When Nate Springer, the retired Army colonel who is now head of the Care and Share Food Bank in Colorado Springs, attended the opening ceremony for a new American-led water project in Afghanistan in 2007, he was approached by an elder named Mohammed Ayoub.
Ayoub let Springer have it. He said the new water pipe bypassed his village, Shali Kot, and now threatened his village’s own water supply. He informed a surprised Springer this was insulting and unfair, according to an account of the incident in the book “The Outpost” by Jake Tapper.
Springer’s interpreter could barely keep up with the tirade, which Ayoub concluded by calling Springer an infidel, one of the worst insults possible in that part of the world. The head of the district, a behemoth of a man named Shamsur Rahman, then stepped in and slapped Ayoub several times for the disrespect he had shown Springer, ending the ceremony…