Free Range International

Last night I was coming back from the Lebanese Restaurant located in the Wazar Akbar Khan section of Kabul.   Back in the day it had a full bar and open patio with large crowds of expat customers, but not these days.   Now you have to walk through a long blast proof hallway through [...]

The other day The Bot and I were talking about Greg Mortenson (author of Three Cups of Tea).  Mortenson has been court ordered to fork over a million bucks for managing  donor money like a GSA mandarin.  He is also guilty of  fabricating tales of derring-do in his mission to build [...]

At 0630 this morning, Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) in the form of the Kabul Critical Response Unit (CRU) finished off a crew of villains who had been fighting for the past 16 hours.  These guys, most likely HIG militants, had barricaded themselves in a building under construction next to the Azizi Bank located [...]

America is currently experiencing some monster tornados deep in the heartland.  As dawn breaks across the land, the scenes of devastation are dramatic, but the casualties so far, remarkably low.  Modern early warning systems have a lot to do with that.  When a sudden serious storm breaks in Kabul, it is a [...]

There was an article floating around the news on Afghanistan last week that got my immediate attention.  The article had a one day life cycle and have not seen any follow ups about it, which, given the content, is surprising.   I am not referring to the change in  night raid policy [...]

In my last post I claimed to have reached the end of my useful shelf life as a blogger which, it turns out, is not true.  I’m back in Afghanistan and what better day to turn the FRI blog back on than April Fools? Groundhog day would have been more appropriate but I missed [...]

I’ve been trying to come up with a post for over a month now but don’t have any good pictures because I’m back in America, sans super cool Nikon which got blown up in the Helmand, and without good pictures I don’t seem to be able to write.  That camera cost over a thousand [...]

Editors Note:  B is taking some time off from destroying Libtards on Thomas Ricks blog to vent on a topic few men will dare touch.  At the Foriegn Policy blog he’s been coming up with stuff like this:
Personally, I am glad that while I had to worry about leaders who were more worried [...]

This is the second entry in the new “Paint Baba Tim’s White Fence” program.  The first was from my Dad and this one is from my good friend B.  Regular readers have probably guessed by now that B and I worked together in Afghanistan and know each other well.  As I deal [...]

Editors Note:  This post is the first (of what I hope to be many) posts from my father Major General J.D. Lynch Jr. USMC (Ret.)
The Current Situation
Forty years ago, the American military was held in great contempt by the public it served. The feeling was returned in roughly equal measure. We have since gone [...]