Jalalabad - Free Range International

August 29, 2016May 10, 2025

Dawn Dreams About an Impending Nightmare

I’m sitting on my deck drinking coffee as the sun comes up. The sky is softening, and all the variations of reddish yellow (I can’t see them all with my red/green colorblindness, but can sense they are there) start creeping up from the dark horizon. A song is stuck in my head, and I hear it clearly: String Cheese Incident singing Arleen, not just any version of that song but the one they recorded live with the Dirty Dozen Brass Band.

The song annoys me, and I try to clear my mind when the music suddenly stops. I’m hyper-alert; I remember this feeling and immediately flash back to Afghanistan. The daydream starts again, but now I’m considering the Afghan version of Baba Tim. What is he looking at when the sun comes up? What is he thinking about? The Afghan version of me would not have a String Cheese Incident song trapped inside his head, so what would be stuck there on a beautiful early morning?

The answer flows into my consciousness without effort. As I look at the clouds building above the calm canals of Padre Island, I see an ancient fortress. This is not the famous Fighters Fortress of Mazar-e Sharif, the ancient Ghazni fortress, or the one built by Alexander the Great in Farah. The fortress the clouds are forming is the Boost Fortress in Lashkar Gah.

Lashkar Gah is the capital of Helmand Province and a town I know well, having lived there for over a year in 2010. Lashkar (soldier) Gah (fort) is an old military town occupied since the 11^th century. It now houses over half a million refugees who have fled the encroaching Taliban. There is only a brigade of ANA soldiers in Lashkar Gah, and 100 American soldiers have just reinforced them. The Afghan version of Tim Lynch would focus on these men.

The Americans are trying to create depth to the ANA defense, and they are headquartered just down the road from the fort (the old Brit PRT base) on flat open terrain now surrounded by new housing built by the USAID and occupied by Taliban sympathizers. They will not be able to land helicopters at the base when we strike and will need to move to the Boost airport, miles of heavily populated neighborhoods away, to get to fixed-wing airplanes. It is during this move, during which we will negotiate a cease-fire to facilitate, that we will kill every American.

The Afghan version of me would be in his late fifties; active and fit, free of arthritis, gout, and disease, which marks him as a landholder and tribal leader. Farmers don’t reach their fifties with the blessings of good health in the Helmand Province. I carry scars from gunshot wounds and shrapnel, which means I’m Taliban (when it is covenant to be so), and the scars combined with my good health mark me as a man who has the one attribute admired by all Afghans – consistent good luck.

My new mission, passed to me by the Quetta Shura when the Americans arrived, is to destroy (to a man) an American unit. At this stage in the war, nothing else matters. The puppet government in Kabul is a dead man walking, not legitimate in the eyes of Afghans and, more importantly, not feared by the people. The central government is no longer a threat to the success of our movement.

I know the Americans have often met with senior Marine officers; I even have a picture with Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham. When I met them, I smiled and thanked them for doing whatever they thought they were doing in Marjah. But I thought the two soft, fat, uninformed senators were not serious men. Politicians are the same regardless of land of origin; they are, in their hearts, cowards who demand others do the work while they amass personal wealth despite their limited government income. The Marines were a problem, but one of limited duration. We knew the day they arrived exactly what day they would be leaving, thanks to the African man who is the President of that land. After losing too many Mujahideen to the Marines early on, we decided to wait them out with IEDs and long-range fires.

I am in my family compound, looking at the old Boost Fort as the sun rises, and I don’t have Widespread Panic songs locked inside my head. My mind is free of clutter and as clear as my mission.

I have many sons and three wives. My oldest son is a Taliban commander, and the next oldest is a captain in the Afghan army. Three of the younger boys are in Quetta at the madrasa, and my four youngest boys are squatting in the shade next to me, watching quietly. Afghan children do not initiate conversations with their elders, they aren’t loud, they don’t fidget, they don’t argue – they obey just as Allah would wish. Once I get confirmation of today’s American deployment, the boys will each be given a position where they will spend the day. They will get the Americans to feed them and give them bottled water if they are skillful. If they aren’t, they’ll go hungry. As their father, I couldn’t care less. The smart ones will grow true and strong, the weak or stupid ones will perish young. Allah decides that, not me.

My boys will be questioned closely when they return. How are the Americans acting? Are they jittery, unsure of their Afghan partners? Do they have the same confidence those damn Marines had when they were here or do they look more like the British? I know the answers to these questions already, but reconnaissance is continuous, as any change in the demeanor of the Americans would be significant. At this point, they are scared, unsure of their new allies and the civilians surrounding them. The smell of fear is strong when near an American position.

Soon my oldest will join me with the specialists we need from Quetta. Combat multipliers are what the Americans would call them but we call them Russians as they are from the former Soviet Union and are expert snipers and demolition men. The Mujahedin from Musa Qala and Sangin are arriving daily and with them the one item I cannot have enough of; 82mm mortar rounds.

Every police checkpoint attacked at night is a cover for smuggling mortar rounds into the city. While the puppet government soldiers and police fight off small probing attacks, our boats (manned by small boys so the American planes will not attack them) move back and forth across the Helmand River, bringing more mortar rounds. Survey teams from Quetta have spent the last fortnight establishing mortar firing positions. With firing tables and their computers, they have even locked in the elevation and deflection readings for the mortar crews. We Afghans can do shock and awe, too. When the mortars start opening up from every quadrant in the city, the Americans will be shocked. The awe will come when they realize they cannot use their planes or drones but will have to fight like men.

This evening, my boys, as will the others I have deployed over the city, will be back. My commanders and I will gather their information, adjust our plans, and wait for Allah. When Allah sends a sandstorm or a rainstorm or any storm that grounds the infidels’ aircraft, we will strike, and by the time the Americans respond with their planes, we will be among the people. Thousands of Mujahideen fighters surrounded by tens of thousands of civilians will make us immune to the American air power. We will have 100 American fish in our nets and kill them all. Unless there are women with them, they will be spared for use as entertainment for the Mujahideen. Then they will be destroyed.

If the Americans do not use their attack aircraft out of fear of killing civilians, I win. If they use their air power to destroy the attacking Mujahideen, they will kill thousands of women and children, so again, I win. Win/win – that’s the way of the Pashtun because if you are going to fight, you must win, or why bother fighting? If we capture an American officer, I will have to ask him this before he is beheaded. They have fought here for a decade with no chance of winning, and I wonder why they remain.

For now, we wait, watch, plan, and listen. Allah will give us the cover we need to strike. When all the mortar rounds are here, along with the Russians and the Mujahideen from the north, I will be one move away from checkmate. The Americans will not realize their peril because they play checkers; we play chess.

I am a 58-year-old Afghan, a 1,000-year-old Muslim, but a 6,000-year-old Pashtun. The Pashtun has one and only one way to deal with infidel invaders, and that is to isolate them and kill them to a man. It’s what we do.

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February 14, 2016May 10, 2025

A War

Our favorite Hollywood insider invited Free Range International (FRI), the lovely Kanani Fong, to review the film A War. As a reward, she put me in touch with an interview with the producer Tobias Lindholm. I set up on the Baba Deck, started the film, and when it was over, found myself just sitting in stunned silence, trying to figure out why this film had upset me. I emailed Kanani, who emailed the producer, who emailed me the info to watch it again (it’s a one-time password), and again I watched it, slowly, and began to understand what it was all about. This film should be required viewing for every idiot politician in the Western world who thinks it’s a great idea to nation build.

The cinematography, tight battle shots, clean storyline, and understated tone reminded me of another military classic, Breaker Morant. Breaker Morant exploded in popularity worldwide and garnered too many awards to list here. I hope A War will have a similar reception.

A War follows a Danish infantry company commander as his government prosecutes him over collateral damage he may or may not have inflicted (this is never really established) and the toll it takes on him and his family. That the civilians sitting in judgment of him have no idea of the pressures or realities facing their fellow countrymen on the battle field is an obvious plot line that is handled tactfully. Directed by the talented Tobias Lindholm and staring Pilou Aesbeck (Game of Thrones) with a supporting cast of unreasonably attractive Danish folks, the film sucks you in and never lets go.

The movie is based, in part, on the prosecution of a Danish company commander charged with the illegal killing of 4 men he contends were planting IEDs near a Danish base in the Helmand Province on the night of October 23, 2011. The Staff Judge Advocate dropped the charges when Task Force Helmand (the Brits) could not produce the evidence as promised. I think the issue was the source’s credibility or lack of a clean chain of custody from the source to the prosecutor. Regardless, the case never went to trial, but one can imagine the toll paid by the company commander in question.

The first half of A War introduces the Danish company commander Claus Pederson (played by Pilou Asbæk) and shows why he has been charged with the deaths of civilians. We are introduced to the concept of PID (positive identification) during the exceptionally realistic combat scenes. We see the Danes paying scrupulous attention to their rules of engagement. We watch them allow armed Taliban to move through their area unmolested. When an armed Taliban stops his motorcycle to plant an IED, they plant him, from 500 meters out, with two rounds into the 10-ring. These lads were good infantrymen, patient, talented, and professional.

During one of the ensuing patrols all hell breaks loose when the Danes are sucked into a village that turns out to be a complex ambush. To get a medevac flight in to take his wounded out, the CO (Pederson) calls in Tac-Air on one of the adjacent compounds from which he was taking fire. Weeks later, Staff Judge Advocate officers show up with some photos, allegedly from the targeted compound, of a dead woman and children. The company commander is immediately sent home to face trial for the deaths of these civilians.

At this point, the fact that the Taliban fire died off after the compound in question was hit is irrelevant – the issue becomes, did he know exactly who was in that compound when he smoked it, and that, of course, is a question that would be impossible for any human in his position to answer.

As the trial progresses, you want to hate the prosecutor and heap scorn or contempt on the three-judge panel, but that’s impossible. The court officers come off as intelligent, reasonable people doing their jobs to the best of their abilities. They wear sensible earth-toned natural fibers and ask reasonable questions. They are the kind of folks you’d like to hang out with in a fine restaurant, talking about art or culture for an evening.

What makes this movie work is the character of Claus Pederson. He is sending an important message aimed directly at veterans from both Iraq and Afghanistan. This was the producer’s intent, and he told me the idea for the film came after he read an article quoting a Danish infantry officer heading to Afghanistan for his third deployment. He was not afraid of dying at the hands of the Taliban, but terrified, given the stringent rules of engagement (ROE) of being prosecuted by the government when he returned.

As we watch Pederson dealing with his court martial, it is impossible to miss that he demonstrates the only helpful strategies available to combat veterans when returning home. You recognize that Pederson has the same dignified silence over the weight he carries that we saw in our WW II Veterans. Pederson is teaching essential lessons, the first of which is simple to say but tough to understand. When you get home from the wars, you’re alone and must deal with that. Even when surrounded by friends and family, you’re alone, and that won’t change until enough time has passed for the memories to fade.

This is revealed in a subtle way, which is why it comes across so powerfully. There are many times when Pederson is there but not there: when he slips out at night to stare at the stars and smoke a cigarette, or when he tracks a helicopter flying through the night skies. The moments are fleeting, and the camera doesn’t linger, but you know what he’s thinking, and for those of us who were there, we know we did the same thing when we first came home.

Then we witness another essential truth that Pederson unmasked: nobody cares or understands what happened to you. We see this in the reaction of Pederson’s wife when she learns of the dead children, the way the officers of the court remain unmoved by the detailed description of the desperate situation in which Pederson had to make instant decisions. They clearly don’t understand what he’s trying to tell them nor do they give a damn. Their concern remains only the concept of PID, not the reality that PID could never be established given the situation on the ground.

For the OIF/OEF combat vet, most people in your life will never understand, nor do they care about what you did during your rotation. Many are uncomfortable around you because you saw the elephant. They believe that seeing the elephant results in lifelong psychological problems because that’s what Hollywood tells them. It’s not true, but so often in America today, perception becomes reality when our media and Hollywood reinforce it.

The third, and by far most crucial lesson Pederson reveals is that every problem you are now facing was caused by decisions you made. Period. Nobody else is responsible, nobody else is to blame, and nobody else can fix whatever negative situation you are in. Your decisions got you where you are today; the only way out is on you.

Pederson is calm and collected while under enemy fire in Afghanistan and friendly fire in Copenhagen. He makes no apologies and holds no grudges even when his XO testifies honestly, yet damning. It is clear he is conflicted by his experience and feels responsible for the deaths of civilians, but not the woman and children he is being prosecuted for, but rather a family that had sought protection inside his Combat Outpost; something he could never allow.

This scene has played out many times during our years of fighting in Afghanistan. I talked with a Marine who had been at a Combat Outpost (COP) that took in a teenage girl who had been beaten and was going to be killed by her brothers for talking to another boy on the phone without their permission. The Marines took the girl in and reported this up the chain. It went to the embassy for a decision, and they decided to kick her out of the COP. The girl was released, and we can assume (but don’t know for sure) suffered a hideous death. The men who took her in and then were forced to kick her out have to live with that. I know the ambassador and his staff were no more thrilled about making this decision than I would have been, but let’s be honest; it was the right call in the grand scheme of things. I’d rather we stick to principle, but taking that girl in could have (I believe would have) resulted in a province-wide revolt. War forces men (and women) to make decisions right for tactical and strategic reasons, but wrong for the soul.

Back to the review:

At no time does Pederson bring up the fact that he was given a mission (the protection of local civilians from the Taliban) that he could never accomplish. Virtually every Afghan in the Helmand Province thought the foreigners were propping up an illegitimate government in Kabul. Nobody in that Province knew what 9/11 was, who al-Qaeda was, or why the foreigners were in their country. What they did know was that the government in Kabul was corrupt and the foreigners were responsible for standing that government up.

If you’re a vet, friend, or family member of an OIF or OEF vet, you must watch A War. Claus Pederson will show you what it was like to fight in Afghanistan. More importantly, for vets and their families, he will show you the way forward when you return.

December 10, 2015February 25, 2017

Kandahar Rocks

This is a post from March 2010 re-posted now as a reminder of how unstable most of Afghanistan has become in the past five years. There was a Taliban attack outside of the Kandahar Airport that killed over 50 people (Cartman says 61 in his reporting) two days ago. For those of us who spent time at Kandahar it is hard to imagine a two- day siege going down just outside the wire. There are Americans still stationed at that airfield today and one has to wonder just how secure they can be given their reduced numbers. There was a time when internationals who knew what they were doing could operate safely even in kinetic places like Kandahar and this is a story from that time…it didn’t have to end this way.

I’m still on the road trying to make my way back to Jalalabad from a big implementation working group meeting in Lashkar Gah. Step one of the journey back was to hitch a ride to Kandahar where Panjawaii Tim promised to pick me up and take me out to his compound for the night. It is a large, comfortable place which has something I have been looking forward to… cold beers. The plane was late which was annoying – driving around Kandahar at night is risky. But there’s cold beer and piss up at stake so this trip was obviously mission essential.

We were delayed getting across the Tarnak River bridge by an American convoy – the bridge was blown up a few days back and the convoy was trying to maneuver around it in the river bed. Michael Yon has the story about the loss of that vital bridge here. It turns out the delay was a good thing because as we cleared the bridge area and headed towards the city the sky in front of us lit up like a flashbulb. “That’s not good,” said Tim as his cell started to ring. The boys back in the safe house reported a large explosion in the vicinity of the Karazi compound about 300 meters west of our destination. Then we saw what looked like a smaller (yet still pretty impressive blast) followed by another very large boom. Then Tim’s cell phone went dead, which was completely uncool. The the night sky just lit up with a few more big bangs and we both shut up – I reached into the back seat for a long gun; the shit I’ll go through for cold beer….I’m retarded.

The boys standing to on the roof of the Team Canada safe house. Of course I did not have my good camera so this shot looks like crap. The four expolsions bracketed this house on three sides and were very close. — The boys standing-to on the roof of the Team Canada safe house. Of course I did not have my good camera so this shot looks like crap. The four explosions bracketed this house on three sides and were very close. There was still a lot of small arms fire going off when this shot was taken – seemed to us to be coming mostly from the Afghan security forces.

We were entering the city by then and could see an American QRF force racing towards the area where most of the international compounds, Afghan government offices, the Sarposa prison and our safe house are located. The roads were being cut by Afghan Security Forces (ANSF) and during times like this trying to talk your way through security checkpoints is a bad idea so we switched to plan B. Panjawaii Tim knows Kandahar like I know Jalalabad; he started working his way through side streets that were full of people milling about looking towards the blast clouds. There were lots of broken store windows the closer we got to home; in fact all of them were broken as we worked our way parallel to the main road closer to the area targeted in the attacks. We had to clear only one ANSF checkpoint – it is always funny to see the police react when Tim and I drive up in local garb with our ISAF (contractor) ID’s and tell them we’re with ISAF and need to get through. They get confused when we start talking Pashto and look at us like we’re ghosts, or Jinn, or just plain crazy.

One of the Team Canada guys is on leave so I was given his kit to use tonight - a poor shot I know - my little pocket camera sucks — One of the Team Canada guys is on leave so I was given his kit to use tonight – don’t know what is going on with me eyes in this picture – my pocket camera sucks

Here is Panjawaii Tim’s report on the incident:

“The first bomb was at the Al Jadeed market: 10-20 killed, unknown number injured; second was a large bomb at the Sarpoza prison. 20 -30 killed and 100 injured allegedly; third was the bomb near PHQ, unknown number injured/killed; fourth was bomb near Mandigak mosque, unknown number injured killed. First bombs lured the ANP response out of PHQ and then they were hit. US and CDN units seen responding with ANSF assets. No reports of a prison break at this time. We heard Taliban propaganda broadcast over a megaphone in our neighborhood within half hour of attacks. Many ambulances and other vehicles seen transporting casualties to Mirwais (Chinese) Hospital.”

You know what all this means? It means no sitting on the roof and drinking cold beers with my buddies. It also means that I have to get up in the middle of the night to pull sentry duty. Fucking Taliban; killing civilians for no damn reason, damaging people’s stores and homes for no damn reason, and spoiling what looked to be a good piss up. I hate them.

February 16, 2015May 10, 2025

Gandamak

Last week I received a polite email from Professor Richard Macrory of the Centre for Law and the Environment, University College London, asking me for permission to use some of my photos of the Gandamak battlefield in his upcoming book on the First Afghan War. I said it would be an honor, and I believe the book will come out next year. In the meantime, I’m re-posting my Gandamak story because it differs from every other Gandamak story from Afghan-based expats. This Gandamak tale is about the battlefield, not one of the best bar/guesthouses in Kabul

Traveling into contested tribal lands is a bit tricky. I had no doubt that the Malicks from Gandamak would provide for my safety at our destination but I had to get there first. Given the amount of Taliban activity between Jalalabad and Gandamak the only safe way to get there and back was low profile.

The first of three downed bridges between Gandamak and Jalalabad

The road into Gandamack required us to ford three separate stream beds. The Soviets destroyed the bridges that spanned these obstacles 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 than when Alexander the Great came through the Khyber Pass in 327 BC. The job of repairing and building the infrastructure of Afghanistan is much bigger than anyone back home can imagine. Given their current operational tempo and style, it is also clearly beyond the capabilities of USAID or the US Military PRTs to fix it. These bridges are still down (as of 2015) and may never be fixed in our lifetimes.

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? — Also, it was 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 watched the tallest building in the world go up in Dubai, with about 300 other super skyscrapers 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, a prosperous hamlet tucked into a small valley. The color of prosperity in Afghanistan is green because vegetation means water, and villages with abundant clean water are always significantly better off than those without.

My host for the day was the older brother of my driver, Sharif. When I first met Sharif, he said, “I speak English fluently,” and smiled. 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 Sharif only knew the words “I speak English fluently.” You get that from Afghans. But Shariff is learning his letters and has proven an able driver, plus a first-rate scrounger.

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 Indian Country, and everybody out here is armed to the teeth. I was a guest; the odds of my being harmed by the Maliks who asked me were zero. That’s how Pashtunwali works. The order of business was a meeting where the topic was what they needed and why they couldn’t get help. Then we were to tour the hill outside Gandamak where the 44th Foot fought to the last man during the British retreat from Kabul in 1842, followed by lunch. I could not do much about the projects they needed, but I could listen politely, which is all they asked of me. Years later, I could lend them a hand when they needed it, but I was a security guard, not an aid guy at the time of this meeting.

Sharif's Great Great Grandfather and son waiting on the Brits to make it down from Kabul — Sharif’s great-great-grandfather and son were waiting for the Brits to make it down from Kabul.

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. Talking with them is unpleasant because they know nothing about the man other than that he is not Bush and looks cool. They are convinced he is ready to be president because NPR told them so. Pointing out to the NGO girls that Obama can’t possibly be prepared to be the chief executive because he has zero experience in executive leadership is pointless, and I did not want to have to explain this to the Maliks. They have time and will insist on hashing things out for as long as possible to reach a clear understanding. I have a wrist watch and a short attention span; this was not starting well.

As I feared, the morning discussion started with “Tell us about Barack Obama?” What was I to say? His thin resume is a problem, but he has risen to the top of the democratic machine, and that took some traits Pashtun Maliks could identify with. I described how he came to power in the Chicago machine. Not by trying to explain Chicago, but in general terms, using the oldest communication device known to man, a good story. A story based on fact, colored with a little supposition, and augmented by my colorful imagination. 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, they got the picture. A man cold enough to win every office he ran by eliminating his competition before the vote is a man the Pashtuns 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: Who knows? Instead, I said his father was African and his mother a white American, and so he identifies himself as an African American. I had confused my hosts, and they just looked at me for a long time, saying nothing.

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 suspect. They talked among themselves for several more minutes, and I heard John McCain’s name several times, but they no longer asked 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 know how to beat a point to death.

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 the district of Sherzad about once a month and remains popular with the locals. They have built some micro-hydro power projects upstream from Gandamak, which the people (even those who do not benefit from the project) greatly 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 are 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. They know I have no skin in that game and am therefore irrelevant.

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 and thus will have to grow poppy again (if they get enough rain, inshallah). They also need a road to transport their crops to market once their fields are productive. Then they need their bridges repaired and their irrigation systems restored to the condition they were in in the 1970s, and that’s it. They said that with these improvements would come security and more commerce. One of them commented most interestingly: “The way the roads are now, the only thing we can economically transport over them is the poppy.” A little food for thought.

At the conclusion of the meeting’s talking part, the senior Maliks and I piled into my SUV and headed to the Gandamak battlefield.

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.

Our first stop was at what the Maliks described as “The British Prison,” which was up on the side of the Jalalabad 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 inside a cave located so high up on the side of a mountain is a mystery to me, and I doubt this was the real story behind what looked to be a mine entrance. It was a nice brisk walk up a very steep hill, and I kept up with the senior Malik, which was probably the point of this detour.

Enterance to the "Brit Jail — Entrance to the “Brit Jail

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 that had been excavated a few years back. 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 sent troops to protect the site. The elders claimed to have unearthed a Buddha statue at the Gandamak battlefield a few years ago, which they figured the British must have pilfered from 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. Their excellent fakes, and they better be, because the penalties for trafficking ancient artifacts are severe in Afghanistan.

I do not know where these foundations came from. 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 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 to recover the remains of their dead for proper internment.

Foundation from an unknown building on Gandamak Hill — Foundation of 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 brief. I’m an infidel; short is good

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 bothers me now, but that’s life.

In August 2012, my old friend Mehrab was gunned down by the 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, and the poppy is now the main source of income. It will be long before a Westerner can revisit the old battlefield.

June 12, 2011June 13, 2011

FabFi on the front page of New York Times

Here’s an update in an attempt to counteract the thoroughly depressing news of Tim going silent. (Anyone who knows Tim in person knows that you can’t actually silence him; he’s still ranting but we’ve turned off the blog-mike). With Kanani’s help, I’ve put this post in Babatim format.

This weekend’s New York Times has several photos of FabFi Afghanistan in this piece on subversive community communication networks. (We’re in the slide set). To be clear, the FabFi project in Afghanistan was not one of those secretly funded projects described in their article (see here where I itemize the bulk of the costs and how they were funded – mostly through personal savings accounts of those who participated and in part through a National Science Foundation grant.) However, the urgency and significance of the project are the same. As long as there’s pressure from those seeking a reasonable life where they can go about their business, there’s hope we can throw a lifeline with these so called undermining capabilities.

< Insert non-sequitur rant about donkeys and hearing crickets. >

As the director of the Jalalabad Fab Lab and Fab Fi project lead, I’ve been asked several times about how to scale the Fab Lab and Fab Fi experiences to more fully saturate a city, as well as spinning this off into more cities. While I can provide a technical, programmatic answer, Fab Lab/Fi doesn’t solve everything. It’s only one piece: the rest have to develop at the same time. Infrastructure like roads, power, water, schools, teachers, and systems maintenance as well as the user terminals (laptops and computers), people who use them, and the content they’ll consume. It’s crazy to think that there was no cell phone service in the country in 2002 and now it’s pretty solidly working in every major population center (at least when the tower isn’t turned off or bombed). From roads to power to water, the task at hand (officially US or not) was to set off a program that could go from zero to servicing 30 million people in a few years. Imagine colonizing Mars by sending 30 million people first, ahead of the infrastructure. < Insert photo of BabaTim on Mars >

I think there are maybe three kinds of places in Afghanistan:

1. There are safer, quieter places that have known better times and whose residents are working to get back to those better times. There’s still crime and killing but it’s a shocking event when it occurs. 2. Poor, forgotten places that have never known modernization and are harder hit by economic problems (some of which we’ve unwittingly caused). 3. Places like Kandahar with an almost insidious infestation of crazy. Remember those boys you grew up with that would pull the wings off of bugs and set ants on fire? Beliefs aside, an environment like Kandahar doesn’t provide the social pressure that prevents them from growing up into full fledge people-hurting psychopaths.

In the first group are cities like Herat, in the western sector of Afghanistan. BabaTim went to Herat in 2005, and since then it’s continued to grow. It’s plainly ready and asking for a Fab Lab and associated wealth of possibilities. You could imagine a Fab Lab and Training Center there augmenting and strengthening the communications infrastructure with a parallel or overlaid subversive mesh, perhaps through the school system which I hear is quite healthy and respected.

The second group of towns, like Jaghori in Ghazni province, need only to follow the good examples of the first so much the better if there is strong municipal leadership that both welcomes business activities while keeping them in check < insert Big Government vs. Liberal rant here >.

Big government can't do this because it only costs a few thousand dollars to dig concrete drainage ditches which isn't enough money for them to even think about. Liberlas can't do this knd of work because it involves work. No talking, no sharing of emotions, no community organizing just work. Dig the ditch, build the forms, mix and pour the concrete and you have flood and some pestilence control. It isn't sexy it isn't fun its just work and the work here never ends — Big government can't do this because it only costs a few thousand dollars to dig concrete drainage ditches which isn't enough money for them to even think about spending. Big Government talks money with a "B" as in billions. Liberlas can't do this knd of work because it involves work. No talking, no sharing of emotions, no community organizing, just work. Dig the ditch, build the forms, mix and pour the concrete and you have flood and some pestilence control. It isn't sexy it isn't fun its just work and the work here never ends.

The third are places like Kandahar, which is our biggest opportunity. Mel King, famous community organizer in Boston, often says that the wheels in the back of the bus never catch up to the wheels in the front unless something extraordinary occurs. Fighting over raisins, road tolls, heck, fighting over fighting, these are the things that they know about. New doesn’t always mean good on it’s own right, but in this case new can simply bewilder long enough for the skinny gimpy-legged kid to grab the football and run. Mixed metaphors, I know. It’s late. Another recent article from educators highlights how the labs are excuses to try something new with rewarding results.

In a recent round of catch-ups with the Afghan collaborators who helped start Fab Lab and the Fab Fi projects in Jalalabad (many of whom were university students when we met), I’m thrilled to tell you that all are gainfully employed in technically enabled positions. A (surprising?) majority have taken the plunge to starting their own technology, logistics, or consulting companies, bravely negotiating the bewilderingly paperwork intensive contracts with ISAF and providing jobs to Afghans. I believe in the need for the private sector to create jobs. < Insert anti-union rant here, take non-related pot shot at Anthony Weiner >

What is the difference between Anthony Weiner and a dead chicken? Nothing - they're both disgusting. — What is the difference between Anthony Weiner and a dead chicken? Nothing - they're both disgusting when stripped of their plumage and they are both full of shit

With the depressingly slow rate of new job creation at home in America, it’s hard not to be extra proud and amazed at their optimism and willingness to give it a go and make forward progress in their little corner of the world. I won’t take credit for their success they were shaped by a long chain of parents, family, teachers, and other opportunities but at least one was nice enough to say that it was his experiences of previously unexpected self-enabled successes in the Fab Lab that was his inspiration.

ps – join me in whining at Tim san to add some unrelated but interesting photos to this wordy piece. Thanks to edits by Kanani Fong of the Kitchen Dispatch.

April 10, 2011April 14, 2016

Poppy Time

It is Saturday, the 9th of April here in the sunny paradise of Afghanistan and both Kandahar and Kabul are in a UN declared “White City” status as the locals brace for another round of anti-American protests in response to the Koran burning in Florida. I’m in Kandahar where all is quiet after Thursday’s spectacular attack on an ANP compound. Once again the Taliban used an ambulance VBIED to get through police and ISAF cordons, then detonated it inside the incident scene. The Taliban still suck at fighting, but they are getting pretty slick with the tactical planning as of late.

We aren’t too worried about protests in the South – a look at last week’s stats from Sami the Finn at Indicium Consulting shows why:

When the incident rate in the south drops like this there is only explanation; Poppy time — When the incident rate drops like this in the south there is only explanation; Poppy Time

When the poppy is being harvested all other activity around the poppy belt, including Taliban attacks, grind to a halt. Opium prices are at an all time high after last years crop failure and we hear this year the opium sap harvesters will keep 1 man (4.5 kilos) for every 6 man they milk out of the poppy bulbs. A man sells (at current prices) for around US $6000. That is a ton of money in these parts, however gathering up that much wet opium takes the average 4 man team two weeks of backbreaking, dawn to dusk effort. Still every able bodied male in the region is hard at work trying to get a man worth of Opium because when you have 6k in your pocket you can get married. That’s right – sex not only sells but it’s also is a great motivator for unmarried men in societies where the only way to get it is through marriage.

With most of the international press trying to figure out what Obama and Hillary are up to in Africa confusion regarding what’s happening here has reached new levels of strangeness. Are things going well, or are they going down the tubes? Is a resurgent al Qaeda a problem, or, (as I have long maintained) is this never going to be happen again in Afghanistan? Is the President of the United States really an inexperienced, doctrinaire, ignoramus, or is he rope-a-doping the whole world by pretending to be incompetent while hatching a wickedly genius plan to bring Americans a healthy economy coupled to a foreign policy which is easily understood to benefit the interests of our country?

One of the things about Marines which irritates the other services to no end is their propensity for festooning their cars with the Eagle Globe and Anchor. In time every ANA vehicle in the Helmand Province will have a Marine sticker on it. — One of the things about Marines (which irritates the other services to no end) is our propensity for festooning personal vehicles and most vertical surfaces with Eagle Globe and Anchor stickers. In time every ANA vehicle in the Helmand Province will have a Marine sticker on it.

Allow me to answers my questions in reverse order: Our POTUS is not rope-a-doping, his crisis management performance is typical for a man who has been promoted way beyond his level of incompetence for reasons other than experience or consistent superior performance. But that is a lesson we cannot acknowledge because it remains fashionable among our cultural and business elite to emphatically believe affirmative action is a good thing. They want to believe that diversity makes us stronger when everyone who has to deal with “diversity” knows the only way it makes anything stronger is when diverse peoples meet the same standards and compete on a level playing field.

The Taliban are resurgent now, have been for the past two years and will be gaining and holding more terrain, will be inflicting more casualties on ISAF and ANSF, will grow stronger and stronger with each passing year. Worse, it appears al-Qaeda is back which I thought would never happen but then again I thought we’d be making progress by now.

And finally I have no idea what in the name of God we are doing bombing Libya but can guarantee you that when it’s all said and done we’re going to discover this was “doing stupid shit”. Let’s just hope we don’t lose too many people in the process.

In the Eastern portion of Afghanistan we have withdrawn from most of Kunar Province because the military geniuses in Kabul have decided that our presence in the isolated valleys was a provocation, so we declared victory and are packing up to head home. The Hillbillies of Kunar didn’t see it that way and thought our withdraw from their turf was a win for them. Commanders who are victorious against the Americans seem to attract attention, money, recruits, and (this is new) al Qaeda training camps. Who would have guessed that????????

Poppy — The poppy turns up everywhere to include the vegetable garden in our compound. Our gardener grows some pretty decent looking weed too. I don’t think he’s a smoker and bet he sells the weed – the three poppy plants out back aren’t enough to produce squat and are there because they look cool

This report in the Wall Street Journal was a nasty surprise to those of us paying attention but not for long. Within 24 hours the MSM was spinning a counter story that included this statement: “Petraeus also said he did not agree with reports that al-Qaida was making a comeback in Afghanistan”. Well, I guess that’s that but hold on the WSJ story was written by Mathew Rosenberg. I know Matt gets outside the security bubble to dig up his own facts having given him a ride from Jalalabad to Kabul a few years ago. If Rosenberg is reporting there is a resurgent al Qaeda infesting Afghanistan then I’m going to admit I was wrong about the possibility of that happening. General Petraeus can say whatever he likes but we know he doesn’t know because he has no human intelligence capacity with which to know. That is the price he must pay for having unlimited funds with which to build little islands of America all over the country, isolating most of the forces completely from the Afghans.

Another classic example of inside the security bubble propaganda versus real outside the wire atmospherics can be found in this April Fools article . Written by James Dobbins, and reprinted by the RAND people for some reason (I am certain protecting their billions in FOB based contracts has nothing to do with it) Mr Dobbins, a DC insider with a vested interest in blowing sunshine up the rectums of other insiders, tells us that “irrational optimism” is the word of the day for your ordinary Afghan. You see, as bad as things are, they have been so much worse over the past 30 years that, from the perspective of the abused populace, everything is now peachy!

Let me paste in graph from one of the few organizations that actually gets out on the ground (with expat led teams) to do their own polling. Check this out:

When you get off the FOB and ask people questions face to face you get an idea about how badly things are going — When you get off the FOB and ask people questions face to face, you get an idea why the Afghans are clueless about our motives for being and staying here.

The pie chart above is based on a report by the International Council on Security and Development (ICOS). ICOS is the only policy analysis organization in Afghanistan with expatriate headed assessment teams. They are led by the formidable Norine MacDonald: I ran into them last January while they were in the Helmand Province doing research for this report on the dangers of a draw-down in forces this summer.

I personally don’t think the maneuver units are going anywhere this summer. The United States could easily send half the people deployed to Afghanistan home without diminishing a bit of combat power. Simply clear out all the Equal Opportunity Officers, the Sexual Harassment Officers, career jammers, the jerks who monitor base gyms to make sure nobody wears a sleeveless shirt and the military policemen who make life on the FOB’s such a drag. You could easily cut the intelligence effort in half because Afghan intel is an echo chamber of endemic circular reporting. And you can close the COIN Academy; setting up a new “innovative” school house is a loser move designed to cover over the fact we have no traction with the Afghan people. The COIN Academy will never answer that question because you can’t do COIN in six month increments which isn’t really the problem either; the Karzai administration is the problem. But I’ve only been saying that for five years now and am sick of repeating myself.

We’re spending too much money and blood in Afghanistan while achieving very little besides beating the dog shit out of the Southern Taliban. That is something which the Marines in Helmand and the ISAF units in Kandahar can be proud of but it’s not enough. When I look at the train wreck that is the United States economy coupled with the unwillingness of our elected leaders to deal with the mess they made I am reminded (yet again) of the Roman Empire. Contemplate this quote (hat tip Dan Carlin’s Hard Corps History) from historian Michael Crawford who wrote in The Roman Republic:

The dangerous developments of the second century BC were then in large measure the result of growth of the Roman Empire providing the oligarchy with wealth which had to be invested making it easy for them to acquire extra land, providing them with slaves to work it and offering no alternative land elsewhere to those dispossessed. A part time peasant army conquers the Mediterranean and that conquest facilitates its destitution.

The level of debt being generated by our political masters is unsustainable, the amount of spending on the war in Afghanistan is unsustainable, the financial obligations of the democratic run blue states are unsustainable. Yet our political class continues to demagogue, evade, reward themselves with benefits regular Americans can only dream of, while our military leaders focus on marginal issues like women on submarines or the acceptance of homosexuals (as if they have not always been in the military anyway). Our government leaders focus on everything except the fact we have no money. Our military leaders focus on everything except the fact that we’re losing in Afghanistan. The American people work hard to support their families while sending their children off to fight for a military that is rapidly adopting the liberal cultural mores of the ruling class at the expense of traditional martial virtue. The men and women fighting here and elsewhere will return to a country where only the elite prosper, where the rules for the political class and the working class are different. They are going to fight like lions to support our constitution while the administration shreds that constitution and leaves the common folk destitute.

Holy shit I sound like a commie! Time to pack up the laptop and fly to Dubai where I need to score another visa and a beer or two. Maybe a few days of sleeping in a real bed will improve the mood a bit but I doubt it. I see a bad moon rising.

October 11, 2010February 11, 2017

What A Mess

I’m not referring to the controversy surrounding the attempted rescue of Linda Norgrove which is currently consuming the news cycle. My experience is that Special Operations folks do not attempt rescue operations without solid intelligence and a well rehearsed plan. I don’t know what happened in Kunar Province last weekend and therefore have no comment. What I do have plenty to comment on is the rash of articles which came out Friday morning about security contractors guarding American bases. This is the opening from ABC news:

A scathing Senate report says US contractors in Afghanistan have hired warlords, “thugs,” Taliban commanders and even Iranian spies to provide security at vulnerable US military outposts in Afghanistan. The report, published by the Senate Armed Services Committee, says lax oversight and “systemic failures” have led to “grave risks’ to US forces, including instances where contractors have employed Afghan subcontractors who were “linked to murder, kidnapping and bribery, as well as Taliban and anti-coalition activities.” The chairman of the committee, Sen. Carl Levin, D.-Michigan, said the report was evidence that the US needs to reduce its reliance on contractors.

On the small Combat Outposts (COP’s) these guard forces man the outer perimeter only and have to provide their own life support (food and shelter) and they do not go inside the wire of the Army unit they are guarding. They don’t know any more about what is happening inside the FOB’s they guard then any other Afghan living in the vicinity. Local nationals working inside the wire doing menial tasks like emptying port-a-johns, collecting and burning trash, or washing dishes would know a lot more and pose a greater intelligence risk than the exterior guard force. On the large FOB’s the guard forces have barracks inside the post but are a small percentage of the Afghan local national work force and again, limited as to where they are allowed to go. So how is it just the security guards are the ones putting our troops at risk?

I wrote bids for several of these contracts and know they require a minimum of 80% of the guards to come from the local area. When you have remote outposts and need so many armed men who do you think is going to provide them? Now Washington is shocked, shocked that we were paying warlords and other various undesirables for guard forces. When I bid on these contracts our local manpower was coordinated through the district sub governor (which I recall was another requirement) and not all sub governors are created equal. I’m not sure why the big surprise that some of the people who are benefiting from the fire hose of dollars flowing into Afghanistan are undesirables. I’m also not to sure about the definition of “undesirables” given the number of former warlords connected to the central government. Seems to me we don’t know enough about the Afghan culture to start labeling some war lords undesirables and others patriots.

Sounds like politics and looks like piling on by by the Senate Armed Services Committee who are now supporting President Karzai as he continues his program to dismantle private security companies. It’s nice to finally see some support for President Karzai from the DC crowd even if they are supporting a policy un-tethered from reality. Accepting the fact that President Karzai is not going away would be the best contribution our elected members can make now.

Jalalabad City continues to grow as more families come in from the outer districts to escape Taliban intimidation

Shutting down the security companies makes little sense. Earlier in the month it was reported that the Afghans had shut down several companies to include Xe (Blackwater), Four Horsemen, and White Eagle. This is not true; all four remain open for business and they, like Karzai, are not going anywhere. Those companies don’t need to pay the Afghan government for a business license because they are working directly for the military, Department of State and other international government agencies and are exempt from paying Afghan taxes. The Afghan government is making it hard for internationals working for security companies outside the wire only. They have stopped issuing visa’s so many contractors remain here on expired ones. The companies with government contracts come into the country on contractor run flight that land in Bagram and by pass Afghan immigration so they do not need visas. Afghanistan isn’t like the United States with foreigners who overstay their visa. In Afghanistan that is a one strike offense that could land you in prison.

Kabul is in turmoil, the North is going right down the tubes; years ago it was easy to operate in most of the country without armored vehicles and international mobile security teams but not anymore. While this is playing out there is a growing sense that the military side of the operation is starting go well. ISAF has, for the first time, apparently locked down the Arghandab and Panjwai districts around Kandahar City. The Helmand Province is getting quieter week in and week out and the American Army in Nangarhar Province has moved a battalion of paratroopers into the southern triangle to deal with Taliban and their Pakistani cousins who have been operating openly down there all summer. This force projection off the FOB’s is a welcomed change but all the clearing currently being done needs a hold and build effort behind it and that capability is not resident within the Kabul government.

Provincial capitols in the south are not so busy or crowded — Lashkar Gah the capitol of Helmand Province. Provincial capitols in the south are not as busy or crowded as they are in the rest of the country

The situation on the ground is rapidly changing which makes it the perfect time for me to shift to another part of the country where I’m not so well known. I have moved south and will be joining Ghost Team again for another year of adventure. This year I’m not going to be so candid about where I live or the location of our projects. The days when we could roam about the countryside at will and have my kids visit for months at a time to work with local kids at the Fab Lab – those days are over.

The military seems to be doing what it set out to do. It is too early to know how successful they will be but if they can drive the Taliban out of Kandahar and the surrounding districts they will need help with the build portion. Ghost Team will do our part but we are not miracle workers. We’ll give it our best until the window closes on outside the wire operations for good.

September 14, 2010February 11, 2017

A New Way Forward?

We were under UN restricted movement routine last week (for the first time in five years) which provided the opportunity to digest a report from The Afghanistan Study Group entitled A New Way Forward. This report was great news for me because if think tanks are paying big bucks to people who write so poorly and know so little then maybe I can get a job in America and stop spending 11 of every 12 months out of the country. Any think tankers out there who have an opening drop me a line – I’ll be your huckleberry.

Fortunately I don’t have to take this report apart as a genuine regional expert, the formidable Joshua Foust, has already done that over at Registan.net. Take the time to read his post here; it is, as usual, well written and spot on. With the heavy lifting already done I wanted to focus on the one part of the Study Group report which I find alarming and that is the amount of money being spent. This is from the summary of the Afghanistan Study Group report:

The U.S. war in Afghanistan is now the longest in our history, and is costing the U.S. taxpayers nearly $100 billion per year, roughly seven times more than Afghanistan’s annual gross national product (GNP) of $14 billion.

100 Billion US dollars per year. That level of expenditure will not be sustainable for much longer so in the spirit of offering solutions instead of highlighting problems I am going to try and articulate a real New Way Forward. The first step to limiting the amount of money being spent while reducing the number of troops deployed in theater is to eliminate the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) program. PRT’s are based on FOB’s, staffed by hundreds of personnel and completely focused internally. The commander of a PRT who is often an officer from the Navy or Air Force will get one fitness report (FitRep) in his/her career where they are commanding troops in combat. The problems that would prevent these commanders from getting a superior fitness report (which is the only way they will be promoted and retained in the service) are all things that happen inside the wire. Sloppy admin, poor vehicle maintenance, problems with CMS (classified material storage and handling) lost gear or (heaven forbid) lost weapons, excessive boy/girl drama, failure to conduct required annual training like suicide prevention, sexual harassment, AIDS awareness (to name just a few) and problems getting mid to senior level NCO’s to professional schools….all these things and many more will ruin a FitRep. What will not ruin a Fitrep is failing to accomplish anything of significance outside the wire which is the primary mission of the PRT’s. The reason that is irrelevant is because there is no way to measure what is happening outside the wire with any precision because to know what is happening outside the wire one has to be outside the wire and riding around in hermetically sealed MRAP’s doesn’t count.

These PRT members are on their way to a village just outside our largest airbase in the region with a IT specalist to try and network computers donated to a local school years agp — Captain Christian Balan, who teaches digital forensics at Burlington’s Champlain College in civilian life, heading towards a school just outside the massive Bagram airbase to trade his tech skills fixing the computer lab in hopes of generating good will and cooperation. Photo by Spencer Akerman of the Danger Room blog

This story published last month in the Danger Room blog is a great example. Nine years into the conflict and a group of soldiers are just now bringing their tech skills to bear in order to gain cooperation from villagers located just outside the wire from Bagram. Captain Balan (pictured above) is a 55 year old reservist who is trying something new because past experience taught him the regular “Key Leader Engagement” techniques yield nothing. He is using his civilian techie skills to engage the villagers in another way. Read the article and note how after visiting the village he is all psyched up to go back and tune up their computer lab. This is what I mean by letting our troops loose to stay outside the wire and develop the situation using their initiative, drive and skill sets. But again there is a huge problem illustrated in the picture above and that is the body armor, rifles, security team etc… when it is right outside the wire from the biggest base in Afghanistan. Compare and contrast what you read in the article with this:

My son Logan doing the heavy lifting during the intial instal of the Jalalabad Fab Fi network. — My son Logan doing the heavy lifting during the initial install of the Jalalabad Fab Fi network.

25 simultaneous live nodes in Jalalabad. That's a new high. The map can't even keep up! — The Jalalabad Fab Fi network created by the MIT Fab Folk, maintained and expanded by local teenagers. This program does not cost the American taxpayer one dime.

The boys at the Jalalabad Fab Lab came up with their own design to meet the growing demand created by the International Fab surge last September. As usual all surge participants who came from the US, South Africa, Iceland and Englad paid their own way. Somebody needs to sponser these people. — The local Fab Fi club members at the Jalalabad Fab Lab came up with their own design to expand the Fab Fi network using US AID cooking oil cans (or “found objects” in geek talk)

In August of 2010 American soldiers are taking baby steps within a stones throw of the Bagram Airfield but two years ago a bunch of grad student volunteers created a wi fi network which now envelops Jalalabad. What do you think soldiers like Captain Balan could do if they too had the freedom of movement that we have? I am willing to bet you would see massive amounts of projects like the one he is attempting all over the country which, in turn, would bring cooperation from the local people while letting the modernity genie out of the bottle.

Here is another example of spending massive amounts of money while bringing zero benefit to the local population:

The local airfield has about a dozen Federal Firefighters to augment the Air Force crash and rescue crew

In the past expeditionary base fire fighting was a collateral duty assigned to base troops just like it is with the crew on Navy ships. Now we deploy federal firefighters to perform this task which is fine; federal fire fighters are useful individuals who attend multiple schools where they receive first rate training. If we are going to spend over a million a year to deploy each firefighter we could get much more return on investment by letting these guys spend their days with the local Afghan fire and rescue crews. They don’t need some sort of high speed mission to accomplish daily – they could drive around and look for places where they can help out. They could be busy all day every day teaching people all sorts of useful things while spreading goodwill and good karma. Every night they could return to base where they would be available when needed in the event of a conflagration. They don’t need to be armed, they don’t need body armor, they don’t need a powerpoint mission brief, they just need to drive off the base and do it. If they needed experienced guides to make them feel more comfortable they could ask the ladies from the La Jolla Rotary Club who are here right now supporting the San Diego Sister City program.

This ultra sound machine was donated to the Jalabad Teaching Hospital some years back and like most of the machines we have donated was broken. A grad student from the Synergy Strike Force who here with the La Jolla Rotary club sister city program got the directions, figured out what was wrong and fixed it in about 3 hours. She was then presented with a list of broken machines which she started repairing. Using the internet and a large support network of geeks from America she was able to repair about 90% of the machines in less than a month. What do you think a crew of federal firefighters could do given similar circumstances? I know exactly what they could do - fix 100% of the machines while finding all sorts of other things to improve. We're paying these guys six figure salaries to work out in the gym everyday - they get bored and we get no return on investment. — This ultra sound machine was donated to the Jalalabad Teaching Hospital some years back and like most of the donated machines it was broken. Kate, a grad student sponsored by the Synergy Strike Force who is here with the La Jolla Rotary Club which is the driving force behind the San Diego Sister City Program got the manual, figured out what was wrong and fixed it in about 3 hours. She was then presented with a list of broken machines which she started repairing. Using the internet and a large support network of geeks back in America she was able to repair about 90% of the machines in less than a month. What do you think a crew of federal firefighters could do in similar circumstances? I know exactly what they could do – fix 100% of the machines while finding all sorts of other things to improve. We’re paying these guys six figure salaries to workout in the gym everyday. They get bored and we get no return on investment while the people we are supposed to be protecting only see American military forces when they tie up traffic and force them off the road.

There is nothing hard about finding “A New Way Forward” all that is needed is the application of common sense while allowing simple principals to guide the deployment of forces on the ground. I spent twenty years in the Marines preparing for contingencies like the one we face in Afghanistan. At no time did anyone ever suggest the way to fight them was to build FOB’s – store 90% of your deployed forces on those FOB’s and put those people to work slaving over powerpoint slides for the daily commanders update brief. Nor did we ever consider something as patently stupid as putting ship drivers or C-130 pilots in charge of reconstruction teams which have more equipment, personnel, money and a larger tactical area of operations then an infantry battalion. When you do that kind of thing you end up with The Helmand Food Zone Fiasco. Its time to send the PRT’s home and to give that mission to Ghost Team and other outside the wire contractors who operate in similar fashion. They are accomplishing more while costing a fraction of a penny when compared to the PRT dollar.

Which brings us to a topic many of you have been asking me about and that is Koran burning threat by an obscure pastor who has a 50 member flock. Obviously the ruckus raised by our main stream media over this threat caused those of us in Afghanistan a lot of problems. However it is hard to take the Secretary of Defense or General Petraus seriously when they warn how inappropriate it is to burn this book when last year our military burned boxes of Dari and Pashtun translations of the Bible which had been sent to Afghanistan by a Christian organization. Why is it OK to burn the Bible and not the Koran? The only person of prominence to address the Koran burning issue in a clear honest fashion was Sarah Palin who said this:

People have a constitutional right to burn a Koran if they want to, but doing so is insensitive and an unnecessary provocation much like building a mosque at Ground Zero.

As I listened to the response by our dinosaur media, military leaders, and President to the Koran burning threat I longed to hear them address this topic in clear honest language. This they cannot do and I am left with just one conclusion. Our elites think the American people are stupid. They insult us with their Quisling like knee jerk reactions and selective outrage when talking about sensitive matters concerning Islam. Nobody needs to tell me how dangerous it is to burn the Koran in a highly publicized manner – my colleagues and I are at much greater risk from the fallout of that act than any military person stationed in Afghanistan. But I’m an American citizen; I do not knuckle my brow, bend my knee or bow before any man for any reason at any time.

Obama breaks his neck for America

Nor do I selectively apply the freedoms granted to me by God and enshrined in our constitution. We are a free people but freedom requires eternal vigilance with the steadfast devotion to principle. All men are equal under American law, all religions are equal too so none deserves nor can be granted special status or consideration. Why is it our ruling class elites and their henchmen in the media have forgotten this basic component of the American way? When I explain my view to the Afghans I work with they understand exactly what I am saying and why…and they respect the message. I’m with Sarah Palin on this one; at least she isn’t treating the American people like a bunch of know-nothing bumpkins.

September 3, 2010February 11, 2017

Rocky Road

As the summer started I was optimistic that we would see indications that we are gaining ground in Afghanistan but that has not happened. Incident rates are skyrocketing which is not a bad thing if it is our side initiating the incidents but this too is not the case. While ISAF is conducting more raids and presence patrols they do not seem to have learned how to conduct these operations while managing the perceptions of the population we are supposed to be protecting. By projecting force off of FOB’s and then pulling back into them when the kinetics are done we create a vacuum after every operation.

The aftermath of a brief reportedly violent demonstration on the Jalabad/Torkham road yesterday morning

Earlier in the week a joint Afghan/American SF team raided a madrasa in Sarracha village which is next to the massive airfield/military base in Jalalabad. They hit the madrasa at night and arrested five men described as mullahs or madrasa students (depends on who you ask). The next morning a large crowd closed the main highway between Jalalabad and the border and threatened to start burning cars and throwing stones at the police. The police responded in great numbers but when they arrived a local candidate for Parliament was on hand calming the crowd down and swearing “he will not rest” until he has talked with the Governor and ISAF and the police to get the people detained released. As it was approaching 100 degrees and this is Ramadan the crowd said OK and dispersed. By the time I got there the police were gone and only a few men remained who were clearing the road of rocks. My terp JD and I asked what had happened and were told the American SF had raided the Madras and taken five students and then they tore up the Koran. I burst out laughing at that one as did JD who immediately called bullshit and asked the guy how he could say something so stupid. The man started laughing too – everyone in this country knows that neither US or Afghan troops are going to touch let alone destroy a Koran.

The fuel tanker fleet continues to use anti bording parties topside only now they are in place from the Torkham border all the way to Kabul. — The fuel tanker fleet continues to use anti boarding parties topside only now they are in place from the Torkham border all the way to Kabul.

Here’s the thing – why is an Afghan political candidate managing the perceptions of a raid we conducted on a village less than a mile from one of our regional bases? Pashtunwali works both ways and if these people are harboring villains then who is accountable for that? I’m not advocating rounding people up and sweating them I’m saying the elders should be called into the mosque for a shura with the district governor and both Afghan and ISAF military representation and forced to explain why they can’t keep their house in order. If that seems a bit confrontational then both sides can explain their positions and everyone can talk for hours to reach some sort of understanding. Allowing insurgents into a village puts the village at risk because ISAF and the Afghan Army seek insurgents out and hit them aggressively. The potential for collateral damage is significant and the responsibility for that damage has to rest on those who allow targets into their midst. We are using all carrots or all sticks depending on geographic location. In Kunar Province ISAF fights daily while delivering aid programs but in Nangarhar Province we swoop down in the middle of the night and take away suspected insurgents and leave. This allows various actors with their own agendas to fill the vacuum we create with whatever message benefits them. Kunar gets the carrots while Nangarhar gets the stick and I’m not sure why that is. Until ISAF wises up and starts calibrating their operations to gain the maximum effect from every offensive action we are going to continue to get played by Afghan elites.

Now the villains have switched up hitting tankers heading into Kunar as the transit Jalalabad towards the Bishood Bridge. This was a spectacular attack as the driver hit the gas when his truck blew up in an attempt to outrun the flames shooting out of the back. He didn't make it but did leave a trail of burning fuel for the entire length of the main downtown area. — Now the villains have switched up their tactics hitting tankers heading into Kunar as the transit Jalalabad towards the Bishood Bridge. This was a spectacular attack as the driver hit the gas when his truck blew up in an attempt to outrun the flames shooting out of the back. He didn’t make it but did leave a trail of burning fuel for the entire length of the main downtown area.

ISAF needs to think through these night raids. They do not attempt to manage perceptions because the SF teams doing these raids don’t give a damn about the perceptions in an area they’ll visit once in a lifetime. In the last 72 hours we have had 16 rockets and 6 IED attacks in Nangarhar Province. One of these IED attacks killed the sub governor of La Pur district at the gates of the Governor’s compound. Was it Taliban who did this? Who knows? The local people know that the Sub Governor had been spending time in Kabul trying to get his son released from jail. His son has been incarcerated for two months since he copped to killing one of his cousins over a family dispute. A crime he may or may not have done himself. Nothing here is linear or simple and it is common for the son of powerful men to take a fall knowing their father will get them out of prison. There are lots of scores to settle in Afghanistan and the Taliban are not the only actors settling scores.

Today 5 trucks were destoyed in a gas station a few miles to the east of Jalalabad by a single limpet mine attack — Today 5 trucks were destroyed in a gas station a few miles to the east of Jalalabad by a single limpet mine attack

One mine - quickly attached from a passing motorcycle was all it took — One mine quickly attached from a passing motorcycle was all it took

It appears that the intial explosion caused a massive fireball which wiped out the men siting in the station office. Over 70% of civilian deaths in Afghanistan are caused by the various insurgent groups — The men siting in the station office were not injured but the flaming fuel destroyed the office which was downstream of the tankers. Nobody was killed this time but over 70% of civilian deaths in Afghanistan are caused by the various insurgent groups

There is another mine attached to one of the trucks parked in the background but it failed to function. Being that Friday is a day off the Skipper is, as usual on a call in the boonies and will have to get this one when he finishes. The Skipper is a "man of the book" and tells me "evil never takes a day off and niether do I"l — There was another mine attached to one of the trucks parked in the background which went off shortly after I took this picture. But the truck was full of water and didn’t burn so the ANP immediately arrested the driver and his assistant for fuel theft.

The tanker wars continue as you can see above but to what end? It could be the “broken windows” theory of terrorism where the bad guys seek to keep constant pressure on the civilians with nuisance attacks in highly trafficked areas creating the perception of tactical freedom of action or it could be fuel company wars. Who knows? I don’t and I am pretty sure ISAF doesn’t either.

This is the start of a higly charged meeting between the Rodat district sub governor, the police chief and the station owner. The topic of the meeting is easy to guess - why can't the government protect people from this sort of nonesense — This is the start of a highly charged meeting between the Rodat district sub governor, the police chief and the station owner. The topic of the meeting is easy to guess – why can’t the government protect people from this sort of nonsense.

The summer is coming to a close, the surge is on, the bases around Afghanistan are packed with military and contractor personnel yet for the average Afghan things continue to go right down the toilet. Make no mistake we are still in a shooting war and in a shooting war a commander has three forms of currency he must spend; money, blood and time. The various insurgent groups are spending blood – we are spending tons of money and time. The problem is that the Taliban has a vast surplus of fighters while we are running out of both money and time. ISAF is hamstrung for two reasons; the first is risk aversion and lack of initiative. The bloated staffs which expand exponentially are completely focused on the unimportant. If powerpoint briefs could bring the Taliban to bay (and they could if we could inflict a few on them daily – they are worse than water torture) then we would already be home. Anyone who has been anywhere near the ISAF HQ in Kabul speaks of a dysfunctional culture so bizarre that Hollywood could never do it justice. The giant staffs which inflict so much pain and misery on those below them are a self inflicted wound and that is on the US military. The second factor the military can do little about and that is the Karzai government. Check this out:

After the corruption scandals, Karzai criticized U.S. war strategy and ordered private security companies out of Afghanistan within four months. He also signed off on the forced retirement of his official in charge of the Anti-Corruption unit.

We put pressure on the Afghan government about the corruption – they put pressure on the international community operating outside the wire who in turn put pressure on their respective international governments. That is not a recipe for success. This news about the CIA paying members of the Karzai administration who are currently under criminal investigation is a great example. I have no problems with doing what it takes to accomplish the mission but we have been at this for a decade and it seems to me if the information we paid for was worth a damn the ISAF J2 would not publicly complain about the complete lack of relevant intelligence and the current security stats wouldn’t look like this:

AGE is UN speak for anti government elements and as you can see they are operating at an all time high — AGE is UN speak for Anti-Government Elements and as you can see they are operating at an all time high. Hat tip to Sami the Finn at Indicium Consulting.

I correspond almost daily with American troops in Afghanistan, They are a frustrated crew. I hear the same thing over and over – “take the handcuffs off and let us off the FOB; we know what to do.” I’m not the only one getting this message and hope those on high are thinking about what they’re hearing from the pointed end of the spear because we are running out of time and we are running out of money.

August 22, 2010February 16, 2017

The Dog Days of Summer

I am overdue on updating all of you on local atmospherics in the rapidly destabilizing Nangarhar Province.

I also recently did another episode of The Aloyna Show where I took a SWAG at who I think is responsible for the murders of the international medical team headed by Dan Terry and Tom Little – the interview is below:

I think it is fair to say that I did not have much more to say on that topic because I remain stunned at what happened to my friends. And the bad news just keeps getting worse….The villains set up and took a shot at The Skipper last week and damn near got him.

They lured The Skipper and his boys across the bridge into Kunar Province with this fake bomb - it was full of sand and rocks. — They lured The Skipper and his boys across the bridge into Kunar Province with this fake bomb – it was full of sand and rocks.

Then they blew a remote controlled IED (RCIED) under his truck. It was in a plastic jug like the fake bomb the energy from the blast when 360 degrees doing little damage to the Skippers ride. — Then they blew a remote controlled IED (RCIED) under his truck. It was in a plastic jug like the fake bomb the energy from the blast went 360 degrees doing little damage to the Skippers ride.

The local militia and ANP showed up - everyone was vbery upset that The Skipper was attacked and nobody could imagine how such a device was planted right there next to the bridge. No idea — The local militia and ANP showed up – everyone was very upset that The Skipper was attacked and nobody could imagine how such a device was planted next to the bridge.

The Skipper wasn’t injured in this blast – nobody was which would make one think that maybe it was a warning. But for those of us who live with this shit daily it is impossible to figure out what is going on. They could have set that bomb for The Skipper expecting it to blow him to kingdom come, they could have set it up to just make noise because he’s The Skipper and they want to warn him he is no longer welcome. They could have screwed up the HME (home made explosives) recipe. There is no Taliban proficiency matrix with which to judge attacks because of the wide disparity in competence between various Taliban units. Look at this article from The Atlantic; even the Lib media is figuring out that we are fighting a bunch of clowns. Of course that brings the real question to mind which is why aren’t we beating the snot out of them but I’m going to leave that alone for now. From the Atlantic article linked above:

“Nowhere is the gap between sinister stereotype and ridiculous reality more apparent than in Afghanistan, where its fair to say that the Taliban employ the world’s worst suicide bombers: one in two manages to kill only himself. And this success rate hasn’t improved at all in the five years they’ve been using suicide bombers, despite the experience of hundreds of attacks or attempted attacks. In Afghanistan, as in many cultures, a manly embrace is a time-honored tradition for warriors before they go off to face death. Thus, many suicide bombers never even make it out of their training camp or safe house, as the pressure from these group hugs triggers the explosives in suicide vests. According to several sources at the United Nations, as many as six would-be suicide bombers died last July after one such embrace in Paktika.”

There was an attack on the safe-house of one of the security firms in Kabul last week involving two suicide bombers. They popped up well inside the new Kabul “Ring of Steel” checkpoint system (which seems designed to harass internationals) and opened fire on the exterior guards in front of the Hart Security compound. The Hart guards returned fire for a second or two and locked themselves inside the compound as did the exterior guards outside the gates of every other compound on that street. The attackers ran up to the Hart gate and one positioned himself to blow the gate while the other moved back about 20 feet. When bad guy number one blew down the gate, bad guy two also perished because 20 feet of stand-off is inadequate for powerful suicide vests. Almost funny right?

As the fighting season continues the good guys are losing more land and population to the various insurgent groups operating in the country. Teams of doctors are being murdered in the remote provinces, attacks are launched inside the ANP “Ring of Steel” (or Ring of Steal as JD and Haji jan call it) and where is the focus of the Afghan government? On private security companies of course… yes why not?

Now is exactly not the right time to make all PSC’s illegal and let the ANP and ministry of the interior (MOI) provide security to convoy’s, military bases and internationals working in the reconstruction sector. There are not enough men in the Afghan security forces to go around and their proficiency in preforming these tasks is suspect (to put it politely). But forget that – the real question is how much is this going to cost. We already pay for the ANP and ANA – if they are going to provide mobile and static security then I guess the millions of dollars being paid to private companies will no longer be needed right? Wrong. The MOI is planning to charge PMC rates to augment the millions given them by donor nations. One can predict with 100% certainty what will happen if President Karzai goes through with this crazy scheme. The logistics pipeline will start to rapidly dry up, internationals will be unable to move without their (mandated by their insurance) expat security teams and their projects will ground to a halt. Military operations will have to be suspended because there will not be enough Afghan Security Forces to both fight and provide theater wide static and mobile security support.

For companies working outside the wire in the reconstruction sector the absence of international PSD teams will also impact their ability to get insurance (required by contract law) for internationals at reasonable rates. At exactly the time that internationals operating outside the wire need to be armed the laws are changing to make it illegal for internationals to be armed. How are we supposed to operate now?

I’ll leave you with a translation of the new presidential decree on PSC’s so you too can puzzle at it’s meaning with the rest of us:

Decree Translation
President of Islamic Republic of Afghanistan About dissolution of Private Security Companies
# 65
17.08.2010

Article 1:
Based on point 3,4 article 64 and 66 of Afghan constitution in order to fight the corruption, provision of security for all citizen, avoiding the public disorder and misusing the weapon, uniform and military equipment by private security companies which causes the tragic incidents. After legal and necessary assessment about dissolution of internal and external private security companies within four months I approve the following points.

Article 2:
Individual volunteer members of private security companies, if they are qualified can be reintegrated with or without weapon, ammunition, vehicles and other on-hand equipment after registration into the police lines and ministry of interior affair is assigned to complete the reintegration of abovementioned companies and finalize it according to the timeline.

Article 3:
The supplies and equipments of foreign private security companies which have already been registered in ministry of interior in case of transportation in initial signed protocol should not belong to government. After agreement of companies MoI, MoD and NDS should purchase the supplies and equipment and the residential visa of companies’ personnel should be cancelled.

Article 4:
In case the companies do not agree to sale the equipment their residential visa’s should be cancelled and they can take their supplies and equipments with them out of country.

Article 5:
The internal and external private security companies that are not registered in MoI and established arbitrary, should be abort as illegal security companies and their supplies and military equipments to be confiscated in accordance to the law.

Article 6:
Embassies in Kabul, foreign consulates in provinces also international organizations, NGOs and economic organizations that are active around the country can have their self belonged private security inside their compounds, that should not be allowed to move outside the relevant compound and the size will be determined and registered by MoI.

Article 7:
Ministry of Interior is assigned to provide external security for all embassies and International organizations, NGO in Kabul and in provinces, provide necessary facilities in registration and issuing license for weapons and equipment individuals private security organizations as mentioned in article five of this decree and provide security for all logistical transportations of international troops from province to Kabul, districts and vice-versa in cooperation with MoD and NDS.

Article 8:
This decree is valid from the issuance date and the implementation is MoI responsibility.

Hamid Karzai
President of Islamic Republic of Afghanistan