The Taliban Remembers an American Envoy

Richard C. Holbrooke, center, the Obama administration’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, visited Herat, Afghanistan in August 2009.

The Taliban statement on the death of Richard C. Holbrooke, the chief American envoy to the region, carried a dignified, almost somber tone. It seems they took him seriously, as they do all enemies and as Mr. Holbrooke took them.

“His life of toils and fatigues ended after admission into a hospital where he breathed his last yesterday,” read the statement from Qari Yousaf Ahamadi, the spokesman of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, the Taliban name for the country.

The Afghan media arm has become more and more active in the last few years. Recently, the group’s press statements have tried to discuss policy, not just violence. Still, it was somewhat surprising to see a formal statement on the death of Mr. Holbrooke, since most of the Taliban’s statements on deaths involve eulogies for fighters who died trying to kill westerners or their Afghan allies.

The statement depicts his death as only the most recent example of the deadly spell that Afghanistan casts on outsiders who try to dominate the country. The Russian leaders who made similar efforts to dominate the country also died of heart disease, the Taliban said. Among them: Leonid Brehznev and Yuri Andropov, who championed the Soviet invasion. Thus, Mr. Holbrooke’s death, according to the Taliban propaganda, is a signal of the incipient failure of American efforts here.

The Taliban noted that other American leaders are getting sick from the Afghan war (or perhaps getting sick of it.) They mention that Gen. David H. Petraeus fainted in a Congressional hearing on Afghanistan and Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates announced he would be stepping down soon. The war, they say — using language that almost suggests they are concerned for the mental health of America’s policy makers — is taking a toll.

“The war of Afghanistan is heavily weighing on the psyche of the American military and political higher-ups,” the statement read. “Some of them lighten their burden by simply going to the other world and others, while being still alive, choose to avoid shouldering the mission.”

Perhaps the most striking — and even psychologically astute — passage in the Taliban statem

The Taliban Remembers an American Envoy