Diplomacy Through Art

A few days ago, I was in a meeting with the District Governor of Arghandab, Haji Shah Mohammad.  I did a quick sketch of him while he was talking with somebody else, and when we left, I gave it to him.  He thought it was pretty cool and wanted me to do another one, a bit more formal.  So this morning, I met with him in his office, along with a number of his cronies, and did this drawing.

Haji Shah Mohammad

Graphite on paper, 12"x9"

The District Governor of Arghandab and me

I sat on the visitor's couch across from him while he sat in his favorite chair.  The lighting was a bit odd:since the power was out in the building (a common situation) we relied on ambient light from the windows, which was soft and unusually colored due to today's thick dust.  I had an interpreter, Ahmad, with me, and he talked with the DG and the cronies while I drew.  I can't talk and draw at the same time, so I kept quiet and sketched away.  After about 20 minutes, I thought the drawing turned out pretty well, and the DG thought so, too, especially when I gave it to him.  So now he has two original Rohde drawings in his private art collection.  I had a great time doing it and hope that I can do more before the end of my tour.

Keeping Busy

Southern Afghanistan is warming up.  This morning we’re well into the 70’s (fahrenheit) with clear skies and only a little dust.  Nice day.  The weather is changing rapidly: a week ago, I needed a jacket; today I’m in a polo shirt.  Good stuff!

I mentioned in my last post that we were moving our office out of the District Center and into a tent on the US-controlled side of the wall.  We did most of it over a week ago.  The only thing remaining was the move of one of our computer networks, which included a communications system.  This is a complex move that required some special technicians.  They arrived a few days ago and we started to roll.  Immediately the military guys here threw us a curveball.  Our satellite dish was on top of the District Center, but they wanted it moved into our compound.  Where?  They didn’t say and didn’t care, as long as it was off the Center and in our compound.  Which is packed about as tightly as a compound can be, meaning there’s no room at the inn.  But  with the help of a sharp Sergeant First Class, we found a place on top of a guard tower, found a crane, and found some willing soldiers to carry a rack of heavy electronic equipment down two flights of stairs and across the compound into the tent.  Never a complaint from any of them, even when a sandbag broke and dumped a bunch of dirt onto the head of one poor guy.  “It’s all good, sir!”  Great bunch of young men.  Then the techs worked their magic and our system was up and running about seven hours after we began. 

Downtown Kandahar City

Yesterday was another very interesting day.  I was tagged to go to a large briefing at Mandagak Palace in Kandahar City.  This is the provincial governor’s center, which includes a conference area (where we were), offices, residential and guest houses, and more.  We left in the morning in a train of MRAP’s, winding along the Arghandab valley and then up and over a pass.  The outer edges of Kandahar City came up pretty quickly as we came down the mountain.  Traffic wasn’t too bad, mostly pedestrians, bicyclists, motorcyclists, and donkey carts, almost none of which observed any sort of rules of the road.  When we finally got to the palace gate, we discovered that the police had roped off every entrance.  Parking MRAPs in an Afghan bazaar is not an option, and neither is backing up, so eventually the ropes came down and in we went.

This was my first road trip into the city, so my pucker factor was a bit on the high side, but for the soldiers manning the vehicle, it was just another routine day in the office.  Their chatter, though, was not the sort of thing you’d normally hear from a bunch of guys in the US.  The driver, for instance, casually told of being under investigation because the barrel of his machine gun bent.  The reason: he’d put several thousand rounds through it in a very short period of time, to the point where it overheated and warped.  He was laughing at the major who had to do the investigation, ignoring the bit about why he had to fire several thousand rounds so quickly in the first place.  

The gathering at the palace was an opportunity for our Afghan partners to brief provincial district officials on their plans for the next several months.  Americans such as my group were there to provide moral support.  And, given the Afghan inclinations, we were there to ensure there was an audience, and to ensure that the briefers showed up as well.  I think it’s safe to say that giving a detailed briefing about upcoming operations is not a normal Afghan way of doing business.

I had attended one other such event in Spin Boldak several months ago.  Back then, I said that the real value in such an exercise is getting the Afghans to think about their operations, plan them out, and be able to tell others about what they’re going to do.  It’s still very true.  And they are learning.  Our district Chief of Police wouldn’t have said five words to any group over three people a year ago; yesterday, he got up in front of a large group of very senior Afghan and American people and spoke confidently and at length.  I understand that all the briefers did better this time than last.  That’s a good sign.  As I’ve said, the leaders here may often be un(der) educated, but they’re smart, and can and do learn.  Whether they continue to do this after we pull back is another question.

So after it was over, we climbed back into our MRAPs and headed back.  It was, fortunately, another uneventful trip.  

Today (Friday) is their weekend, which also meant a fairly quiet day for us.  A good time to catch up on paperwork, fix a few equipment issues that have popped up, and do some research that’s been on the back burner.  One of my projects has been to find out whether the district shura members come from all over the district, or whether they come from just a few select areas.  The question, as you might imagine, has some relevance as to how we work with the local officials.  I thought it would be a quick project, maybe an hour.  Nope - I’ve been working on it for a week now and am still not done!  As I’ve discovered, villages can have more than one name - or, rather, multiple names that mean the same thing.  Because there’s no one way to translate Afghan words into the Western alphabet, each one of those names can be spelled about six different ways.  So the villages of Pai Shuyen and Shoheen Sofla are, in fact, the same one.  It’s the same thing with people’s names.  There are, for instance, five gents named Haji Mohammad in the district shura ... or maybe only four, as we’re not quite certain that one of them might be filling two roles.  So after a week of work, I think that the district shura assignments are spread evenly around the district.  But I wouldn’t swear to it.

So I’m still having a good time out here in the district.  Working here is living at a very basic level, but it’s at this level where change can be (and needs to be) done.

Tension in Arghandab

Last week I deployed to the District Support Team in Arghandab district.  The team lead was going on leave and needed somebody to cover for him, so I raised my hand.  Any chance to get away from staff work and go to the pointy end of the stick is a chance to be jumped at.  

So last Monday, I flew from KAF to Arghandab on a rattletrap CH-46 helicopter.  The flight was uneventful (good) and within ten minutes of landing, I had my stuff stashed away in my CHU and was in the office, ready to get started.  Mike started bringing me up to speed on the main issues facing the DST.  I was familiar with some, but certainly not all - in my experience, no headquarters is ever fully aware of what the guys in the field are facing.  So we spent Monday and Tuesday talking about DST stuff, going to meetings with the military guys, talking with random Afghans, writing reports, visiting with the District Governor, going to more meetings with the military guys, and writing more reports.  Damn, I thought I left the meetings and reports back at KAF!  Wrong again, moosebreath.

Mike flew out on Wednesday morning, heading off to the States to visit his daughter, and Philip and I were left to run the place on our own.  So what do we do?  Meet with the military guys, write reports, meet with random Afghans.  But we also had another mission: move the DST.  The team’s office has been in the District Center for a few years now.  While this has been great for being able to meet with the Governor, district officials, and of course the random Afghans, it had an unwanted second-order effect: Afghans came to rely too much on the US forces and DST to get things done.  

You may have heard that one of Karzai’s gripes is that the US and ISAF are a “shadow government” that is outside Afghan control.  It’s true.  We’re here, we’re organized, and for several years, we were the way things got done.  The local Afghan government, if it existed at all, was seen as slow, unable to get things done, and (at worst) corrupt and incompetent.  So rather than work through their own government, Afghans learned to turn to the Americans first.  You need a road repaired?  Might take the Afghan government a year or two to get around to it, if at all - go to the Americans.  You want a school built?  The Afghan government has no money for schools - go to the Americans.  You get the drift.

Recently, though, we’ve begun pulling back.  The Afghan government has to become functional and answer the needs of its own people.  So when Afghans come and ask us for this project or those supplies, we direct them to the responsible Afghan officials.  To help enforce that, we’re pulling our few remaining offices out of the District Center and relocating to the adjacent US-controlled compound.  We’ll still be working with the local Afghan officials on a daily basis, but we’ll be trying to get the people and the officials to use their own chain of command and not rely on us.

So on Wednesday evening, after Mike left, Philip and I, along with a group of soldiers, started loading up the office’s furniture, computers, files, and other stuff (lots and lots of “stuff”) and lugging it over to our new digs.  We’re in a tent now, with a wooden floor that has a permanent slope to it.  Some equipment can’t move yet, not until a special team comes in to take it apart, move it, and set it up in the new space.  So we still need to go to the old office occasionally, for a few more days.  I tell you, Mike owes me: that was some back-breaking manual labor we did!  Once we got all the stuff over there, it took a couple of days to get things organized and into operating condition, but we’re there, more or less.

So things were looking pretty good.  Until yesterday morning, when we heard about the incident in Panjwai.  A soldier had walked out of his base and shot an unknown number of Afghans.  Some were killed, some wounded.  Panjwai is adjacent to Arghandab and this particular base is maybe 20 miles from here.  Coming on the heels of the Koran burning, this was not good.  While we were aware of it yesterday, and the Afghan leaders were aware of it, the regular people at the Center were not.  But we decided to tighten up on security, so Philip and I are staying away from the Center as much as possible during the day and only using the old office at night.

The Afghan leaders that we’ve talked to have all been pretty understanding.  They’re very upset with the soldier, of course, but they’re not upset with Americans in general.  They recognize that this is a rogue act by one guy with some serious issues.  They want to see an immediate investigation, they want to see justice, and they want things to calm down.  All of which we want, too.  

The district officials, police, and army have an additional responsibility that we do not.  They have to calm their people down and maintain order.  During the Koran troubles, they did an excellent job overall.  There wasn’t much trouble down here in the south, and what little there was, was fairly easily contained.  Since this event occurred right here in Kandahar Province, just a short distance away, things might be different.  

The Afghan media, though, is following the American tradition: sensationalize, exaggerate, and show blood and gore.  The reports are pretty graphic and pretty horrible.  The Taliban isn’t going to have to do much to make them worse than they already are.  What’s true and what’s not remains to be seen in the investigation, but the press isn’t waiting for an investigation.  

So things are a bit tense here.  We’ve tightened security on our end and are waiting to see what the fallout is.  Life on the pointy end of the stick just got more interesting.

New Sketches

I'm in Arghandab, a district in Kandahar Province, for a couple of weeks.  One of the Department of State team members is on leave and I'm filling in for him.  This has already proven to be an interesting and challenging assignment.  Power outages, dealing with the Afghan work ethic, meeting lots of soldiers and trying to remember their names and jobs so I can coordinate with the right guy, and moving the office from the District Center (source of the power outages) to a nearby Army tent (which is on a different power system and uses different voltage) has been a challenge.

Despite that, I have my sketchbook and have been able to do some quick drawings here and there.  Yesterday, for example, I attended the district shura, which is a public meeting where the District Governor, Chief of Police, officials, and village elders get together to discuss, well, everything.  It's a bit of a stage show, a bit chaotic, unscripted, surprising, and a great source of drawing material.

Shura Members

Pencil on paper, 5"x7"

 Abdul Manan

Pencil on paper, 7"x5"

 Battle Damage Claimant

Pencil on paper, 7"x5"

Shura Member

Pencil on paper, 7"x5"

On the Road Again

I finally managed to break free from KAF a few days ago.  Several of us flew up to FOB Pasab in Zhari District on Thursday to meet with a team of civilians there.  They were Department of State, USAID, and US Department of Agriculture experts who are directly involved with the local Afghan government. Two of us stayed for a couple of nights for some more in-depth and focused discussions.  It turned out to be a very productive visit.  I'd never been there before, and I'm the kind of guy who'll go almost anywhere once, so it was fun to see a new place.  

FOB Pasab is a pretty large military base.  Most of it is ISAF, but not all: there is a section that belongs to Afghan security forces, and a section that includes the District Center, which is the seat of government.  Like all our bases, it's made up of tents, CHUs, "Plywood Palaces", stacks of CONEX boxes (big shipping containers), diesel-powered generators, miles and miles of T-walls, and gravel.  

Most significantly, it has one of the best DFACs in all Kandahar Province.  After eating at the "Sux" DFAC for so long, it was great to find a really well-run place.  The food tasted great, there was a good variety, and they had all the extra geedunk (Navy terminology for snack food) that DFACs are supposed to have but ours never do.  For example, they had a wide variety of drinks, including Diet Coke, Dr. Pepper, Pepsi, Coke Zero, regular Coke, Orange Crush, Snapple, boxed juices (pineapple, orange, apple, cranberry, and mixtures), V8, Gatorade, non-alcoholic beer, and much much more.  The Sux might have regular Coke, orange crush, mystery drink (maybe it's Tang, but I wouldn't bet on it), and something they claim is apple juice.  FOB Pasab's DFAC even had (gasp) REAL ICE CREAM!  Yes!  Cookies 'n' Cream, Praline, Chocolate, and Vanilla ... the kind you scoop out of a big ol' tub, not the kind that squirts out of a machine like runny poop.  Last night was Friday, which means Surf 'n' Turf, and I had a big stack of crab legs for the first time since, well, Baghdad.  Followed by real pecan pie.  Oh my gosh, it was almost like being in the real world again.  Tomorrow I gotta hit the gym to start working it off.

But we weren't there just to hit the DFAC, we were there to work.  (No, really, we were.  There to work, I mean.)  We spent most of the day in some pretty deep discussions about the team, the mission, operations, and how to maximize our effectiveness.  I got to visit the district center and get a feel for the place.  Last night, the incoming Colonel (he'll be in charge of all the military operations in the area in a week) came to the tent and talked with us for two and a half hours.  Quite impressive.  Very sharp guy with a keen understanding of the social, political, and military environments.  He'll be a great one to work with.

Today we came back, riding home in an ancient CH-46 helo.  The Navy and Marines used to operate these things way back when I was a junior officer at sea, so it was cool to get to ride in one again.  Yes, that is Your Faithful Correspondent in the cool Ray-Bans at the top of this post.

So now it's back to the KAF Grind.  Back to the Sux ... in fact, I needed some Alka-Seltzer after dinner tonight, and not because I ate too much.  (A word of explanation: the "Sux" refers to the DFAC right around the corner.  It's official name is the Luxembourg DFAC ... aka the "Lux" ... aka, well, you know).  There's going to be an excruciating 2-hour meeting tomorrow morning.  Oh, boy, can't wait.  (I'm lying.)

New Sketches

My last couple of posts have talked about some pretty heavy issues.  Time to lighten it up a bit.  Here are three new sketches.

District Official

Ink on paper, 7"x5" 

This guy is an official in one of the districts in this area.  He's a pretty sharp guy and I hope that comes across in this sketch.

 Poppy Farmer

Ink on paper, 7"x5"

A slightly different story with this one.  He was growing poppy in one of the districts down here.  That is, until the district chief of police and a horde of police and other officials hit the area.  Now his poppy field is destroyed and he's under arrest.  Not a good day.

Angry Poppy Farmer

Ink on paper, 7"x5"

This guy is another poppy farmer.  Where the other one seemed resigned to his fate, this one wasn't.  He's looking for somebody to kill.  Well, if somebody just destroyed the crop that was going to fund you for the next year, you'd be mad, too.

It felt good to do some drawing again.  I may have some more opportunities in the next couple of weeks, and I'm really looking forward to it!

Security Situation

A week into the Koran-burning incident, things here are still a little tense.  The number of demonstrations around the country has dropped fairly steadily, and there are fewer people participating in fewer demonstrations.  Karzai has stepped up to encourage people to show restraint, stop the violence, and give the investigation some time to proceed.  The provincial and district governors have echoed this line.  They've also encouraged (maybe the right word is "leaned on") the mullahs to calm people down.  


Fortunately for us down here in the south, there have been almost no violent incidents.  Yeah, we got a rocket attack a few days ago, but that's nothing to get too excited about.  More of an annoyance than anything else.  The bottom line is that things are quieting down, slowly and gradually.


One thing that does have people concerned is the shooting of the two American officers inside the Ministry of the Interior.  This is serious.  The Ministry of the Interior is not at all like our Interior Department - it's really the police forces and other law-enforcement groups.  The Americans were killed in an area that is considered very secure.  People have to have special clearances to be there.  And one of those people shot our officers in cold blood.  And escaped.  The Afghan investigation is ongoing and word is that they're on the trail of the guy.


Meanwhile, we've pulled all our "embeds" out of all the ministries.  These are the people that have been helping the Afghans build their government capabilities to run the country.  Now they're back on ISAF-controlled bases, or at their embassies, until such time as it's determined that the Afghans can provide better protection.  Believe me, the ministries will be feeling this loss before much longer.  


But while this assassin, and a few others around the country in recent months, have received a lot of attention, the performance of the Afghan security forces in general has been pretty impressive.  In literally thousands of demonstrations, it has been the Afghan security forces who have faced them.  They're the ones standing in front of the hordes of angry Muslims and defending the infidel Americans (and British, German, Dutch, Romanian, Albanian, Canadian, Norwegian, French, Slovak, and more) from attack.  And defending the Parliament building, airports, and other public facilities.  It has been a very dangerous task and many of them have been killed.  A year or two ago, this wouldn't have happened.  So my hat is off to the vast majority of Afghan security forces.


That said, there's still the question of trust.  The shooter in the Ministry of Interior is in the news now, but he has not been the only one.  Over the past two years, as the Afghan security forces have been built up, there have been increasing numbers of what we call "green on blue" incidents, in which Afghan security forces fire on ISAF forces.  Those of us out here have been talking about it for quite a while.  The Afghan security forces are, indeed, getting bigger and better, but at the same time, there are more uniformed members willing to pull a gun on one of us.  Not good.  


One final note.  The news sites have reported that Gingrich and Santorum have both denounced Obama's apology to Karzai over the Koran-burning incident.  I have to say that these comments are just more examples of why those two are not qualified for such an important job.  If official representatives of the United States (which includes all soldiers and US government workers over here) do something that profoundly insults the people of the country they're in, we owe them an apology.  Period.  I mean, if you go over to somebody's house and do something stupid that insults them or causes damage, you apologize, right?  You do if you're raised in a civilized society.  An immediate and forceful apology was necessary to even begin to calm the storm that this incident raised.  Obama did it.  George W. Bush did it, too, when a US sniper shot a Koran in Iraq several years ago.  But Gingrich and Santorum are now on record as saying they wouldn't.  Meaning they have no problems with needlessly increasing the danger that the people over here (including me) are facing.  So fuck you very much, Newt and Rick.


While on this topic, I have to say that I actually agree with something Sarah Palin said.  (Never thought I'd say that, but it's true).  She tweeted that Karzai owes us an apology for the shooting of the two officers in the Ministry of Interior.  She's absolutely right.  I'm waiting.

Koran-Burning Incident

By now, you've heard on the news about the Koran-burning incident at Bagram.  It's been a hot topic of conversation around here, and we're all on a heightened state of alert.  The story, from what we've seen in the news, is that somebody in Bagram tried to burn a bunch of Korans.  Some Afghans saw what was happening, pulled them out, and told a bunch of their friends.  All hell broke loose,

Reality is a bit more complex than that.  These particular Korans came from the detention facility.  The prisoners used them to write messages to each other.  When this was discovered, all the Korans were confiscated and stored somewhere.  There they sat until somebody decided they had to go.  What we figure is that some major told some lieutenant, who told some sergeant, who told some private, to move all the books.  Somewhere along the line, somebody who knew what these Korans were, and how they were supposed to be handled, told somebody who didn't know, to "get rid of this stuff".  Here in Afghanistan, that usually means to burn it.  So, probably, some 18-year-old private just thought he was doing what he was told.

The rest you know.  As of last evening, about four were dead in rioting and lots of people injured.  US and ISAF units all over Afghanistan are pretty much on lockdown, including here in the south.  But down here, things have been much quieter, probably because news travels slowly.  The officials we've spoken to understand that accidents happen, but have all cautioned that this is taken very seriously by the general Afghan public.  We've sure seen that up north and hope it won't play out the same way down here.

Some people have been very dismissive of the the Afghan reaction.  After all, they're just a bunch of books, right?  No.  To Muslims, it's the Word.  It's not that they're symbols (which they are as well), but they are literally the word of God.  And here is an infidel destroying the word of God.  Blasphemous.  We in the west are not immune to this sort of thing.  Years ago, an artwork titled "Piss Christ" was shown in New York.  It was a photo of a Catholic crucifix submerged in a urine-filled toilet.  The country was scandalized, Rudy Giuliani tried to close it down, and the clamor lasted for months.  Nobody died, however; a key difference between there and here.  But the underlying sentiment was the same: somebody had deeply affronted somebody else's religion.  Here it was accidental; in New York, deliberate.

So it will be interesting to see what happens over the next week.  Will southern Afghanistan erupt the same way that the north did?  We don't know.  But we're ready.

Working with Really Good People

In my last post, I wrote about an example of dealing with people who are walking problems.  There are a lot of them here.  There are also a lot of really sharp people here, people who have been places and done things that most folks on Main Street can only imagine.  One of the things I like to do is to sit in the DFAC over a plate of Mystery Special and ask them some kind of leading question, like, "so, how did you come to be in the State Department?"  The responses will often just blow you away.

I was talking with one guy about the Mohammad and Mohammad trip (see previous post) when I asked that question.  It led to an hour and a half discussion.  He had done security for the Peace Corps for years, covering third-world countries over a huge area.  He'd also been involved in border security operations in Texas and New Mexico.  Before that, he'd been in Special Forces, and had been a Ranger in Vietnam.  (I had to drag that last bit out of him - guys who brag about being in a group like that are often making it up.)

I talked with a young woman who's covering education development in the province.  She was a teacher for two years before joining the Peace Corps and spending five years in Africa.  She worked in rural villages for a couple of years before managing logistical support for Peace Corps volunteers over a wide area.

Speaking of the Peace Corps, we have a lot of former volunteers who are now with USAID and working throughout Afghanistan.  They've been stationed everywhere: Central America, Southeast Asia, Africa, you name it.  The stories they can tell about the people they worked with, and villages they lived in, are amazing.  And very human, too: on a one-to-one level, people are basically people, everywhere you go.  It's how they do their "people-ness" that differs and makes things interesting, frustrating, funny, counter-productive, dumb, and innovative.

There's a retired Marine Gunnery Sergeant in my office.  The guy's a ball of fire.  He used to run the Silent Drill Team at the Marine Barracks in DC.  If you've never seen the Silent Drill Team, it is a world-class performance: complex, close order drill with impeccable precision, carried out in silence.  The hard work and discipline that goes into it is unbelievable.  Our work is not nearly that intense, and he doesn't have to drive himself that hard anymore, but he's still on top of everything.  Don't cross the Gunny!

Actually, there are quite a few retired military guys out here.  They're all guys - haven't met any retired military women in this area.  They come from a variety of backgrounds: Army, Navy, Marines, and Air Force; officer and enlisted.  One guy in my office was on the same Navy ship that I was on when we did the exercise Teamwork 84 and "invaded" Norway in winter of 1984.

I could go on.  There are a lot of people out here with incredible backgrounds and abilities.  Most of them are a lot of fun to work with.  A few are dickheads and a couple are way out of their depth.  But that's life, isn't it?  On balance, I've got a really good crew.  Can't ask for much more than that.

Oh, and to follow up on my last entry.  Either Mohammad or Mohammad called Abdullah and they agreed to meet at a place that the handlers, Bob and Alice, hadn't planned for.  Then Abdullah blew off the meeting.  Meanwhile, Bob and Alice discovered that their office in Kabul had a branch down here in Kandahar, so they used their branch office to make the trip arrangements.  Which is what they should have been doing from Day 1.  You still can't make this stuff up.

Dealing With Idiots

When I was going through training, quite a few of the instructors said that working with the Afghans was easy and fun, but working with Americans was a pain the royal keister.  This past week, I've really come to appreciate those remarks.  It has continually amazed me how people who should know better do things that just make no sense.

For example, early this week some Americans in Kabul decided that they needed to come down to our area with some senior Afghans to visit a particular location.  To keep my own butt out of the wringer, I'll call the Americans "Bob" and "Alice", and the Afghans will be "Mohammad" and "Mohammad".  Not their real names, of course, but real names give away organizations, which causes embarrassment, which would come down on Your Trusty Correspondent.  And embarrassing organizations is not my goal in this post; rather, I just want to highlight the kind of things we tend to do to ourselves.

Anyway, the real issue is that Mohammad and Mohammad needed to come down to resolve an issue that is essentially an Afghan problem.  Bob and Alice are there to "facilitate".  In practice, "facilitate" too often means "do it all" and that's what was happening here.  Instead of Afghans solving their own problems, we have Americans arranging schedules, transportation, setting up meetings, yadda yadda yadda.  I have seen that, when Afghans decide to resolve a problem, they're pretty good at it; but if they think we'll do it all for them, they'll let us.  Bob and Alice haven't seen that yet.

So Bob and Alice are now doing Mohammad and Mohammad's grunt work for them.  That's bad enough, but they're not doing it the right way.  For example, if you're going to take a couple of senior Afghans and their entourage somewhere, particularly into a hot zone like southern Afghanistan, you need to coordinate with the local military forces.  Did they do that?  Well, if they did, would I be writing about it?  Instead, Bob contacted a mid-level staffer at my shop (not military) and asked him to make a few arrangements, like getting somebody to drive them from one spot on the base to another.  Simple stuff, really, so the staffer started taking care of it, until we realized what was happening.  Whoops!  Time to slam on the brakes and start asking questions.  When we did, we realized that Mohammad and Mohammad needed to talk to Abdullah (another pseudonym) while they were down here.  Abdullah has some say over what's going on in the area, but has been ignored, and is not happy about it.  So we tell Bob and Alice that we want these three Afghans to meet, and by the way, here's the ISAF guy ("Fred"; yes, another pseudonym) that you need to talk to in order to grease the skids for the visit.

It's now four days later and time is getting short.  Bob and Alice have now been told four times what they have to do.  They have yet to do any of it.  And it's not hard.  They just need to tell Fred what their travel arrangements are and what kind of assistance they need.  That way Fred can coordinate with the guys in the field and let the appropriate people know about the visit.  Simple.  But apparently it's too hard for them.  All we know right now is the intended date and the intended place of the visit.  And Abdullah isn't included.  Abdullah's sitting back in his office going "WTF?"  Abdullah can be a real pain in the ass to Mohammad and Mohammad if he wants to.  He might want to after this is all over.

So I sent out another note to Bob and Alice tonight saying that they need to delay the trip a few days to allow time for the proper coordination (translation: "if you idiots had called Fred four days ago, we'd have it done by now") and you need to schedule a meeting with Abdullah.  We'll see what happens.  Or doesn't.

I have to say, this is the worst-coordinated event that I've seen so far in my time here in Kandahar.  Well, maybe not ... there was that time ... no, better not go there.  Anyway, sometimes dealing with Americans is the hardest part of my job.  Working in Afghanistan is walking a fine line.  You want to get the mission done, and you want to build Afghan capability, and sometimes those two goals collide.  And when they do, people sometimes go for the expedient solution rather than the right one.

And the funny thing is, if Mohammad and Mohammad just picked up a phone and called Abdullah, a lot of the issues would be solved.

You can't make this stuff up.

Title Sequence: The Pacific

There have been several very powerful movies made about war over the past decade and a half.  Saving Private Ryan was the first in the new breed that honestly showed the brutality of combat.  That continued with the television mini-series Band of Brothers and, more recently, The Pacific.  My wife won't watch those kinds of shows.  I don't blame her.  But when the shows are well done, I'm riveted.

The title sequence for The Pacific was particularly meaningful for me.  This one featured charcoal drawings of soldiers in combat, blended into brief clips from the show, along with close-ups of charcoal being dragged over the paper, disintegrating as it went.  As an artist, and as a military vet, these are powerful images.  I watched the sequence closely every time it played.

A friend sent me a link last night to a site that described how this title sequence was created.  It's on the website ArtoftheTitle.com, a well-put-together site that discusses how movie and TV title sequences are conceived, developed, and executed.  For The Pacific, they had about 2 1/2 minutes to set the stage, establish the idea of ordinary guys caught up in a unbelievably violent world, and create an emotional involvement with the viewer.  That's a hard task.

Their use of "combat art" was unusual and very effective.  The rough charcoal drawings are exactly the kind of drawings that a combat artist would make - quick, unfinished, capturing a split-second in a violent world, or observing a soldier in a quiet moment.  I'm as moved by those drawings now as when I saw them on TV.

What is so valuable about this article is the description of how they put it all together.  Part was a team effort: lots of talented people bouncing ideas off each other.  Part of it was putting together an "inspiration sheet" with lots of images - photos, drawings, prints, materials, some from war, some not - of things that they thought might be included.  This, I think, is a wonderful idea.  When I'm working on a new painting, I put lots of ideas into my head and let them percolate; often I'll do a lot of drawings, or collect some images on my computer or mark pages in a book.  But I haven't actually put them all up on a board to look at all day long.  This is something that I'm going to have to try, whenever I get a studio again.  (That day is coming ... )

From the inspiration sheet they came up with three alternative approaches.  Once they and the producers (Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg - you don't get much heavier than that) decided which to pursue, they went to work: drawing, drawing, drawing, photographing, drawing, combining, recombining, and drawing some more.  Hundreds of drawings and photos.  In the middle of it, they made some posters as a way to look at it from a different angle, and in the process came up with the iconic image of the soldier carrying his buddy.  They combined the drawings with video clips, reworked them to flow with the music, drew some more, and finally locked down the sequence and put it into final production.  Just the description of it sounded like a dream assignment.  Man, I would love to be involved in something like that!

The site has similar pages for title sequences for lots of other movies and TV shows: Batman, Fight Club, Mad Men, Soylent Green, The Naked Gun, and Zombieland, to name but a very few.  I haven't looked at any of them yet because I'm still fascinated by the whole process of making the sequence for The Pacific.

Go take a look.  If you're any kind of a visual artist, you'll find something here of value.

Panetta and the "End of Combat Operations"

Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta is in the news for his comments on the future of Afghanistan.  The news media have screaming headlines about the "end of combat operations" in 2013 and a full pullout in 2014.  Pundits on both sides have jumped into the fray with their opinions, which appear to be wildly exaggerated no matter which side they're on.

Panetta's remarks shouldn't be much of a surprise.  All he's saying is basically what we've been working towards for a couple of years now.  We have been building up the Afghan security forces with the intent that they take over responsibility for the security of their own country by the end of 2014.  To do that, we're doing a gradual, phased transition, in which we step back as Afghans step up.  Some provinces have already been turned over to Afghan control.  This strategy allows them to lead the fight, with ISAF forces in support for a while, until it's all theirs.

Looking forward, there are three more fighting seasons (June to October) before that happens: 2012, 2013, and 2014.  For 2012, we're still leading the fight, at least in the south and east, but the Afghan forces are taking more responsibility.  In 2013, it'll be Afghans leading most of the fighting with ISAF providing support.  In 2014, the Afghans will have it all, while ISAF forces draw down from support to an advisory and training role by the end of the year.

The dumbest thing in the world would be to have ISAF forces leading the fight right up until the end of 2014, then turning to the Afghans and saying, "Okay, it's all yours, have fun."  That's a guaranteed formula for failure.  The phased approach allows Afghans to gain experience while still having a backstop - in other words, it allows them to fail (and learn) without jeopardizing the entire country.

So what Panetta was doing was just describing how our previously-announced strategy is going to be implemented.  Whether you agree with the strategy and timelines is a different matter.  Personally, I think the timelines are a bit ambitious - I think it would be safer for the mission to extend it by a year or two.  But I'm not at all convinced that the mission is worth the additional cost.

Kabul Conference

Winter has definitely settled over Kandahar.  It's been cold, windy, sometimes rainy, and occasionally snowy.  The other day, soldiers were taking pictures of each other over at the Boardwalk, which had a light dusting of very slippery snow.  I may regret saying this in about six months, when the temperatures are well over 100, but I could do with some warmer weather.

I was getting a bit too shaggy last week, so I headed over to the Boardwalk to get a haircut.  I was hoping to get the sexy blonde Russian girl, but instead got the chubby Uzbek guy.  Oh, well, with my glasses off, I can't see, anyway, and the guy gave me a better haircut than the girl did, so I'm happy.  

There was a dance tune that came out about 1990, that had a woman hollering "everybody DANCE now" ... remember that one?  Yeah.  Well, this barbershop is staffed by Russians, so they were playing Russian music, and one of the tunes was a remake of "everybody dance now".  Only it sounded like it was cut by a platoon of Russian soldiers, who had all the rhythm and soul of a rhinoceros on vodka.  Heavily-accented Russian guys would chant "everybody dance now" with a beat like stamping around in the snow in heavy boots.  Then one of 'em would go into a drugged-out Russian rap.  Like a nightmare that wouldn't end.  I could hardly keep myself from laughing the whole time it was playing.

A couple of days ago, two of us went up to Kabul for a conference, along with several military staff guys.  We'd asked for a flight in the afternoon, so we could get some work done here, then fly up, settle in, and attend the conference the next day.  Nope.  Military Air is a logic unto themselves.  Instead of an afternoon flight, we had to show up at 4:30 am for a 6:30 am flight.  Ugh!  I like my beauty rest, but ya gotta do what ya gotta do.  Let me tell you, a flight line at 6 am on a cold winter morning, with a stiff wind blowing across the field, is no fun.  But our flight left more or less on time and the plane warmed up quickly.  We flew in a C-27, which is a new addition to our inventory and a nice little cargo plane.  Unlike the bigger C-130, there's plenty of room for passengers to stretch their legs.  

We arrived in Kabul in mid-morning and quickly got settled into our plush 5-star accommodations at the NATO base at the airport.  This turned out to be a tent with a dozen bunk beds built out of 2x4's and old wooden pallets, with the heater set on "fry" and the bathroom in a converted container about 50 yards away.  A couple of us then went exploring, which didn't take long, and we found ways to keep ourselves sorta busy and entertained for the rest of the day.  That evening, our whole group got together and went over to what turned out to be a really good Thai restaurant on the base.  Yes, I said "really good".  Definitely the surprise of the trip.

The conference went pretty well.  We made some good contacts, especially with the Marines from Helmand Province next door, and swapped a lot of ideas.  The Marines are doing some things that we could/should do, and we're doing some things that they should be doing, so we had some good discussions.  As usual in a conference, there were a couple of speakers that I just wanted to hit the "Delete" button on, but that's to be expected.

Coming home worked out pretty well.  Military Air told us to be at the terminal at 7 pm for an 8:30 flight and the plane showed up an hour early.  I was back in my own little room in Kandahar by 10 pm. 

So now it's back to the office so I can catch up on emails, write a trip report, and find out what has hit the fan.  I've been out of the office for two days, so I know something did!

A Rather Blah Week

When one day is pretty much like the previous one, it makes it hard to find something interesting to write about.  My big thing lately has been health issues.  I've had four colds since the middle of November.  Four very different colds, so they're not the same bug.  It settles in, I feel like crap for a week or so, have a few days where things are normal, and then the Dreaded Post-Nasal Drip starts again.

I felt so bad the other day that I went over to the clinic, convinced that something more insidious was at work.  (I can be a bit of a hypochondriac sometimes, and when I'm not feeling well, I'm a real wuss).  The docs checked me out and gravely informed me that it was "viral".  Translation: it's just a cold, you twit.  But they loaded me up with meds not available in the PX and I feel better today.

I'm not the only one having troubles.  Everybody, it seems, has had at least one cold, and quite a few have had ongoing sniffles or congestion.  We think it's due to the air here at KAF.  It's really dirty, loaded with the talcum-powder-like "moon dust" so prevalent in Afghanistan, as well as gravel dust, diesel exhaust, smoke from the incinerators, particles from the poop ponds, and lots of other really nasty sources.  One guy that I was talking with yesterday felt fine during several weeks out of the country, but within two days of being back at KAF, he was fighting a sore throat.  Those who have been in Iraq think that the air is generally dirtier here.  I believe it.

Things at work have been ... well, unremarkable.  What's there to say?  I go through a hundred or so emails a day.  I talk with State Department guys and military guys about this or that operation.  I research an answer to a particularly vexing question.  Then I go answer a bunch of emails based on the research and discussions with the state or military guys.  I go to the DFAC.  Periodically I go to the gym.  Once a week I'll do my laundry.  Pretty exciting stuff, huh?  And you thought I was riding around in helicopters and MRAPs all the time, meeting Afghan government officials, and drinking chai with Taliban!  No, reality is much more mundane.

But at it's core, it's still a pretty rewarding experience.  I'm playing my small role in trying to make this place functional.  Sometimes, I'm just trying to prevent yet another screwup by somebody who either doesn't know better or (worse) doesn't care.  But it's all striving toward a goal that really needs to be met.  Will we?  Don't know.  But I'm doing what I can.  Despite all these damn colds.

Getting In The Groove Again

Riding in the C-27

Graphite on paper, 5"x7"

I'm back in Kandahar again.  My trip was pretty uneventful, just long (14 hours from Dulles to Dubai alone).  Fortunately, I had a stopover in Dubai and got a room in a pretty swanky hotel.  It had a "Belgian Cafe" on the terrace outside, with really good food and outstanding draft beer.  I really enjoyed myself - thank you, American taxpayers.  Up early the next morning and over to the airport, where an amazingly long line snaked away from the ticket desk.  We're all getting on the flight to Kandahar?  As it turned out, no.  They'd over-booked the flight and a number of people were bumped to at least the next day.  Well, if you gotta get bumped, Dubai's not a bad place to spend the time.  Fortunately, my name was on the manifest.  We made it to Kandahar more or less on time.  After processing through the passenger terminal, I walked the 100 yards to our office compound and back to my little room.  "Home" again.

Since then, it's been a game of catch-up.  Catch-up on over 1300 emails (note: the "Delete" button is your friend).  Catch-up on internal discussions that don't make it into emails.  Catch-up on the gossip.  After a week, I think I'm pretty much back to speed.  Not that much has fundamentally changed, but the crises of three weeks ago are not the crises of today.  Well, one is, and it's a big one, but I have a feeling that it's going to be resolved in the next couple of days.

Two days ago, I went on a quick trip to Uruzgan.  No, this isn't a place from a J.R.R. Tolkien novel (..."darkest Uruzgan, beyond which Mordor lies ...").  It's the province north of Kandahar.  We needed to have some discussions with the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) up there, so we flew up in a C-27 in the morning and back in the afternoon.  I took along my sketchbook and did a couple of drawings during the short flights, one of which is posted above.

Yesterday, we had a reminder that this is still a challenging area.  The district governor of Panjwai, which is just to the west of Kandahar City, was killed by a suicide bomber.  The blast also killed the governor's two young sons and two police bodyguards, and wounded a number of others.  I had never met the man, but others in my office had worked closely with him.  He was pretty good at his job, which is why the Taliban targeted him.  You can read more about the incident here.  Another attack the previous day targeted BG Raziq, the Chief of Police of Kandahar Province and one of the most powerful men in southern Afghanistan.  Fortunately, the only one who was killed in that blast was the teenage suicide bomber.  We've made a lot of gains, but the insurgents can still reach out and touch someone when they really want to.

So it's back to work.  Gotta do what I can to piss off some insurgents.

Heading Back to the Dustbowl

My R&R is over.  I'm sitting here at the coffee shop at the Asheville airport, waiting to start the long trip back to Afghanistan.  It's been a great two weeks at home, even though I had a cold for most of it (thank you, Lufthansa).  It's been an expensive two weeks, too: a top and a pair of seat covers for the truck, four new tires for the Volvo, two new pairs of glasses for me, and a new painting by our artist friend Genie Maples, plus two visits to the dentist and another to the optometrist.  But there were plenty of good times, too.  Lots of time with Janis.  Dinners with friends.  Long walks with the dogs.  Kicked back on the couch, watching some good movies (Margin Call especially).  Videochats with the grandson.  Life's been good.

Now it's time to get back to work.  I'll arrive in Kandahar on Saturday sometime (weather permitting; see previous post for what can go wrong).  I'll need to hit the ground running as there are several hot items that'll be hitting their stride just after my return.  And I know there are plenty of other things that have cropped up in the past two weeks to throw our schedule into turmoil.  But that's life on the front lines.

So for now, I'll just sit here and enjoy some quiet time.  Next post will be from Kandahar!

And Now for a Bit of R&R

I'm at home now on an R&R break.  It's been a great time to do pretty much nothing.  Just being at home with my wife, dogs, and friends is enough.  Maybe I'm getting to be an old fart (okay, I already am an old fart), but I don't need to go traipsing off around the world, looking for exciting places to go and things to do.  No, thanks; Kandahar is exciting enough for me.  I just want some normality now.

Getting home was not easy.  I was supposed to leave on Wednesday, Dec 21, on a flight from Kandahar to Dubai, then on to the US.  But a dust storm rolled in on Tuesday, and by Wednesday morning it lay thick over all of southern Afghanistan.  Visibility was down to 400-600 meters, well below the 800 meters minimum for the airline to land to pick us up.  They kept pushing the arrival time back, hoping that it would clear just enough to get the plane on the ground.  It was cold, too: sub-zero (Fahrenheit), with ice on the ground.  We milled around all morning, first outside in the freezing cold, then inside an unheated terminal, hoping against hope that the skies would clear a bit, but they didn't.  Finally, at around 4:30, they cancelled the flight.

Now we had a couple hundred people with broken flight connections.  Right at the beginning of the Christmas rush.  And all the flights out of Kandahar for several days were overbooked already.  Not a good scenario.  I got on the phone with our travel agents in Kabul.  These guys worked miracles and quickly got me rescheduled on a flight out of Dubai 24 hours later.  The flight from Kandahar was a different issue: the airline was trying to get a second airplane in to get everybody to Dubai, but that was still in the works.

Thursday morning, we woke to a slightly thinner, but still present, dust storm.  Then we discovered that the airline could not get a second airplane in, due to some issues with the airport and (presumably) Afghan government.  This was a BIG uh-oh.  One of my co-workers suggested that I try getting to Kabul on an embassy-run airplane and then flying to Dubai on an airline.  I made some calls and discovered that (a) an Embassy flight was leaving in about a half hour and (b) the miracle-workers in Kabul could indeed get me on a flight from there to Dubai.  I grabbed my backpack, found the duty driver, and made it to the flight line with minutes to spare.  On the flight to Kabul, I could see just how thick and extensive the dust cloud was: it lay like a thick fog over the ground, making any features such as runways completely invisible, and it extended for miles.

Once in Kabul, I was able to get over to the commercial terminal, again with minutes to spare, and got checked in.  Then it was on to Dubai, a 2 1/2 hour flight.  I couldn't believe it: I was finally on my way!  After landing and going through the passport control, I had a couple of hours to kill.  Dubai is a very modern city, bustling and active, with a huge expatriate presence.  Based on some recommendations, I went to the Irish Village and had my first really good meal in nearly three months, along with a fabulous draft beer.  Heaven!

Back to the airport later and onto Lufthansa for a flight to Frankfurt.  I had been happy with this, thinking that it would be good to break up the flight into two legs vice one long 14-hour marathon.  As it turned out, not so.  Lufthansa was fine, a bit better than United but nothing like, say, Air France.  The problem was Frankfurt.  I've been through this airport in years past, but this time, it was ridiculous.  Security is over-the-top: you have to go through security to get away from your gate, and go through it again to get to your next gate.  "Slow" is the operative word here.  Worse, Frankfurt is a maze without useful guidance.  If the flight you're looking for is Lufthansa, then there are signs everywhere telling you where to go.  If you're looking for another airline (and almost every international airline in the world is in Frankfurt), then you're out of luck.  No signs.  I finally stumbled over an information desk with a grumpy soul who pointed me in the right direction.  Despite a two-hour layover, I got to my gate about 15 minutes before boarding time.  My advice is to stay the hell away from Frankfurt.

After that, though, it was smooth sailing.  I was on United to Chicago, which was a piece of cake after Frankfurt.  Then the final short flight to Asheville.  Janis and the dogs were waiting for me in the terminal.  I was home, 42 hours after leaving Kandahar.  And I'd picked up a cold along the way.

So now I'm sitting here in my favorite chair.  My cold is pretty much gone (not quite).  Janis and the dogs are more or less used to me being here by now.  I've visited with some friends, taken care of some business, and had a wonderfully quiet Christmas.  Life is good.

I head back to Afghanistan next week.  There are things cooking that I need to work on.  But for now, I'm just enjoying being at home.

Trying to Go on R&R

I got up this morning, grabbed my backpack, and headed for the air terminal here at Kandahar Air Field, intending to go home on R&R.  It didn't quite work out that way.  The reason?  Dust.

Yesterday, we had a big dust cloud move in early in the day.  It looked like fog - a gritty whitish-gray mass that settled over the base and gradually got more dense as the day went on.  This morning, it was still there.  Our group of traveller wanna-be's trooped over to the KAF airfield at 8 am to get checked in for the flight.  It was cold - there was ice on the ground outside the terminal, and for some reason that only makes sense to the military, we were not allowed to go inside for over two hours.  (For all of you who gripe about United Airlines' crappy treatment of prisoners - er, customers, at least they let you stand around inside a warm terminal while they muck up your flight).  Eventually, we got inside and discovered that there wasn't really any heat inside, either, so it didn't make a lot of difference where we were kept.

But as we stood around shivering, I watched the dust cloud get thicker and thicker.  Our plane was delayed, then delayed again, in the hopes that the air would start to clear.  No luck.  Somebody explained that planes have to have a minimum of 800 meters visibility to land.  Our visibility ranged between 400-600 meters.  In other words, about a quarter of a mile, give or take.

Finally, at about 4:30, they gave up and cancelled the flight.  A group of four of us hightailed it over to our office compound and got on the phone to our travel office.  Those guys worked miracles revising our tickets.  I'm pretty happy with mine: they have me flying on Lufthansa tomorrow, which is much better than United, and it breaks my long overseas flight up into two sections.  Now if they can just get me an aisle seat ...

Those tickets still depend on tomorrow's weather.  I hear that it's supposed to be a bit clearer.  The air service (a charter group) is arranging to fly two planes in tomorrow to fly out both today's and tomorrow's passengers.  A good thing, since both flights were over-booked anyway.

So.  With a little luck, at this time tomorrow I should be in Dubai, waiting to board a flight that will take me home.  I'm ready!

Three Days in Maiwand

Two Elders

Graphite on paper, 9"x12"

Three Elders

Graphite on paper, 9"x12"

The Listener

Graphite on paper, 9"x10"

Senior Leader

Graphite on paper, 9"x9"

I spent three days earlier this week in the district of Maiwand.  Maiwand is to the west of Kandahar City, on the border with Helmand Province.  It's an agricultural area with virtually no other types of industries.  Maiwand, along with neighboring district of Zhari on one side and the province of Helmand on the other, is the original homeland of the Taliban.  They still control the territory.  Afghan government influence is minimal but growing.  Slowly.  

During this visit, I was in several meetings with the district governor, chief of police, and other officials.  I also sat in on the District Development Assembly meeting.  This is a shura (a meeting of the elders) to discuss what they want to do to develop their district.  About 30 Maiwand elders were in attendance from various parts of the district.  I was a back-bencher, there to observe proceedings.  What better way for an artist to observe than by sketching?  So I took along my drawing pad and pencil, sat against the wall, and sketched away.  The four drawings above are the result.

As I've said before, Afghans have the most amazing features and are wonderful subjects for an artist.  They're very different from Western norms, very expressive, with different ways of dressing.  I could spend all day, every day, drawing and painting these guys.  Great fun.  My experience as a courtroom artist really helped here, as nobody sat still.  

The meeting itself?  Chaos.  There was much in the way of passionate speech about this and that, people pushing agendas, arguments and counter-arguments, debate, voting, more passion, signing of papers, scheduling of follow-on meetings, and so on.  Sometimes I'd look at the American officer sitting next to me and we'd just shake our heads and laugh.  You can't make this stuff up.  It was great entertainment.  As effective government, well, I don't know.  The district governor is still establishing himself (he's only been on the job for a month and is not from the district), so what he does with this group, and others, remains to be seen.

When not in meetings with the Afghans, I spent time with my primary contact, Carlos.  He's been there almost a year and is extremely well-versed in local governance and politics.  I was listening to the discussion in the shura while sketching, for example, and generally followed what was going on, but Carlos caught a lot of subtleties that I missed entirely.  Sometimes the fact that a certain individual says something, or doesn't say something, is vitally important.  As the man said, all politics is local, especially here.

I was also learning a bit about life on a Contingency Operating Base, or COB.  COBs are small bases with only a couple hundred people total.  This one is right on the edge of the town of Hutal - you can stand on the walls, throw a rock, and hit someone in the bazaar.  (Note: this is not recommended!)  Life on a COB is very spartan: tents, portajohns, gravel, limited supplies of just about everything, crappy communications links, a fairly well-equipped gym, and more MRAPs than you ever thought existed.  But it also fosters an esprit de corps since everybody's in the same boat.  You share what you have and help your buddy out.  Tomorrow, you're going to need your buddy's help.

All in all, a very productive visit for me and, hopefully, for Carlos and the rest of the Maiwand team.  I'm looking forward to working with them throughout the rest of my time in Afghanistan.  

Another Trip to Spin Boldak

I made another trip to Spin Boldak earlier this week.  Spin Boldak is the district in Kandahar Province (like a county in a state) that's on the border with Pakistan.  It has one of the two major border crossings that ISAF uses as a supply route.  Or it did until two weeks ago, when Pakistan closed the border to ISAF traffic after the shooting incident.  But this trip had nothing to do with the border crossing.  Instead, my boss wanted to talk with the key locals about the future.

His message was pretty clear: we're drawing down.  We're not leaving Afghanistan, but within three years, there will be a very small presence in Kandahar Province.  We're not doing lots of projects anymore, and we're not going to be a "shadow government".  Instead, they needed to work with the government structure to do the things that governments are supposed to do: build and maintain roads, provide schooling, provide a health care system, lay the groundwork for private-sector economic growth, and so on.  They need to get their government working now, while ISAF is here to back them up.  They can't wait until we're gone.

How did it go over?  Hard to say.  They certainly listened.  I saw heads nodding at important points.  Now to see what they do.

I was a back-bencher during most of this.  When you're with the Big Dog, he's the one who does the talking, particularly when we're talking about the big strategic picture.  I'll get my chance to talk with some of them later, when we're talking about specific "how to" points.

So, of course, I did some sketching when I could.  I swear, I could spend days drawing these guys.  Part of it is the fact that they look and dress so different from Americans, and there's that fascination with whatever's different.  That's why we all take photos on vacation, isn't it?  It's someplace different.

But in addition to being different, the Afghans I've dealt with have great character in their faces.  They've lived through experiences that you and I don't even like to read about.  They have a dignity and gravity about them.  But there's often an openness, a friendliness, sometimes even an eagerness, that's almost childlike.  (Not always - in one of our meetings, I sat next to a guy who wanted nothing to do with me.  But he listened intently to what was said and made some very sharp, focused, and interesting remarks back to the Boss.)

Spin Boldak Official

Ballpoint pen on lined notebook paper

7"x5" 

Spin Boldak Official

Ballpoint pen on lined notebook paper

7"x5"

These were done during a meeting with district officials.  These guys were quite lively.  Some of their discussion was "I want ... " and "I need ... ", aimed at ISAF, which is how they've been getting much of their resources over the past ten years.  But as the boss made clear, ISAF's not going to provide much more, and they need to get their resources from their own government.  I could see from their faces that they were getting the message.

Later we talked with the tribal shura.  A "shura" is a meeting of the elders to discuss whatever happens to be the topic of the day.  Spin Boldak has created a very representative shura assembly that reflects its tribal diversity.  This is the meeting where I sat next to the guy who didn't want anything to do with me.  Watching the crowd, if you ignored the turbans, beards, and Afghan dress, it was like a community meeting anywhere in the States, except maybe more respectful.  They listened, thought about it, made their own points, and in general were actively engaged.  I hope I can get back down there for another shura meeting soon, only this time without the boss, so that I can better see their dynamics in action.

So what's the future here?  It remains to be seen.  Spin Boldak is a very complex place, much more so than any other place in the region, except maybe Kandahar City.  There are lots of power players, lots of different dynamics, and we have only a shallow understanding of it.  Not for lack of trying, but Afghan society, especially in a place like this, has undercurrents and behind-closed-doors deals and unstated understandings that outsiders will not, ever, know about.  I recently described Spin Boldak as a paper-thin layer of official government laid on top of a spaghetti-plate of real activity.  We're doing what we can to help develop that official layer so that the spaghetti-plate doesn't destroy itself later on.

Friday Musings

Maiwand District Chief of Police

Ballpoint pen on lined paper, 7"x5"

A few days ago, I went out to the district of Maiwand to meet with the new District Governor and District Chief of Police.  It was an interesting trip.  I wound up sitting right next to the Governor and taking notes, so I couldn't do any sketches.  When we met with the Chief of Police, though, I managed to grab a seat to the side and was free to sketch away.  Here's the one of the DCoP.

The big news over the past few days has been the incident in the eastern part of the country where ISAF forces killed a number of Pakistani border troops.  Most of the news reporting that I've seen has focused on Pakistan's indignant response.  They've roundly condemned the attack as unprovoked, an assault on Pakistani sovereignty, and an international travesty.  Additionally, they've thrown us out of a base that we were using to launch drones and they've pulled out of the Bonn talks on the future of Afghanistan that just started.  And, in what will eventually affect me personally, they've closed ISAF's overland supply routes from the seaport of Karachi into Afghanistan for an indefinite period.  In response, we've issued our condolences to Pakistan, especially to the families of those killed, and launched an investigation into the incident.  Afghanistan has also issued condolences and tried to get Pakistan to come to the table in Bonn.  Pakistan, though, is in a helluva snit and does not want to play.

There is, of course, more to this story.  Afghan TV and print media are reporting that the Pakistani forces who were attacked had been shooting at an Afghan border village for some time, forcing residents to stay indoors.  These reports have also stated that an Afghan patrol, with ISAF backup, had come under fire from the Pakistani side of the border, which was what prompted the call for the ISAF attack helicopter to return fire.  I haven't seen any of this in Western news reports, though, only in Afghan.

So before everybody gets too excited and starts condemning ISAF forces as being trigger-happy cowboys (Pakistan's position), let's just wait until the investigation is done.  I bet it's not quite what we've heard so far.

In other news, I've been fighting a friction' cold for the past 3 weeks.  I'm sick of it.  SICK, I tell you!  It's knocked me on my butt several times.  I don't have time for this.  NyQuil and Mucinex and other drugs help the symptoms, but I want it to be gone.  Now, please.