The Afghanistan syndrome

[snopes]

http://www.business-standard.com/ind...?autono=335122

If this story is apocryphal and turns out to be untrue, I’ll buy a Kalashnikov rifle and shoot myself.

When the Americans began their advance into Afghanistan, what they needed, and badly, was information on Osama bin Laden. They went about it first in Wild West fashion, that is, they put up posters of O B Laden, saying, in bold type, “Wanted Dead or Alive”. That didn’t work too well; these were poor villagers, but they were smart enough to know that if they had to capture good old OBL, whether dead, alive or in between, there wouldn’t be much left of themselves.

So posters were put up saying, we don’t want you to catch him dead or alive, we just need you to give us information about him, his henchmen, his whereabouts, and little things like that. They said they would even pay for information about information. Then they drew their breath and said they would part with up to a million American dollars for it.

The Americans waited with bated breath — even the individuals who had made the offer themselves drooled inadvertently — then they couldn’t hold their breath any longer, because no information was forthcoming.

To the individual Americans who made the offer, one million dollars signified everything the world could ever offer on a golden platter. To the Afghan villager, who had to provide the information, it signified nothing. They had not shopped in an American mall, had not ever used a credit card, had never lived the American Way.

They were rough, simple men who worked in and around their homes and knew little else. They knew their village, their mountains, their flock of sheep, their places of worship. They were prepared to take some risk to leak a bit of information — but for what? The million dollars didn’t make any sense to them at all.

But the Americans learnt quickly enough — they changed tactics yet again — and this time they promised… a flock of sheep.

And the information started trickling in.

[Mateus]

The Times of India seems to agree, as does the maddeningly-unarchived Washington Times of 14 March 2002. Of course, what would an Afghan do with the money, burn it? I'm sure that they're not as "out of touch" as the article suggests, but rather, a flock of sheep would feed them, clothe them, trade for goods, etc.