Today on Midrats: A Reporter's View of Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Importance of Tribes

As we continue to look at the 10th anniversary of our involvement in Afghanistan, we call on a reporter with long association in the Afghanistan, Pakistan and India area.

Our guest on Midrats today at 5pm Eastern U.S. will be Rone Tempest.

Mr. Tempest is a former Los Angeles Times national and foreign correspondent who served as the newspaper’s bureau chief in Houston, New Delhi, Paris, Beijing, Hong Kong and Sacramento from 1981 to 2007. In 2004 he was part of a team of reporters and photographers to win the Pulitzer Prize for coverage of massive wildfires in Southern California. A resident of Lander, Wyoming, he served as WyoFile.com’s editor until November 2010.

During his stint with the LA Times, Mr. Tempest was one of the foreign reporters riding out of Afghanistan on Russian armor as the Russians withdrew, visited the country while the Taliban were in charge and was recalled to the area shortly after 9-11. One of his key takeaways from his experience is the importance of tribes both in Afghanistan and in Pakistan, as well as in other parts of Southwest Asia.

A graduate of the University of California at Berkeley, he also attended the American University in Beirut and colleges in Germany and France.


He also suffers the distinction of being my brother.

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