Tom Lasseter is a McClatchy correspondent in Afghanistan, and in this piece he describes the rough treatment he got from President Hamid Karzai's brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai during an interview about the drug trade and corruption. Lasseter went through a list of allegations against Karzai before the interview went downhill:
He began to glare at me and questioned whether I was really a reporter.
"It seems like someone sent you to write these things," he said, scowling.
Karzai glared some more.
"You should leave right now," he said.
I stuck my hand out to shake his; if I learned anything from three years of reporting in Iraq and then trips to Afghanistan during the past couple of years, it's that when things turn bad, you should cling to any remaining shred of hospitality.
Karzai grabbed my hand and used it to give me a bit of a push into the next room. He followed me, and his voice rose until it was a scream of curse words and threats.
I managed to record just one full sentence: "Get the (expletive) out before I kick your (expletive)."
More from this Washington Post article by Rajiv Chandrasekharan:
"Mr. President, how are you attempting to control the corruption in your government?" Hagel recalled asking Karzai.
"Who is corrupt?" Karzai responded, according to Hagel. "Show me. Give me the names."
Hagel mentioned that U.S. and Afghan officials had accused one of Karzai's brothers, Ahmed Wali Karzai, the head of the provincial council in Kandahar, of links to narcotics trafficking. But Hagel couldn't cite specifics, and Karzai refused to budge.
