Pirate Radio » Outside the wire

When the US entered Afghanistan, local DJs were hired to help with the war effort. And when the American military pulled out, they abandoned those voices, leaving many of them for dead. Episode 1 of The Verge's Pirate Radio mini-series featuring Chris Harland-Dunaway. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:32Speaker 01

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• 1:01Nilay Patel?

  Hey everybody, it's Sinead from The Birchcast. We're doing something a little different on the feed this week. We're going to run three episodes of a mini-series we're doing across the entire site called Pirate Radio. So I'm here with our features editor, Kevin Nguyen. We're printing a zine, we're doing the podcast.

• 1:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, features on the website.

• 1:17Nilay Patel?

  We're doing stories on the website. People might know about our website. Tell me the scope of this thing.

• 1:22Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think the idea was, you know, Pirate Radio. I think people have a lot of connotations when they think of that phrase, but most of them are kind of distant, you know, things in the past. And maybe you think radio is dead. But really, like, sort of like all technologies, like it persists. It persists in a way that might be unexpected. It speaks to communities that are often on the margins. So I don't know, this project could kind of exist to negotiate what Pirate Radio is now, who it affects in ways good and bad. And we have three pretty fun stories about that.

• 1:52Nilay Patel?

  I love it. It's so much fun. All right, so the first episode coming up is...

• 1:56Speaker 03

  Outside the Wire.

• 1:57Nilay Patel?

  Here we go.

• 2:01Speaker 04

  It's not easy to go on air and deliver the nightly news, especially when your country is struggling out from under the thumb of a ruthless, hard-line Islamic theocracy run by the Taliban. But that's what Wafa did in Afghanistan in 2009. He ignored what the Taliban thought of his news coverage. Wafa cinched up his tie to his collar, slid into his jacket, and walked on set. He took a seat behind his desk in the television studio and arranged his script in two piles in front of him.

• 2:42Speaker 04

  This is Wafa. I'm only going to use his nickname. You'll understand why later.

• 2:51Speaker 04

  Wafa's serious, without being stern. His dark hair parts just off the middle. The background is busy, a spinning graphic of a compass, and four screens that each show spinning blue cubes that stop and jigsaw together into a map of the Earth. A pen rests in Wafa's right hand, casual. There's a silver wedding band on his left ring finger. At the time, he was a journalism student. Anchoring the local news was a side gig. But it wasn't exactly news. The stories were relatively accurate. The information was in the public interest. But really, this newscast was psychological warfare against the Taliban. Wafa's producers were unusual.

• 3:36Speaker 04

  They worked in the infamous CIA base, Camp Chapman. They were US Special Forces psychological operations officers. And this was propaganda.

• 3:51Speaker 04

  There's some slick transitions, showing teaser clips for the news ahead. A civic meeting, someone planting a flower, men offloading sacks from a truck. The audio effects sound like punching noises from the arcade game, Street Fighter.

• 4:07Speaker 04

  When the show ends, Wafa signs off and sets his script aside like a pro. Behind the scenes, he wasn't so buttoned up.

• 4:18Speaker 04

  This is a cellphone video from around 2012, inside a US outpost. It's Wafa and his Afghan comrades in the cafeteria, American troops all around them, eating. Wafa and his buddies are at a long table, sipping cokes, talking about their phones.

• 4:33Speaker 05

  Bluetooth from iPhone only type.

• 4:38Speaker 04

  Wafa was happy when the United States came to Afghanistan. He was an educated journalist, and the US needed his help. They piped him into psychological operations programs. And after a stint in TV news, he ended up at a US combat outpost called Little Blue. It was out in a wide, dusty plain, surrounded by gravelly hills and rock. Wafa pans the camera around the table. A lot of these Afghans were working for a psychological operation the US had just rolled out, called "Radio in a Box." Up until this point, the US tried to persuade Afghans to turn against the Taliban by dropping leaflets from planes.

• 5:21Speaker 04

  But literacy rates in Afghanistan are really low. As it turns out, most Afghans get their information from the radio. So the US hired guys like Wafa to run radio shows for the Afghan people. They didn't have amazing English, but that wasn't the point. It was radio for the Afghan people, by the Afghan people. Wafa turns the cellphone video on himself.

• 5:49Speaker 05

  How are you? How are you?

• 5:55Speaker 06

  Yeah, I had just learned this one phrase, and I would use to say, "How are you? How are you?

• 6:02Speaker 04

  He learned the basics. The guy talking in English is my translator, Fazl. You can hear him furiously typing translation notes in the background.

• 6:12Speaker 04

  I couldn't meet Wafa in person. I talked to him via WhatsApp. I won't tell you where he is now. You'll find that out, too. Wafa speaks Pashto. Most Pashtuns in Afghanistan speak it. Somewhere around 40% of the country. Pashtuns are the main ethnic group the Taliban targets for recruitment. It was no accident US Psychological Operations targeted them with the "Radio in a Box" program. And it was like Wafa had been training for this since he was a kid.

• 6:39Speaker 06

  Well, I used to listen to BBC news. Then when I would go somewhere and wander around, I would say news.

• 6:48Speaker 04

  Wafa means he'd walk around alone and make believe he was a radio reporter. Or he'd recite the day's headlines and stories.

• 6:55Speaker 06

  Every time, every time, listen to radio, every day. My favorite job.

• 7:03Speaker 04

  Who was your favorite reporter for BBC?

• 7:06Speaker 06

  BBC kid, the Gauhar Rahman, Gauhar Panum Chus.

• 7:09Speaker 04

  Gauhar Rahman, Gauhar. Famous guy.

• 7:12Speaker 06

  He used to say everything very loud and clear, and that's why I like him.

• 7:18Speaker 04

  People in Afghanistan used to send letters to the BBC, hoping they might get read over the radio. Wafa's friend postmarked his letters to London Forum. Did they ever read your letters on the air?

• 7:29Speaker 06

  Yes, I heard three or four of my letters. I was so excited, and I would tell my whole family, they'd just listen to my letter. And I like everything about radio. I just wanted my voice to be heard on radio.

• 7:47Speaker 04

  And in 2012, it was. Imagine if you combined the BBC with college radio. Wafa's "Radio in a Box" station looked more like a wooden shed than a plush NPR studio.

• 8:02Speaker 04

  In this cellphone video of Wafa, he's at a table that was usually draped with an American flag tablecloth. He's got his computer out, he's playing Pashto pop music, swaying his head, twirling his finger.

• 8:18Speaker 04

  Beside him is the radio in a box. It's literally a box. It's the size of a guitar amp. On the front panel, there's a DJ mixer. Then below, there's a radio transmitter. This technology is commercially available, by the way. You plug it in and turn up the watts, and it can broadcast a radio signal about 15 miles. The US tossed them across southern and eastern Afghanistan like seeds, and then the Afghan radio DJs came along and nurtured them into popular radio stations, at least 100 of them. Wafa played anthems for the Afghan national forces in a steady rotation of pop music. And what did the Taliban think?

• 9:01Speaker 07

  Definitely Taliban weren't like them at all.

• 9:04Speaker 04

  This is an understatement. Playing pop music was like waving a middle finger in the Taliban's face.

• 9:10Speaker 07

  I remember one of the driver, who was a taxi driver, that guy was coming to our village every day. But one day, the Taliban got music in his car.

• 9:22Speaker 04

  This is John. That's J-A-N. He's Wafa's friend. He says someday, if he gets American citizenship, he'll change his name to John, J-O-H-N. He managed several "radio in a box" stations. I talked to him on WhatsApp, too. In the story he was telling, he says that when the Taliban caught the taxi driver playing music, a Taliban got him out of the car.

• 9:44Speaker 07

  One of the Taliban, he beat him with a cable. I think it was a chain cable. He beat him with the chain into his head. And the driver died in the spot.

• 9:59Speaker 04

  Jesus. The Taliban like to invoke a saying from the Prophet Muhammad, which I should add, the specific quote is highly discredited, possibly not even real, but the Taliban go with it anyway. It goes, "Those who listen to music and songs in this world, on the day of judgment, molten lead will be poured into their ears."

• 10:21Speaker 04

  While it might have looked like Wafa sat a safe distance from the war in Afghanistan in his plywood studio on an American base, shuffling through CDs, recording call-in shows from listeners, he knew the Taliban could still reach him.

• 10:36Speaker 06

  Before I started working in Kandahar, they killed already two persons there.

• 10:41Speaker 04

  Wait, what? They killed two DJs?

• 10:44Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 10:47Speaker 04

  DJs were on the target list.

• 10:52Speaker 04

  The DJs weren't targeted just because of pop music. The Radio in a Box program banked on another credible idea: freedom of information and journalism. It wasn't journalism per se, but it borrowed from it. To get information, to interview people, DJs have to leave the studio, leave the base, go outside the wire, as they say.

• 11:14Speaker 04

  One day, Wafa got a call at the station. It was the Afghan National Police. They had a Taliban down at the police station. "Come interview him," they said. When Wafa got there, he found the Taliban in a cell and turned on the recorder.

• 11:34Speaker 04

  The Taliban's voice sounds weak because he was shot before he was captured.

• 11:46Speaker 04

  Wafa starts pulling the story out of him. According to the Taliban, he was working lookout for another Taliban who was placing improvised explosive devices on the road. He says the Taliban with the IED asked him to take over. As the Taliban describes it, it was the equivalent of, "Hey, can you hold this bomb real quick?" They were spotted by coalition forces, and he was shot.

• 12:11Speaker 04

  "How long have you been a militant?" Wafa asks. The Taliban says he used to be a policeman. "What turned you from a policeman to a Taliban?" Wafa asks. He says he was attacked by the Taliban one day, captured, and they stole his money. So he hatched a plan to exact revenge from the inside by joining the Taliban. He says he planned to hand over inside information to the government.

• 12:36Speaker 06

  He was lying to me, and this was not a true story.

• 12:40Speaker 04

  So what did you do when you knew he was lying to you?

• 12:43Speaker 06

  We published it three, four times on radio.

• 12:48Speaker 04

  The broadcast of the interview with the lying Taliban was one of many successful broadcasts that undermined the Taliban's reputation. Wafa's US military supervisor, Air Force Major Paul Weaver, wrote a glowing letter of recommendation for Wafa, which I have a copy of right here. Major Weaver writes, "When Wafa first arrived, the radio was non-operational and no program was in place." He goes on to write, "Wafa was poised to take the district by storm and quickly established a strong following with a 14-hour-per-day schedule." Wafa didn't know how hard it would be to live with his success.

• 13:27Speaker 07

  I got a lot of phone calls.

• 13:29Speaker 04

  That's John again, Wafa's friend.

• 13:31Speaker 07

  I was buying something and someone called me and he told me that, "Hey, we can kill you." I said, "How?" He said, "They got my information and everything." And I was kind of shocked and I shared those information with the security forces, but the security forces couldn't do anything. I was a DJ. I was very famous.

• 13:55Speaker 04

  I interviewed more than 20 Afghan radio DJs who shared all their documents with me. All of them had received death threats for their work for the Americans. At work, at home. One DJ's brother drove through his family's main gate and was blown up by an IED. He was treated at a US base and survived. That same DJ's other brother was kidnapped by the Taliban. One DJ manager woke up in the middle of the night to an attack. Rockets and hand grenades. His family packed into a sort of bunker they had built in the house. He says he answered with his own gun. He survived the short firefight. The next day, he left the countryside for Kabul.

• 14:37Speaker 04

  Lots of DJs have left their homes to live in the cities where the security is a little better. One DJ even talks with a fake accent so no one can recognize his radio voice.

• 14:48Speaker 07

  At the beginning of 2015, I got some calls. These calls were from the Taliban and they told me that, "You must present to the court at any cost."

• 15:03Speaker 04

  The Taliban or a Taliban-affiliated militant called Wafa. They were going to charge you with a crime.

• 15:10Speaker 07

  Yeah, it was like a trial, yeah.

• 15:12Speaker 04

  But run by the Taliban.

• 15:14Speaker 06

  Yeah, definitely. They had their own courts there. What was the court? But it was just like a killing. You would go there, they would kill you. And this is their kind of court, so-called court.

• 15:32Speaker 04

  It dawned on Wafa, he couldn't live the rest of his life like this. It was 2014, and the US was pulling out of Afghanistan. The Taliban would never forget that he worked for the US. He was tasked as a collaborator forever.

• 15:46Speaker 06

  I was really scared. And even I couldn't tell this news to my family because I thought they would really get worried about me.

• 15:57Speaker 04

  He kept the death threat secret, thinking he might be able to save himself and his family with a special immigrant visa to the United States. The Special Immigrant Visa, SIV for short, is a visa program for special cases involving Iraqi and Afghan partners who worked for the United States during the wars in the Middle East. An Afghan who worked for one year for the US military, had proof of employment and a letter of recommendation from their superior, could get a visa to live in the United States. Wafa had 10 months of employment at combat outpost Little Blue, about three months working as a newscaster for the special forces, and this strong recommendation letter from his Air Force major.

• 16:41Speaker 06

  So I had heard there was this process of SIV visa. Is the visa accepted? Okay, then my visa was denied.

• 16:55Speaker 04

  A lawyer from the International Refugee Assistance Project, an NGO, reviewed some of Wafa's documents. He needs employment verification for a few months of work he did for PSYOPS for the US Special Forces. Video evidence of his newscasts don't count. But more importantly, Major Weaver's letter didn't cut it. It doesn't tick some of the SIV requirements. He didn't leave his contact info. He needed to write the dates of Wafa's service period, Wafa's date of birth, a statement of the threats made against Wafa, and an explicit assurance, Wafa is not a national security threat.

• 17:30Speaker 04

  Wafa tried to find Major Weaver so he could revise his letter, but he couldn't get a working email from him. And no one knew how to find him several years after the fact. The Department of Defense has a supervisor locator tool. It's supposed to find Afghan's military supervisors for them. But a director from the International Refugee Assistance Project, the NGO, told me they hadn't seen the supervisor tool work for years. She said it worked once. Wafa considered appealing the decision on his SIV visa, but he knew the wait time might be too long. He told his father about the death threats. He felt like he didn't have any options.

• 18:09Speaker 06

  The smuggler, you need to meet him and he will take us from Kabul. They would usually hide their identity. I had to give him $5,000.

• 18:22Speaker 04

  Wow. How did you come up with that money?

• 18:25Speaker 06

  Actually, the problem was not about money. Because I have money. I had money and my family had money.

• 18:34Speaker 04

  The problem was no one supported Wafa's decision to smuggle himself to Germany. Wafa's friend, John, found out about his plan and called him urgently. When Wafa told you that he was gonna walk to Germany, what'd you think?

• 18:50Speaker 07

  I technically denied him. Yeah, I even fought with him. There are security forces in every country. They can, they can shoot you. No one wants illegal immigrants. I said, "No, Wafa, John, you should not do this because you can die. Why you choose this way?"

• 19:04Speaker 04

  Wafa's perspective was, there wasn't any other way. The death threats escalated. He was convinced that even if he stayed in hiding, he put his family in jeopardy. He has a wife, two daughters, and a son. If the Taliban found him, they might kill them too. Wafa felt the only way to keep them safe was to leave them behind. And after a while, his family agreed with him. He found two friends who wanted to leave Afghanistan. The three of them went to a bus station with Wafa's dad. And at 2:00 a.m., they prepared to board.

• 19:37Speaker 06

  I told him, looked at, "I have no other way out, and I have to go." It was like a moment of separation from a child to his father. I hugged him and I consoled him. When I was just leaving at bedtime, he had tears in his eyes. This moment, it is still in the back of my mind.

• 20:02Speaker 04

  This memory still sits in the back of Wafa's mind because it was the last time he saw his father face to face. And as Wafa took his first steps towards Germany, up the stairs, onto the large passenger bus, there was no way for him to know what lay ahead.

• 20:33Speaker 08

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• 21:35Speaker 04

  Wafa and his two travel friends pulled away from the bus stop and drove towards the border with Pakistan. They transferred to pickup trucks and took off across the desert. Exhaust and silt covered their faces. Then, the pickup slowed to a stop. It was a Taliban checkpoint.

• 21:53Speaker 13

  They didn't ask any person, "What are you doing? What were you doing?" And they only gave a short speech, what to do, what not to do, how is Taliban, how is not Taliban, who is bad people.

• 22:06Speaker 04

  This is Wafa's friend, I'll call him Ahmed. The Taliban had no idea that Wafa, Ahmed, and their other friend were Taliban assassination targets. The Taliban were just trying to spread a simple message.

• 22:18Speaker 13

  To persuade people that we are the best.

• 22:21Speaker 04

  Wafa was not impressed with the roadside sermon. Weak psychological warfare. And luckily, the Taliban didn't ask questions. Wafa and his travel party, which grew to about 25 Afghans, including a family with a child, got off the bus in Pakistan and walked through shale hills towards the Iranian border. They were short on water. They didn't see a stream or well for hours. They walked past shallow graves of migrants who didn't make it.

• 22:48Speaker 13

  They were not to be seen, but not so deep.

• 22:53Speaker 04

  The wind and weather had exhumed some of the bodies. When they found their smugglers, they were pushed into cars.

• 23:00Speaker 13

  One person in front seat, three person at the back seat, and two person under the foot area, and two people are the...

• 23:12Speaker 04

  In the trunk?

• 23:13Speaker 13

  In the trunk, yeah, really.

• 23:15Speaker 04

  This is how things went. They were stuffed in cars, the smugglers drove pedal to the metal to the next smuggler and handed them off. They slept in a barn once, empty rooms, no showers.

• 23:26Speaker 06

  Just like animals, you know?

• 23:29Speaker 04

  They reached the border between Iran and Turkey, where a wall of mountains stood in their way. They started scaling ravines and climbing over rocks.

• 23:37Speaker 06

  It was really scary moment for us.

• 23:39Speaker 13

  It was moving, yeah.

• 23:41Speaker 04

  They helped carry baggage for the family, crested the top about nine hours later, and they met the smugglers at the base of the mountains in Turkey. Smuggling work in Turkey was more straightforward. They put the travel party on a bus that took them all the way to Istanbul. The last and biggest obstacle in their way was Bulgaria. The security forces had shot and killed an Afghan on the border recently. There was a terrifying mixture of true and false stories about the forests of Bulgaria. Wafa's smugglers suggested they stock up to prepare. One recommendation: energy drinks.

• 24:16Speaker 06

  Coconut cookies, some things like that.

• 24:19Speaker 04

  Enough calories to cross the forest. On the border between Turkey and Bulgaria, nothing about it was easy. You spent your night in the forest?

• 24:28Speaker 06

  In the forest, yeah.

• 24:29Speaker 04

  They huddled together in the dark and rested. Before dawn, they walked out of the woods, hungry. Two cars waited in a clearing. The smugglers packed Wafa and the Afghans in and drove to the capital of Bulgaria, Sofia. They arrived at night and filed into a dirty three-room house.

• 24:47Speaker 06

  Everything was in their control. If we needed something like shaver or other stuffs, we would give them money and they would buy it for us. And they would even charge double money for us.

• 25:00Speaker 04

  After about five nights getting price gouged for groceries, the smugglers took them towards the border with Serbia. This border was seen as the last hurdle. From Serbia onwards, simple train rides and buses worked. No more hiding. But first, the woods again. The smugglers took them to the edge of a massive forest. Wafa and the Afghans followed them inside. It was midnight.

• 25:24Speaker 06

  We were really scared, not only from the police just to get arrested, but also from the animals.

• 25:31Speaker 04

  They heard movement in the brush. The Afghans stopped. They stood quietly. They had no way to defend themselves. Then, they saw what could have been two large boars, but no one was sure what they really were. It was hard to make them out in the dark. When they saw Wafa and the Afghans, they split. When the sun rose, the forest opened up into a field. The smugglers stopped and turned to the travel party. They explained that there could be some police nearby. They needed to go have a look.

• 26:04Speaker 13

  They told us, just stay here and keep calm, we are coming back. We were waiting for two, three, four hours.

• 26:12Speaker 06

  These smugglers, they said they were coming and but they didn't come and then it was night time and we didn't have their address, we didn't have their contact, so we were just left there. That's what the smugglers do to you.

• 26:28Speaker 04

  The group started to panic. Everyone had a different idea for what to do. Wafa and his friends decided to try and keep going to Serbia and left.

• 26:37Speaker 06

  We had no idea which direction we are going or and where we are going, but we were just going.

• 26:44Speaker 04

  Since they first stepped into the forest with the smugglers, they'd been walking for about two days and two nights without food. And that's when they crossed paths with two old Bulgarian women. They were shepherds, tending their flock of sheep. Wafa and his friends asked if there was food nearby.

• 27:00Speaker 13

  She told us that, yeah, there's the village shops and one small restaurant you can buy. We also asked them that is there any threats, are police to catch us or something? No, there's no police there.

• 27:15Speaker 04

  Wafa and his friends set off for the village, giddy.

• 27:18Speaker 13

  This village is our village. We were talking like this because we didn't have any threat anymore.

• 27:24Speaker 04

  No fear.

• 27:25Speaker 13

  No fear because of our hunger. We didn't fear from police, from anything, and we just want to eat something.

• 27:35Speaker 04

  But their optimism suddenly disappeared.

• 27:38Speaker 13

  So we were walking down and then the, in two person, one woman and one man was driving behind us and it was not so fast and not so slower.

• 27:53Speaker 04

  The car drove ahead, stopped, waited for Wafa and his friends to pass beside them, and drove ahead again, leapfrogging them. Wafa's friend turned to the group.

• 28:03Speaker 13

  For the second time, when they come again behind us and I told them that this car is suspicious, we should ask them what they want from us.

• 28:15Speaker 04

  They thought maybe they wanted to rob them, so they stopped and asked the driver what was going on. They asked if there was food ahead.

• 28:23Speaker 13

  And they told us that, yes, come and follow us. And in the way that they were speaking, we understood that they are not going to help us and they have some plan.

• 28:34Speaker 04

  The car would leapfrog them, then brake and wait. Finally, the driver stopped, got out, and yelled to the group.

• 28:42Speaker 13

  And told us in Bulgarian language not to run, please stop and stay here, police is coming. So, oh, then we were, looked to each other, that was the problem, yeah.

• 28:57Speaker 04

  Wafa and the group headed directly for the woods and climbed down into a ravine. They waited. A member of the group volunteered to go and see what was happening. They climbed out of the ravine and out into the open. They were surrounded by police. When they saw Wafa and his friends, they fired warning shots into the air. One friend tried to talk to the cops.

• 29:21Speaker 06

  And also, beat one of our friends, he doesn't, he didn't know their language. And they just, they just punched him twice.

• 29:30Speaker 04

  Where did they punch him?

• 29:32Speaker 06

  Ahead and neck area, and told him to sit down.

• 29:36Speaker 04

  They were arrested and taken to a detention center full of migrants called Busmanci. It's on the outskirts of the Bulgarian capital. Tall stucco walls, razor wire, one of those giant metal gates for cars that has a little door for people built into the lower corner. Inside, it was filthy, overcrowded, two small meals a day, no bathroom after 10:00 at night. People peed in their cells. Wafa and the Afghans talked about deporting themselves back to Afghanistan. But after 24 days, they were released. Before they left, the Bulgarian authorities took their fingerprints.

• 30:14Speaker 06

  This is what they do in Bulgaria. When they take your fingerprints, then they think that even if you go to some other European countries, you will be sent back to Bulgaria.

• 30:25Speaker 04

  Bulgaria's policy was suspect. EU asylum law doesn't prohibit refugees from applying for asylum in the country they arrive at. Either way, Wafa managed to make contact with their smugglers again, which led to a confrontation.

• 30:39Speaker 06

  And I told them that you should have taken us to Serbia directly. We were imprisoned here and they took our fingerprints here and then now you are going to take us. And then I told them that actually you have to take us to our destination.

• 30:58Speaker 04

  And they did. They took Wafa and his friends in cars to the Serbian border, where they arranged for taxis to wait for them. From there on, freedom of movement was almost unrestricted. Wafa took a series of buses and trains, one after the other: Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Austria, and finally Cologne, Germany.

• 31:18Speaker 06

  There was a woman who was like a worker there. She was giving fruits and foods to all the refugees. It was a really happy moment for me and eventually I called my family and I informed them that I reached them.

• 31:37Speaker 04

  More than a month had passed since Wafa's family last heard from him. He applied for asylum, went to an interview, and settled in a government-issued apartment in a small town called Elzendorf. Eventually, he heard back from the German authorities. His asylum request was denied.

• 31:55Speaker 06

  They sent me a letter and they told me that they were not going to trust my story, my version of the story.

• 32:03Speaker 04

  Did they get to... did they see your documents?

• 32:06Speaker 06

  Well, I gave everything to them. I gave some information and placed trial. I provided them with pictures. I gave them copies of all the papers I had. But I still... I still wonder why they denied my application. I have no idea.

• 32:23Speaker 04

  Wafa went to see a lawyer with a mop of gray hair named Frank Schunbeck. He charged 900 euros to review his case and litigate an appeal. They met, sat down together, and Schunbeck looked at Wafa's documents.

• 32:36Speaker 06

  He couldn't believe it. He said that it is insane that why, why they denied your application. Even he, he told me that you don't have to pay these 900 euros.

• 32:48Speaker 04

  Still, Wafa's in limbo. He's still waiting for his court date for his asylum appeal. Until very recently, he didn't have papers to work in Germany while his case was processed. His family back in Afghanistan slipped into poverty. He hasn't seen them in four years.

• 33:04Speaker 06

  I just want to go to the court and defend myself and tell them that what was going on. And I need to ask them that my family is away for almost four years from me now. So what's my crime? What I did wrong?

• 33:24Speaker 04

  What was Wafa's crime? It seemed to me that every crack in the bureaucratic process, every crack in the SIV system, grew into a chasm that swallowed him up. After everything Wafa went through, I wanted to know how American troops who worked with Wafa felt about his fate. Remember Wafa's supervisor, Major Weaver? The one he couldn't find to revise his crucial letter of recommendation? Shortly before the Fourth of July, I found him. We exchanged text messages. "Hi, I'm Chris Harland Dunaway. I'm a journalist. I'm reporting a story about Afghan radio DJs for The Verge. I'm looking for Air Force Major Paul Weaver to learn more about the program at combat

• 34:08Speaker 04

  outpost Little Blue. Do I have the right number?" The next day. "Hi, checking in again in case this is the right number for Paul Weaver. We can talk off the record first if you prefer. Happy to answer your questions." Then, five days later. Hi, Mr. Harlan Dunaway. This is Major Paul Weaver. Sorry for the delay. I've reached out to Central Command Public Affairs to assist in the matter and per their recommendation, it would be useful to provide all your questions in writing prior to any interview. I can then have Central Command Public Affairs review the questions with me and provide any recommendations. I'll also need to know what your overall article is about and what role my answers will have in the story.

• 34:53Speaker 04

  I explained what the story was about: the plight of the DJs, how he wrote a letter of recommendation for a DJ I was talking to—Wafa, of course. I couldn't give him questions ahead of time. I called Central Command Public Affairs and told them about the story, and told them I wanted to interview Major Weaver. They had no objection. I told Major Weaver that the DJ whose story I wanted to tell him was Wafa's, and sent photos of Wafa: one of him receiving a certificate of appreciation from an Army officer, one of him posing in front of a cream-colored military vehicle, another of Wafa out in a valley, standing next to a US soldier, a rifle in the soldier's hand, a microphone in Wafa's. Major Weaver went silent.

• 35:37Speaker 04

  It's impossible to know why. My guess is he probably doesn't feel like talking to a reporter about the legal tripwires that torpedoed his letter for Wafa, or the process of bureaucratic box-taking. I often think about the SIV requirement, where a DJ's military supervisor has to explicitly vouch that the Afghan isn't a national security threat. How many US military officers would knowingly write a letter of recommendation for someone who they thought "was" a national security threat? And if an Afghan DJ appeals an SIV decision, they can die waiting. A recent lawsuit against Secretary of State Mike Pompeo revealed the State Department

• 36:20Speaker 04

  systematically undercounts wait times for appeals. The State Department says it takes nine months, maximum, end to end. Discovery documents from the lawsuit show the average is more like three years.

• 36:35Speaker 04

  Wafa slipped into despair. Until he was given a work permit, he spent most of his time in his apartment in Elsdorf, isolated, wishing he could see his family, rehashing old memories working the radio station against the Taliban, trying to remember old soldiers' names he could try to contact. What's your opinion of what the United States has done in your case? Do you feel like they didn't help you even though you helped them?

• 37:04Speaker 06

  Well, I dedicated myself to them and honestly, I was working for them with my heart.

• 37:12Speaker 04

  But Wafa's dedication isn't enough. In 2015, the rules for the Afghan SIV program were revised. The work requirement for the US military is two years now, not one year. Wafa falls short on this requirement. If the United States goes someday in the future and fights a war somewhere else, and people in the country where they're fighting volunteer to help the United States, would he tell them that even if you help the United States, they might not help you later? He said no. He points out that despite all its faults, the SIV visa system has managed to save thousands of Afghans who worked for the United States. Still, Wafa has found someone to blame.

• 37:55Speaker 06

  I think it was my own problem. Maybe it's my English, which is not, I'm not very good at English and not fluent, or maybe I had no recommendation later. And it might be my problem, not of the United States.

• 38:13Speaker 04

  If Wafa's bid for asylum in Germany does fail, he says he'll go straight to the US Embassy in Hamburg and lay out all his documentation one more time.

• 38:23Speaker 06

  I was the one who was working with them from the bottom of my heart. I was loyal to them.

• 38:31Speaker 04

  The war in Afghanistan is the longest war in America's history. In the long run, experts think the US's broader psychological war was lost. And because of that, it's harder to see smaller victories like "radio in a box," a victory even harder to see when the DJs are left behind. But despite all the hearts and minds lost in Afghanistan, the United States still has WAFAs.

• 39:30Speaker 03

  This special episode of Pirate Radio Vergecast was made by Chris Harland Dunaway, Andrew Marino, and Kevin Nguyen. Fact check done by Maya Hibbett. Special thanks to Studio City Sound in Los Angeles. And special thanks Neelai Patel, who in the spirit of pirate radio allowed us to hijack the Vergecast for a few episodes.

• 39:49Speaker 14

  Did you know that mosquitoes have killed almost half of all people who have ever lived? Today, people are fighting back. With support from the Gates Foundation, American scientists and partners around the world have developed a new generation of bed nets that can kill up to 90% of mosquitoes exposed to them, helping cut malaria rates in half. The result? A safer, healthier future for everyone. The Gates Foundation, partners of human potential. Search gatesfoundation.org/mosquito to learn more.

• 40:19Speaker 09

  Stonefire Naan is made with real buttermilk and ghee. It's the perfect flatbread for any occasion.

• 40:25Speaker 15

  I put out Stonefire Naan with dips at every dinner party.

• 40:28Speaker 11

  I make naan grilled cheese when my daughter has friends over.

• 40:31Speaker 12

  I use Stonefire Naan to reward the humans who do my bidding.

• 40:34Speaker 10

  Right. It's perfect for camping trips. Dance for it, feeble mortal. Sorry, is he talking to me? Dance. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

• 40:45Speaker 09

  From our tradition to yours, Stonefire. Together, we Naan.