Sherard Cowper-Coles - Cables from Kabul - The Inside Story of the West’s Afghanistan Campaign

Michael was to become a good friend, and the source of much wise advice on what was really happening in Afghanistan. He represented the very best of Western commitment to Afghanistan, as did another remarkable Irishman (albeit from another part of the island), Mervyn Patterson. Mervyn was the chief political analyst at the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, and was celebrated among Westerners in Kabul for the remarkable range of interesting Afghans he managed to assemble at his house. I was to have more to do with both men than I could possibly have imagined when I first met them.

On my first weekend in Kabul, Michael Ryder made sure that I became acquainted with three other key parts of the Kabul landscape: the old British Cemetery, dating back to 1840; the old British Embassy, an empty ruin which we were in 2007 planning to buy back and restore; and, next door to the old Embassy, the Turquoise Mountain Foundation, whose head, Rory Stewart, was in 2007 one of the leading lights of Kabul expatriate society. As ambassador to Saudi Arabia, I had already come across the TMF, when the Prince of Wales (who, along with President Karzai, was a patron of the Foundation) had asked me to help persuade Saudis to donate to it. Seeing for myself the excellent work they were doing in gradually restoring the ancient Murad Khane quarter in the teeming heart of old Kabul, and the dedication with which they were promoting traditional crafts, such as calligraphy, ceramics, wood-carving and jewellery-making, at their base in the old fort alongside the former Embassy, I was filled with admiration. Nor could I fail to be won over by Rory’s combination of courtesy, learning and intelligent ambition for his Foundation.

And they were only some of the characters with whom I would be working. Living and working in Kabul was indeed going to be interesting.

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