Stalking the Caravan

A Drug Agent in Afghanistan 1971-1973

De: Terrence M. Burke

Narrado por: Michael Pearl

Afghanistan 1971

The rugged routes to Kabul teemed with worldwide youth in search of cheap drugs and enlightenment. With the idyllic dreamers came hard core criminals. Sent to Kabul to take on the criminals was Federal Narcotics Agent, Terrence Burke. Working undercover, often without backup, Burke dismantled smuggling operations in Afghanistan and India. He used "renditions" to return fugitives like Timothy Leary to the U.S. and teamed with the Soviet KGB to close a drug route through the USSR. He challenged criminals in the Royal Palace and the Afghan Police. The issues he portrays in Afghanistan are still confronting us today.

Terrence Burke was a Narcotics Agent in Afghanistan from 1971-1973. He served for 20 years in the U.S. and Europe, ending his career as DEA's Deputy. From 1960-1970, he served the CIA in Southeast Asia. Burke's book Stories from the Secret War" told of his role in the CIA's war in the mountains of Laos. Burke was recipient of the CIA Silver Star for Valor.

©2014 Terrence M. Burke (P)2014 Brook Forest Voices

Reseñas de la Crítica

"In his adventurous career, Terry Burke was known for his honesty, his integrity, his candor and his courage, holding himself to the highest standards. This book confirms it." (Bernie Weinraub, New York Times journalist and playwright)

Misleading and Self-aggrandizing

Read between the lines of this smarmy, self-aggrandizing and bloated memoir and you'll encounter a rogue soldier of Richard Nixon's ill-conceived 'war on drugs' who, if he wasn't an agent actually facilitating the opium trade in Afghanistan, manifestly did not put much of a dent in it. He seems to get his kicks busting dope-smoking hippies and retail drug dealers more than the big suppliers of hard-core drugs. His previous role as a CIA agent in the notorious Golden Triangle of Southeast Asia raises questions, since we know that the CIA was involved in the drug trade during his time there. Soon after he arrived in Kabul he frightened his BNDD superior out of town, as he glibly describes in Chapter 2, and proceeded to carve out his own niche as an outlaw in the demimonde of Afghan drug lords, apparently with the winking support of Ambassador Neumann. He claims to have had 'little or no supervision', which begs the question, who was he really working for?

He displays his sadistic sense of humor as he describes an associate in Kabul breaking the finger of a harmless hippy. In Chapter 3 he tells a preposterous story of USIS teachers selling cocaine to their students. I find the story absurd because I was working in Afghanistan during Burke's time there, and was quite familiar with the USIS agency. The punch line of his fabricated tale is that US citizens can not expect their embassies abroad to accord them the same basic rights they enjoy back home.

As someone who knew Kabul in 1971-72 and spoke Farsi well, I can attest that his descriptions of the city are often inaccurate. He shows utter disdain for Afghan people and culture, and the snide, arrogant voice of the narrator, rife with mispronunciations of place names, perfectly complements the sarcastic and preening tone of the text.

a gross distortion of the realities of Afghanistan

Having spent months in Afghanistan in 1972-73 and having encountered the author and his psychopathic assistant on a number of occasions in Kabul I recommend that a reader approach this self congratulatory embellishment of his experiences in Afghanistan critically. As recent history demonstrates all he really did was to help set the stage for the Russian invasion and the subsequent decades of chaos that has engulfed the beleaguered country and continue today. His antics and the US invasion merely helped to establish the precursors for the Taliban takeover. It also demonstrates the utter and continuing failure of the "War on Drugs".

It is amusing that Mr. Burke repeatedly remarks rhapsodically on his and other members of the diplomatic community self-medicating with what he seems to think is exotic alcoholic beverages (illegal in Afghanistan at the time) while disparaging traditional use of cannabis and poppy products. All in all this is a pathetic history of an ugly American riding rough shod over a poor tribal country unfortunately created during the British Colonization of India.