Occupation Author, Researcher Name Graeme Smith | Role Author | |
Born June 3, 1979 (age 44) ( 1979-06-03 ) Notable works The Dogs Are Eating Them Now: Our War In Afghanistan
Talking To The Taliban
Afghanistan's Insurgency After The Transition Books The Dogs Are Eating Them Now: Our War in Afghanistan, Dogs Are Eating Them Now, The: Our War in Afghanistan Awards News & Documentary Emmy Award for New Approaches: Current News Coverage | ||
Graeme Smith (born June 3, 1979) is a Canadian author and researcher. He has worked as a political affairs officer for the United Nations in Afghanistan since 2015. He was previously a senior analyst for the International Crisis Group. He has served as a foreign correspondent for The Globe and Mail, a Canadian newspaper.
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Career
Smith was hired by The Globe and Mail as a staff reporter in 2001. The newspaper appointed him as bureau chief in Winnipeg (2003), Moscow (2005), Kandahar (2006), Delhi (2010), and Istanbul (2011). He also served as an adjunct scholar for the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School.
Smith investigated detainees captured by Canadian troops and transferred into Afghan custody in 2007, revealing widespread torture in local jails. This became known as the Canadian Afghan detainee issue. Two weeks later, Ottawa signed a new bilateral agreement with Kabul to protect prisoners. Smith and his colleague Paul Koring won the Michener Award for public service, granted once a year by the Governor General of Canada.
His 2008 multimedia series "Talking to the Taliban" gave viewers the opportunity to watch 42 Taliban insurgents discuss why they fight, and made public the raw video along with articles and short documentaries. The project won several prizes - including an Emmy Award.
During his coverage of the 2011 civil war in Libya, Smith found documents that showed the Chinese government offered large arsenals of weapons to Muammar Gaddafi, in violation of UN sanctions. China apologized.
Other documents Smith discovered in Libya contributed to the scandal over engineering giant SNC-Lavalin's role in the country, and the coverage won three magazine awards. A Royal Canadian Mounted Police investigation resulted in corruption and fraud charges against the company, and a senior executive was convicted, marking an important test of Canada's Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act.
His bestselling book, The Dogs Are Eating Them Now: Our War In Afghanistan, published in 2013 by Knopf/Random House Canada, described the war in southern Afghanistan from 2005 to 2011. The book was nominated for four literary awards and won the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction, Canada's richest prize for non-fiction. An updated U.S. edition was published in 2014, along with a French translation in 2015.
In 2012, he joined the International Crisis Group as head of the organization's office in Afghanistan. He writes research papers about politics and security, and contributes op-ed articles to publications such as The New York Times, Reuters, and other media outlets.