STILL NO HIRAT AND MY CAT IS MISSING. ANOTHER VICTIM OF THE TALIBAN?

Today is January 18 and the Taliban hit downtown Kabul at 9:20AM. There were multiple suicide bombers and gunmen. Although they claimed to have gotten into government buildings and killed officials, they were lying out their fucking asses. They claimed to have gotten into the “Five-Star” Serena Hotel (where the rich people and diplomats stay)--more lies. They did damage another smaller hotel. In the end, all they managed to do was get a five-story galleria burned down when it was counter-attacked by police commandos and Afghan security forces. The fire destroyed the shops of dozens of hard-working Afghans trying to support their families. And they attacked an empty movie theater. They couldn't get near the government buildings and the bombers blew themselves up in the middle of the street. We watched the aftermath, live, on al Jazeera and the wreckage of the cars was littering a wide city avenue and not even close to any major buildings. It was interesting that the reporters from al Jazeera and Tolo (A Kabul station) were live, on the scene. The BBC guy was live, in the basement of the Serena Hotel. One of the al Jazeera guys was wounded.

I have to comment on the way this event was covered by the Western media. They virtually all reported that Kabul is, essentially, unsafe and that the Taliban can get in and out of town, at will. This one event, somehow, means we’re totally fucked and the war is lost. That was the gist of what I heard on the BBC, CNN, MSNBC and a number of print news web sites I looked at. This was so much bullshit and unworthy of serious consideration. First, I have been here for six weeks and this is the second bombing during that period. Even, today, despite our successes, there are multiple bombings in Iraq virtually every day. Second, and for crying out loud, there are about a gazillion roads going in and out of Kabul, not to mention the donkey-horse overland possibilities. What? Are they supposed to shut down every avenue of access and search every car, truck, bicycle, motorcycle, person, horse, donkey, cow and dog?

Third—and this is the real point—the true story that day was the combined actions of the Afghan security forces: the National Police, the Police Commandos and the Army. They saddled up, did their job and killed the bad guys—all of them who didn’t blow themselves up. Within four hours, security had been restored and two hours later the city-wide lock-down was lifted. If the FBI or Homeland Security had been running this operation, they'd still be talking about what to do and trying to negotiate. Let me make this clear—this was an all-Afghan planned, run and executed operation. They were on the alert because they developed intelligence that something was going to happen. Despite the bullshit claims of the Taliban on their web site, there was no NATO or ISAF involvement, other than the allied advisors assigned to the Afghan units. At an awards ceremony the next day, Gen. Bismullah Khan Mohammadi the Afghan Army Chief-of-Staff, said to the gathered solders, “"When we asked for three volunteers, ten of you stepped forward.” This is the story that should have been reported on.

Today, January 21, I heard Plan Number 9. I may be going to Hirat by the end of the week. They are waiting for the furniture, but the procurement request just went in. Yeah, this might happen in my lifetime. I am not holding my breath. I did, however, get to see pictures of the secure compound in Hirat (I have been misspelling it the Anglicized way). It is really nice and the room accommodations look really, really nice. The best part is that I was told that we have a full kitchen and I am looking forward to cooking, both for myself and my co-workers, if I ever get the fuck up there. We get lunch but are on our own for breakfast and dinner, which is okay with me. I just hope I get up there to take advantage of the nice digs. (Now it’s January 23. Plan Number 10. The trip to Hirat was called off, again—big surprise—and now they say maybe next Thursday. Yeah, when pigs fly out of my butt. And, oh, yeah, again…the kitchen, it turns out, is apparently only full of a microwave. No fridge, no stove. If I ever actually get there, I will “cure’ these deficiencies, much as we did in Vietnam).

I have been working on the training module for IEDs and Ordnance Identification and have really been enjoying it. I have found some great materials on the web, including numerous pictures of various improvised explosive devices of all shapes, sizes and types. For the Ordnance ID portion, I am using the pictures of the most likely munitions the ABP officers will run into and scanning them to my computer. Then I transfer the images into the PowerPoint presentation. I am developing a short section on explosives and explosive properties, just like they taught us in EOD School back in the old days. So, I am relearning about the properties of explosives like lead azide, mercury fulminate and tetrazene. When I was in EOD School for some totally unexplainable reason, I totally aced this part of the course of instruction. I say that because I managed to barely pass—I mean with a D-minus—biology and chemistry in high school.

Now it’s January 24 and another Sunday. We actually had a little rain last night, which was the first precipitation since I got here, other than at altitudes higher up. One of my colleagues just flew back from the North and said there was barely any snow, even on the highest peaks. This is not good news for the farmers. They need the snow-melt, just as we do in Oregon, and the Kabul River, which is a substantial body of water, is apparently too polluted to use for irrigation. If it isn’t one thing, it’s something else. I’m worried about the kitty—Andy Panda—because he hasn’t been around for four days. We thought we heard him, today, but when I went outside, he was not to be seen. Maybe tomorrow.

I have really been enjoying my new Facebook page and have been communicating regularly with several of my friends. I also just signed up for something called Classmates.com where I have reconnected with a couple of people I went o high school with. Man, graduation was almost 45 years ago. Great googly moogly!! My friend, Tony, who got me over here, will arrive at 9:30 tomorrow morning from Dubai. As of now, however, it appears that Aeroflot has managed to lose his luggage. This is totally bad news because he has my new supply of meds from the VA and a new Play Station for Daud’s son. There’s another Aeroflot flight due in before he leaves so, hopefully, the bags will show up. Mike and Kathy flew down to Zaranj for a day to see how things were coming along with the safe hotel we are supposed to live in. It appears that they still have not gotten the concertina wire up on the walls, so we have to wait for that to get taken care. All of our gear that was shipped from Hirat is there and the trucks that Rashid sent from here are also there. Now, if we could just get there. Hopefully, when Tony gets here, things will start to happen. Like I said, previously, everyone says he’s the guy “who gets shit done.”

I had to break down this week and buy a new laptop because the one I had was a total piece of crap. A friend had it built for me as a gift and the people who built it just didn't do a very good job. It was slower than whale crap, constantly locked up, I had to replace the keyboard before I left and they loaded it with Vista, the biggest pile of...well, you know. So, I bought a really nice Sony VAIO and this thing is sweet. Very fast, huge hard drive and lots of RAM, HD for movies, built in wireless and Bluetooth, motion-tracking camera and built-in microphone. Big 17.3" screen. Movies look and sound amazing and I can now get streaming TV and radio without it having to buffer every twenty seconds. I can finally see my friends, wife and son clearly and not in stop-motion. I bought it a local computer store and Daud went with me to make sure I didn't get ripped off. He even got them to knock $50 off and I got a really nice micro-speaker system for $10.

Well, I guess that’s about it for this week. Hope everyone is well and that you enjoy my posts, even with the occasional rant. If you have Skype and are not on my contact list, let me know what your Skype name is.