BACK IN KABUL, REALLY HATING IT AND GETTING

I'm back in Kabul after two great weeks in Herat. If you had trouble with the video on my blog, go to my Facebook page and view what's there. YouTube took down the first one because they say I infringed on the Rolling Stones' copyright shit on the "Gimme Shelter" title and use of their music. Well...here's what I have to say to YouTube: "Eat me, daddy, eight to the bar." Figure that one out. Right now, I can't view my own videos after I put them online, or even videos on sites like CNN. I have uninstalled and reinstalled Flash, Shockwave and Java. I have run my virus scan, Spy Bot and Microtrend Housecall, all of which found no infections. Anyone with any suggestions that work will be put in my will.

Anyway...Kabul still sucks. Bad traffic, bad air and just bad juju, all around. Not only that, but they just told those of us who live at the UNOCHA compound that we have to move back downtown to the Park Palace Hotel, which has now been deemed safe by the UN Department of Security Services. Except for their Close Protection Teams (some of the coolest, most professional guys I've met over here), DSS is a bunch of fucking idiots. They have no clue about the true security situation here, or anywhere, for that matter. We cannot figure out what they base their security decisions on and they are totally secretive about how they do things. But, get this...they are so "secure" that their own web site got hacked last week. Ha, ha, ha. You couldn't make this shit up, if you tried. Yeah, and here's why we have to move.

I've said before that we live way the hell out Jalalabad Road, known as "bomb alley." That's because the local bad guys keep trying to bomb ISAF/NATO convoys when they pull out, or go into, their bases located on Jalalabad Road. We live past these bases, so we have to go by them twice a day, which is, in fact, exposing us to possible incidents. When they told us we had to move out there, I specifically asked, "Uh, isn't kind of fucked up since we have to pass by the main bombing areas twice a day?" "Yeah, but it is all we can do right now because there a lack of housing in town." Which was not exactly accurate, but that's another story. So, now, they have decided that the "Line of Death" (I made that up) begins just east of Camp Phoenix, the area where most of the bombings occur and we are east of that. Hence, now we have to cross the "Line of Death" twice a day and, all of a sudden, the route is unsafe. As I have said many, many times, you could not make this kind of shit up if you tried.

Here's an example of incomprehensible "security" analysis. When we got to Herat on March 11, we went to the local DSS office for our mandatory security briefing. After a lot of "blah, blah, blah" and "yadda, yadda, yadda," this is what we were told: "The number of security incidents is down." Followed by: " But the area is a security problem." Huh? So, I asked, "Well, what kind of things have happened?" "A young girl, the daughter of a rich guy, was kidnapped." "So, what happened." "The kidnappers were eating and she jumped out a window and escaped." Again...huh?
I check the news sites all over Afghanistan--like Afghanistan Outlook, Afghan News Today, al Jazeera English--and here's the only incident in Herat I could find in the recent past before we arrived. Two bad guys trying to set up an IED managed to blow themselves up. From our perspective, that's a good thing. Then we were told that Herat city was so bad, we could not go to any restaurants or hotels. Yet, the nationals go to these places for lunch every day. We gave up trying to understand how DSS arrives at their conclusions because it was hurting our brains, kind of like that Monty Python routine where Michael Palin is a Gumby and tells John Cleese--the brain surgeon--"My brain hurts," while Cleese is yelling for the nurse. As we like to say, "What the hell, it's Afghanistan, for crying out loud."

It’s Saturday night. Had dinner with a group of friends at the UNICA compound where I first lived. It was great and I did all the cooking, something which those who know me well know that I love. Made marinated chicken (teriyaki, white wine, garlic, fresh pepper) and flank steak; fanned, roasted potatoes with rosemary; a vegetable medley of fresh carrots, peas and green beans. Made garlic bread with these great, fresh Afghan rolls with a little Danish unsalted butter, a drizzle of olive oil, rosemary and grated, dry French cheese. A good time was had by all, even when all the gunfire started in the distance. Still don’t know what that was, maybe a wedding.
I finally got my videos to play on my Facebook page. Turns out there was Flash update that you can’t find unless you go through some weird shit in a file called WOW64. Founbd it on a tech site.Follow the link above and it will take you there.

I’m happy because I am returning to Herat on April with my Afghan friend, Daud, who is our National Project Coordinator, and our interpreter, Mobeen. I will be there until the 11th and then return to Kabul to get ready to come home on leave to my wonderful wife, the ponies, the doggies and the kitties...even fat, stinky Stonewall. Mona has practically redone the entire house and I can’t wait to see it. I have picked up three very cool small rugs for the new wood laminate floors. Two Baloche and one Persian. I paid $50 for a Persian rug that is about 3x5 and it would probably sell for $400 in the States. Can’t wait to see how they look.

Victor, my Ukrainian pal, and I will be teaching together at the Afghan Border Police NCO Academy. One of us will teach in the morning, the other in the afternoon. I am going to teach—get this “Community Policing.” If you had told me when I was doing the defense capital investigations that I would be teaching Community Policing, or Crime Scene Investigations, to cops of any country, let alone in Afghanistan, I would have thought you were smoking the dope they make over here. I have had to teach myself about this topic in order to teach others and it has been very instructive. I actually realized that this is the future of serious police work. If the community trusts you, they will tell you where the bad guys and when the dope is coming through. Too much.

Guess that’s enough for this week. Pretty tired tonight and sitting back to watch Animal Planet. Hope everyone is well and that I get to see a bunch of you in about three weeks.

A GREAT TWO WEEKS IN HERAT, THE DESERT, THE IRANIAN BORDER, THE TV FILM CREW AND LOTS OF GUYS WITH GUNS

It is Saturday, March 20. I have been here for ten days and will head back to Kabul on the 22nd. I would rather be here, but we have to do what we have to do. They are moving us in Kabul, yet again, to new housing. This is the seventh move for me in fourteen weeks and I hope it will finally be the last. We are moving from the UNOCHA compound on Jalalabad Road (aka, "Bomb Alley") to the Park Palace Hotel, which has just been approved as secure by the UN Department of Security Services. We are hoping that means they have Gurkha security. We are pretty happy about this turn of events because it is only two blocks from our office. No more getting up at 5AM so we can leave UNOCHA before six and miss "prime bombing hours." We are also hoping that our big boss, Jean-Luc, will give us the okay to be in Herat permanently, which is actually what was supposed to happen when I got here.

I almost don't know where to begin about this trip to Herat. We spent four days running across the desert and up and down the Iranian border with the Afghan Border Police. Thursday and Friday, we were joined by a Channel 4 London (connected to BBC 2) film crew who followed us and our ABP security team to several remote border posts. They are making a documentary about the situation on the border, the ABP and the whole issue about the drug trade going across the border into Iran. They spent a lot of time interviewing Tony and the men of the ABP, as well as Kuchi tribal leaders who met us at one of the posts ands talked about the problems in their villages and for their people.

Their top concerns were water, electric power and schools for their children. Tony talked with the UNODC Alternative Livelihood and World Food Program people back at our base in Herat and they will be taking humanitarian assistance to one village at the end of the month, and the other village we visited on Tuesday, the first week of April. This will be good for our program and the ABP because it will show that we follow through when we say we will help them. We are also hoping to figure out a way to bring them medical care, which was also a major issue. Many of their children appeared to have respiratory problems and several seemed to have some kind of palsy. The Kuchi raise goats and sheep and they live a harsh existence, particularly in the winter. They told us that they had people die this past winter because of deep snow, extreme cold and no ability to get out of their villages to a safer environment, or for help to get to them.

Yesterday, Victor (a retired Ukranian police colonel and former Russian airborne soldier) and I and our interpreter, Fahim, spent about four hours in a bivouac at the base of a small, steep hill where a border post was located on top. There was only room for three vehicles at the end of the very steep road going up there, so Tony, the film crew and one truck of security went up and did interviews and a lot of filming. The rest of the ABP crew and us had the area around the base secured and they sent men out across the nearby desert to take up positions on higher ground. It was very cool.

I ended up being invited for tea and lunch, first by the company commander and, then, about an hour later, by the brigade executive officer, Col. Hammadullah, whom Tony has known for a long time. It was very nice to sit under a home-made tent draped from the colonel's truck to the top of a small hill that was adjacent. They had put a blanket on the ground and it was good to get out of the heat of the day. We had strong black tea, rice, fresh baked (at the ABP post) bread and boiled beef. I added plastic toothpick/flossers to the mix, which went over really well. It was nice to be asked to join the mission command for lunch, which also included the 2nd battalion (kandak) commander, platoon leaders and the first sergeant. Col. Hammadullah is quite the figure and I have included a picture of him with this post. He is great at exhorting his men to defend their country and telling them that their task is daunting and dangerous, something which I think the rank-and-file officers know, anyway.

The young men who accompanied us as security--there were between 12-14 trucks, 6-8 men per truck--were from the brigade Quick Reaction Force and they seemed committed to their job. Each truck had an RPK machine gun, each man had either a version of an AK-47 (the Hungarian AMD 65), or an AK with a Russian grenade launcher and some also carried handguns. There is nothing like flying across the desert at 70-80 kilometers-per-hour-with lots of guys with guns. Victor and I spent quite a bit of time during the bivouac talking with six or eight of them about just stuff--what did my tattoos mean; where did my cargo pants come from; why did I have three knives; what was my Gerber tool for? I showed them my very small MP3 player and a couple of them ended up listening to Black Sabbath at very high volume. One guy was smiling and started dancing in place to the music. Holy crap...heavy metal comes to the Afghanistan high desert.

One of the best parts of the day was when got to do some shooting. Victor and I had CZ 58s (the Czech AK) which performed flawlessly. The ABP set up a line of rocks about 70 meters out and Victor turned out to be "Dead-Eye Dick," much to the glee of the ABP. He just shot the shit out of every rock, which most of them missed. He got a standing ovation. When I told Tony, he commented, "So, they saw what you can do if you use the sights?" It seems that the ABP has a hard time learning to use their weapons correctly and not on full-auto all the time. Then we got to shoot a couple of Smith & Wesson Sigma 9mm pistols. Victor's worked really well; mine jammed every 3-4 bullets. Probably a weak spring, Tony thought, or maybe a bad clip. They fired their RPK machine guns, but it was a little disconcerting that all three of them kept jamming. Kind of made Victor and me wonder what they hell would happen if we got into a gun battle.

During this trip we got to see the results of two drug busts. One was 12 kilograms of both brown (not fully processed) heroin in chunks, and pure white heroin, called "crystal." The second day, the bust netted 13 kilograms. Today we learned that they made a huge bust of about 280 kilograms south of here in Farah Province. We also heard that one of the posts north of us on the border with Turkmenistan was overrun by bad guys and that the post commander was killed. This is in Badghis Province, which has recently seen a huge increase in anti-coalition forces. ISAF/NATO and the Afghan National Army are mounting an air assault into the area in the next few days to retake the post. There was also a bust in Herat that was about 400 kilograms, but before the ABP could get there with backup, the bad guys apparently bought off the ABP officers involved, got their dope back and the perps were released. There may have been involvement by high-ranking officers, as well, and it looks like the National Directorate of Security (NDS--like their CIA) is investigating. We hope so, anyway. The problem with the endemic corruption in Afghanistan is that it is even found in the ABP, I am sad to report. It's just the way it is and you accept it, hoping that the work you do will help the young, upcoming officers and NCOs want to do something different and help their country change for the better.

Two days before we first headed out into the desert, an ABP crew on patrol was hit by an IED. It was lucky that no one was killed. There were some slight casualties and the vehicle was apparently destroyed. They had no backup, which is a little hard to fathom, so it's a good thing that no one needed immediate trauma care, med-evac, or that there wasn't also an armed contingent that started shooting at them. It is unclear at this time if it was Taleban or drug guys, or someone with a grudge because someone in the ABP didn't pay them enough on a drug deal, or some other criminal activity.

Anyway, while we were on our way to the last border post on Friday, they took us to the IED site. I was able to examine the crater and we found what looked like shrapnel from an anti-tank mine and a 120mm mortar round--a "boosted" IED. Later in the day, while Victor and I were in the bivouac and Tony was up on the hill with the film crew, they brought me the initiation device. It was a very slick remote-controlled device tied to a 6-volt battery and using an electric blasting cap. The receiver for the remote was a simple black wire that had been stripped of its insulation for the last six inches, or so. The remote, itself, is contained in what appears to be a yellow plastic pill box, about six inches long, two inches wide and an inch high, that was epoxied together. When we go back to the brigade HQ on Monday, they are going to let me pry it apart to see exactly how it was made. I am assuming that the transmitter was something like a remote-controlled car or electric doorbell hand-held device. More on this later. I have included a picture.

Well, that's about it for now. Tomorrow is the New Year, here, so it is an official UN holiday. It is kind of a weird day in Herat because, in the past, there have been riots between the Sunni and Shi'ite over different beliefs about...who knows? Tony said that when he came back from the Brigade HQ yesterday afternoon, he saw a klot of Afghan NAtionbal Army troops being brought into town. I guess they were just being cautious because of the past problems and we're hoping that it's just a nice day for all Afghans as they celebrate their new year. We are going to try and make it to the ISAF base--Camp Stone--for a good coffee, maybe some pizza, the PX and the post office to finally pick up the 100 batteries I had sent from the States for night-vision goggles we give to the ABP. Enjoy the pictures and the video.

I FINALLY GET TO THE FIELD AND DO WHAT I WAS HIRED FOR

I finally made it out of the office in Kabul and into the field. Tony, Daud, Victor and I spent six days in Herat, a teeming city in the northwest about one-hundred kilometers east of the Iranian border. On day one, we met with General Milham, commander of the Zone 4 Afghan Border Police Brigade, and his command staff. It was an interesting meeting in that the General said—in front of his staff—that there were questions we were asking that he could not answer because there were people in the room he did not trust. In fact, the next day, as he, Tony and I walked along one of base’s roads, he had the two ABP officers guarding us move far enough back so that they could not overhear the conversation. It is, indeed, unfortunate, that the backstabbing and corruption that is endemic to most institutions in Afghanistan exists in the ABP to the point that it interferes with operational and tactical matters. After we returned to Kabul, we heard that General Milham was being replaced. We don’t know why, yet, but it may well be because of the comments he made during our meeting.

On day two, we saddled up at 7:30 AM and headed back to the brigade HQ. We picked up security in the form of four light trucks, each with 4-6 men armed with AK-47s and RPK light machine guns. With two trucks in front of us, two behind, we headed west on the road to Islam Qala at a high rate of speed. This road, built by the Iranians, is one of the best roads in the whole country and we referred to it as “Interstate 5.” Just east of Islam Qala, we picked up two more trucks with armed ABP officers from the battalion HQ. As soon as they joined us, we headed south, and then west, out into the desert toward one of the remote border posts on the border with Iran. The run across the desert was fantastic, despite the fact that the roads, in many places, were nothing more than glorified goat trails. We had to cross dried up wadis and river beds with caution since these are the kinds of locations where the enemy likes to plant IEDs. It was similar to off-roading in the high desert of Oregon, except that there was no sagebrush, junipers or tumble weed. In fact, there was very little vegetation at all.

Iran actually built twenty-four border posts for the Afghan Border Police. As we learned, however, the construction at the four bases we visited that the Iranians built was shoddy and the cement for the walls and courtyards was of low quality. Walls had substantial cracking and the courtyards were essentially breaking up so that dirt was exposed in large areas. I am assuming, like many aspects of life over here, that the Iranians were ripped off by a corrupt contractor. Why should they be treated any differently than the UN, NATO, or anyone doing work over here?

Over the course of the day, we visited five border posts and the battalion HQ at Islam Qala. The conditions at the border posts were bleak, particularly at the one built by the ABP. Aside from cracking cement, food quality and quantity was poor, sanitation essentially non-existent, weapons and ammunition were in poor shape. Generators were either broken or not being used because of a lack of fuel. We learned that the battalion and brigade HQs are hoarding fuel that is meant for the border posts and, no doubt, some of it is being sold for personal enrichment. This is an issue we will have to bring to the attention of our superiors in the UN, ABP HQ in Kabul and the Ministry of Interior, who has ultimate control of the ABP.

The men we met at the border posts were committed to their job, despite the Spartan and often poor conditions they lived under. At each post, the men were lined up in formation, with their weapons ready for inspection. Tony and I both went down the line at each post and asked the men how their conditions were and whether they were being paid on time, and how much pay they were receiving. It was hard to tell if they were being truthful since their commanders and the brigade Quick Reaction Force commander were with us when we were asking questions. At the battalion HQ in Islam Qala, we got a full tour of the base and they made lunch for us—chicken, beef ribs, rice and vermicelli, cukes and cabbage and the wonderful bread that is made everywhere in Afghanistan. We didn’t actually eat much of the meat because you do not know where it came from, whether it was fresh and if it had been properly cooked. It is a recipe for “Montezuma’s Revenge” unless you’re careful.

After lunch, we headed north to one last border post, this one constructed by the ABP and built out of reinforced mud and brick. It was in as poor shape as the ones built by the Iranians, probably worse. The generator appeared to not have been used in a long time, since it had a thick layer of dirt inside the cover on the entire engine and the fuel tank was virtually empty. When I examined the tank, I could see foreign particles, probably dirt, floating in the fuel. It was hard to understand how the men manning this post continued to serve, given the poor conditions, lack of good food and lack of decent hygiene and sanitation facilities. Yet, there they were, and most happy to have us inspect them. We returned to the brigade HQ and then back to our compound in Herat.

On Thursday, despite the fact that it was holiday celebrating the birth and death of the prophet, Mohammed, we went back to the brigade HQ to check on equipment we had stored in two Conex containers. In addition, when we met with General Milham that day, Tony asked if there would be time for me to give a class on IEDs and Ordnance Identification to the advanced training being done for a group of young NCOs. The General was quite happy to have this done since the trainees had never received any instruction in an area that was clearly a matter of life and death for them when out in the desert. The Russians had left millions of mines all over the place and the locations were barely marked in most cases, or not at all. Anti-Coalition Militias and traffickers also planted IEDS, largely made from the millions-upon-millions of rounds of unexploded the Russians left behind and all the munitions we had given the Mujahidin during the war against the Russians.

The inspection of our Conex containers was enlightening, to say the least. A lot of our equipment and MREs were missing. We found that Army mentors who were stationed at the ABP base had stored mattresses and bed components in one of our containers, having been given permission to do that by a former consultant from our office who is now gone (thank God) and who did not have the authority to turn over our space to the Army. It is clear UN policy that we have as little involvement with the military as possible, since it makes us look like we are in league with them and their policies, an image we cannot afford to have. It turned out that the same consultant had taken hundreds of boxes of MREs that were destined for ABP trainees in Nimroz Province, and authorized their use for Afghan workers during the elections last fall. This was not only unauthorized, but was probably, in my opinion, a criminal act since our donors had provided the money to purchase the MREs solely for the use of the ABP. It was also obvious that a lot of tactical equipment that had been purchased for the ABP was also missing.

Friday, we worked in the office in Herat since it was the Sabbath. On Saturday I gave a four-hour on IEDs and Ordnance Identification class and the young ABP officers who attended were extremely attentive, took lots of notes and asked a lot of very good questions. During a break, one of the students asked if I would answer a personal question and I said, “Of course.” He wanted to know why I had come to Afghanistan. I told him that I came because I believed that I could help them make their country a better place and that I could teach them subjects that would save their lives. I said that it was ultimately up to them to determine the best form of governance for their country and not up to us, the military or people like the US ambassador and Secretary of State. I also told him that he and his classmates were the future of their country and that it was up to them to change the status quo of the old men running the country now. He was very happy with my answer. Then he asked me if I thought that the US military came with the same thought in mind. I had to think about that for a minute, since I know from experience that many US soldiers seem to loathe the Afghan people because of their perceived “backward” cultural mores. I said, “In my country, everyone in the military is a volunteer. If you join, today, you know that you will eventually be in Afghanistan or Iraq and that both places are dangerous.” I think he was satisfied with my answer.

After my class, we unloaded both Conex containers since what we did have in them was completely unorganized and it was impossible to tell what we actually had. The ABP gave us seven or eight officers to help us, although three of them were completely lazy about doing any real work until Tony told them in a very loud voice that he would report them and to give their names to our interpreter. That solved that problem. We discovered that not only were we missing a huge number of cases of MREs—perhaps--as many as 700--but we were also missing hundreds of pairs of Nike Special Forces desert boots, night vision equipment (which is supposed to be carefully controlled), sleeping bags, winter coats and much more. We also had to reorganize a large supply of humanitarian assistance items like school supplies for children, clothing, sugar, flour, cooking oil and flour. It took the rest of the team most of the day to get everything reorganized and I joined for the last two hours after my class ended.

You probably heard about the attack in Kabul last week. We were in Herat when it occurred. One of the guest houses that were leveled by a suicide bomber was about three blocks from our work compound. Like the attack on January 18, the media seemed to focus on the fact that the attack had occurred and this showed that Kabul was not secure and the Taleban could come and go as it pleased. There is some truth to this belief, but so what? This is an insurgent war...what do they think is going to happen? And why should this ever mean that NATO/ISAF, or even the UN, mission here should be reduced or that we should simply leave now and not wait until 2011, or later, if necessary? Like the January 18 attack, the real story, here, was that the Afghan National Security Forces saddled up, did their job and did it without any US or NATO assistance. They killed the bad guys who didn’t blow themselves up, secured the area and reopened the city four hours after the fighting ended.

I can only hope that our government does not sell out the Afghan people like we did the Vietnamese, yet, that appears the way things are going. All of us are still trying to figure out why they announced, live on CNN and the BBC, that they were mounting the operation in Helmand at Marjah. They claim it was so the civilians who wanted to could leave the area ahead of the fighting. Guess what? Almost no one left. This seems to be complete bullshit and that the real reason was so that most of the Taleban would leave and ISAF/NATO could claim victory when the new civilian government was set up in Marjah. Yeah, most of the Taleban did leave, but guess what? They moved to other provinces. Now all of Helmand, Kandahar, Oruzgan and Nimroz provinces are off limits to almost all of the UN, including us. So thanks to NATO/ISAF fucking up, we cannot go to Nimroz to train the ABP and this means that the bad guys will continue to move huge quantities of opium and heroin over the border into Iran—as much as 10,000 kilos a week during peak season, which will be occurring during the next few months. Now they’ve announced that the next big operation will begin soon in Kandahar. Why don’t they hire the fucking Goodyear blimp and advertise with lights at night? One of the Army guys mentoring the ABP at Herat told us that the western and southwestern border, where most of the dope leaves the country, has the lowest priority for ISAF/NATO. Just goes to prove that the US military, just like Vietnam, is being run by a pack of fucking morons who have no clue what they’re doing, or what is most important. Killing the Taleban is not more important than stopping the flow of drugs. I don’t mean to get on a rant, but that’s my two cents. Oh, wait...I did mean to get on a rant.