The Fab Lab team has arrived and is now hard at work. They are blogging daily and you can monitor their progress here. They’re doing cool stuff like fabricating antenna’s to share our fatpipe internet with the local schools and NGO’s. They’re raising money to buy XO Laptops for every 6th grader in the local (Bagrami) school. They’re setting the local kids up with a tee shirt business to fund the Jalalabad FabLab operations and the local kids are beside themselves with opportunity that just landed on their doorstep.
Amy and her roommate Kieth from MIT – the Fab Lab advance party
We have had to run up to Kabul and back several times to get all the Fab Folk to Jalalabad. The Jalalabad to Kabul road is a vitally important supply route to both the military and the government of Afghanistan. There were several attacks on the road this past summer and there continues to be problems on it now despite the winter weather. We saw several interesting things along the route and the first was the number of French Army troops transiting from Kabul to Surobi.
French troops on the road outside of Kabul
Surobi is a large hamlet half way between Kabul and Jalalabad, last August the French suffered a humiliating defeat in the Uzbin valley which is just to the north of Surobi. The town has long been considered to be sympathetic if not supportive of Gulbiddin Hekmatyar and his party Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin (HiG.) We see sunburned adult males with high-water trousers, tennis shoes, and black turbans every time we pass through Surobi. They could be Sheppard’s or gold miners but it’s a safe bet their Taliban fighters hitting Surobi in for in-country R&R (rest and recreation).
The French have been serious about establishing a presence in Surobi since their first unfortunate encounter with the Taliban. They are keeping units in the field 24/7; have launched several operations which have netted some prominent local commanders (according to UN incident reporting). It’s good to see our ISAF allies taking the initiative, going on the offensive and clearing out such an important area.
But after you clear an area you have to hold it and it will be interesting to see how (or if) they do that. The operations in Surobi are not impacting the repeated attacks on the Kabul/Jalalabad road – with one exception. We’ve heard from reliable sources they tracked down and killed The Mechanic. It appears to be true too because it’s been months since we’ve seen his signature long range pin point RPG shots nailing tankers. The tankers are still getting nailed but only other portions of the road that allow ambush from rifle and machinegun range.
As noted in previous posts these occur in the Tangi valley area east of Surobi and in portions of Laghman Province below the Tangi. Both the ANP and ANA have posted small units along the road to augment the numerous permanent police posts. As you can see from the pictures below the positions they have set up are weak at best and their patrol routine, which appears to be sitting by the side of the road, is not proving very effective.
Typical ANP deployment on the Jbad – Kabul roadANP machinegun crew – they are not dug in and they don’t move so they are not accomplishing much
Here is an intel report from one of the PSC’s (the private security companies in Afghanistan do a lot of intel sharing with each other.)
Laghman Province, Qarghayi District, Route 1-area of Tangy
AOG Vehicle Checkpoint 05 January 2009, between 1630-1700 hrs
A doctor who works for a NGO was returning to Jalalabad from Kabul alone in his private car, when his vehicle was forced to stop by a group of armed men. The doctor was then questioned about his work and personal behaviour. He was finally allowed to proceed unharmed when, on seeing the cassette player in the vehicle, the armed men instructed the doctor to play a cassette found in the vehicle. The cassette played was a religious tape and satisfied the requirements of those who had stopped the car. Despite reported increased security force deployments, this is the third reported instance of AOG activity on Route 1 in the Tangy area since 31 Dec 08. All three incidents have occurred in daylight hours and two have been attacks on military vehicles. These incidents should demonstrate to all the risk of travel along Route 1 between Kabul-Jalalabad at any time of day. Any international staff using Route 1 should expect further instances such as that outlined in this report and seek alternative means of travel between Jalalabad-Kabul.
Along with the above report, we have made several trips the past few days along the route. A few ANA vehicles have been pulled off the side of the road about half way back to Kabul, and the soldiers were in a defensive posture behind their vehicles, weapons pointed at the high ground. Most likely some pot shots taken at the ANA as they passed thru.
The Kabul to Jalalabad route is one of the most important in Afghanistan. The effort being expended to secure this route is currently being wasted because the troops are being deployed in poorly sited positions and being tasked to do nothing other than sit there. There is an easy fix and that would be to embed and infantry squad into the Qarghayi District ANP headquarters with a mission style order. It should sound something like this; “Sergeant you’ve got six months to work with these guys and stop any and all attempts to attack this vital route, go down there scout it out, come up with a plan and I’ll see you in five days so you can brief me on your plan. ”
Winning the IED battle requires that you kill the IED makers and you can only do that if they are unmasked by the people. To reach the people with the consistency required to gain that level of cooperation requires that you leave the big armored vehicles and spend time (lots of it) among the people. I am pretty sure that if you consult the Pentagon’s counterinsurgency manual you’ll find that it says more less exactly the same thing.
It is always a good sign to see American soldiers getting a handle on the recent attacks
There is hope for those of us who use the Kabul Jbad road frequently and that is the appearance of a small American patrol right in the heart of the Tangy valley visiting the local ANA checkpoint. Inshallah they will be spending some time and effort trying to help the various small unit commanders develop a more aggressive plan to secure the route. We did not encounter any problems on our numerous trips to Kabul and back. What follows is some photo blogging about the Fab Folk we are hosting and some of the things they are up to.
Kieth, Steve and Carl from the Fab Folk team. Carl is from South Africa, Kieth and Steve are Americans. The Taj manager Mehrab is pulling interpreter duty – he is between Steve and CarlSmari and Andres – Fab Folk from IcelandMiss Lucy, a former US Navy officer, getting ready to cross the Kabul river from Little BarabadSteve and Keith getting ready to cross the river to Little BarabadThe Fab Folk took a box of stuffed animals with them to Little Barabad. Here is a great shot of the girls watching them cross the riverWe hosted ABC News reporter Martha Raddatz at the Taj yesterday.
Here’s a link to Martha’s first news story from her visit to Jalalabad.
There were two interesting articles in the news concerning Afghanistan today which illustrate (to me) the dire straits we now face. One article reported on the clever use of Viagra by CIA case officers; the other was a mildly negative critique of the USAID reconstruction efforts made by a senior USAID officer. Both stories represent a total lack of situational awareness as 2008 draws to a close.
When you have lived in a poorly understood, distant country like Afghanistan as long as I have it is easy to find mistakes in the international press. I am not nitpicking two main stream news reports because they report as fact things I know to be completely untrue. You get that a lot from the press these days. What I find alarming is that at least one of these two articles is obviously an entry into the discussion taking place amongst our national leadership. The other article about the CIA is so completely ridiculous that I have no idea what to make of it. Reports like these are truly depressing so let me take these articles one at a time and provide you with some unbiased ground truth.
Feeling the love in Paktia province
The first article was by Mark Ward, a senior Foreign Service Officer with US AID, who has just completed an impressively long tour in Afghanistan. Here is the opening paragraph:
“Nearly every observer of Afghanistan, from the most senior U.S. military officers to Washington think tank analysts and everyone in between, agrees that stability in that country demands a multipronged approach involving the military, diplomatic efforts and economic assistance. Having spent nearly the past five years as the senior career officer responsible for U.S. economic assistance to Afghanistan, I agree with those in the military who have said that 80 percent of the struggle for Afghanistan is about reconstruction and sustainable economic development and only 20 percent about military operations. In the face of a heightened Taliban insurgency, the U.S. military has changed its tactics. But if civilian U.S. agencies do not change the ways they deliver economic assistance, they jeopardize their chances for success and risk alienating the Afghan people.”
He is spot on with this assessment I would judge that he is around six years late but better late than never. He then goes on to discuss the ramifications to the morale of the American people if, given relaxed security standards, Foreign Service Officers get killed in the line of duty. What??? Let me answer that question free of charge. The American public doesn’t even know what a Foreign Service Officer is and they could give a hoot if a few buy the farm in Afghanistan. You have already lost men in Iraq and that caused no detectable disturbance in the body politic. One of those lost was a friend of mine the embassy security force camp in Kabul is named after him and although his loss was a tragedy for his family and friends (and the Department of State RSO program because he was one of their best) it did not cause the slightest ripple on the consciousness of the American public. My friend, Steve Sullivan was killed by a VBIED in Mosul along with three Blackwater contractors. State Department and contractor casualties are not the same as military casualties because the main stream media doesn’t treat them the same. You won’t see our names in memorial on the Sunday talk shows or on PBS nor will you see our numbers included in the national dialogue. There is also a new administration taking office which will change the tone and tenor of media coverage 180 degrees for reasons too obvious to even mention. I do not believe for a second with the concern that FSO casualties will in any way affect (or even register with) the will of the American people to continue our efforts in Afghanistan.
This is a great picture from an old NYT article by Moises Saman
Mr. Ward concludes his article with this paragraph:
“The new team at the State Department and USAID should engage a team of outside experts to conduct an objective assessment of the security rules and their impact on our economic assistance program in Afghanistan. The review should give due weight to the importance of interacting with the Afghan people to hear their ideas, get to know them and gain their trust. It should rigorously test the theories about what would happen if an increasing number of Foreign Service officers were killed and injured as a result. And it should look at other donor countries’ approach to security in Afghanistan. Some have the balance between security and access about right, particularly in parts of the country where security is more permissive.”
We do not need expensive DC based contractors to conduct a review of security procedures or conduct an assessment of the consequences on increased Foreign Service officer casualties. There is a seven year track record in Afghanistan from both governmental and nongovernmental organizations that are operating in the exact manner Mr. Ward is advocating. The government of Japan has over 100 of their “Foreign Service officers” (the Japanese do not use that term) spread out from Mazar-e-Sharif to Jalalabad working every day in Afghan ministries and offices mentoring their Afghan colleagues. They do this on a security budget which is less than the cost of providing bottled water to the US Embassy compound in Kabul. The Japan International Cooperation Agency uses the same security guidelines as every other international organization in Afghanistan (with the exception of the US AID contractors who use DS guidelines) and that is the UN minimum occupational safety standards (UN MOSS.)
In contested provinces (Helmund, Zabul, Kandahar, etc) the UN MOSS standards are not applicable and in those provinces the best solution would be to turn over all reconstruction monies to our military who has demonstrated time and again they are better at delivering reconstruction aid anyway. For the rest of the country the US could start sending its FSO’s out into the provinces immediately and be reasonably certain that any casualties they do take would come from motor vehicle accidents which are one of the bigger threats faced by internationals who live outside the wire. There have been IGO and NGO casualties in Afghanistan but they are rare and disproportionally suffered by those who choose not to use armed security. By that I mean those organizations that place stickers on their vehicles of an AK 47 with a red circle and a line drawn through it. Nothing says “I am important and unarmed” like a new SUV with “no weapons on board” stickers. This is not a country where it is wise to advertise you are both important and unarmed. It is a dangerous place but the risks are manageable and reasonable which has been proven by JICA and the hundreds of other organizations currently operating outside the wire in Afghanistan.
The last time I was at the Kabul International Airport I saw a group of embassy workers being escorted from the VIP parking lot adjacent to the terminal to the front door by four Blackwater contractors with weapons and full kit. I would submit that having armed men escort your diplomats the entire 100 yards from parking lots to front door is not only unnecessary but insulting to the host nation. The men Blackwater places on the embassy contract are highly trained operatives who must maintain rigorous weapons proficiency standards and top secret security clearances. They would be of much greater use out in the provinces and would undoubtedly be much happier roaming around the countryside where their skill set is of use. Parading around the Kabul airport with rifles at the ready is silly.
I applaud Mr. Ward for highlighting this issue in Washington DC but have to stress that we need to adopt a sense of urgency regarding the rapidly deteriorating situation in Afghanistan. We do not have the time or money to study what to do it is time to do. The way forward had been clearly marked by the thousands of internationals operating inside Afghanistan daily using the UN MOSS security guidelines. The American Embassy and US AID already have dozens of highly trained security contractors in Kabul it is time to put them to better use.
The next article (also in the Washington Post) described the cunning use of Viagra by CIA case officers to gain the trust of an influential elder. The premise of the article is ridiculous. Viagra is available in most of the pharmacies (and there are thousands here) located in the prominent towns of Afghanistan. In the remote rural areas of the country one can find people who have never heard of or seen medicine in pill form. They do not know there is such a thing as aspirin let alone Viagra. But I suspect any leader important enough to warrant courting by the CIA is also educated enough to know about medicine in pill form. If he knows what pills are then he probably knows about Viagra and if he wanted some obtaining it would be simple. It certainly would not require debasing one’s self in front of a foreigner especially one from the CIA.
What I do not have to guess about is the consequences of a foreigner trying to give an important leader pills for a flagging libido. That would be an insult so grave that a Pashtun chief could never tolerate it. There is only one way an international could pass on something like Viagra and that would be through a trusted Afghan who was also friends with the target and could deliver the goods to the chief in private. To imply that a CIA operative found out the number and ages of the chieftain’s wives in casual conversation and then reached into his bag of BS to pull out four Viagra pills which were then received “with delight” is beyond ridiculous. It is an outright fabrication which proves the main stream media is every bit as clueless about this country as the FOB bound Big Army or the locked down embassy staff.
But there are other reasons to doubt this story. I know a couple guys on the mobile security team (MST) contract for the CIA. They have never, not once, left the FOB to which they are assigned. My statistical sample of MST contractors may be insignificant and I may be wrong about them being 100% FOB bound but I doubt it. I met only a few CIA officers while on active duty so I claim no insider knowledge or expertise but their description of the agency matches perfectly with the recently published history Legacy of Ashes and that excellent book was not a flattering portrait to say the least.
It is conceivable that the CIA did their homework on a targeted leader and determine the number and ages of his wives. It is inconceivable that they would then send out a case officer who was stupid enough to try the ham handed play described in the WaPo article. At least I hope it is inconceivable because God help us if it is true that after seven plus years of effort we are operating like the Key Stone cops. When I read silliness like this I think that instead of high speed Blackhawk uniforms and kit maybe we should issue our CIA operatives big red clown noses and large clown shoes to wear around Afghanistan.
We have been in Afghanistan since 2001 and should be talking about what an endstate will look like and not about the feasibility of venturing outside Fortress Kabul or co-opting local leaders with Viagra. It would be a welcomed sight to see FSO’s or CIA case officers operating outside the wire with the rest of us as part of those teams they are going to have to take the leap eventually and now is as good a time as any.
The Pentagon recently released a directive on Irregular Warfare that has generated speculation among the various players in Afghanistan. When you see documents that say “The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of staff shall” it is a powerful piece of paper from on high. There are a finite number of people in the world who can task four star generals or deputy secretaries of defense and professionals in the business study these directives as if they were the Dead Sea Scrolls. This comment came from a discussion thread in a group I belong to.
“I find it particularly interesting that DoD would come up with a “Directive of the obvious”… For all of its claims the Army as an organization doesn’t learn so quickly. I suppose that it took years of doing the same things expecting different results for the light to shine on reality. Not to be condescending in any way; I am glad to see the directive has been introduced. I hope that it grows roots quickly and flourishes… There is a full-spectrum under which many current peripheral entities can be brought to bear in order to surpass the expectations that DoD may currently have.”
I could not have said it better myself; it will be interesting to see how this directive impacts the template used by the U.S. military as it introduces more maneuver units into the country. Reports in the press indicate that the Army is planning on sending combat units in to Loghar and Wardak Provinces which are just outside of Kabul. The Marine Corps appears to be preparing to deploy in expeditionary force strength into the south. That could mean up to three infantry regiments of Marines with all their supporting arms, aircraft and logistics. That is a lot of gunfighters. The Question is – does it matter?
The Taliban control large swaths of Afghanistan not because they are better fighters but because they are beating the Karzai regime with better governance in the areas they control. The people know that a Taliban tribunal will not award land and water rights based on the largest bribe. They also know that once a case is settled the dispute is over. Fire fights between families involved in land and water disputes are frequent and bloody affairs in areas under government control. In areas under Taliban control the losing party accepts the Taliban ruling or takes 15 rounds in the chest. People tend to cooperate in systems like that.
But they don’t like it too much and would rather see a platoon of Marines or Army soldiers hanging around than a crew of religious zealots. It would be a pleasant surprise to see the Army and Marine units who flow into the country next year deployed down to the district level. I suspect that there will be tentative steps to branch out like that and these steps will involve what the new directive terms “civilian-military teams.”
That will be interesting to see play out and I believe small teams at the district level can, if properly funded and deployed, make a difference in the battle to control the only thing that matters in Afghanistan. The people.
Getting ready for a road mission. The guy on the right is our buddy Brandon who just graduated college and is in Nangarhar teaching orphans English (a story line he is planning to use to pick up women when he returns home; we’re coaching him on the art of seduction but he’s a big Liberal and isn’t catching on too well). The pixalated guys are American SF – Shem and I are in the middle.
We were able to conduct a “civilian-military team” field trial a few days ago during a road mission to Kabul (to re-stock the bar). This was a demonstration to our SF buddies of why we prefer unarmored local vehicles and they caught on fast. One of the Captains remarked that he never really got to see too much of the country because his visibility in an armored hummer was so restricted. They also marveled at how we attracted no attention (except in the busy main street of Surobi; a HIG R&R village). We also rolled up on a French convoy which gave the boys an excellent opportunity to experience the joy of low visibility ops when the Frenchman manning the trail .50 cal swung the barrel towards us.
Using local transport is not always a good deal
The military travels in convoys that do not allow the local vehicles to get near them. They do this to avoid being hit by “suicide vehicle borne improvised explosive devices” (VBIED’s). In the south Canadian and British forces force all traffic off the roads they are driving down to prevent VBIED’s. In the east sometimes all the traffic will pull off the road when they see an American convoy approaching and sometimes it won’t.
One of the Army officers had “good glass” on his camera and took this photo which I think looks pretty damn cool – if I say so myself
Using unarmored local vehicles with light body armor and fighting kit is another option. This appears to be taking unwarranted risks but I’ll let the quote below from Vietnam legend Col David Hackworth address the issue. “In Vietnam, today’s most successful infantry tactics and techniques were yesterday’s heresy and madness. When these ‘overly reckless’ ideas were first introduced by farseeing innovators in 1965 and 1966, few commanders took them seriously. Most, because of parochial conventional orientation, looked upon these new concepts with contempt not unlike many reactionary English lords’ attitude toward the longbow before Crecy. But today in Vietnam, these once ‘wild schemes’ have become standard drill. These bold techniques have changed the thrust of the war from uneconomical multi brigade operations to fights that are fought almost exclusively by the squad and platoon.”
That was true in Vietnam and it’s true today; we need to win the people and that means being in the with them 24/7. We can do it and do it for pennies on the dollar we currently spend. But only if we reach back to our past and remember how to conduct independent small unit operations on a very large scale. Let them live and move around like we do and you’re talking change you can really believe in.
Another cool photo shot with the good glass – this is the Mahipar Pass outside Kabul
It is time for some “outside the box” thinking and last week’s demonstration may lead to more discussions between the big base behind the wire military and all the other internationals in Afghanistan who feel safer at night on the streets of Kabul or Jalalabad than we do in Washington DC or Chicago.
This was first posted sixteen years ago but has stood the test of time so well it’s worth moving to the front of the blog for readers interested in a different perspective of our failed Afghan adventure. I didn’t predict the ending exactly right but was close.
For the past five years our senior leadership has claimed the reconstruction of Afghanistan is their highest priority. Yet our efforts at reconstruction have proved so inadequate they should be a national scandal. A major source of our inability to correctly implement major projects are the force protection polices that restrict State Department and USAID personnel to the US Embassy complex. It is hard to get a sense of what is going on outside the embassy walls if you never leave the embassy walls. And the only people who leave the embassy walls are the contractor guard force from Global Risks who are inexplicably billeted in hastily built barracks off Jalalabad Road.
The embassy guard force barracks are on the right and a public truck parking lot on the left. Every day dozens of trucks backed up against our wall and the drivers took off until they were allowed into Kabul after dark. It took months of bitching to the RSO before this obvious danger was mitigated. Can you imagine State Department security officials being so caviler with the lives of 350 Marines? Of course not, so why was it ok to put contractors so far out in harms way?
The security situation is dramatically different from district to district within the 34 Provinces of Afghanistan but you would not know that unless you had some contact with the Afghans living in those provinces. That is difficult to do when every trip outside a “secure compound” is a combat patrol, every Afghan met out in the wild considered a potential threat, and every vehicle that gets near you in traffic a potential car bomb. Thus there is a need for more (not less) outside the wire contractors who can live and work with Afghans supervising reconstruction projects while simultaneously building capacity by training contractors to deliver quality work.
There was a program in eastern Afghanistan that did exactly that for the local contractors who had won projects funded by the American Army Corps of Engineers (CoE). I discovered this when the eastern regional supervisor came to stay at the Taj with us in 2008. Dan the reconstruction man was paid by the CoE to work with a consortium of local construction companies to ensure their bids were written and priced correctly, the work is done to standard, and bribes and theft kept to an absolute minimum.
Dan packed up and ready to go with our new guard dog in training Scout
His life support costs are a fraction of the costs of State Department or Corps of Engineers (CoE) personnel stationed in Afghanistan but unlike them he is out interacting everyday with the locals. Dan has seven years of Afghan experience, speaks some Dari, wears a shalwar kameez when working in the rural districts and like us, he’s perfectly comfortable being the only international around for miles while working projects in the bush.
Dan was getting ready to head home for a well earned 30 day break when his flight from Jbad to Kabul was canceled. Yesterday evening, instead of being on his way home he was sharing the finer points of holographic weapons sights with another outside the wire crew when he got a snarky email from the CoE headquarters in Kabul about his main project in Jalalabad. The CoE was accusing him of not doing the proper quality control on his concrete mix, not having his QA guy on site as required, and not having the required personal protective equipment (PPE) for his stone masons. They sent pictures of these infractions demanding an immediate response.
Dan chatting up old friends from Kabul at the winterized Tiki Bar
Dan started to laugh out loud, he wasn’t remotely close to pouring concrete at the job site in question and he employs no stone masons but it was obvious what had happened. His Afghan government counterpart thought he was on his way to Canada so he was making his move. Dan checked his vehicle log to see if his QA guy had been dispatched, he checked his phone logs to see if his QA guy had called in from the work site, he then asked the me to take him to the job site where he found everything in order.
It turned out that the Afghan Quality Assurance engineer (appointed by the Karzi administration)) wanted his “sweets” (shirini) from the subcontractors but had been unable to get a penny from them. Shirini is a dreaded word in Afghanistan, it’s code for a bribe which Afghans have to contend deal every time they interact with any government official. The engineer in question bolted back to Kabul when he saw Dan driving up the project site.
Dan sent a tempered response which should serve as a wake up call but won’t. He pointed out that they were not pouring concrete yet and that the pictures of his “stone masons” were taken at the Afghan business located next to his site which has nothing to do with the project in question. Guess what happened next? While Dan was home on leave he was fired for creating animosity with the Kabul appointees. It turned out that actually building capacity by living and working with the Afghans daily was not what our diplomatic class had in mind when they talked about building capacity because (according to them) it’s too dangerous to be outside the wire.
Scout was a good looking dog but not a good guard dog because loud noises terrified him.
I live like a king for pennies compared to the life support costs for our military, State, USAID, or the dozens of other federal agencies operating in Afghanistan. When I need work done on the Taj I hire local contractors and use local products, the military hires KBR and imports every bit of their construction material from America. I would think “capacity building” would involve taking every opportunity to build capacity at the district level. Instead we are allowing the Karzai government to steal reconstruction funds hand over fist while ensuring that contractors like Dan who interfere with their corruption are removed from the field,
I will say this again knowing that I sound like a broken record we are running out of time. We can no longer afford continued failure in the stability operations fight. When the people of Afghanistan decided that we are not serious and not really here to help them they will eject us and we will have no choice but to go. The butcher’s bill for that will be more than Americans will want to consider. Look at what happened back in 1978 when the people of Herat decided they wanted the Soviets and their families to go, they all went, in body bags.
Today started out great I am back in Jalalabad after completing a short job which I cannot freely blog about and the weather is perfect. I fired up the computer and checked in with Power Line to find this excellent story about a Marine rifle platoon who were ambushed by 250 Taliban. They routed the Taliban and sent them fleeing from the battlefield in panic with the designated marksmen putting down dozens of the enemy fighters using their excellent M-14 DMR. The M-14 DMR fires a 175 grain 7.62x51mm match round through a 22 inch stainless steel match grade barrel at 2,837 fps out of the muzzle. Marine marksmen can routinely hit individuals at 850 meters with this rifle and because of the round it has real stopping power. You won’t see a Taliban fighter take six hits with this beast and keep on running (happens a lot with the M4) in fact you won’t see a Taliban or any other kind of human take two rounds and keep moving.
M-14 DMR
The Marine story made my day and validated something I have said repeatedly on Covert Radio which is you can move anywhere in this country with a platoon of infantry. The Taliban, rent-a-Taliban, criminals, and war lord affiliated fighters have no ability to stand up to the punishment a well trained platoon can inflict. NATO needs to learn this lesson quickly. The French lost almost a dozen men in an ambush up in the Uzbin valley in August. In that very same valley last month a force of 300 French troopers conducted a “tactical retrograde” leaving behind sophisticated anti tank missiles in the process when they were confronted by a small force of Taliban. When the Marines were hit by a much larger enemy force the entire unit immediately got onto the flanks of the ambushers and rolled them up in order to free the men trapped in the kill zone. Once accomplishing this they maintained contact until the Taliban broke and ran. Conversely the French expended all their resources and energy trying to break contact and recover casualties, a “tactic” not unheard of with other NATO military units. The point to all this isn’t that the Marines are great and the French army is not but rather it is very very difficult to build and sustain good infantry. NATO countries did not have to worry about producing quality infantry over the past 50 years they let America shoulder that burden while they developed their economies with the money they would have needed for national defense. Producing good infantry requires a certain attitude and mind set not found in polite society but when the Europeans get hit hard with the old clue bat they will develop effective infantry units. You’ll know when they do because you’ll start seeing 30 man platoons from NATO countries running all over the country hoping against hope that 200 to 300 Taliban are stupid enough to try and take them on.
Fighting in the town of Garmsir last summer - the 24th MEU drove the Taliban out of that district in a 72 hour blitz while taking just one casualty
I obviously enjoy it when events validate some of the things I say in this blog or on Covert Radio but this excellent story of combat dominance will have absolutely no impact on the Afghanistan situation at all. You cannot win here by just killing people nor can you deal the Taliban and their affiliates a decisive blow because they are not a unified movement and their leaders are all in Pakistan outside our reach. The people of Afghanistan are the prize of this contest and few of them are down in the Helmund or Farah Provinces. While the Marines dominate their area of operations the rest of the country is falling outside of central government control. Every district, town and village in Afghanistan has some sort of land or water dispute ongoing and land disputes here are deadly affairs. We routinely see firefights between clans over land disputes in UN security reporting and some of these fights result in over a dozen KIA’s. When the Taliban move into an area they decide these disputes using Sharia law instead of who can pay the biggest bribe. They are considered fair in most of these rulings and will tolerate no armed fighting over disputes once they have decided upon a case. A country doesn’t lose a war against insurgents by being out fought they lose by being out governed which is exactly what is happening all over this country.
Last night I was chatting down at the new and improved Tiki Bar with some old friends who have considerable Afghanistan experience. One of them first came here with an NGO in 1996, the other in 2002, and our conversation was all about change. When I first arrived in Afghanistan it took about 6 hours to drive between Jalalabad which is a 90 minute drive now. In Kabul it was rare to see a woman who was not wearing a burka and today the opposite is the case. In Jalalabad which is one of the largest cities in the Pashtun belt, not all women here wear the hated burka.
Streets of Kabul 2007
Duranta area of Jalalabad this local woman and her daughter walked in and joined us for lunch without ever saying a word.
But here is the real change which will never be reversed. The change you can believe in computers and internet.
Middle School girls in Jalalabad summer 2008
Computers allow access to knowledge by children who are dirt poor and hungry to learn about the world around them. That genie is now long out of the bottle and my friends and I believe that the sudden surge towards modernity is spooking many of the elders who play such an important role in tribal life. We noted the backlash in Peshawar where the Pakistani Taliban is trying to reverse the headlong rush towards modernity by forcing the woman back into the burka (and with some short term success at the moment.) Peshawar used to be a very modern place which welcomed internationals and where very few women could be seen in the burka just two years ago. Not true today and you can’t buy CD’s or pirated movies either. There are many forces in play in central Asia and the biggest one has its own velocity and will continue to generate all sorts of unintended consequences as it goes forward. Knowledge is power extreme poverty is motivation and the people of Afghanistan, Pakistan and all the other Stans are very motivated to acquire the power of knowledge.
The Jalalabad road in Kabul
We cannot control the effects from the explosive power of the internet and computer on the local people. What we can do is to continue developing the infrastructure while providing a secure environment in which the Afghans can develop their economy. Security in the Afghan context requires boots on the ground doing what the Marines did in Shewan. Small units who are constantly outside the wire with the Afghan people and who crush anyone silly enough to fight them even if they are outnumbered 20 to 1. Afghanistan is much bigger than Iraq with a much larger population but American infantry (the US Army has great infantry too) augmented by those allies who also have developed high quality infantry will have to start consistently operating in the same manner as the Marines are operating down south which to date they have been unwilling to do. Combat is a dangerous business requiring men who can endure incredible hardships and discomfort while maintaining their motivation and (most importantly) sense of humor.
Good infantry doesn’t need ice cream every day or the cushy barracks found at the Khandahar airfield; they need water, chow, lots of ammunition, and leaders who trust them to operate in a decentralized fashion with their small units. The Marine Commander down south is Colonel Duffy White, a close friend, extraordinarily competent and experienced warrior and a man who combines pragmatism with a great sense of humor. America has a few more like him as do our allies no doubt – inshallah we will see all of them over here soon using the decentralized tactics required for bringing security to people living outside the main cities and military bases.
Poor Bloody Infantry - they wouldn't have it any other way
This morning’s email contained two different security alerts about impending attacks on the vital Jalalabad Kabul road. We have been here for almost eight years and still have not oriented our forces to provide security for the vast majority of the Afghan population. We are running out of time but it is not too late to get more of our forces oriented on the population and operating like the lone rifle platoon from the 2nd Battalion 7th Marines did in Shewan a few days ago. That requires courage from commanders on high there are troops on the ground who already have that courage and are ready to fight like lions in order to give people they do not know a chance to enter the modern world. That is a worthy fight by any standard of measurement.
We had to make a run to Kabul last Friday to take some clients to the airport and to pick up new ones. The Jalalabad to Kabul road is considered very dangerous by the military and US State Department, of medium risk by the UN, and very little risk by me and the hundreds of internationals who travel the route daily. The Taliban or other Armed Opposition Groups (AOG) have never ambushed internationals on this route with the sole exception of taking some pot shots at a UN convoy last week. The reason this route remains open is that it is too important to all the players in Afghanistan to risk its closure, almost 80% of the Afghan GDP flows along it so the Taliban would have a real PR problem if they cut it causing a large scale humanitarian crisis. The criminal gangs and drug lords who cooperate with the Taliban would also become very agitated if the road were closed and probably turn on any real Taliban groups foolish enough to be within their reach if that happened.
We don’t take this run lightly but we often choose to make it without body armor or long guns because we are afraid of being ambushed by the other villains members of the Afghan security forces. On Friday our long string of luck ran out and we became the latest victim of the Afghan security company game. It cost us two sets of body armor which we cannot replace because you cannot import body armor into Afghanistan and we were lucky to get away with the weapons (which are also irreplaceable.)
NDS Commander and 2IC
Many think of private security companies as analogous to mercenary bands with all the associated negative connotations. A few of them are shady companies and deserve all the contempt and bad karma in the world to befall their greedy principals. But most of the companies operating here are well run and highly professional. To facilitate bringing the rule of law to Afghanistan they formed an association three years ago to assist in the effort to regulate the industry. However that effort has been stymied at every turn by Afghan government officials who seem less interested in regulation or the rule of law than establishing rules from which they will clearly benefit. Just one of many examples; when the first set of regulations were written by the Afghan government it stipulated the payment of all fees and penalties would be made to the Ministry of the Interior (MoI). The Private Security Company Association of Afghanistan (PSCAA) politely pointed out that the new Afghanistan constitution specifically stated that all fees and taxes would be paid to the Ministry of Finance. There is enough international mentors at the Ministry of Finance (MoF) to ensure fees paid into that ministry go directly to the Government treasury.
It was immediately clear that our assistance in Afghan constitutional law interpretation was not well received and the process has gone downhill ever since. There still are no valid laws regarding PSC’s in Afghanistan but there have been a series of “temporary” licenses issued which every legitimate company in Afghanistan has acquired. These “temporary” licenses of course mean little with state security organs not part of the MoI. Afghan security forces have arrested internationals working for licensed PSC’s who had individual weapons permits from the MoI and thrown them in jail for weeks at a time. Although we cannot replace the body armor stolen from us we were lucky to get off lightly, it would be difficult for a small company like ours to raise the cash needed for springing an international out of the Puli Charki prison.
Here is how it went down. We were through the Mahipar pass and almost to Kabul. We came up to the last “S” shaped curve before the Puli Charki checkpoint and there was a NDS (National Directorate of Security) checkpoint set up with belt fed machineguns off to the side and a good ¼ mile between the east and west checkpoints.
Unfortunately I did not have the Shem Bot with me so I had Haji jann, my good friend and official driver in the contested areas, come down from Kabul to drive us up. This turned out to be a critical mistake because the NDS will not toy with two armed expats when one is driving but when they see an armed Expat with a local driver it is an indicator for an ” illegally” armed international which means big cash if they play their cards right. I flashed my weapons permit and license but the boys noted my two clients, PhD candidates from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) – had body armor. In Afghanistan body armor (used to protect clients), armored vehicles (also used to protect clients) and two-way radios are considered the tools of war and those of us working here must obtain licenses for them. But clients change constantly so we cannot get individual licenses for them. We have also never had a problem with this catch-22 before because our language skills and charming personalities normally forestall any potential disagreements.
The reason I take Haji jann on all missions into contested areas is because he is a former Taliban commander of some repute (emphasis on former.) He has also been with me through thick and thin and I love the guy, we talk for hours although I understand very little of what he says but we love to chin wag with each other. I heard him say right after we were stopped something like “the armed white guy is a little crazy and I would not arrest him if I were you.” I gave him the WTF Hajii? look and he did not smile indicating things were serious.
The National Directorate of Security (NDS) wanted the body armor from my MIT clients because they had no license. They also started searching our baggage which was problematic. I had another gig starting up in Kabul and had extra rounds, magazines, and a first aid kit all of which is considered illegal (for internationals) in Afghanistan. The “commander” who is the pot bellied slack jawed fellow in the black fleece started pulling all my stuff out for confiscation.
I looked at Haji jann who shook his head slightly giving me the go sign and went off like a firecracker at the “commander” who also instantly lost his cool and started to yell back at me. That is a great sign because it indicates fear on his part and I knew I was not going to lose my spare ammo (which is expensive) and first aid kit. When he started yelling I started smiling my wolf smile which fellow sheepdogs would recognize as a pre-incident indicator and criminals recognize as a sign they have overplayed their hand. But they took the body armor off my MIT charges and I really could do nothing about it. The “commander” gave me his own wolf smile when his boys stole the body armor because he knew there was no cell signal in the canyon, so what was I going to do? You can only push so far in a situation like this.
Here is the weird part. Amy Sun our other MIT charge was snapping pictures and caught three armed men way up on the ridge line watching things unfold. They were armed but way outside the range of the AK 47’s they were carrying.
One of the watchers on the northern ridgeline
slightly enhanced view
I have no idea who these guys were but do know that the Taliban and in particular Al Qaeda fighters value good body armor and pay well for it. I suspect these guys are now the proud owners of two sets of premium body armor. I may be wrong about that but my current disgust over this incident drives me to assume the worst.
This kind of harassment has been routine for the past 18 months in Kabul. We have been spared because we have the proper licenses and travel normally in pairs. Yesterday I was copied on an email from the security director of the biggest US AID contractor in the land about one of their projects in the north. It is slightly redacted:
“This afternoon Gen Khalil, commander of the police in Sherbegan, visited one of our well sites demanding to see the PSC license of (deleted) Security. He informed (deleted) that the license expired and that they have until 16:00 to produce a new one or face arrest. Rather than facing arrest all LN guards were stood down and the Expats and TCNs went to Mazar to stay over for the night. This leaves one of our sites uncovered and can have a serious impact on our operations.
Can MOI please as a matter of urgency issue new licenses? Maybe someone in MOI can talk some sense into (deleted) head. His no is xxxxxxx”
Which brings us to the US Embassy and how they react to news like this which is (to my mind) deplorable. The embassy take is and I quote “we do not encourage US citizens to come to Afghanistan for any reason and will not help you in your dealings with the Afghan government. If you are arrested we will endeavor to ensure you have adequate food and a blanket.” It is hard for me to relate the disappointment with which I view our Department of State. I was the project manager for the American Embassy guard force and know exactly what goes on inside our embassy but because I have invested every penny I have in my company I will refrain from further comment.
A major problem with the stability operations part of our campaign in Afghanistan is that the local people do not think we are serious. The local people are the prize here, everything we are doing should be focused on bringing security and infrastructure to the district level to benefit them. But we aren’t and the local people cannot believe that after seven years we still cannot get the most basic infrastructure programs accomplished. The most efficient way to do that is with small numbers of armed contractors who are able to work at the district level for extended periods of time. There are a few people doing that right now, they are armed because they have to be, and they are doing the daily quality control of Afghan contractors working on various reconstruction projects. We need to have more of them out here both mentoring and doing quality control of the projects awarded to Afghan small businessmen. That level of oversight and reporting brings in donor dollars because the money can be accounted for. Donor dollars and expat project management would significantly help break the funding logjam which currently hampers district level reconstruction of roads, irrigation systems and micro hydro power generation.
At some point one hopes the powers that be will realize this and aggressively support the Americans and other internationals who are operating far outside the comfortable confines of Kabul. For right now we are basically on our own which will eventually lead to tragedy. Nothing good will come from continued confrontations between dodgy police running “surprise” checkpoints and armed internationals.
We had the rare treat of accompanying some guys working for the U.S. Army to the Torkham border today. They went up to chat with the platoon of American MP’s who jointly man the border crossing with the Afghan Border Police (ABP). The MP’s have a very cool gig at the Torkham. They mentor their Afghan counterparts and also keep an eye on the large volume of human and vehicular traffic which flows between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Army guys who let us tag along were conducting some “man on the street” interviews and getting very encouraging remarks from the Afghans they talked with. The American soldier who did the interviewing was born in Pakistan and raised in Washington State. He talks Pashto with an eastern accent (taught to him by the military defense language school a positive sign that we are developing the right skill sets) so the locals assume he is an Afghan. One Afghan we chatted up had the most interesting things to say about both Americans and the problems facing Afghans. I’ll paste in a video of that interview at the end of this post. Americans who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan know the gratitude that local people feel towards them. They often remark about a people who leave their homes and families to help a war ravaged population recover while asking for nothing in return. Just as in Iraq the average Afghan is very moved by what we have done for his country as you will see in the embedded interview. When you hear people express themselves this way it is easier to understand why so many men and woman in our military volunteer to come back for multiple tours. As I have said repeatedly in previous posts the Afghans really like Americans and given a vote on the matter would like to see many more.
As you approach the Torkham border crossing you come upon an extensive open air chop shop. Most of these cars processed in this area come from the auto salvage lots of America and Canada. Trucks bring them up from port in Karachi and off load them on the Pakistan side where gangs of kids push them across the border to the chop shop area about a mile down the road. Crowds of kids bring barrels of fuel and used oil back across the border to Pakistan where it can be recycled. This is one of the industries which really needs infrastructure help or the toxic waste run off will seep into the ground water in concentrations even the locals cannot ignore or tolerate.
The American MP’s keep an eye on the border crossing and are involved in any apprehensions of smugglers. They find weapons, drugs and explosives routinely. There are also former US Customs agents working as contractors to mentor the senior ABP supervisors. Joint military/contractor teams like this one are the wave of the future. There is no proven way to increase the effectiveness of security forces in the third world short of in the field mentorship. It is good for the Afghans who work this vital crossing and it is also good for the Americans who are out here daily interacting with local people.
Chatting with the soldiers at the border
Outside the customs office catching up on how things are going on the border
Afghan vehicles cannot drive into Pakistan – these guys are getting dropped off by a friend
Can’t leave the belt fed machineguns unattended so the guys rotate through this boring post
There was a collection of Afghans who lived in Pakistan but were of Uzbek, Hazara or Tajik origin. A group of Uzbek Taliban with a considerable amount of explosives was captured recently in Pakistan and they are not letting anyone who looks remotely Uzbek into the country without an official visa. These men are waiting to see who else from their group is going to get the boot. What stands out in situations like this is that there is no violence or even harsh words exchanged as these guys get the bad news from the Pakistani Frontier Guard. They explain the situation and escort the men over to their Afghan counterparts who add in their condolences and ask them to wait off to the side as long as they like.
Uzbecks from Afghanistan wait around to see who else from their group is going to be turned back by the Pakistani’s
Here are some interesting people shots from the border.
There seems to be an unusually high concentration of orphans
It is a long walk to the crossing and you often see kids and woman getting pushed around in hand trucks like this
Dr. Sun at the border. She has an amazing ability to talk her way onto trips like this – the troops always enjoy chatting her up.
Old man at the border – Afghans will stop and pose for photographers regardless of age and location
As we were leaving we brought some Samosa from one of the child vendors and head back to Jalalabad. We stopped to chat with an Afghan we saw walking down the road near the American FOB Torkham which is about five miles west of the border. I have heard similar sentiments from Afghans all over the country Happy Veterans Day to all who have or are now serving. Here is a regular Afghan passing on his thanks too.
Samosa – like eating a stick of butter but tastier
I know I promised you a video at the end, but the Army guys asked us to scrub out their guy from the vid. Here’s the audio track only to tide you over until we’ve edited the video: torkham_interview_sound_only
We had the rare treat of accompanying some guys working for the U.S. Army to the Torkham border today. They went up to chat with the platoon of American MP’s who jointly man the border crossing with the Afghan Border Police (ABP). The MP’s have a very cool gig at the Torkham. They mentor their Afghan counterparts and also keep an eye on the large volume of human and vehicular traffic which flows between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Army guys who let us tag along were conducting some “man on the street” interviews and getting very encouraging remarks from the Afghans they talked with. The American soldier who did the interviewing was born in Pakistan and raised in Washington State. He talks Pashto with an eastern accent (taught to him by the military defense language school a positive sign that we are developing the right skill sets) so the locals assume he is an Afghan. One Afghan we chatted up had the most interesting things to say about both Americans and the problems facing Afghans. I’ll paste in a video of that interview at the end of this post. Americans who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan know the gratitude that local people feel towards them. They often remark about a people who leave their homes and families to help a war ravaged population recover while asking for nothing in return. Just as in Iraq the average Afghan is very moved by what we have done for his country as you will see in the embedded interview. When you hear people express themselves this way it is easier to understand why so many men and woman in our military volunteer to come back for multiple tours. As I have said repeatedly in previous posts the Afghans really like Americans and given a vote on the matter would like to see many more.
As you approach the Torkham border crossing you come upon an extensive open air chop shop. Most of these cars processed in this area come from the auto salvage lots of America and Canada. Trucks bring them up from port in Karachi and off load them on the Pakistan side where gangs of kids push them across the border to the chop shop area about a mile down the road. Crowds of kids bring barrels of fuel and used oil back across the border to Pakistan where it can be recycled. This is one of the industries which really needs infrastructure help or the toxic waste run off will seep into the ground water in concentrations even the locals cannot ignore or tolerate.
The American MP’s keep an eye on the border crossing and are involved in any apprehensions of smugglers. They find weapons, drugs and explosives routinely. There are also former US Customs agents working as contractors to mentor the senior ABP supervisors. Joint military/contractor teams like this one are the wave of the future. There is no proven way to increase the effectiveness of security forces in the third world short of in the field mentorship. It is good for the Afghans who work this vital crossing and it is also good for the Americans who are out here daily interacting with local people.
Afghan vehicles cannot drive into Pakistan - these guys are getting dropped off by a friend
There was a collection of Afghans who lived in Pakistan but were of Uzbek, Hazara or Tajik origin. A group of Uzbek Taliban with a considerable amount of explosives was captured recently in Pakistan and they are not letting anyone who looks remotely Uzbek into the country without an official visa. These men are waiting to see who else from their group is going to get the boot. What stands out in situations like this is that there is no violence or even harsh words exchanged as these guys get the bad news from the Pakistani Frontier Guard. They explain the situation and escort the men over to their Afghan counterparts who add in their condolences and ask them to wait off to the side as long as they like.
Here are some interesting people shots from the border.
There seems to be an unusually high concentration of orphans on the border
As we were leaving we brought some Samosa from one of the child vendors and head back to Jalalabad. We stopped to chat with an Afghan we saw walking down the road near the American FOB Torkham which is about five miles west of the border. I have heard similar sentiments from Afghans all over the country Happy Veterans Day to all who have or are now serving. Here is a regular Afghan passing on his thanks too.
I know I promised you a video at the end, but the Army guys asked us to scrub out their guy from the vid. Here’s the audio track only to tide you over until we’ve edited the video: torkham_interview_sound_only
One of the coolest things about living in Afghanistan is the sense of history which surrounds one as you trek off the beaten path. In the rural districts the daily routine of the people has altered little in hundreds of years. It is easy to find the sites of historic battles or ancient ruins which few westerners have seen. The hospitality of the Afghans is constant reminder that the capacity for good in people transcends the evil which constantly searches for cold hearts or idle brains where it can embed and grow. An armed society is a polite society but the Afghans take politeness to an extreme that is at times bewildering.
Yet the Afghans have never been able to govern themselves effectively. Despite their culture of warm hospitality to guests and strangers their political culture remains polarized, vicious, and deadly. These are tribal lands with a small percentage of “haves” and a large population of “have not’s.” The “haves” are the leaders with positions determined at birth and not resented by people at the village level because they do not “have” that much more than their fellow tribal members. The “have not’s” do not agitate politically because they spend most of their lives trying to find the next meal. They are not like American poor afflicted with health issues from morbid obesity. Poor people here die of starvation, poor children die of exposure during the harsh winters even on the streets of Kabul.
This is what real poverty looks like. Remember these kids who stand little chance of reaching adulthood the next time you hear NPR or CBS or the racial grievance mongers carrying on about the poor in America.
And speaking of politics, guess what the first topic was when I joined the elders of Sherzad district for a lunch meeting last Thursday? Barack Obama and I am not making that up. Talk about weird but let me set the trip up before I get to that.
Traveling into contested tribal lands is a bit tricky. I had no doubt that Gandamak area Maliks from would provide for my safety once there but not on the trip in or out. The time tested decision making matrix is to look at what the State Department is doing and do the exact opposite. The State Department insists on brand new armored SUV’s with heavily armed contractor escorts fore and aft. I went with an old beat up Toyota pick up, no security escort, local clothes and the Taj manager, Mehrab served as both driver and interpreter. Given the amount of Taliban activity in the Southern Triangle that was the only reasonably safe way to get in and out of isolated villages like Gandamak.
The first of three downed bridges between Gandamak and Jalalabad
The road into Gandamack required us to ford three separate stream beds. The bridges that once spanned these obstacles were destroyed by the Soviets around 25 years ago. We have been fighting the Stability Operations battle here for seven years but the bridges are still down, the power plants have not been fixed and most roads are little better then they were when Alexander the Great came through the Khyber Pass in 327 BC. It took the The Soviets around seven years to build the bridges, pave the roads in the southern triangle and then blew up the bridges and destroy the roads they just built. How did the Soviets completely outclass us in the Stability Operations arena? That’s a question that will never be answered because it will never be asked.
Also destroyed 25 years ago – how do we expect the farmers to get their produce and livestock to market over this? What the hell have we been doing for the past seven years? I watchd the tallest building in the world go up in Dubai, with about 300 other super sky scrappers over the past four years but we can’t even repair a few stone bridges in seven; check that, make it 14 years?
It took over an hour to reach Gandamack which appeared to be a prosperous hamlet tucked into a small valley. The color of prosperity in Afghanistan is green because green vegetation means water and villages with access to abundant clean water are always significantly better off than those without. You can see the difference in the health of the children and livestock as well as the crops.
My host for the day was the older brother of my driver Sharif. When I first met Sharif he told me in perfect English “I speak English fluently.” I immediately hired him and issued a quick string of coordinating instructions about what we were doing in the morning then bid him good day. He failed to show up on time and when I called him to ask why it became apparent that the only words of English Sharif knew were “I speak English fluently.” You get that from Afghans. But Sharif is learning his letters and has proven an able driver plus a first rate scrounger which is a vital for the health and comfort of his ichi ban employer.
The Maliks (tribal leaders) from Gandamak and the surrounding villages arrived shortly after we did. They walked into the meeting room armed; I had left my rifle in the vehicle which, as the invited foreign guest, I felt obligated to do. Gandamak is in Indian Country and everybody out here is armed to the teeth. The day started with a shura about what they needed from international NGO’s, followed by a tour of the Gandamak battlefield, and then lunch. I was not going to be able to do much about what they needed but I could listen politely which is all they asked of me. I’ve enjoyed visiting battlefields since I was a kid and when my Dad and I visited the Gettysburg, Antietam, The Wilderness and Fredericksburg battlefields. I especially enjoy visiting obscure battlefields in dangerous places and to the best of my knowledge I’m the only westerner who visited the Gandamak battlefield in the last 60 or so years.
Back Cover of the Osprey War Series book The First Afghan War 1839-1842 written by Richard Macrory in 2016. He told me I was the only westerner who visited the Gandamak Battlefield during the 20 year Afghan American War
As the Maliks arrived they started talking among themselves in hushed tones and I kept hearing the name “Barack Obama.” I was apprehensive; I’m surrounded by Obama fanatics every Thursday night at the Taj bar. It is unpleasant talking with them because they know absolutely nothing about the man other than he is not Bush and looks cool. They are convinced he is more than ready to be president because NPR said so. I has no interest in pointing out that Obama has zero experience at executive leadership and will make a terrible president to the Maliks. They have time and will insist on hashing things out for as long as it takes for them to reach a clear understanding. I have a wrist watch and a short attention span; this was not starting off well.
Sharif’s Great Great Grandfather and son waiting on the Brits to make it down from Kabul
As I feared the morning discussion started with the question “tell us about Barack Obama?” What was I to say? His resume is razor thin but he has demonstrated traits Pashtun Maliks could appreciate so I described how he came to power in the Chicago. Once they understood that lawyers in America are like warlords in Afghanistan and can rub out their competition ahead of an election using the law and judges instead of guns and explosives they got the picture. A man cold enough to win every office by eliminating his competition before the vote is a man the Pashtun’s can understand. I told them that Obama will probably win and that I have no idea how that will impact our effort in Afghanistan.
They asked if Obama was African and I resisted the obvious answer of who knows? Instead I said his father was a Black African and his mother a white American so he identifies himself as a Black American. They asked if he was joining his mothers tribe why wouldn’t he be considered white like her? I didn’t want to get into the racial spoils system in America sio I lied and said racial classification was determined by the father’s race.
What followed was (I think) a long discussion about Africans; were they or were they not good Muslims. I assume this stems from the Africans they may have seen during the Al Qaeda days. I think the conclusion was that the Africans were like the Arabs and therefore considered the local equivalent of scumbags. They talked among themselves for several more minutes and I heard John McCain’s name several times but they did not ask anymore about the pending election praise be to God. They assured me that they like all Americans regardless of hue and it would be better to see more of them especially if they took off the helmets and body armor because that scares the kids and woman folk. And their big MRAPS scare the cows who already don’t have enough water and feed so scaring them causes even less milk to be produced and on and on and on; these guys knew how to beat a point to death.
Maliks of Sherzad district
We talked for around 35 more minutes about the anemic American reconstruction effort, their needs and the rise in armed militancy. The American military visits about once a month and remain popular with the local people. They have built some mico hydro power projects upstream from Gandamak which the people (even those who do not benefit from the project) much appreciate. The US AID contractor DAI has several projects in the district which the elders feel could be done better if they were given the money to do it themselves but despite this DAI is welcomed and their efforts much appreciated. When I asked who had kidnapped the DAI engineer (a local national) last month and how we could go about securing his release (which was another reason for my visit) they shrugged and one of them said “who knows”? That was to be expected but I felt compelled to ask anyway.
The elders explained, without me asking, that they are serious about giving up poppy cultivation but they have yet to see the promised financial aid for doing so. They need a road over which to transport their goods to market. They need their bridges repaired, and they need their irrigation systems restored to the condition they were in back in the 1970’s. They said that with these improvements would come security and more commerce. One of them made a most interesting comment and that was something to the effect of “the way the roads are now the only thing we can economically transport over them is the poppy.”
At the conclusion of the talking part of the meeting the senior Maliks and I piled into my SUV and headed to the Gandamak battlefield.
The Last Stand of the 44th Foot
The final stand at Gandamak occurred on the 13th of January 1842. Twenty officers and forty five British soldiers, most from the 44th Foot pulled off the road onto a hillock when they found the pass to Jalalabad blocked by Afghan fighters. They must have pulled up on the high ground to take away the mobility advantage of the horse mounted Afghan fighters. The Afghans closed in and tried to talk the men into surrendering their arms. A sergeant was famously said to reply “not bloody likely” and the fight was on. Six officers cut their way through the attackers and tried to make it to British lines in Jalalabad. Only one, Dr Brydon, made it to safety.
The Gandamack Hill today
Our first stop was to what the Maliks described as “The British Prison” which was up on the side of a pass about a mile from the battlefield. We climbed up the steep slope at a vigorous pace set by the senior Malik. About halfway up we came to what looked to be an old foundation and an entrance to a small cave. They said this was a British prison. I can’t imagine how that could be – there were no British forces here when the 44th Foot was cut down but they could have established a garrison years later I suppose. Why the Brits would shove their prisoners down inside a cave located so high up on the side of a mountain is a mystery and I doubted this story behind what looked to be a mine entrance. It was a nice brisk walk up the a very steep hill and I kept up with the senior Malik which was probably the point of this detour.
Entrance to the “Brit Jail
Heading up the slope to the Brit jail – not an easy walk
After checking that out we headed to the battlefield proper. We stopped at the end of a finger which looked exactly like any other finger jutting down from the mountain range above us. It contained building foundations which had been excavated a few years back. Apparently some villagers started digging through the site looking for anything they could sell in Peshawar shortly after the Taliban fell. The same thing happened at the Minaret of Jamm until the central government got troops out there to protect the site. The elders claimed to have unearthed a Buddha statue there which they figured the British must have pilfered in Kabul. By my estimation there are 378,431 “ancient one-of-a-kind Buddha statues” for sale in Afghanistan to the westerner dumb enough to buy one. The penalties for stealing ancient artifacts are severe; messing around with that stuff is not something reasonable people do in unstable third world lands.
I do not know where these foundations came from. Back in 1842 the closest British troops were 35 miles away in Jalalabad and there are no reports of the 44th Foot pulling into an existing structure. We were in the right area – just off the ancient back road which runs to Kabul via the Latabad Pass. My guides were certain this finger was where the battle occurred and as their direct ancestors participated in it I assumed we were on the correct piece of dirt. I would bet that the foundations are from a small British outpost built here possibly to host the Treaty of Gandamak signing in 1879 or for the purpose of recovering the remains of their dead for proper internment.
Site of the final battle
Foundation from an unknown building on Gandamak Hill
The visit concluded with a large lunch and after we had finished and the food was removed our meeting was officially ended with a short prayer. I’m not sure what the prayer said but it was short. I’m an infidel; short is good.
Man I love Kabuli Pilau – and eating with my hands. Mehrab Siraj, a close friend and the Manager of the Taj guesthouse is sitting to my right
Post Script
The Maliks of Sherzad district never received the attention they wanted from the US Government or the Afghan authorities. Instead the Taliban came to fill the void and started muscling their way into the district back in 2011. By early 2012 things were bad enough that my old driver Shariff called me to see if there was anything I could do about getting the Americans to help them fight off the encroaching Taliban fighters. I was in the Helmand Province by then dealing with my own Taliban problems and could offer him nothing. That bothered me then and it bothers me now but that’s life.
In August 2012 my old friend Mehrab was gunned down by Taliban outside his home. By then several of the men I had shared a pleasant lunch with back in 2008 had also perished fighting the Taliban. Gandamak is now Taliban territory, the poppy now the main source of income. It will be a long time before a westerner will able to visit the old battlefield again.
Afghanistan is slipping rapidly towards a state of anarchy. The security situation has degraded to the point where the lavish force protection measures adopted by the Department of State Regional Security Officers and the U.S. Military seven years ago now seem prudent. Media reports attribute the decline to a resurgent Taliban movement in Pakistan combined with the explosion in illegal drugs and a corrupt ineffective central government. Many of my colleagues and I believe the crippling of the reconstruction effort by unreasonable risk aversion based security rules has more to do with the current instability than anyone sitting in Washington would care to contemplate let alone admit.
It is easy for those not directly involved in the U.S. effort to highlight and criticize programs which have failed to delivery any quantifiable sign of improvement after years of effort and billions spent. One example; we have spent over 2.5 billion dollars on a police training program which has produced nothing positive on the ground. The Afghan National Police are amongst the least trusted national institutions in Afghanistan with a well earned reputation for corruption and criminal behavior. It is difficult to believe how badly we are failing at delivering a stable, functional Afghanistan. It was time to generate some on the ground data from a dangerous place and no district in Nangarhar Province is as dangerous as Sherzad district.
The first meeting with the Maliks – I love eating with my hands and this was some excellent chow
Nobody was going to pay me to go to Sherzad and determine ground truth but they didn’t need to because Sherzad is home to the village of Gandamak which guards the Gandamak battlefield and the only way to see the battlefield is with the permission of the men controlling Gandamak, one of who is my loyal driver Sherif. In fact I rent two of my SUV’s from Sharif’s brother who is the mayor of Gandamak.
Having connections is not a magic solution in Afghanistan because I still had a month of intricate negotiations with the Maliks of Sherzad which started with me hosting them for lunch in Jbad. The term Malik is used in Pashtun tribal areas for tribal leaders. Maliks serve as de facto arbiters in local conflicts, interlocutors in state policy-making, tax-collectors, heads of village and town councils. Although they do not officially represent the district government (they are part of a larger board) they do speak for the people.
Nangarhar Province district map
Sherzad district is part of what is known as the “Southern Triangle” in Nangarhar Province. This is one of the areas where we have lost ground over the last year. The Sherzad district administrative center has been attacked three times in the past month by AOG fighters. IED discoveries and attacks are routine, night letters are frequently reported, as are other acts of intimidation. This district is the closest point of the southern triangle to the Taj guesthouse and our staff are from there but they are Pashayi speakers (meaning they are hillbillies originally from Hisarak district) just like the owner.
We spent the two hours at that first meeting as I listened without comment to the standard story about local Taliban being financed by groups in Pakistan. That is not exactly news and it assumes westerners don’t understand the difference between Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s militia (HIG) and the other Peshawar Shura Taliban. Then I was told It was the “bad people from the mountains” who are launching indirect fire and small arms attack on the US Army’s FOB Lonestar (located next door in Khogyani district) not the local people despite them being paid by groups in Pakistan. I indicated I had no interest in the Taliban unless the Taliban had developed an interest in me so the Malik’s deftly switched topics.
The elders said Governor Sherazai promised them jobs and irrigation projects if they stopped growing the poppy and so they did but have received nothing. They say that the governor is getting richer by growing the poppy on his lands in Khandahar while their children go without food or proper clothing. They also said (quite firmly) that if they get enough rain this winter they are going to start growing the poppy again because they feel tricked out of their share of the booming drug economy. They warned that once they start growing the poppy they will not allow any foreigners or government people into the district to destroy the crop.
Now for a little ground truth from an old Afghan hand. I do not know how much of what they said is true yet. But nobody within the vast US effort could know how much of it is true either. You can’t learn ground truth from one meeting. Everything the Malik’s told me I could have guessed ahead of time. This is the standard litany of complaints (in one form or the other) I have heard in meetings from one end of Afghanistan to the other. This is not to say that everything they said that day was not true or how they felt but you need to do more work before you can claim understanding.
I asked the Maliks how they claimed they had their district under control when “bad men from the mountains” show up at night to create mischief. They simply replied “what do you expect us to say?’ Which was a good point. I then asked if they had the time to take me to the Gandamak battlefield in the near future and they we could go next week but that it was dangerous so I should come with a rifle. I asked if I could bring my friends who have rifles and they no, that would not be necessary as they would guarantee my safety. I had no problems with that as I might be on my own but would still be among friends.
