a soldier, an aid worker, and a one eyed Mullah walk into a bar…..

Things are feeling a little weird as of late, kind of like the calm before the storm. It’s been pretty quiet by Afghanistan standards meaning that there haven’t been any recent acid attacks on young girls walking to school or armed gunmen attacking any of the ministries in Kabul with AK 47s and suicide explosive vests. But everybody is a little on edge.

Last month the Taliban leadership made a formal declaration that the Taliban would now actively target foreign aid workers on the premise that we are all actually spies. If only this was the case, I would look fabulous driving an Aston Martin and drinking martinis. Miss Moneypenny where are you when I need you. The idea of aid workers, especially American aid workers, being spies is an old one. The idea caught new life when U.S. Special Ambassador Richard Holbrooke stated that 90% of American intelligence coming from inside Afghanistan comes from international aid organizations. There was a nuance to his comments that was lost in the mainstream press and basically the story became “Aid workers in Afghanistan are spies for the CIA!” When it rains it pours.

Across the border in Pakistan, the government signed a truce with the Taliban and essentially ceded the Swat Valley to them. This gives the Taliban a safe staging ground to plan and prepare for attacks. Now that the snow is gone and the roads are clear things should get interesting on this side of border sometime soon. President Obama has now deployed an additional 21,000 troops here and I’m guessing that they’ll have their hands full.

I figured that it was a good time to go visit the boys down the road at the Lithuanian army base. I met with their civilian military attaché officer to discuss formalizing an emergency evacuation plan for my team should the shit hit the Shinola. Until now it’s just been a general understanding that if things go bad in a hurry then all of us would just run like hell to the base and bang on the gate until they let us in. I’m trying to get them to agree to a protocol where they would actually send a couple humvees and come get us! These guys are awesome and want to help so I’m sure we’ll figure it out. The sooner the better.