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.
There are two main routes heading through the mountains to the east out of Kabul. The Latabad Pass, which is a poorly maintained dirt track road, and the Mahipar Pass which is a newly paved road and in excellent condition. Both passes funnel traffic into the village of Surobi and from there all traffic heading east must take the main Jalalabad to Kabul road, which is also called Route One. The trip between Jalalabad and Kabul takes about two hours on the paved road and four on the Latabad Pass route. Traveling in the east was very safe until this past summer when fuel tankers started getting ambushed in the Tangi valley, which is just to the east of Surobi. Some of these attacks were made by criminal gangs to cover up fuel theft and some looked to be the work of Taliban affiliated fighters. The first post on this blog covered our efforts to determine what was happening on this vital route.
Security on the route has improved in the past week as the Afghan National Army patrols it much more aggressively. They have to because almost all the supplies needed by ISAF enter the country at the Torkham border and move over the Jalalabad Kabul road.
The main road out of Kabul goes through the Puli Charki pass. This is a good picture of that pass looking back towards the direction of Kabul.
The road then heads down the Mahipar Pass which is really spectacular;
The guys at Bill and Bob’s Excellent Adventure have video of them driving the switchbacks of Mahipar Pass in their Hummers which you can find here. They say it takes them three hours to do this drive the Bot and I average 90 minutes. Being unarmored and low profile allows us to move smoothly through the countryside and smooth is fast.
As the road heads towards Surobi a few abandoned villages can be seen across the river. These villages were destroyed by the Soviet Army who would not tolerate attacks on their military convoys. If they felt a village had provided Mujaheddin fighters with sanctuary there was only one response complete destruction. When you see a village like this today which has not been reclaimed by people it is a good indicator that there are lots of mines and/or unexploded ordinance seeded into the soil. Only the very foolish would approach structures like this. When the de-mining teams work these areas they leave behind white rocks where they have cleared, and with the white rocks will come people to reclaim what little productive land remains around these unfortunate settlements.
One of the frequent and more interesting sights along this road are the nomadic Kuchi people, who head up into the northern mountains for the summer and back into the lower plains around Jalalabad during the winter months. These are a hardy people who follow their own ancient traditions even the Taliban were deferential to them and did not attempt to force their women into the Burka. They are mostly illiterate and they have not had a good run since the Soviets invaded Afghanistan almost 30 years ago. Drought, land mines, UXO’s, and constant conflict with Afghans villagers over open range grazing areas have decimated the Kuchi. These are people who really bitterly cling to their guns and religion – and with good reason.
Typical Kuchi camp with low tents, camels and dogs but no water or vegitation nearby
Kuchi’s using the foundation of an old destroyed fort to anchor their tents. The woman do not wear the burka and are often responsible for moving the family while the men scout ahead for their next camp site
The Kuchi nomads are not the only people you see on this road Afghan families being repatriated by the UN are a common site too. This used to be a money maker for more affluent Afghans. Every spring they would fly into Peshawar and rent a truck, fill it with empty boxes and some cheap livestock, rent a family or two worth of woman and children to throw on top, and then proceed to the UN repatriation station for their cash payment to go home. Much to my surprise I have learned there are parts of the UN which function with admirable efficiency. This was the case with UNDP Peshawar who obtained biometric data measurements on all returning displaced persons thus instantly eliminating the massive fraud which had plagued the program. The UN also runs absolutely first rate mine dog training and certification programs, thus ensuring mine dogs are in fact performing to standard. There are no similar standards for bomb dogs in Afghanistan outside of the military working dogs and almost every bomb dog team in this country should be considered suspect. The good canine operations will follow the US Army training manual on canine team employment to the letter; the marginal operations have little in the way of training program documentation at all. It is too bad the UN does not have a mandate to certify all detection dog teams working in Afghanistan.
Afghan men heading towards Kabul in high spirits
I’m not too sure I’d be so happy to be riding down Rte 1 like this but it is a common site.
Here is a picture of the Latabad Pass dusty, miserable, dangerous and long. We had to use this route for about three months earlier in the year when the main route was closed for repairs. I get a headache just thinking about it.
Latabad Pass – May a pox fall upon anyone who makes me drive that route again
All passes lead into Surobi a large town with good water and 24/7 electricity thanks to the hydroelectric dam which is named after the town. This is the territory of Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin (HIG) which was founded by the warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. The boys from HIG are not our friends. Their leader is not too friendly with the Taliban either, but does cooperate with them when it is in his interests. He also has a long association with Al Qaeda and we believe that the foreign fighters who moved into the Surobi area and tangled with the French back in August were funded and protected by HIG. Although there is a strong Afghan police presence in Surobi and many internationals travel through the town daily on Rte 1 it is not a good idea to stop here.
The Surobi Dam – Rte 1 is on the other side of this reservoir as is the town of Surobi. This picture was taken from the head of the Uzbin valley which is now Indian Country
Once you exit Surobi (if you’re smart) you’ll drive like hell through the Tangi valley and on into Jalalabad. The Tangi saw a half dozen or so attacks on fuel tankers this summer. Since the end of Eid there have been several reports of Taliban affiliated vehicle check points (VCP’s) appearing on this part of the road. These VCP’s could well be manned by criminals who are shaking down motorists for money, but UNDSS reports say they are looking for Afghans who work for the government or international organizations. It is hard to say without interviewing the Afghans who were stopped at these VCP’s, but I can tell you this much it is impossible for these VCP’s to operate without some sort of tacit support from the ANP who man checkpoints on the road every 2 to 3 kilometers. I drove to Kabul yesterday to resupply the Taj bar and saw that the Afghan National Army (ANA) had units on the road and in the high ground throughout the Tangi Valley area. They really have to drive any criminal or enemy activity off the road because all of the ISAF supplies and most of the Afghan legitimate commerce travel this route to and from Pakistan. If the route were cut the impact on both the international military and normal Afghans would be disastrous.
FRI incident investigation team augmented by Dr. Sun from MIT. This tanker was destroyed by Taliban fighters. Most of the others attacked and burned last summer we attribute to fuel theft.
When heading into the east of Afghanistan the international visitor has to stay on the main paved roads and really has one of two destinations. They can visit Jalalabad or they can head to the Torkham border and cross into Pakistan via the Khyber Pass. The other Provinces in the east Nuristan, Kunar and most of Laghman are considered extremely high risk. The US Army averages several firefights per day in Kunar Province (although they rarely take any casualties). Nuristan is very isolated and violent and would generate more incident reporting were it not for the fact that no international organizations (except the military) operate there. Jalalabad City is in Nangarhar Province which is generally considered to be stable. However the districts of Nangarhar bordering the Spin Ghar (White Mountains which contain Tora Bora) are rapidly falling out of the government’s control. Taliban flags now fly openly in the bazaars of Khogiani district which is very close to Jalalabad moving off Rte 1 into the surrounding countryside is not a good idea unless you really know what you are doing.
Jalalabad is a city of some 200,000 people and sits at the junction of the Kabul and Kunar rivers. It remains the business center for the region and is considered a “green” or open city by the UN. There are lots of schools in Jalalabad and lots of kids. The international community has been here over seven years yet there is still very little electricity or infrastructure improvements. There is a hydro electric dam in the Duranta area just outside the city which is supposed to be refurbished as part of the US AID AIRP program. The Louis Berger Group was awarded this multi-Billion dollar program in 2006 but they have not gotten around to the Duranta Dam which is (to be fair) a very small component of that massive effort.
The Duranta power plant was put back on line with donations from local businessmen in 2003.
The Duranta Dam was built in the 1950’s by the Soviet Union and is producing 25% of its rated capacity due to equipment shortages. The plant managers told me that it was bombed by US planes back in 2001 but I don’t believe that. When American Tactical Aircraft go after a target like a hydroelectric dam there is normally not much left of it when they finish. I saw no evidence that it had been attacked back in 2006 when we conducted a security assessment for the refurbishing project we thought was to start back then. There are probably good reasons why, two years later, nothing has been done. No doubt one could sit in the US Embassy and get a great PowerPoint from US AID explaining what to me is unexplainable.
So the people of Jalalabad go without electricity and seven years into our rebuilding effort you see this; schools without lights, or heat, or much of anything. Allow me a slight rant here please. Every year I hear the ISAF commander stressing the fact that the reconstruction effort is the most important mission in Afghanistan. There is no question that this is true. Yet the reconstruction effort has yet to gain momentum while the central government continues to lose control over larger sections of the countryside. This will slow the reconstruction effort to a snail’s pace. Well, that is not true – it is at snails pace now and always has been so I guess I’ll have to think of a metaphor for slower than a snails pace.
It was freezing cold when I took this picture last winter. Note the chairs and desks piled up on the roof of the school building. You see that at every school in the area because they take up too much room in the classrooms given all the children who attend.
We are cursed by the “man on the moon” phenomenon. The Afghans believe that if we could put a man on the moon than we are more than capable of fixing their infrastructure if we really wanted to. I understand that this is a common problem in third world redevelopment work. Another common problem is the conviction amongst the educated locals that the CIA has a master plan and everything that happens is a planned milestone from the master plan. Trying to explain the historically dismal record of our Central Intelligence Agency is pointless no one believes you. And so the frustration mounts and the population which is the center of gravity slips further away from us. These are the seeds of disaster which if allowed to grow will cause our defeat.
The Afghans believe in education but do not have the capacity to provide enough of it to their children
The second best reason to drive east from Kabul is to pay a visit to the Khyber Pass. You need to obtain special permission to transit the tribal areas of Pakistan. If you enter from the Afghanistan side and exit the tribal lands in Peshawar you have to again get permission to transit them back to Afghanistan. I learned this the hard way which was a most unpleasant experience and cost me a ton of cash. The pass is just plain cool 53 kilometers long and 3 meters wide at its most narrow point. On one of my trips I was escorting a diplomat from one of our strongest allies. We had a large armed escort which you can see in the picture below. Note the old belt fed machinegun bungee corded to the top of the pickup bed cover. This is a stupid way to rig a machinegun and is more for show than utility. It also tells the military experts out there a lot about the kind of weapons and support the Khyber Rifles enjoy today. These old weapons may help explain why the Frontier Corps gets beaten like a drum every time they try to take on the Pakistani Taliban.
Ceremonial escort – although Rambo could make it through a 2 hour movie with just 10 rounds of linked ball hanging out of his machinegun feed tray in real life it doesn’t work that way. These troops are carrying enough ammo to last them about 45 seconds in a real firefight.
The Michni Post is the ceremonial HQ of the Khyber Rifles and it overlooks the Torkham crossing into Afghanistan. The Khyber Rifles do an excellent dog and pony show for visiting VIP’s. I’ll let the pictures tell that story.
VIP briefing room. The Khyber Rifles have a first rate presentation on their role and mission
More ceremonial guards. Having sentries pull stag out in the open like this may make sense to a Hollywood producer but not to someone who knows what they are doing (like the Pakistani Taliban.)
The Sov’s apparently shot rockets into the Khyber Agency on a regular basis back in the day.
If you are on the VIP tour you will also stop into the Khyber Rifles officer club. Back in the 1920’s when the British were still garrisoning the Khyber a group of junior officer’s stumbled out of this club in the early morning hours and thought they saw the large oak tree in front attempting to desert the post without proper orders. They had the sergeant of the guard place the tree in chains and those chains remain there to this day.
This tree was placed under arrest in 1922 for attempting to go AWOL.
Like any proper O club there are lots of plaques including this one from the mighty 22 MEU. I know Col McKenzie (now a two star if memory serves) and I’m pretty sure he didn’t clear the spelling on this plaque. I would be interested in learning how it got there. Col McKenzie commanded the 22nd MEU in 2001 2002 when they were down south policing up the Taliban and I can’t imagine that he found time for a courtesy call on the Khyber Rifles. By 2004 the good Colonel would have been on another assignment – you only get one shot at commanding a MEU. Check out the old uniforms on the side boys which reflect the incredible history of the Khyber Pass. As an old military man there are few things more interesting to me than this kind of nonsense.
The plaque reads “Presented by Col Mekenzei on 20 Jul 2004”
Traditional uniform of Khyber warriors dating back to the time of the Golden Horde
My first trip to the Khyber was self funded. I had a month to kill before going home at the end of a contract. Going home earlier would have cost me around 25k in income taxes as I had been outside the country for just 10 months. Yahya and I headed to Peshawar to kill a couple of weeks and Yahya’s childhood friends welcomed us like we were part of their extended family. This trip was on the cheap so I wore my Shalwar Kameez and we stayed in a dive guesthouse. They had 24/7 Fox News in the City View Inn which made my stay most enjoyable. We applied for permits and traveled the Khyber with Afridi tribal fighters who knew Yahya since he was boy. Yahya’s family had moved to Peshawar to escape the Soviets, but returned just before the Taliban took over. That proved to be a big mistake. The Afridi’s were an interesting crew who all wanted to immigrate to the US. I told them to cough up Bin Laden and I’d get the whole tribe green cards which they thought was really funny. Because I was their guest of honor I was duty bound to eat lunch in the most disgusting room I have set foot in. Being an American guest of honor I got to pay for the feast too which wasn’t exactly cheap. The Afridi tribe is a collection of land pirates who don’t really follow the tenants of Pashtunwali. The meal was actually very tasty and I didn’t get sick which was nothing short of amazing. We also traveled around Peshawar which has interesting museums and is home to the famous Qissa Khawani Bazaar.
Once again I’ll let the pictures flesh out the story.
The Afridi’s claim this is the best kabob stand in Landi Kotal
You can’t refuse to eat in this type situation without losing face. The only thing that ended up gripping my bowls was apprehension. The food was really good. Honest.
Outside Michni Fort on the non VIP tour with the Afridi
Yahya and some friends waiting to linkup with the rest of our land pirate guides
You see these unit plaques throughout the Khyber Pass
Qissa Khawani Bazaar.
Driving through the Khyber these days has gotten much more risky. There was serious fighting between the semi secular Afridi. like Yahya’s friends, and their more fundamentalist Taliban influenced neighbors. Scenes like the picture below are common now and unless things change dramatically I would not recommend driving through the Khyber Pass.
This week has been very busy. It started with another covert radio show interview. Brett Winterable had Bill Roggio from the Long War Journal and I on for the opening segment. Bill is an old friend who visited with us back in 2006. He and I took a run to Qalat where he got some good footage of Taliban outriders stalking a large convoy of civilian trucks. You can find the video here. Bill is also the most knowledgeable person I know on what is happening in Pakistan, the second most knowledgeable on Afghanistan and the third most knowledgeable on Iraq. I’m kidding of course, he may well be the most knowledgeable on all three – you can find a link to the podcast here.
Also on Monday Michael Yon released a post on his web site about the French Army ambush in the Uzbin valley last August. We set up his interviews and took him out to the meetings. The back story can be found in the “talking with the AOG” post I made shortly after our trip into the Uzbin. You can find the Michael Yon article here it was also linked at Fox News. Michael has moved on for now but I hope to run into him again in the future he is really a great guy doing important work.
The Bot and I getting jocked up for the run into Uzbin Valley. See the post”Talking with the AOG” for the full back story.
Proving once again that things happen in three’s on Monday night we had a huge wind storm blow through which took the transponder right off our Gatr ball thus bringing to an end (for now) our fat pipe internet. Mehrab and the Jalalabad Geek Squad from Synergy Strike Force have been trying to super glue the mounts in and get it back on line but it is still “Nishta” which in Pashto means something like “no have.” Canadian Dan and I have the day off tomorrow and will try to fix that bad boy up our ownselves but that is probably a waste of time. The Jbad geek squad is a proficient crew, if it was going to work they would have probably got it up by now.
Gatr down – winds tore the transponder off our ball. It has survived everything mother nature threw at it until last Monday night
You hate to see this – transponder attachments torn off the ball – this thing was super fast when up and running
Here is something really cool – the young boys from the village behind our guesthouse who are learning how to build battle bots. They are in the MIT sponsored FabLab which we host in our compound.
Local boys from Bagrami Village self-learning how to design and build their own bots.
There is a web page for the Jalalabad Fab Lab which can be found here and it contains links to the San Diego Sister Cities Foundation which is where the Jbad Geek Squad got its start and meager funding. For those of you who want to read about the brave men and woman who come here at their own expense to coordinate the delivery of aid directly to the people of Afghanistan you should take the time to look through those blogs. Much of the aid they bring comes from donations and charitable contributions. None of it comes from the billions of dollars being spent by US AID and our hapless Department of State. This is the story of American generosity and compassion which every American should know and be proud of.
Amy Sun during one of the many visits she made to local area schools
There are other organizations from other lands doing the same; Rory Stewart’s Turquoise Mountain Foundation jumps immediately to mind and he should be the pride of England for all the good work and good will he had brought to this blighted land. No doubt there are others here too which I do not know about. What I do know is people like Amy Sun of MIT, Ken Kraushaar and Dr. Dave Warner of the Synergy Strike Force make me proud to be an American. The most effective aid programs come from non government organizations and these people who risk so much to help with the goal of developing even more effective methodologies for aiding the poorest of the poor in the future deserve at the very least our thanks, respect and admiration.
Dr. Dave, Ken and I at the Taj last winter
Please spend a little time reading about what these talented, motivated, and very bright people are doing it will make you proud too. Plus you will be flat out amazed at what a FabLab is and what it can do.
If you are a wealthy person or heading up something like…..oh let’s say the Annenberg Foundation this is where you should leave a grant or two. You would then actually get a return on that investment rather than watching it go down some Chicago rat hole.
Making a real difference – the first group of FabLab instructors in training. This is how woman empowerment is done in a country like Afghanistan. One step at a time by internationals who live and work with the Afghan people. It takes courage to do it for all the women involved. See the Jalalabad Fablab blog roll link for the details
