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.

Hey brother can you spare 6.7 metric tons of rice

We are getting ready to distribute food as part of the health component of the program. This food distribution is the most tangible part of the entire effort. Between the meetings, planning, coordinating, synergizing, negotiating, and signings, there is a lot that has to be done before anything actually gets done. These distributions are the first real thing that we can hang our hat on and say that we’ve done.

We will distribute a basket of commodities to children under five years of age, and pregnant and lactating women. The commodity basket includes rice, wheat flour, yellow peas, and vegetable oil. After making the long trip from America’s heartland, the first of our commodities is starting to arrive. After much haggling, pleading, cursing and cajoling of the Afghanistan Ministry of Finance we finally received 500 metric tons of rice into our warehouse in Herat. The rice was then to be trucked from Herat to our warehouse here in Chaghcaran where it will be distributed to beneficiaries, this is where it gets interesting. On the road from Herat to Chaghcaran our trucks were stopped by armed men who belong to one of the local militias. The gunmen actually didn’t take all of the rice which I thought was quite sporting of them, but they did lighten our load a bit before letting the trucks pass. We are now in discussions with the national police to see if we can get an armed escort for future convoys – at our expense of course. The old idealistic aid worker in me was briefly full of moral outrage about how every ounce of rice that was stolen was taken out of the mouth of a vulnerable woman or child, the realistic aid worker that has lived through people getting gunned down and shit getting blown up on a nearly daily basis thinks that losing 6.7 metric tons of rice out of a 23 truck convoy carrying 500 metric tons is a pretty good day at the office.

safe as houses

Since I’ve been in Afghanistan friends on many occasion have asked me “are you safe?” The simple answer to that question is…..no. But I look at it like this; growing up in northwest Baltimore wasn’t all that safe so I’ll be OK. Over the past few months, I’ve come to understand that security in Afghanistan is a complicated thing and it is largely dependant on where you are, what you’re doing, and who you’re doing it with.

In Kabul, there is no security period, you just have to trust in the numbers. That is to say, that on any given day there are roughly two and a half million people in Kabul and the odds are that YOU in particular aren’t going to get blown the fuck up. It’s kind of like playing Taliban roulette where you’re standing at the table as the wheel goes round hoping that the little white ball doesn’t fall on random person # 835,642 – YOU. “come on baby, daddy wants to keep all his limbs!”

In Herat, the calculus changes a bit. The population is much smaller than Kabul so technically your odds get worse since there are fewer people to get blown up meaning that your number is more likely to come up. However, there are apparently fewer things of interest to blow up in Herat and thus fewer bombings. Generally speaking, in Herat if you stay away from the airport, Governor’s house, U.N. compound, hotels, bazaars, bike shops, ice cream parlors, hospitals, restaurants, private homes, electronic shops, mosques, schools, parks, tailors, office buildings, garages, fruit stands, police stations, DVD shops, dry cleaners, and public buildings of any sort then you should be OK.

Out in the provinces like where I live it gets even more interesting. A little background, after the NATO led invasion of Afghanistan that toppled the Taliban, the country was essentially divided into security zones with different NATO member states responsible for the security of a particular region of the country. The area where I live is under the military protection of a contingent led by the Lithuanian army. That’s right the Lithuanians. Now I don’t want to malign these boys too much for two reasons; firstly, they recently invited me to their base for dinner which was much appreciated because there’s only so much stewed goat a man can eat, and the Lithuanian army cafeteria comes complete with fried chicken, lasagna, and an ice cream station, secondly, should the proverbial shit hit the fan I’ll be counting on these boys to save my ass and get me out of here. But since there is absolutely nothing out here worth going to the effort or expense of blowing up, paired with the fact that I live about ¼ mile from the Lithuanian army base so unless the Taliban actually decide to attack the base itself I should be OK.

So while the 82nd Airborne they may not be, let’s give it up for the Lithuanians – keepers of the peace and givers of the double scoop of chocolate!

Kabul - a thousand words

Help Wanted

I’m back in Afghanistan after going home for a too short Christmas break. Yes, I am part of that noble core of do-gooding souls ready to stand arm in arm with our less fortunate brothers and sisters, living as they live, eating what they eat, forgoing creature comforts and risking life and limb - just not on major holidays or during our children’s school breaks.

The snow has started to fall and that is both good and bad. Good because insurgent related violence goes down during the winter since apparently the Taliban haven’t figured out where to buy good snow tires. Bad because access to the people that we are trying to reach with services becomes severely restricted. We are planning to distribute food as part of the health intervention but we are having trouble getting it into the country. It was the same way when I worked in Indonesia. Bringing in free food ain’t as easy as one might imagine!

I recently met with the provincial Governor and members of the Provincial Council and they all pledged the support of their respective good offices. These meetings are mostly ceremonial but occasionally the phrase “when I was speaking to the Governor about……” does come in handy when dealing with a less than helpful civil servant as you’re trying to get a copy of this or that government regulation / policy statement / strategic planning document.

We’re still having trouble recruiting staff, both Afghan and expatriate but for some reason I'm hopeful that things will turn around. I’m thinking that in this shall we say challenging economic environment that maybe people will give old Afghanistan a second look, she ain’t so bad!

Kabul Kaboom!

Tuesday, Fred goes to the U.S. embassy for meetings.
Wednesday, Fred goes to the U.S. embassy for meetings.
Thursday, suicide bomber detonates massive car bomb at the entrance of U.S. Embassy.

This job is definitely worth another 5 grand a year.

Whose house

His Excellency President Hamid Karzai has just recently told his supporters from the international community to back up because when it comes to negotiating with the Taliban, Hamid makes the rules, cause Afghanistan is his house and he lives here!

A little background; President Karzai has offered guaranteed safe passage to Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar to anywhere in Afghanistan, if Omar is willing to negotiate for a peace deal. What makes this tidbit of international politics so juicy is that the U.S., the primary financial and military backer of the fragile Karzai government, has a $10 million dollar bounty on Omar’s head and wants to offer him guaranteed safe passage straight to Guantanamo - do not pass go, do not collect $200 thank you very much. Karzai went so far as to say that the international community had two choices, either accept his offer to Omar or remove him from power. That statement highlights two important points. Firstly, it underscores the desperate situation that Karzai finds himself in. The Taliban is gaining strength by the day, attacks are on the rise and becoming more brazen. Just a couple of weeks ago gunmen attacked the Ministry of Information in Kabul in broad daylight in a coordinated gunfire and suicide bombing maneuver. Members of the Afghanistan National Police (ANP) are taking off their uniforms, picking up their guns, and switching sides to join the Taliban and fight against the government. The latter point underscores just how dependant Karzai is on his international backers to hold the country together at all. It is this charge, that Karzai is beholden to western masters that has been the clarion call of insurgents here, Taliban and otherwise, that seek to topple his government. Karzai is dancing on the edge of a knife and he knows it. He is a truly charismatic figure but it will take more than the strength of his own personal gifts to bring this situation under control. President elect Obama has promised to send anywhere from 7,000 – 20,000 additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan. Let’s hope they get here in a hurry.

I have to think that when President Karzai is having an especially bad day, when Kabul is going kaboom! as it does so often these days, and tough decisions of national importance need to made, he closes the door to the President’s office turns on his iPOD and let’s Run-DMC remind him what’s what.

Whose House – It’s Hamid’s House – you better recognize.