A Portfolio of Images from Afghanistan

Classroom in Kunduz, Afghanistan, 2002

Allah is the mountain above the mountain, and it is He who entertains the idea — or not — of our next hour on the earth. 

Girls High School, Bamiyan, 2006

This is why Afghans are reluctant to bet on tomorrow.  Tomorrow is not ours to presume upon.  Tomorrow is the pleasure of Allah alone.

Hazara women at grave in Bamiyan,  2007

Insha’Allah.  The pervasive,  overpowering feeling that is difficult to describe about Afghanistan.

Bread Vendor, Kabul, 1992

It is the stubborn and unassailable conviction – the ability to endure almost anything – that defines the Afghan soul and my fascination with it. 

Father and daughter at home with folk art on the wall, Kamdesh, Nuristan,  Afghanistan, 1992

It is this powerful feeling that draws me there again and again.

Herat Ruins, 1992

Kabul, Afghanistan, 1992

 Former soldier in facility for mentally ill patients,  Kabul, 1992

The Afghanistan Dilemma  – http://stevemccurry.wordpress.com/2009/10/04/393/

As he was one of the most popular poets of the 15th century Persian literature, Nur ad-Din Abd ar-Rahman Jami, known as Jami, his spirit still haunts the landscapes of his homeland, now the state of Afghanistan. He was born in August 18, 1414 in a small village near Khorasan, nowadays in Ghor Province, Afghanistan, and only after a few years from his birth, his family moved to Herat. As a child, Jami learned Persian and Arabic from his father and pursued his intellectual fulfillment by attending the school from Samarkand, where he studied with the great Ghazi-zadeh Ruhm, one of the most famous scientists of his time. Returning to Herat, e followed his career, studying with Ala o-Din Ali Ghoshchi, which opened the young mind to philosophy and mathematics. He was the disciple of Khaja Saad o-Din Kashghari and one of his most brilliant students, as it is said that Saad o-din himself confessed to have been fascinated by the young Afghan.

In 1472, Jami started his first pilgrimage at Mecca, respecting the Islam tradition, although he was not a great traveler as Saadi, for example. One of his pilgrimages aimed at Meshed, other to Hejaz and other small trips involved Baghdad and Tabriz.

In his early years, this poet of Afghanistan entered in the slippery world of mysticism- a frequent phenomenon at that time, as most of the intellectuals of that day pursued this domain. The fact that he was a disciple of the one succeeding the great saint of the Sufis greatly influenced all his future works. He even developed a number of teachings meant to clarify and open the Sufi path to each person. Jami stated that love was the very essence of each thing and the very beginning of each spiritual journey. A story about this poet of Afghanistan says that when a student who claimed he had never loved approached him, Jami replied that he should first seek love and then follow his teachings.

His works can be considered some of the finest pieces of Persian literature and philosophy and placed next to the most loved Sufi authors. All his works are marked by the deep knowledge of Arabic literature, natural sciences, Islamic philosophy, and mathematics. Thus, there is a great complexity inside his work and a great subtlety in exploiting style and structure. He is well known for his poems, although he wrote prose too. The latter chapter is formed of stories like “Salaman and Absal”, “Yusuf and Zulaikha”, “Laila and Majnun”, gathered in a generous volume named “The seven stars of the Great Bear”. The stories, marked by the mysticism and the Sufi philosophy, are meant to be moral coordinates and important lessons for the pupils following the Sufi way. Further, he wrote the “Bahristan”, and a compendium containing the lives of all Sufi saints. As many other Afghan poets, Jami must not be reduced to one aspect, but rather understood at different levels.

His poetry is mostly formed of three diwans, “Beginning of Youth”, written in 1479, “Central Part of the Chain”, in 1489, and “Close of life”, which appeared in 1491. Pantheistic mysticism is usually the central theme in all Jami’s poems and his style is full of freshness and grace, best reflected in his most famous work, “The seven thrones”. It is said that many leaders of that time, in nowadays Afghanistan and outside it, tried to pursue the poet to join their courts- they offered him huge amounts of gold- but Jami refused and became irritated by their mediocrity. Other people tried to worship him and make him a hero, but Jami replied, “Ordinary human love is capable of raising man to the experience of real love”.

The Afghan poet led a rather peaceful life in his chambers in Herat, focusing on introspection. Some exegetes state that in his later years, after he had written all his famous works, he became senile and eventually, insane. He died in Herat, in 1492, taking with his last breath, the last great Sufi poet and one of the greatest writers of the Afghan land.

December 2, 2009 The United States plans to open two consulates in Afghanistan in coming months -- one in Mazar-e-Sharif, in Northern Afghanistan, and the other in the Western Afghan province of Herat.

Read the story here.

Camp Phoenix, on the outskirts of Kabul, is run by US forces, with some NATO member nations maintaining a presence there.

It is also a base for the Afghan army, which is being trained by international forces in the hope it can take over the responsibility for fighting the Taliban insurgency.

The camp occasionally comes under attack, mostly from rocket and mortar fire, though without casualties.

Camp Phoenix has never been mortared.  It’s never been rocketed.  Not while I was there.  Not while I was at Camp Eggers and not in the past 3 years.  I’d know.  I lived at Camp Phoenix for one year.  I lived on Camp Eggers for a year as well and visited Phoenix frequently.  I’ve been to Camp Phoenix several times over the past 3 years as well.  I have friends at Camp Phoenix right now.  One who has been there for 3 years.

Camp Phoenix has never been a training base for Afghans either.  Not the ANA or the ANP.  There are two Camps about ten miles down the road called Camp Blackhorse and the Kabul Military Training Complex (KMTC).  Afghans are trained there.  Afghans are trained at Darulaman and there are 2 or three ANP training bases within and around Kabul on which ANP are trained.

I see this happening all the time.  The Associated Press (AP) picks up a story written by some idiot who never leaves the safe confines of his hotel room or villa in Shahr-e Naw or Wazir Akhbar Khan.  These morons report as if they are on the scene.  They mix up place and location.  They hack together stories based on second hand information and pawn it off on the public as gospel truth.  The guy who wrote this story should be fired.  He printed a hand full of lies and sent it in as if he had actually visited the places about which he wrote.  A bunch of older hacks will probably award this poltroon a  Pulitzer and they’ll all sit around in a smoke filled chamber and congratulate each other on their bravery and literary brilliance.

I’ve seen this kind of irresponsible writing of lies and half truths all over the globe.  Korea when Kim Il Sung died.  When Qandahar was attacked.  In Kabul after various attacks.  In Herat after suicide bombings.  From whom do these morons obtain their “facts?”  Dr. Suess?  The Brothers Grimm?  Hanna- Barbera?  Does anyone back home in America fact check or edit their hotel room ramblings?

I read the newspaper and online journals and I often wonder if these folks are even in country.  What happened to reporting from the front?  These guys are reporting from the whorehouse or from the tea parlor.  They’re definitely NOT on the scene.  Not here in Afghanistan.  I can assure you of that.

Oggi apriamo un altro fronte…

La Russa è un prestigiatore come Casanova. Vi ricordate il mago presentato a Striscia la Notizia da Greggio e Iacchetti?
L’unica differenza tra i due “personaggi“ è che il Ministro della Difesa non simula, fa sul serio, ed invece di pasticciare intenzionalmente con colombe che non escono dal cilindro manda gli AMX in Afghanistan come D’Alema li faceva decollare dalla base di Amendola per bombardare Montenegro e Kosovo.
Il Casanova di Ricci e Canale5 faceva e fa divertire gli utenti televisivi di Berlusconi, quello di Palazzo Baracchini, in combutta con Napolitano ed il Consiglio Supremo di Difesa che si riunirà un’altra volta il 9 novembre, cambia le carte sulla tavola per meleggiare intenzionalmente l’opinione pubblica.
Di Tornado IDS in Afghanistan, su ordine del mefistofelico “pizzo e barba“, il Generale di Squadra Aerea Daniele Tei ce ne ha mandati 4 al costo stratosferico, dalla manutenzione al personale di volo, di 52 milioni di euro all’anno.
Ne dovrebbero tornare indietro 2.
Con tutta probabilità, i Panavia schierati a Mazar-e Sharif. Usiamo il condizionale perché fintanto che non atterrano a Ghedi ci è difficile crederci abituati come siamo alle pastette di La Russa.
Tipo?
Presto detto.
I 500 militari italiani che dovevano rientrare per dicembre, successivamente forse, poi no e ora sembrerebbe di sì. Il via libera è arrivato da Rasmussen al summit NATO di Bratislava che ha visto la partecipazione dei 28 Ministri della Difesa.
Barack Obama tergiversa, è in debito di dollari – gli è fallita la 117° banca il 4 novembre – di “fiato“ politico e di strategia militare.
A Palazzo Baracchini arrivano dalle 18 alle 30 lettere di protesta al giorno. Padri, madri, fratelli, sorelle e fidanzate vogliono sapere come finirà la faccenda.
Li vogliono a casa per Natale senza se e senza ma.
L’elenco dei morti e dei feriti si allunga e le famiglie, consapevoli del rischio che corrono i congiunti in “missione di pace“ chiedono a La Russa di rispettare gli impegni presi.
E allora che fa il (nostro?) ex missinista atlantico di Via del Maiale (pardon… Scrofa), sostenitore incallito dello Stato di “Israele“, passato con armi e bagagli all’antifascismo “istituzionale“ a tutto tondo salvo riservarsi il vezzo di indossare quando è in visita ad Herat (sentite, sentite) la “camicia nera“ sotto la mimetica?
Lo ha fatto per ben 3 volte di fila. Troppe per essere un “caso“.
Aumenta il numero dei cacciabombardieri, da 4 a 8, o da 4 a 6, se va bene, tanto per far uscire qualche altra decina di milioni di euro in più dalle tasche della gente per bene, che paga le tasse, per alimentare l’avventurismo bellico della Repubblica delle Banane.
Solo che… gli Amx hanno qualche grosso problemino, come del resto i Puma ed i Lince.
Ma mentre i blindati stanno a terra, i cacciabombardieri della Alenia-Aermacchi-Embraer volano e rischiano di venir giù durante gli attacchi al suolo, con effetti mortali per il personale di volo e di immagine a livello nazionale ed internazionale per l’Italietta che già con i Tornado IDS mitraglia e bombarda a tutto kerosene pashtun e mujaheddin per conto di USA, NATO ed ONU.
Esagerazioni? Macchè.
Sentite un po’.
“… ci sono elementi per ritenere che i caccia AMX siano pericolosi, quindi non idonei al volo“. Lo affermò nel 2006 il Capo della Procura della Repubblica di Cagliari, Mauro Mura, confermando il provvedimento di sequestro della flotta di cacciabombardieri in dotazione all’Aeronautica Militare Italiana, ottenuto dal GIP su richiesta del PM Giancarlo Moi, titolare dell’inchiesta sull’Amx precipitato il 20 ottobre 2005 nel comune di Decimomannu durante un’esercitazione NATO.
Il presupposto dell’inchiesta – dichiarerà – è l’accertata pericolosità di questi caccia e gli elementi raccolti ci portano in questa direzione.
Il Capo di Stato Maggiore dell’A.M.I, dal canto suo, aggiungerà questa pesante ma sostanzialmente corretta dichiarazione: “Il tettuccio dell’AMX si è già staccato cinque volte determinando la perdita dei velivoli”.
Il Messaggero di Roma denuncerà decine di incidenti di volo per l’AMX e la morte di 14 piloti. Un dato che sarà rettificato (?) dallo Stato Maggiore in 8 perdite di AMX e 6 morti tra i piloti su una dotazione di velivoli che non ha mai superato i 60 operativi sui 110 a disposizione.
L’Amx è un cacciabombardiere nato sotto una cattiva stella ed è complementare al Tornado IDS. Può portare fino a 3.800 kg di bombe a caduta libera, razzi o armamento laser. Il prototipo esce nel 1984. La prima perdita arriva in fase di collaudo nel novembre 1989.
Muore il pilota e l’aereo si incendia per impatto al suolo. Dopo 2 mesi, nel 1990, l’A.M.I è costretta a registrare la seconda tragedia. Il 7 novembre di quello stesso anno, un altro aereo precipita nelle campagne di Pavia.
Nel 1992 ne cade un altro e questa volta l’A.M.I sospende i voli. Nel 1993, in Danimarca nel corso di un’esercitazione NATO, precipita un altro AMX. Anche in questo caso muore il pilota. Nel 1993 altri due “incidenti“.
Jets ancora a terra per verifiche, nuove perdite nel 1994, altri stop al volo, ed ulteriori distruzioni per impatto a terra nel 2000 e 2001.
La Procura di Padova apre un inchiesta. Nel 2002 un’altra Procura, questa volta quella di Treviso, blocca gli AMX per la caduta e la morte del pilota in un’area alla periferia della città. Nel 2003, l’Aermacchi-Embraer torna a volare ma si deve registrare nel corso dell’anno un nuovo disastro aereo.
Poi toccherà ad un AMX biposto da addestramento riportare l’incrinatura del tettuccio ed il lancio con paracadute dell’equipaggio.
Fino ad arrivare ad un nuovo sequestro disposto dalla Procura di Cagliari, nel luglio 2006, della intera documentazione relativa agli AMX nella sede dell’Aermacchi di Venegono Superiore (Varese).
Da quel momento, non si sono più registrate perdite di aerei e piloti perché l’A.M.I ha praticamente cessato di utilizzarli per l’addestramento sui cieli italiani.
La Russa, d’accordo con Napolitano ed il solito famigerato Consiglio Supremo di Difesa, vuol tornare a farli volare a livello operativo in missioni di attacco al suolo in Afghanistan, per far fuori un altro bel po’ di afghani e… qualche pilota “tricolore“.
Giancarlo Chetoni

Afghan National Police prepare to graduate from a police academy in Herat, Afghanistan, Oct. 29, 2009. The hundreds of graduates are part of an initiative to double the size of the Afghan National Police to 160,000 by 2013. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Stephen Decatur

Read the story here.

Herat, Afghanistan,  Oct, 2009: Men walk through the blue mosque in Herat a day before the second Afghan presidential election.

The guard assigned to us is Amid Allah, or Amid Jan as we call him more affectionally. He is a wonderful caring man who looks after us foreigners. Every time we leave someplace he comes over to check whether I have my camera, my phone etc. Last night he gave me a tin with traditional Herati sweets. I dutifully declined three times and then took the gift when he insisted.

This morning he took me on a walking tour of Herat: we went to the old citadel which was closed, so we walked around it and to the mosque. For this we walked along endless small shops, a photograper’s paradise.

It was so wonderful to be able to walk around freely and poke my nose in all sorts of shops and exchange greetings with people. I did not feel threatened at any time, so many smiles and invitations to take pictures and walk into shops. I think the Heratis are as curious about me as I am about them.

At one point we even took a taxi, something we are not allowed to do in Kabul. The driver played Badakhsan traditional music which I recognize from having played it for hours during my trip in 2002. My guard is also from that part of the country and he grinned from ear to ear. Listening to one’s own music can make you happy that way.

I had my camera on all the time, clicking away as I saw one wonderful scene after another. People here mostly don’t mind having their picture taken. Occasionally a middle-aged bearded man says no, but that is rare. I do ask each time if it is OK to take a picture and most people grin and pose. A picture is called ‘aks’ in Dari, reminding me of my honey each time.

Around noontime we made our way to the airport. My male colleagues had to stand in line for each subsequent check point but I breezed through them with great ease. There are so few female travelers, may be one for each 20 or 30 males that there are rarely lines.

At one of the checkpoints for females I found three of the ladies sitting around the table where one is supposed to open one’s luggage. But there was no room as they were having lunch. It smelled delicious and I said in my best Dari that the smells made me hungry, at which I was promptly invited to sit down and eat with them; to hell with luggage checks!

Once again the security arrangements were like Swiss cheese. No one ever asked me for an ID. Last names and birthdates don’t really exist in traditional Afghanistan, which is why you will see that many Afghans are born on January 1 of a year that, given their appearance, is a good estimate of their age.

Identity cards are not used either, only by those who work for expat organizations or who travel abroad. You can make a serious looking ID card in the market and make up any information that is printed on the card; add a fake leather holder and a lanyard and you have an identity that looks official.

In between check in and luggage drop off there is plenty of time and opportunity to slip something bad in a piece of luggage and then leave the airport grounds unobtrusively. And of course, from an American point of view, nearly all of one’s fellow passengers look like the 9/11 hijackers. If the same cast of characters were to board a domestic flight in the US they would all receive extra special screening treatment. Everything is relative and contextual.

We left only one hour late and for 70 dollars (330 dollar less than the UN flight -one way) we made it in record time to Kabul, one hour in the air; with the UN flight, during my last trip, the same trip took an entire day. Granted, it was crowded in the plane, with no legroom and nothing served except water, but for one hour that is manageable. It took us more than that time to get from the airport to our guesthouse even though it is Jama’a today, a day of rest. Not for us as the weekend is essentially over.

I watched Hillary call the bad people in Pakistan names (cowards) while drinking something that comes out a can that looks like a real beer but it is actually 0.0% alcohol Bavaria brewed lemon malt beer. It is not bad when you have forgotten what real beer tastes like.

Last evening I watched endless reruns of the bomb blast in Peshawar and the attack on the UN Guesthouse in Kabul while answering emails inquiring about my safety from concerned friends from all over the world. I try to explain that there are many guesthouses in Kabul, more than there are hotels, and that Kabul is a big city and that we live far from where most of the foreigners live; but I do understand the concern and I am grateful for all the good vibes and prayers that are sent our way.

In the meantime Axel’s sewer project has hit a snag which may mean a delay in his arrival, which would have to be at least a week’s delay because of the run-off lockdown. We are receiving instructions from our security men to lay low and refrain from our weekly Chicken street outing; even our walk around the highschool is cancelled. Maybe this is a signal that I should finally try the elliptical in our house or go for a rowing visit to house nr 26.

Half way through the morning I went to take pictures of the hajjis receiving the seasonal flu vaccines at a local mosque. The vaccines have been donated by the American people and arrived at the right place and the right time thanks to many sleepless nights, thousands of phone calls and emails and much sweat and tears from many of my colleagues. My guide was the vaccination chief at the regional health office and he introduced me left and right to bearded men, sometimes introducing them as ‘he used to be a talib!’ and then everyone grinned. I would have loved to find out why the change of heart and label but my Dari is not good enough for such conversations and their English wasn’t either.

At the end of my visit to the mosque I was formally thanked on behalf of the Afghan people by an impeccably dressed religious official who, I was told later, was an official in the provincial health office at the time of the taliban.

Later one of our participants in the workshop told me how you could get your fingers or even your head cut off if the taliban police found you in the possession of a pen drive, as this meant you had a computer and that was of course a machine invented by the devil. He would hide his pendrive in the ashtray in the arm rest of his seat on the bus and pray that they would not find it.

It is hard to imagine that this was no so long ago and it is always surprising how people tell stories about the taliban as if that period was just one big joke. It seems that for my colleagues here taliban means ‘incompetent fanatics’ and sometimes I detect a hint of compassion, as if these poor sods didn’t know any better.

I had lunch again with the only other female in the room; women don’t seem to be able to eat together with men. We occupy her husband’s office and unpack the many wrappings our lunch comes in, always the same: naan (flatbread), a small plastic container with raw vegetables with a packet with low fat mayonaise on top, a plastic spoon, fork, and straw wrapped inside two tissue papers and a plastic sleeve, a plastic container with white rice, some saffron rice mixed in and tiny red berries that i am told are hard to find and good for lowering cholesterol. The last container has a big chunk of mutton, bone and fat included.

We returned early to our hotel because it is Thursday and people go home for the weekend. I came home to a hotel on back-up power which meant I had to get my mail sitting in the lobby. I sat right behind Murad from Jalalabad who was talking on Skype with his fiancée in Pakistan. I could look right over his shoulder into a living room somewhere in Pakistan where he fiancée was sitting next to, presumably, her sister and her mother lying on a mattress in the back, all very intimate, the women only half veiled.

I asked Murad if he could interrupt his video call for a brief moment so I could download my mail and he immediately obliged. As it turned out he also works for a USAID project and pursues similar objectives as we do, except he does procurement, a very tricky field, full of mines as one can expect here. He told me he missed he fiancee so much, emphasizing the ‘so’ so very much that I did not dare to download all my mail for fear of separating these lovebirds.

Tonight we will go out across the street again for dinner in the restaurant with the carpets on the grass and eat kebabs with sabzy (cooked greens) and drink the fermented yoghurt, imagining it is beer.

Our workshop venue is in between the TB ward, the infectious diseases ward and the mortuary, so it may be more dangerous here than in Kabul where gunmen created mayhem and death. Dangers are lurking everywhere in this country, but then, amazing and wonderful things are also staring at you at every street corner – a grandpa climbing over a walk to fetch his little grand or great-granddaughter; and the ancient looking seller of mysterious perfumes sitting by the side of the road. I showed him the picture that I took of him and his wares. He looked at the small display on my camera and I wondered what he thought. Magic? Weird foreigneress?

I am watching the group process that is created by my colleague. I don’t quite agree with his approach and we skirmish a bit on how to proceed. He’s impatient, as most foreign fly-in consultants are because their time frame is short. Now that I live here I see things differently. I try to get people in the habit of reflecting on what they are doing, seeing the big picture, how does what they do fit into the larger whole – because that sort of reflection is not happening. Everyone is so focused on small tasks. People are engaged with the individual trees and losing sight of the woods as a result. Every new consultant brings in new assignments that may look large and important to them, but in the greater scheme of things produce yet another set of tasks that suck up attention and energy.

We recognize that we have a fundamental philosophical difference about how people learn. My colleague thinks people learn from working on their own and then have their work product critically reviewed in plenary to correct errors and deepen the reasoning. I believe in coaching people in the intimacy of their small work group so that what the groups finally present in plenary is the best possible product. I wonder if this is the kind of philosophical difference that cannot be bridged with compelling arguments.

After lunch I asked to be taken on a tour of the hospital to get some pictures of healthcare in action. It is a regional hospital and people come from all over. I followed the man in charge of the cold chain, I call him Mr. Cool Man but he doesn’t understand that that is funny. He keeps correcting me, emphasizing that he is Mr. Cold Chain man. He is very serious about being addressed with the right title.

We first went to the first aid section where a doctor and a male nurse attended to patients that walked in or were carried in. They were all pleased to pose. I asked if I could take pictures of the patients, victims and families. My security guard and Mr. Cold Chain shrugged but I insisted they ask. No one seemed to mind and most posed with big smiles, except those who were crying or suffering or simply too ill to respond. Occasionally a woman steps out of my picture frame and covers her head. I am surprised that not all women do that. There are discarded burqas, scarves and abayas all over the place. The clothes that the women wear underneath their wraps are exposed in all their wonderful colors.

After we checked in with our Kabul based colleagues to find out what was rumor and what was fact about the early morning attacks, we, the two foreigners only, are ordered back to our hotel at 3 PM. I am both touched about the concern for our well being and annoyed that we have to leave the group. Luckily our Afghan colleagues are allowed to stay and we know the work is in good hands with them.

Once more we are staying in the Nazary hotel that was designed by people who have a very different idea of what hotel room should be like than I do. The bathroom is designed for small people, much smaller than the average Afghan or American. I think the Chinese were in on this deal. The bathroom has a callipgraphy still life design and stickers on everything indicate the manufacturer in Chinese characters.

There is no place to put clothes, only a coatbandi, as the Afghans call the ubiquitous multi-knobbed coat racks. That and the beautiful Herat carpet ar the only non Chinese things in the room. The mattress is hard as a plank and has a sheet put on top of it that is too small to tuck in. The bed is not made up and I wonder what the idea is of the small sheet that is folded on top and that looks like a johnny. Am I supposed to wrap it around me? A clean johhny sheet is put on the bed each night, wrapped in plastic.

The Chinese blanket has the weight of the lead aprons that the X-ray technicians use. I cannot pull the blanket over me because it requires two strong arms and shoulders; with my still inflamed right arm and shoulder I cannot do this. It is good that it is not very cold yet in Herat, so I manage sleeping rolled up in my sheet-johnny.

Our workshop is held in the vaccination training room of the EPI program. Instead of posters, all the vaccine-related information deemed important for trainees is painted on the wall, permanently affixed in bright colors, including a map of Western Afghanistan. All the lettering is in Dari so I am perfecting my reading skills while discussions happen around me that I cannot follow.

We sit on plastic chairs that still have the manufacturer’s plastic protective wrapping around them, half peeled. I cannot help myself peeling the plastic off even further until I encounter a piece of old scotch tape that has melded into the chair’s metal armrests.

At the end of the workshop we check out the cold room to see if the boxes that we sent at great cost to Afghanistan to protect international travelers from seasonal flu had arrived. They had. That required a victory picture. This took some explaining as the employee did not understand Churchill’s victory sign; if I had held up a Kalashnikov with one arm he might have understood better. But I did get the picture with a somewhat tentative V and a puzzled look.

Our security man allowed us to walk back to the hotel across the hospital grounds, an untold freedom. One of my colleagues showed us around telling stories about the time he was a student doctor there; stories about the Taliban waking up students with sticks at 3 AM if they weren’t praying; the removal of the women’s recovery ward from the operating theatre to separate the sexes – this meant that women coming out of surgery had to be wheeled in mid winter on gurneys over uneven ground – it was not uncommon for them to slide off the gurney; and then the bearded men slipping into the nurses quarters at night when no one was looking.

For dinner we walked across the street to a restaurant that presented itself as a small store front. But once inside the store opened in the back to a grassy courtyard with carpets spread out on the lush green grass and amidst rose bushes. It was nearly surreal, seeing groups of men here, a family there, sitting cross legged on the carpets eating kebabs and drinking fermented yoghurt, the closest to alcohol we have had. We asked for chairs and a table, to spare our knees that aren’t used to eating on carpets. All this on a mild autumn night on Sita’s 29th birthday.

To catch a 7 AM plane I had to get up in the middle of the night. I had set my alarm for 3:30, was picked up an hour later and from then on it was endless waiting. Waiting at checkpoints, or waiting for my male colleagues who had their bodies and luggage checked at various points, all in the dark because the electricity was out.

At this early hour female guards cannot be on the job because it would require that they travel in the dark and that is not allowed. Between the electricity outage and the absence of females at the checkpoints, the security arrangements were like Swiss cheese: full of holes.

I killed the hours of waiting by working on my Dari homework and learning some new words. I learned among other things that a wise old man, someone with much gravitas as we would call him, is called a cooked man in Dari. IN return, my Afghan colleagues thought that the expression ‘he travels light,’ referring to our guard, was odd – languages are funny that way.

By the time we had inched our way to the beginning of the runway, about three quarters of a regular workday had passed and our 7 o’clock plane finally took to the skies at 10 AM. We flew the Afghan version of the now defunct People’s Express, a no frills airline company called Pamir Airways. To fly this carrier, as opposed to the UN flight, you have to have an enormous dose of patience and you get nothing to eat, just a cup of water.

We spent nearly an hour on the taxiway, moving a little and then standing still for 15 minutes. There is only 1 runway at Kabul International Airport and between the many military and unmarked planes there is much coming and going, at a ratio of at least 3 coming for every one going.

During out one hour on the taxiway the passengers, nearly all men, started to get a little unruly; and here, unruly bearded and turbaned men are a little scary – luckily there are no arms allowed on the plane. People were talking on their cell phones and walking back and forth as if we were boarding and the flight attendants did not seem to care much.

Occasionally people pushed their call buttons and some heated discussions would ensue while everyone and their brother would get in on the conversation, interrupting my cat naps. I could understand a word here and there but it wasn’t difficult to figure out what they were talking about. It was a rather lively ride up to the start of the runway. Luckily there was also much laughing and that put my mind at rest.

I sat next to a young female lawyer who works with an NGO that has taken on the impossible task of defending the rights of women in Kandahar. She spoke to me in her best English and told me the most incredible stories about life of a 20-year old, unmarried Afghan lawyer who defends the underdog in one of Afghanistan’s most conservative areas.

I soon learned that she had never lost a case of her 258 taken on so far. She is independent, that is, not living with her father or brothers and has no husband, and might never get one as she probably scares the shit out of bearded men who beat or cheat on their wives. I gather from her stories that she is quickly becoming the bane of existence of men who abuse, rape, abduct, cheat or otherwise treat women badly. I asked her how she could live in a place where men so despise women and where her life is all the time in danger. She gave me a big smile and said, if they want to kill me, let them, I am here to help the women and I will never give up.

She pleads her cases in court from the anonymity of the burka. Still, I wondered, with such a dangerous profession, “don’t people know who you are?” They do of course and she knows that if there are people who want to get rid of her they can easily do this but she is unfazed. She is careful tough and does not have a business card or an email address. Everything is done by phone, the gadget practically attached to her ear. I am thinking of Sita and Tessa at 20 – such a different life.

Shabbana’s biggest wish is to go to the bazaar and buy herself some new shoes but she can’t do this, not even in relative free Herat or Kabul, not without her mother or father. She sighed, “I have so many wishes,” but then she smiled and said, “may be one day they will come true,” followed by the predictable Incha’allah.

I asked her if she voted and will vote again, something that is, for a woman in Kandahar, an act of unimaginable bravery. But she is not afraid. After she tells me about men who got their inked fingers hacked off I ask how she manages that. She wore gloves for a week, she said matter-of-factly and will do so again.

I had so many questions, I would have liked to fly for hours more. Being a mother myself of young women I wondered what her mother thought about her dangerous vocation and place of residence. “She cried each time I would visit,’” Shabanna told me. But the mother is also proud of her : in primary school at 2, secondary school at 13 and university at 16, becoming a lawyer at 19, I can see why her mother is proud. The whole country should be proud. How’s that for a natural resource for Afghanistan?

Il 19 ottobre, la Direzione Generale Armamenti del Ministero della Difesa ha concluso ad Herat la sua indagine conoscitiva sui Lince “modificati“. Perché non in un poligono nazionale e perché lontano da occhi indiscreti?
Sono sempre sotto sequestro della Procura della Repubblica di Roma ad Herat i tre “veicoli incidentati“ della Lapo Elkann & C.?
L’altezza del veicolo della FIAT Iveco con torretta a guida remota aumenta così di 400 mm. Un’enormità.
Aver aggiunto una ralla di 330 kg sulla testa del Lince ne fa potenzialmente una bara a quattro ruote motrici a meno di un esonero precocissimo dal servizio di “pattugliamento“.
E allora perché La Russa ne ha spediti altri otto in Afghanistan in aggiunta ai sovrabbondantissimi 246 a 350.000 euro a botta già in dotazione al West RC?
Come mai continua a far arrivare per via aerea una dotazione di mezzi che eccede le necessità di impiego operativo? Cosa c’è sotto?
Un “gippone protetto“, il Lince, che manifesta una elevata tendenza al ribaltamento su terreni accidentati, in curva e su salite o discese a forte pendenza, e ha già provocato nella versione “normale“ negli ultimi sette mesi 72 feriti (per scontri a fuoco con mujaheddin ed “insorti“ pashtun, esplosioni ed uscite di strada) tra i militari del contingente italiano, ed un morto, questo lo aggiungiamo noi, il 15 ottobre.
Il computo è dell‘Ansa. I sei parà del 186° Rgt saltati per aria a Kabul sono andati fuori lista, come i morti ammazzati che li hanno preceduti. Si vuole ridurre l’impatto sull’opinione pubblica lavorando solo i “dati” dei feriti? Sembrerebbe di sì.
L’ultimo caduto per “cause di servizio“ è stato il caporalmaggiore Rosario Ponziano del 4° Rgt Alpini Paracadutisti della Brigata Monte Cervino che ha perso la vita in un ribaltamento del LMV su cui si muoveva, insieme all’equipaggio (tre i traumatizzati) in missione operativa tra Herat e Shindad.
Il portavoce del West RC maggiore Marco Amoriello lo ha passo passare per l’autiere. Era, a quanto ne abbiamo saputo, il rallista, il militare in torretta, il predestinato, stando come stanno le cose, a lasciarci la buccia.
“ …i Lince “modificati” sono stati impiegati su tratti sterrati con pendenze variabili tra i 20 ed i 50°: in tutto sono stati percorsi circa 200 km in un ambiente alla temperatura media locale. Le prove a fuoco sono state effettuate nel poligono di Herat con mitragliatrici Browning che hanno sparato 1.000 colpi“.
Ecco in breve le conclusioni certificate in Afghanistan dalla Direzione Generale Armamenti e sottoscritta dal generale, che non batte per il verso giusto, Rosario Castellano della Folgore, attuale comandante del West RC PRT11 di Herat: ” …la ralla motorizzata balistica (il situational awareness sembrerebbe out – nda) soddisfa al meglio il binomio volume di fuoco erogabile/protezione dell’operatore”. L’innalzamento del LMV non pregiudica l’equilibrio del mezzo (dichiarazione da Corte marziale) anche se richiede “una maggiore accortezza nell’esecuzione delle manovre”.
Per ovviare a questo “inconveniente“ secondo il rapporto sono indispensabili 300 minuti (!) di guida da effettuare in Italia (!).
Il LMV – si afferma, in soldoni, da Herat – appare “ben ancorato al terreno“ e per farlo muovere in “totale sicurezza” (!) su rotabili e sterrati dell’Afghanistan occorre a giudizio della Commissione della D.G.A un addestramento alla guida pari a un’ora per dito d’una mano.
Non ci va di commentare questa “indicazione“ fuori di testa.
Nel nostro articolo Gli “effetti” Lince in Afghanistan, si attribuiva il frequente ribaltamento dei LMV “normali“, non quelli ulteriormente appesantiti di 330 kg in torretta, al posizionamento della cellula di sicurezza che alzava a livelli di guardia il baricentro.
Abbiamo tenuta coperta la fonte di informazione nell’intento di evitarne la possibile identificazione (e problemi annessi). Fino a quel momento c’erano state sul LMV della FIAT Iveco solo montagne di apprezzamenti. Un coro senza stonature che puzzava e puzza ampiamente di zolfo. Complicità e interessi di lobbies hanno fatto muro. Poi c’è chi vede bianco quello che è nero.  Sono i sanfedisti del Lince che lincia. Il più delle volte sono in buona fede facendo paragoni sbagliati con mezzi “analoghi” di produzione USA.
Ecco cosa ci ha detto un ufficiale, che vuole giustamente mantenere l’anonimato, che da quelle parti c’è stato e ha messo le chiappe sui sedili della “cellula di sicurezza“ del FIAT Iveco: “ …prima del LMV della Iveco usavamo i Puma. Dopo le pesanti perdite registrate, li abbiamo messi da parte. Aspettiamo di rispedirli indietro. Pesano 6.8 tonnellate, sono mezzi all’apparenza imponenti, “sicuri”, con una trazione 4×4 o 6×6. Il primo impiego operativo è stato in Iraq. Il costo complessivo di produzione è stato di 305 milioni di euro ma i Puma hanno una struttura costruttiva rigida totalmente inadatta ad assorbire gli effetti esplosivi. Effetti che si trasferiscono, in caso di esplosioni, all’interno del blindato, sull’equipaggio, con conseguenze che il più delle volte, sopratutto alla periferia di Kabul, si sono rivelati mortali … “.
Perdite di vite ed ingenti costi materiali in fumo. Sostituire una linea di “blindati” costa alla gente perbene, quella che paga le tasse, centinaia di milioni di euro.
La Repubblica delle Banane ha sostituito i Puma con i Lince. L’avventurismo bellico di Napolitano, Frattini e La Russa, sta producendo i suoi effetti.
E vediamo cosa aggiunge il nostro interlocutore sui LMV “normali“: “ …il Lince ha una luce da terra di 460 mm, il peso della sola ralla con una MG – mitragliatrice leggera in calibro 7.62 al posto della pesante Browning in 12.7 testata ad Herat – pesa oltre 130 kg senza la protezione “piastre” che abbiamo costruito, alla buona, ad Herat a difesa dell’operatore. Se si carica questo peso sulla testa di un SUV alla prima normalissima curva in asfalto anche a bassa velocità si finisce a testa in giù. Su terreni sterrati, impervi, estremamente impegnativi, il Lince manifesta una forte tendenza al ribaltamento. Gli inglesi, è vero, ne hanno acquistati 400 dalla FIAT Iveco ma non li usano in Afghanistan. Li impiegano soprattutto, in servizio di ordine pubblico, nell’Irlanda del Nord…”.
Questa dichiarazione, da sola, mette bene in evidenza le vergognose manfrine di Ignazio La Russa che parla a Porta a Porta di “San Lince”, protettore del contingente tricolore in Afghanistan, alla presenza della senatrice Roberta Pinotti, responsabile “difesa“ per il PD, invitata nel salotto di Vespa su pressione del Ministro della Difesa a fare “opposizione“ senza fiatare.
PdL e PD finanziano e rifinanziano, in combutta, senza rossori la nostra (?) “missione di pace“.
Un teatrino che segnala una gravissima emergenza nell’”informazione” e nella politica estera e militare del Paese.
Giancarlo Chetoni

Addendum 28/10/2009
Dalle parti di Herat. Un Lince “normale” su terreno riportato, con l’evidente intento di dimostrarne la stabilità, affronta una pendenza semplice largamente inferiore alle specifiche di progetto, senza mitragliatrice Mauser 7.62 con piastre a protezione dell’operatore né in calibro 12.7 mm su ralla. Una prestazione giudicata evidentemente ottimale per essere propagandata e che la dice lunga.
Notare come il Lince si sia già mangiato lo spazio luce tra parafiamma e terreno. Non tutte le ciambelle riescono col buco.

Es complicado hablar bien de un ejército. No es ninguna novedad que en esta sección se hable mal de cualquier tipo de ejército, de la acción bélica que realizan, de los asesinatos que pesan a sus espaldas. Asesinatos que caben dentro de lo que es una guerra, conflicto que incluso el definido como mejor filósofo español, José Ortega y Gasset, defiende como la mejor vía para solucionar ciertos problemas (así le va a la filosofía en España). Pero asesinatos que también son producto de la sed de sangre, de la sed de venganza, de la sed de matar por matar, sin miramientos. Menuda puta pena de ejército que tenemos, con soldados vengativos que buscan asesinar al que ha asesinado a un soldado.

Si ya es grave la muerte de una persona una guerra (sea civil, soldado, diplomático o lo que sea, ninguna muerte debe ser más importante que otra porque al final los fallecidos son muertes iguales a las demás, más o menos justas, que producen más o menos tristeza a más o menos personas), buscar el asesinato con la venganza como principal motivo es mucho peor. Es deleznable esta filosofía de ojo por ojo, diente por diente. Es un comportamiento más propio de la Mafia que de un Ejército cuyos soldados, se supone -hay motivos para dudarlo, uno de ellos éste- están en misión de paz. Misión de paz de la que se ha hablado en un artículo anterior, el que trata sobre la muerte del cabo Cristo Ancor Cabello; el que trata sobre cómo los soldados españoles viven el día a día en la misión de paz que realizan en Afganistán; el que habla de un energúmeno muy orgulloso de sí mismo que grita ¡Joderos, hijos de puta! a unos enemigos a los que les ha caído un cohete en su posición.

Pues esos soldados españoles, que se supone que no están en Afganistán para matar, sino para salvar vidas (o para lo que se haga en una misión de paz), son los que han buscado venganza. Y en una guerra la mejor venganza es coger el hijo de puta que ha matado a uno de los nuestros (uno de los nuestros, que somos los mejores, los más buenos, los más pacíficos, los que nunca haríamos daño a nadie, los que estamos en Afganistán para librar al mundo de los peores terroristas habidos y por haber, los que estamos en Afganistán para salvar vidas, los que nos entretenemos de vez en cuando disfrutando con las muertes ajenas, pero contamos con el perdón de Dios y con el beneplácito de nuestros superiores y de nuestros políticos, porque estamos disfrutando con la muerte de un cabrón, mucho mejor que eso, disfrutamos con la muertes de decenas, centenares de cabrones). Lo mejor de la guerra no es fumarse un pitillo en mitad de la selva o del desierto, ni cascártela viendo a una mujer desnuda en el Playboy: lo mejor de la guerra es matar, como Dios manda. A la guerra no se va a hacer amigos, no se va a ayudar a los civiles, a los refugiados… a la guerra se va a asesinar al enemigo; y cuando el enemigo ha matado a uno de los nuestros, hay que acabar con él y dejarle pero que Ulises a Héctor: hay que desfigurarle de tal manera que no lo reconozca ni el cabrón de su padre. Porque en una guerra los cabrones en el enemigo no son únicamente los que matan, sino también sus familias, sus padres los primeros por haberlos parido.

En una guerra hay muchos hombres anónimos, muchos niños sin nombre muertos en las calles, muchas mujeres anónimas llorando por la muerte de sus seres queridos, también anónimos. Eso dificulta poder vengarse; cuando no se sabe quién es exactamente la persona a la que hay que liquidar en la guerra hay que optar por matar a cuantos más mejor: sean inocentes o culpables. En cambio la misión de los soldados españoles, junto a los afganos, de liquidar al responsable de la muerte del cabo Cristo Ancor Cabello era mucho más fácil. Tenía nombre: Gholam Reza Yahya. La diana en las tiendas de campaña españolas tenía en el centro el rostro de Gholam Reza Yahya. Había que ir a por él. Siempre desde el pacifismo que rodea la misión de paz que desempeña el Ejército español en Afganistán: pacifismo, sí, ser los gilipollas del barrio a los que matan a uno de los suyos y no vengarse, no. Cuando hay que vengarse, hay que vengarse. Cuando hay que derramar sangre del enemigo y dejarla sin limpiar para que las moscas revoloteen a su alrededor, se derrama toda la sangre que haga falta. A los soldados españoles nadie les toca los cojones porque son muy hombres, llegan a un pueblo lleno de mujeres vírgenes y se van dejando un pueblo-prostíbulo.

 Así son los soldados españoles. Nadie les toca lo que no se le debe tocar nunca a un hombre, y menos a un soldado -que es mucho más que un hombre-. Aprovechando que el Gobierno de Estados Unidos quería limpiar la zona de Herat, las tropas españolas vieron su oportunidad. Se planea un ataque y si  muere el cabrón que ha asesinado a uno de los nuestros mucho mejor. Y así se ha producido. El ataque vio luz verde después de la muerte de Cristo Ancor Cabello, y las tropas lanzaron el ataque en el que murieron 20 guerrilleros, 12 fueron detenidos y el señor de la guerra yaiko, Gholam Reza Yahya, fue asesinado. No se merecía menos. En la guerra se merece morir toda persona que ordena matar o que mata con su fusil, con su lanzagranadas, con su lanzacohetes o con sus propias manos en un combate cuerpo a cuerpo. Da igual que el ataque lo realicen soldados que se supone no están para matar, sino en misión de paz. Hay que vengarse, y la venganza no entiende de misiones de paz, sólo entiende el lenguaje de la sangre y de la muerte.

Así es el ser humano. En cuanto hay una guerra se pasa por el forro de los cojones la palabra paz y todo lo que se relacione con ella. Y esto no es algo que nos debe pillar desprevenidos. Hay que criticar y estar en contra de todos los conflictos bélicos, de todas las guerras, de todos los asesinatos (aunque sea parte del terrorismo de Estado, sigue siendo terrorismo, siguen siendo asesinatos que no tienen justificación). Ninguna persona se merece alabanzas por ser partícipe en una guerra cuando se está matando. Porque una guerra sin muertes no es una guerra. Porque una guerra siempre será una guerra, y para los que no defendemos la vía armada bajo ninguna circunstancia todas las guerras son en el fondo lo mismo. Da igual el motivo por el que se ha iniciado la guerra, en todas hay asesinatos que no se juzgan porque es parte del trabajo del soldado. Por eso es muy raro que un soldado vaya a la cárcel acusado de asesinato: para el soldado matar es en la guerra lo mismo que para el carpintero clavar un clavo en un trozo de madera en el taller de carpintería, es su trabajo. Maneras de justificarlo hay cientos, miles, una de ellas la venganza.

Y si encima la orden de matar procede de los altos mandos… bueno, del mando más alto que hay en el mundo (con permiso del Papa), es decir, que procede bajo el apoyo y la dirección del Presidente de EE.UU., Barack Obama, ya no hay nada más que decir. No estamos hablando en este caso de la orden de un Presidente como George W. Bush, que es un genocida. Estamos hablando de un Presidente que ha sido galardonado con el Premio Nobel de la Paz. Y para los que no lo sepan, que por desgracia hay muchos, una de las tareas que debe realizar todos los hombres galardonados con el Premio Nobel de la Paz consiste en ordenar asesinatos en las conflictos bélicos. Es un poco paradójico, pero es lo que hay. Además de haber una diferencia muy clara entre George W. Bush y Barack Obama (aparte del color de piel): George W. Bush es un genocida porque es el primer responsable de todos los asesinatos obra de los soldados estadounidenses en todas las guerras a las que ha enviado soldados y en todas las guerras iniciadas durante su mandato; Barack Obama es el salvador del mundo y es el máximo responsable de todos los asesinatos obra de los soldados estadounidenses en todas las guerras a las que EE.UU. sigue enviando soldados, pero no es un genocida, sino un Premio Nobel de la Paz. Y con todos los asesinatos que pesan sobre sus espaldas como Presidente de EE.UU., asesinatos cuyos autores son los soldados estadounidenses que Barack Obama mantiene de los envíos de tropas durante la presidencia de George W. Bush y de los que se hayan enviado o se vayan a enviar durante el mandado de Barack Obama, el actual Presidente de EE.UU. no hace sino cumplir con su deber de estrechar lazos diplomáticos para evitar las guerras y conseguir la paz en el mundo.

Es un objetivo muy contradictorio y paradójico para los que no estamos metidos de lleno en los juegos diplomáticos a nivel mundial. Para muchos incluso se puede calificar de hipocresía, o incluso de formas mucho peores; pero no hay que preocuparse, que todos los afganos muertos a manos o a fusiles de los soldados estadounidenses, o de los soldados italianos, o de los soldados afganos, o incluso de los soldados españoles, no son víctimas de una guerra, sino parte de la tinta con la que Barack Obama firmará en el libro de acogida de la próxima gala de los Premios Nobel, si es que los premiados firman en un libro como si fuesen testigos de una boda. Y en esa gran labor gracias a la que Obama ha sido premiado con el Premio Nobel de la Paz, también participan los soldados españoles. Soldados que se merecen mucho más el Premio Nobel de Paz que el Presidente estadounidense. Si ya se merece de por sí el Premio Nobel de la Paz el gran Obama con sus esfuerzos diplomáticos -y para conseguir sus propósitos es capaz incluso de aprobar ataques y ofensivas de las tropas estadounidenses para matar al enemigo-, los soldados que matan se lo merecen mucho más. Y en esa gran labor que llevan a cabo los soldados al matar los que el Gobierno de EE.UU. cree preciso para que el año que viene Barack Obama repita el Premio Nobel de la Paz 2009, es más importante la venganza de los soldados españoles para vengar la muerte del cabo Cristo Ancor Cabello. Vale que EE.UU. pidió que se limpiara Herat de talibanes; pero los que han participado en la ofensiva clamando venganza hemos sido nosotros, los españoles (porque al fin y al cabo los soldados se llevan una parte de nuestros corazones con ellos).

Eso sí, todo lo que se ha dicho en este artículo sólo se relaciona con la verdad en la medida en que los dos artículos de la edición digital del diario La Razón informen sobre lo que ha sucedido, y no mientan. Porque imagínense los lectores que las alusiones que se hacen a la venganza de los soldados españoles al participar en el ataque que ha matado a Gholam Reza Yahya, máximo responsable de la muerte del cabo Cristo Ancor Cabello -ataque aprobado tras la muerte del cabo español- no se correspondiese con la realidad. Entonces simplemente los soldados españoles habrían matado a Gholam Reza Yahya y a otros 20 talibanes en una ofensiva bélica como otra cualquiera. Siempre dentro de los límites establecidos en las misiones de paz. El ojo por ojo, diente por diente, ya no sería la filosofía del Ejército, porque en esta misión no habría ápices de venganza…

Sólo serían unos soldados españoles en misión de paz ayudando a otros soldados a matar en una guerra… lo que deja en mejor lugar todavía el nombre de la paz, y nos debe llenar de alegría a todos los españoles cuyos compatriotas están ahí, en misión de paz y matando por venganza.

Fuente:

www.larazon.es

In Christopher Kremmer’s  book, The Carpet Wars, he writes this about Afghanistan:

“A landscape might be denuded, a human settlement abandoned or lost, but always, just beaneath the ground lies history of preposterous grandeur. . . They are everywhere, these individuals of undaunted humankind, irrepressibly optimistic and proud.”

Herat, Afghanistan, 1992

The beautiful city of Herat has been inhabited for over two millennia and has been fought over by invaders from Alexander the Great to the Soviets which picked Herat as one of their first battlefields.

Bala Hisar Fort, Herat, Afghanistan, 2002

When I photographed there, it looked like Dresden after World War II.  But the war with the Soviet Union had ended by the late 1980’s, and families had started to return from Iran and other countries to rebuild their homes.

A young man returns to his hometown of Herat, 1991

School boy, Herat, 1991

Herat has always been considered to be a cultural center where the arts, literature, architecture, and knowledge flourish.   Herat is a treasure trove of ancient forts, citadels, mosques, and minarets.

October, 2009

It is a privilege to have an exhibition of my photographs going on now at the Charhar Suq Cistern in Herat.  The Aga Khan Foundation is rebuilding the huge caravanserai in Herat which has four big branches.  Right in the intersection is the place called the Charhar Suq cistern.

Herati women looking at my picture of an orphan from Kandahar, October,  2009

During the first week, more than 1,800 people visited the exhibit along with 800 local high school students  field trips organized by the Afghan ogranization, Education Support Organization.

I assumed this post would be about the announced results of the election audit, but the world is still waiting on an announcement, which the BBC says will come some time “this weekend”. So I’m going to hurry up and get this week’s review posted before all the election talk becomes old news.

Unfortunately, the news this week is full of hearsay, speculation, and denials on all fronts–especially about the election. Tea-leaf readers seem to agree that a runoff is likelier than ever–the BBC, for example, finds “senior sources” reporting a “flurry of diplomatic activity” by Westerners trying to convince Karzai to accept a second vote. Laura Rozen of Politico reports the same thing, and is more specific: “Deputy US Ambassador Frank Ricciardone was seen leaving the house of leading opposition candidate Abdullah Abdullah last night”, and Zalmay Khalilzad is in Kabul to talk to Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani.

It’s also been widely reported that the audit will put Karzai at 47% (see the Post, here) or 48% (see the Wall Street Journal, here), triggering a runoff, but it’s not clear that this rumor has any actual connection to the work of the Independent Electoral Commission. What makes this seem plausible, though, is the fact that Maulavi Mustafa Barakzai, a member of the Electoral Complaints Commission widely seen as a Karzai loyalist, threatened to resign, claiming that the Commission (which is a UN body, remember, and only 2/5 Afghan) was biased against Karzai. Karzai rejected the resignation, but this incident has been widely interpreted to mean that the ECC’s report will be unfavorable to Karzai. Moreover, Afghan Ambassador ot the U.S. Said Jawad was the first administration official to admit that a runoff looks likely, although people closer to Karzai’s campaign have been more circumspect.

Karzai and Abdullah’s camps haven’t changed their public stances on the election’s legitimacy, leaving observers to guess at their strategic calculations. The AP quotes an Afghan MP claiming that Karzai will accept a unity government after the results are announced, citing “international pressure”; the WSJ cites anonymous Afghan officials making the same claim. According to the Journal, the deal wouldn’t involve a cabinet position for Abdullah (who has consistently denied wanting one) but some guaranteed number of positions for his backers. EurasiaNet speculates that Abdullah would be willing to accept a “reconfigured power-sharing arrangement that reduced the powers of the presidency”. While that might sound like weak tea, it’s important to remember that Abdullah only holds so many cards–a runoff, after all, might be just as corrupt as the first round and Abdullah might not improve his vote share in any case. This leads Martine van Bijlert to guess that Abdullah “wildly over-asked” in negotiations with Karzai, leading Karzai to call Abdullah’s bluff by indicating his willingness to settle matters with a runoff. The government’s public rhetoric has been all about the international community respecting the democratic process–read: abiding by the presumed Karzai victory–and Said Jawad has been downplaying talk of a coalition government.

As I said last week, it’s hard to imagine how the prospect of another election in two to four weeks strikes the voters of Afghanistan. The Times interviewed some Kabul residents and found them untied in the belief that the second round would solve nothing, whether for the reason that it would be just as fraud-tainted or the first or that it would be an opportunity for the United States to “impose its own candidate”. Agence-France Presse, meanwhile, interviews some of Karzai’s supporters in the Pashtun tribes and finds them equally skeptical–and unwilling to risk their lives to vote a second time when they see the first election as having been legitimate and sufficient.

The White House did some backtracking of its own this week after the BBC reported that the U.S. had privately notified the U.K. that it planned to announce an Afghan “surge” before next week’s meeting of NATO defense ministers. Said Jawad indicated in an interview that he found this extremely likely, but Robert Gibbs denies that a decision has been made. The U.K. announced this week that it would deploy an additional 500 troops to Helmand Province if (among other conditions) other NATO nations increased their troop commitments, which was the alleged motivation for the U.S.’ wink-and-nod. An actual announcement by President Obama is expected some time this week or next. Notwithstanding reports earlier in the week that the administration had ordered 13,000 additional support troops to the country, it appears that no decisions have been made–those troops were apparently part of an earlier deployment ordered by President Bush.

John McCain continues to warn that delay is dangerous in Afghanistan, and some Democratic senators–notably hawks like Dianne Feinstein of California–seem to agree that implementing McChrystal’s recommendations is an immediate necessity. Andrex Exum, though, is less worried that Obama is taking a serious look at all his options–but he hopes that American diplomats are making good use of the delay to remind Karzai that he needs us more than we need him. Tom Friedman feels the same way, but worries that the election debacle has left us without the local partner we’ll need for a protracted counterinsurgency campaign. Says Friedman: “I would not add a single soldier there before this guy, if he does win the presidency, takes visible steps to clean up his government in ways that would be respected by the Afghan people.” I suspect Obama doesn’t have that luxury–at best, he’ll be able to wait until we know the election’s final outcome. But even if he were to extract some promises from Karzai, we’d have no way of knowing how well Karzai would follow through.

Back to my theme of rumors and denials, the Times of London had an incendiary report on Friday that the Italian secret service had bribed Taliban commanders in Herat and Sarobi without notifying its ISAF allies. Last August, ten French troops were killed by some of those same insurgent leaders after the departure of the Italian force. From the story:

“One cannot be too doctrinaire about these things,” a senior Nato officer in Kabul said. “It might well make sense to buy off local groups and use non-violence to keep violence down. But it is madness to do so and not inform your allies.”

“Madness”, because the French troops believed they were being deployed in a relatively peaceful area. Italy, naturally, has been quick to deny the report and the U.S. government hasn’t made a public statement on the issue yet, as far as I can find.

Since this may be the last (or second-last) review post before the Obama administration rolls out its new Afghanistan strategy, I thought I’d review some commentary by those pushing for a more counterterrorism focused mission. Skeptics of counterinsurgency are common, but those laying out a comprehensive alternative are much rarer. Two worth reading are the University of Chicago’s Robert Pape and Columbia’s Austin Long. Pape, in good IR scholar fashion, recommends that we rely on offshore balancing in the form of an “over-the-horizon” military presence and support for local groups like the remnants of the Northern Alliance who would keep the Taliban out of Kabul. Pape also recommends buying the loyalties of Pashtun leaders (which we’re already attempting, but he wants funding upped for our “Social Outreach Program”). Long goes into more detail about what that “over-the-horizon” presence would look like; he doesn’t think that offshoring counterterrorism would be viable without a Special Forces component of several thousand troops on the ground and several air bases in Afghanistan (Bagram, Jalalabad, and one somewhere in the south). I think Pape and Long deserve credit for doing more than simply asking tough questions about COIN, but I’m not sure they’ve addressed the major stumbling block for counterterrorism advocates: how will we gather intelligence with a reduced presence? As Bruce Riedel and Michael O’Hanlon argue in USAToday, a reduced presence means that our Afghan allies would be much, much less likely to stick their necks out to help us identify insurgent targets.

The U.K. Times Online, attributing the story to “Western military officials,” alleges the Italians were paying the Taliban to keep them quiet, and not telling a French unit relieving them of the arrangement,  Shortly after the relief, 10 French troops were killed in a major ambush.

Italy and France denies the allegations, but The Times goes further, receiving confirmation from Afghan officials as well as a Taliban commander:

Mohammed Ishmayel, a Taleban commander, said that a deal was struck last year so that Italian forces in the Sarobi area, east of Kabul, were not attacked by local insurgents …. Mr Ishmayel said that under the deal it was agreed that “neither side should attack one another. That is why we were informed at that time, that we should not attack the Nato troops.” The insurgents were not informed when the Italian forces left the area and assumed they had broken the deal. Afghan officials also said they were aware of the practice by Italian forces in other areas of Afghanistan.

Now, buried in this story from Agence France-Presse, a “Western military source” says Canada (among others) have been doing the same thing:

…. according to a number of Western and Afghan officers, all speaking on condition of anonymity, the politically sensitive practice is fairly widespread among NATO forces in Afghanistan.

One Western military source told of payments made by Canadian soldiers stationed in the violent southern province of Kandahar, while another officer spoke of similar practices by the German army in northern Kunduz.

“I can tell you that lots of countries under the NATO umbrella operating out in rural parts of Afghanistan do pay the militants for not attacking them,” the senior Afghan official said.

He added that it “seems to be the practice with military forces from some NATO countries, excluding the US forces under NATO, the British forces and the whole coalition forces” under the US-led “Operation Enduring Freedom“.

“I think more than 50 percent of NATO forces deployed in rural Afghanistan have such deals or at least have struck such deals” to ensure peace, the official said.

He said he did not want to say precisely how many but one Western officer said: “As it’s not very positive and not officially recognised, it’s never spoken about openly. It’s a bit shameful.

“Consequently, it’s sometimes not communicated properly between the old unit and the new unit that comes in to relieve them,” which may have happened between the Italians and the French.

A spokesperson with Canada’s Expeditionary Forces Command (CEFCOM) denies such payments, bringing up a good point:

“I haven’t heard of any type of payment that would be done by our troops in order to remain protected,” said Lt.-Col. Chris Lemay, a spokesperson with the Canadian Expeditionary Forces Command. “With the number of casualties we’ve been getting, had we paid these guys they wouldn’t be holding up their end of their bargain.”

The best summary of why the “bribe the tribes” approach can’t work in the long run in Afghanistan (compared to how it seemed to work in Iraq) comes from Nathan Hodge over at Wired.com’s Danger Room blog:

…. the biggest flaw in the “bribe the Taliban” argument: What happens when you stop paying?

Once again, the Iraq example is instructive. Responsibility for paying Sunni tribal militias, referred to by the U.S. military as the Sons of Iraq (SoI), was handed over to the government of Iraq, and a certain number of SoI were eventually supposed to be absorbed into Iraq’s security forces. But not all has gone to plan: Earlier this year, fighting erupted in Baghdad after the arrest of Adel Mashadani, a Sunni militia leader and key figure in the “Awakening” movement. As the central government moved to disarm and disband Awakening councils, it prompted concern about a renewed violence in Iraq as U.S. troops packed up for withdrawal.

And Afghanistan presents a much more difficult case. Iraq’s central government can count on a decent stream of revenue; Afghanistan’s government is pretty much broke. Bribery may work to a point, but it seems highly unlikely that Kabul could keep its internal opponents on the payroll when its operating budget is largely drawn from foreign aid and it can barely cover the cost of maintaining its army and police.

Makes sense to me.

Update (1): This, from the Canadian Press:

Task Force Kandahar spokesperson Maj. Mario Couture says an Agence France-Presse report that alleges Canadian soldiers tried to buy off insurgents is “totally baseless” …. Couture says Canadian soldiers do pay out sums to Afghans who agree to hand in their weapons, while offering others paid work to encourage them to turn their backs on the Taliban …. Defence Minister Peter MacKay, speaking in St. John’s, said it was the first he was hearing of the report and described it as likely “Taliban propaganda.”

UPDATE (2): So, could the story be Taliban propaganda?

Il Times di Londra non molla, in ossequio alla sua tradizione (quella di uno dei giornali più prestigiosi ed indipendenti del mondo) pur di fronte alle smentite del governo italiano (che vi ha aggiunto una minaccia di querela), della Nato e dei diretti interessanti (i francesi); oggi il quotidiano britannico pubblica una seconda puntata (qui il link) alla sua denuncia di presunti pagamenti alla guerriglia effettuati dai servizi italiani per comprarsi un po’ di pace nelle aree di operazione delle nostre truppe.

Ieri l’articolo provava a smontare uno dei casi di maggior successo dell’Isaf in Afghanistan, quello di Sorobi (vedi la sintesi in un post di questo blog), affermando che in realtà la pace era stata comprata per giunta senza dirlo agli alleati, causando così indirettamente la strage dei parà francesi appena subentrati agli italiani nell’agosto del 2008.

Oggi, invece amplia il fenomeno estendendolo anche al Rc-West, in pratica all’area dove è concentrato il grosso delle nostre truppe con base ad Herat ma attive anche nelle due difficilissime province di Bala Morghab e Farah. Secondo l’articolo di oggi (vedi una sintesi in italiano qui):

Mr Ishmayel said that under the deal it was agreed that “neither side should attack one another. That is why we were informed at that time, that we should not attack the Nato troops.” The insurgents were not informed when the Italian forces left the area and assumed they had broken the deal. Afghan officials also said they were aware of the practice by Italian forces in other areas of Afghanistan.

A senior Afghan government official told The Times that US special forces killed a Taleban leader in western Herat province a week ago. He was said to be one of the commanders who received money from the Italian Government. A senior Afghan army officer also repeated the allegation, adding that agreements had been made in both Sarobi and Herat.

Non sono in grado esprimermi sulle accuse del Times (per giunta rivolte ai servizi più che ai militari italiani), di certo appaiono surrogate da fonti diverse e citano persino intercettazioni telefoniche dei servizi americani, ma è altrettanto sicuro che nell’ovest soprattutto negli ultimi sei mesi (ma ricordiamo anche la scorsa “calda” estate con l’Aeromobile nelle stesse zone) gli italiani sono stati in combattimento quasi ogni giorno, che è un elemento sicuramente contraddittorio rispetto al quadro delineato da questi articoli.

Un’osservazione personale. Fermo restando che la tentazione che potrebbe emergere è quella di derubricare tutto alla voce “pessimi rapporti tra Berlusconi e la stampa internazionale” (insomma che piuttosto di affrontare la questione si dica che è solo frutto di screzi e dispetti) e che, comunque, gli effetti sull’immagine internazionale del nostro premier (quello che lui stesso ha definito lo “sputtanamento”) dopo la vicenda escort, non aiuti a dare forza alle pur categoriche smentite governative. Secondo me il punto di tutta questa storia è però un’altro: c’è bisogno di chiarire tutto e farlo subito, non solo per motivi di decoro nazionale (…perdita della faccia…mettiamola così) ma soprattutto perchè i militati sul campo, quelli che rischiano la vita ogni giorno, possono essere seriamente penalizzati da una storia del genere se non chiarita o lasciata (italicamente) perdere per essere poi dimenticata. Chi si trova in prima linea con addosso accuse del genere rischia di non essere più considerato un buon alleato da chi combatte al suo fianco (afghani, americani, francesi, spagnoli che siano) ovvero rischia di ritrovarsi “isolato” e quindi rischia di rischiare molto di più.