By Richard McDermott
August 11, 2007
I listened to the compassion and admiration in his voice. He was telling us all about the Pakistani people fighting the Taliban. He was in awe of the tribesmen of the Tribal Areas; particularly the one, it seemed to me: Muhammad Khurshid.
John E. Carey, founder and first president of International Defense Consultants, former U.S. Navy officer, and a brilliant writer, was struggling for words.
We had never seen him struggle for words before.
At a breakfast meeting today, John told us how he had gotten to know Muhammad. And how now he believes they are “Blood Brothers.”
“I was reminded yesterday by Robert Kall, director of the very good news website OpEdNews.com, that he introduced me to Muhammad about a year ago I think,” said John Carey.
“Muhammad wrote for Peace and Freedom a few opinion pieces from the Tribal Areas. But as we exchanged messages we began to really work toward the same one goal: freedom for the tribesmen of the Tribal Areas in Pakistan.”
“This has meant that Muhammad and I have exchanged communications five or six times a week. For about a year. The few times that we have been out of contact more than say, two or three days, the other was left worried and wondering,” said Carey to a room of about 20 of us this morning.
“I have been able to intervene in small ways on behalf of the tribesmen in the Tribal Areas, but it is Muhammad that is in harms way. It is Muhammad that lives in the tough country and does the tough jobs. And it is Muhammad who has had to bury friends lost in the conflict [with the Taliban and al-Qaeda],” Carey said.
“This is really the terror war. This isn’t reality TV — this is reality. After one of Muhammad’s friends was killed he emailed me a photo of the man’s children. I wept.”
We asked him about what he calls “the love letters from Muhammad.”
“Muhammad and I are both emotional. He sends me messages of gratitude and thanks. Sometimes he is overly emotional but he is always a genuine man.”
“Just this morning,” Carey said, “we had a message of thanks from Muhammad at Peace and Freedom.”
“I sent back, ‘God is with you and blesses you good sir. I am as nothing. Just a leaf blowing in the wind. But it is you, si,r who are as the wind. Moving mountains in the Tribal Areas,” said Carey.
He closed with, “I have never known such a people as these.”
