 1932 invading the USSR. (see http://lcweb.loc.gov/exhibits/archives/eara.html).

Kevin Murphy

OK Mr. smart guy, you want to wander off on a tangent, I’ll crush you like the bug you are. I just couldn’t resist the Duranty column, because it really undermines the idea that the newsmedia has ever been any good. There was no golden age. OK, what’s going to be his response?

Kevin: One reason we’re not getting anywhere is from the start I said there might be some truth to what you’re saying, but you insist on claiming all the truth and I don’t think you can back that up. In fact, you’re too much of a “what is the defnition of is is” guy for me. We gave aid to the Afghans while the Taliban ran the government. To me, that’s a fact. But you do your “definition of is is” argument that it’s not really aid, because it’s food, which is like saying we don’t give the Egyptians aid because it’s really weapons — and no, I don’t want to debate that — and furthermore, you argue, we didn’t really give the aid to the Afghans because we gave it to the UN to give to the Afghans. Very Clintonesque. I still say the fact is we gave aid to the Afghans. At the time we gave the aid to the Afghans — or in your view, we gave food to the UN which was supposed to give to the Afghans — the Secretary of State specifically mentioned how helpful the Taliban were in stoppiong the growth of poppys. I’m not sure I understood your denial of that except you said something about how we wanted to help the farmers, and the farmers are not the Taliban. I mean, Kevin, you could argue that the sky is not blue, and I would still insist it seems blue to me. So let’s just stop. You’re convinced you’re completely right about all of htis, and I don’t think the facts are on your side — unless you twist them. And with all respect, I don’t have time to keep restating my position.

Clintonesque!?! — them’s fighting words bub.

So now I realize I’m beating my head into a brick wall because I’m insisting on claiming all the truth. He still is hung up on what is aid and can’t make the jump of who the aid is going to. When I say we didn’t give money to the Taliban, he’s stuck on money and I’m talking about the Taliban. And apparently he likes his facts one fact at time, any more than that and he gets confused. And then he decides to go for a little analogy himself, only he make sure he picks on he can win – the sky is blue. Yep, I’m going to argue that one. I bet he doesn’t even know why the sky is blue (because sunsets are red). Of course, he can look out any window and see that we gave money to the Taliban in 2000. That’s some window. And with all due respect, all you’ve been doing is simply restating your position and misstating mine.

I’m not trying to claim all the truth. I’m trying to focus on a very specific idea, namely that providing food to starving Afghans is not the same as providing money to the Taliban. Yes, we gave aid to the Afghans while the Taliban ran the government (although we never did recognize the Taliban government as the government of Afghanistan), but the Taliban government did not equal the Afghani people. You cannot substitute Taliban government where ever you see Afghan person(s). They are not the same. Again, let’s look at your exact remark that I thought was in error:”At the time he went to Afghanistan, our government liked the Taliban government. At least, we were giving them money because we thought they were allies in our War Against Drugs.”

We were not giving the Taliban money. We were sending food to starving Afghans. We send food to starving people around the world, typically without a concern for their government. We’ve sent over 500 million dollars worth of food to North Korea in the last ten years, the government of which we clearly dislike, just as we clearly disliked the Taliban. We’re sending millions of dollars worth of food to Zimbabwe, even though we clearly dislike the regime of Robert Mugabe, just as we clearly disliked the Taliban. We have sent millions of dollars worth of food to the Sudan under a government we clearly dislike, just as we clearly disliked the Taliban. We did not like the Taliban – we never even recognized them as the government of Afganistan.

We did not send money to the Taliban. Sending food to starving people is not the same as giving money to their government – that is a fact to me.
We did not like the Taliban. Sending food to starving people does not indicate whether or not the United States government likes another country – that too is a fact.

That leaves the idea that we thought the Taliban were our allies in the drug war. I’m not a mind reader, so I’m forced to look at all the facts to arrive at my conclusion.

Secretary Powell’s statement:
We will continue to look for ways to provide more assistance for Afghans, including those farmers who have felt the impact of the ban on poppy cultivation, a decision by the Taliban that we welcome.

We distribute our assistance in Afghanistan through international agencies of the United Nations and nongovernmental organizations. We provide our aid to the people of Afghanistan, not to Afghanistan’s warring factions. Our aid bypasses the Taliban, who have done little to alleviate the suffering of the Afghan people, and indeed have done much to exacerbate it. We hope the Taliban will act on a number of fundamental issues that separate us: their support for terrorism; their violation of internationally recognized human rights standards, especially their treatment of women and girls; and their refusal to resolve Afghanistan’s civil war through a negotiated settlement.

UN sanctions against the Taliban are smart sanctions and do not hurt the Afghan people, nor do these sanctions affect the flow of humanitarian assistance for Afghans. ”

Are those the words of one ally to another – the only thing we welcomed by the Taliban was their ban on poppy production. And we didn’t think much of that; Asa Hutchinson, head of the DEA thought the ban was a cynical ploy to increase the price so that the Taliban could make more money off the huge existing stockpiles in Afganistan (http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/10/03/inv.drugs.terrorism/?related)

And I’m not arguing that the sky is not blue; I was making a cynical argument that if you follow the money (isn’t that what cynics do?) that since we clearly said we weren’t going to give the Taliban a dime, but we were looking for ways to put aid in the hands of the actual farmers, we were treating the farmers, not the Taliban as an ally. The ally would be the group we we send aid to, not the one we insult. And yes, the farmers are not the government. If I want to give Bill McClellan money, I don’t send it to the US Treasury, nor when I want to give the US government money do I send it to Bill McClellan. Perhaps as your wife handles the finances, you aren’t acquainted with such a simple economic idea.

But I think Occam’s razor solves this question nicely – is it simpler that we sent food to a country with starving people because we don’t like to see people starve given our history of sending food to starving people despite their government; or that we sent food to people living in a country whose government we wanted to consider an ally but whom we didn’t recognize, whom we got UN sanctions against, whom we’d attacked once before and whom we would go on to depose, because they had banned poppy production while they continued to sell heroin and other opiates?

If the Taliban government is the same as the Afghan people, is it fair to say that when we wiped out the Taliban, we wiped out the Afgans themselves? No, such a statement is absurd on the face of it, and so to is equating the Taliban government with Afghans in general.

Kevin Murphy

I’ts like hearding cats – you’ve got to keep coming back to the point. When I was in Pakistan I was told they hit their camels in the head with a brick to get their attention. That was my metaphor for the last email. Would this be the straw that broke the camel’s back (yes, I realize that’s a mixed metaphor)

Kevin: You are correct that we did not send the Afghans money. I was wrong on that point. The rest I think is a little hair-splitting.

He still can’t get it right – we didn’t send the Taliban the money – not the Afgans. Even the gods themselves wail in vain.

NOTE: The links provided were good in 2003. Your milage may vary.

Tags: Afganistan, Bill McClellan, John Walker, Taliban