Contractor Casualty Numbers

According to ProPublica, more contractors than soldiers were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan in the first six months of 2010, the first time that has happened since these wars began.

The report mentions the local nationals who work as translators and drivers for the military, but it’s based on Department of Labor statistics so I suspect that the numbers of contractor deaths are actually underreported. For one, most locally-owned PSCs in Afghanistan aren’t required to report their LN losses to the USG, and those are the companies that typically suffer the heaviest casualties. Secondly, there are plenty of LNs (at least in Afghanistan) that work as subcontractors to Western-owned PSCs and those numbers aren’t usually reported either.

If the employee isn’t on file with the USG, or if there are no DBA insurance payments involved, then the casualties don’t get entered into the official statistics. I don’t even want to guess how high the real numbers are.

(h/t to Feral Jundi)

Saving the World? Um......What?

A while back, in response to my post about being worn-down and tired of Afghanistan, a commenter asked me if I was here because I "wanted to be a world-improver, or just because of a job?" A fair question, and not one with a quick and easy answer.

To be clear, I have no illusions about "saving the world,"* And if I did, this place and this job is certainly not where I would start.

*I know, a HUGE shock to those of you who know me.

The world has always needed "saving" in one way or another, and somehow those efforts never seem to pay off quite as permanently as their advocates would like. From the Peace Corps in the 20th century all the way back to Roman efforts to civilize the barbarians in the 2nd century BCE, people have been trying to "fix" the wide variety of misfortunes and ills of the world. Whenver I'm confronted by one of these well-meaning but tragically naive do-gooders extolling the virtues of their NGOs new program to bring Pashto-language Sesame Street to school girls in Kandahar or whatever, I always ask the same question: "So how's that working out for you?" The answers are usually disappointing. So no, I'm not here to "save the world" or even rescue a small Afghan portion of it.

And I'm certainly not here for the money.* In fact, I venture to guess that most PSC contractors are not in it for the money. Sure, back in the crazy days of Iraq in 2003-4, a handfull of guys were getting paid big bucks to put their lives on the line, but pay scales aren't like that anymore, not in Iraq and not certainly not here. The competition is tougher and the industry has matured considerably in the last ten years.

*I could get paid more sitting behind a desk in DC wearing a tie. Except that I no longer own a tie.

All that said, one does hope that there might be some small lasting positive effect from one's efforts. For me personally and for the company as a whole, the value we provide stems from two important factors: security and jobs. The service we provide is security, and in so doing we employ a large number of Afghans who would otherwise be forced to scratch out a living as farmers or laborers.

All that other stuff, building schools, health clinics, instilling democracy, the empowerment of Afghan women, establishing a system of justice, all of that is necessary and good. But they are also irrelevant without security and jobs. Without at least a basic level of security and decent employment for most Afghans, we can build all the schools we want and this effort will still fail.

So, are private security companies saving the world, or even saving Afghanistan? No, but then we don't claim to be. We simply enable others to make that effort, and hopefully keep them safe while they're doing it. And lots of Afghan men can support their families on the salaries that PSCs pay. That's good enough for me.

But of course I never was an idealist.

Kidnap & Ransom

Last Sunday night I got the sort of text message that everyone one in this business dreads. "Incident in Kabul. One of ours down. Details to follow."

A message like that sets off several hours of frantic activity trying to trace the course of events, determine the casualties and sort out the next step. The Ops Manager, the Duty Officer, myself and the Deputy President all traded calls and texts for the next two hours until we pieced together the story.

A kidnap attempt of a local national in Kabul had resulted in one of our guys being shot, and his protectee snatched by four men in a dark SUV. The puzzling thing was that the name of the protectee was not on our list of clients. WTF? What was our PSD doing with a high-risk target when we didn't even have a contract or an agreement to provide the service? And what exactly is the fallout when someone you are protecting is snatched when you weren't supposed to be protecting him in the first place?

Turns out that one of actual clients, the president of an Afghan construction company, had contracted with us for static security at his office and a PSD team to cover his movements. Nothing unusual there. Where it gets strange is that this client had decided that his brother, the president of another separate Afghan construction company, ought to have protection as well. Rather than recommend that he contact us and write a proper contract, he simply phoned The Rug Merchant and asked if his brother could "borrow" one of our CPOs from time to time.*

*CPO= Close Protection Officer, i.e. a bodyguard; PSD= Personal Security Detail, i.e. a team of bodyguards.

Now the obvious answer to a request like this is "Uhhhhh........no."

Upon reflection, one might say, "Hell no."

But, The Rug Merchant, renowned across two continents for his limited mental capacity, said, "Sure, why not?" And then didn't bother to inform Operations, or anyone else in the chain of command. Just one Afghan doing a favor for another, no reason to make it formal.

The problem arises because a PSD team is calibrated and staffed to account for the anticipated threat and the likely movements of the client. Most importantly, there's more than one guy on a typcial PSD team, both to provide backup and to allow for downtime. In this case, the client's PSD team consisted of three guards, two of whom were with the client whenever he moved outside his office or residence.

Last Sunday, the client decided to stay at home and give two of the CPOs the night off. The third he loaned out to his brother for the night, failing to consider that one CPO is rarely sufficient if there's trouble. And, as I said, he had verbal approval for this from The Rug Merchant himself.*

*It's not the client's job to understand the risks and tactical situation. Our job is to protect them and tell them when they're being stupid. A task that The Rug Merchant failed at spectacularly.

So, the client's brother (whom I suspect is a deeply nefarious character with lots of enemies) goes off for a night on the town. His only protection is a CPO who has been loaned out without notice on his night off, has never met the protectee or his driver before, and has no idea of the destination or the schedule. Pretty much a recipe for disaster.

Plan for disaster, you generally get disaster. On a side street in Sherpur, their car was blocked by a pair of SUVs and four armed men rapidly surrounded the car. One of them smashed the passenger-side window and stuck the barrel of an AK-47 in my guy's face. Unable to bring his own weapon to bear, the CPO simply grabbed the barrel and pushed it down, trying to get the muzzle away from his face.

Generally, kidnap of locals in Kabul is a non-violent affair. The gangs who pull it off are usually experienced criminals and the last thing they want is shots fired in the middle of the night. They're also not used to being resisted and they certainly don't like it when someone grabs their weapon. In this case, I suspect that the kidnapper simply panicked, surprised that anyone would dare to argue with him. Unfortunately, his Kalashnikov was set to full-auto and in his surprise and anger he squeezed the trigger and put a burst into our CPO at a range of about ten inches.

Because the CPO had pushed the muzzle downward away from his face, he took five rounds between the chest and the knees. Needless to say, he stopped resisting at that point (as one does with five bullets embedded in your soft tissue) and the kidnappers bustled the protectee into one of their vehicles and tore out of there before the cops could arrive.

Despite several faults, the AK-47 is an effective weapon. The 7.62 x 39mm round is a powerful one (roughly equivalent to .30 caliber) and usually one is enough to put someone down, two is almost always fatal. Taking five, at point blank range, into the chest, stomach and upper thighs, is an invitation to Allah. Amazingly, not only did the CPO survive, but the doctors at the local hospital tell us that he'll make a full recovery. I've come close to death from a particularly bad hangover, and this guys gets punctured through his vitals by five bullets traveling over 2000 feet per second, and he's going to be fine, albeit after a long recovery. I'm told that his name in English means "strong" or "powerful" and now I don't doubt that it's appropriate.

Now we're stuck with the fallout, including a lot of uncomfortable questions from the Ministry of Interior as to why were providing an armed escort to someone without a contract. As to the fate of the "protectee," I confess that I don't much care. He's not one of my clients, he's obviously a moron and he nearly got one of my people killed. His family will probably pay the ransom, but they better not come to me for donations.

Nation Building?

The other day, in a post titled Taliban Justice, I noted a Time Magazine story with a rather disturbing cover photo. The story was basically a human-interest piece about the fate of an Afghan girl named Aisha who had been horribly mutilated by the Taliban for fleeing an abusive, arranged marriage.

One commenter (known only as "b") wrote:

The girl was mutilated a year ago. At that time there were some 100,000 NATO troops in country plus lots of contractors. So if a 100,000 troops can't prevent such, what are they doing there? And how would that change with 200,000 troops? Just asking ...

A fair question, but here's the thing: no matter how many troops we have here, Western forces cannot ever put a stop to this sort of thing. The marginalization, diminution and sometimes abuse of women is part and parcel of Afghan culture. Western military force will never put an end to that. Only Afghans can end that, if they so choose.

I've been here nearly 18 months, working closely everyday with a large number of Afghans. In all that time, not once have I met the wives of any of my people, except for The Rug Merchant, and that was in Dubai and only briefly. Even modern-minded, relatively progressive Afghans like the men I work with keep "their" women sequestered. They may object to the depredations of the Taliban, but that doesn't extend to breaking ancient social taboos about women and public life.

So, once we accept that the social structure of this country is not something that can be adjusted by force, the real question becomes two-fold, "Can/should the social structure of this country be changed to a more progressive, modern approach, and if so, what (if anything) can Westerners do to assist that transformation?"

To me, the answer to the first part is fairly obvious. If Afghanistan is ever to be peaceful, prosperous and stable, then some of fundamental underlying principles of Afghan society will have to be cast aside. I'm not saying that will be easy, or even likely, but it is a cold, hard fact. Analysts and pundits like to make long-winded arguments about the Great Game, the Cold War, "strategic depth," etc., all intended to absolve Afghans of responsibility for their plight, but the basic truth is that Afghanistan is the way it is partly because of the atavistic elements present in Afghan culture.

The second part of the question is considerably more difficult. I'm not convinced that there is all that much that Westerners can do to promote the sort of "social adjustment" that I feel is necessary here. People everywhere are notoriously resistant to cultural change, especially when they feel that it is being imposed from outside. That said, I see some small signs of hope among the slowly-emerging Afghan middle class. Thus far, they are concentrated in the major cities, and greatly overshadowed by the oligarchs, warlords, and narco-terrorists who rule much of the countryside. But they do exist, albeit in small numbers, and they almost unanimously desire a society that affords the opportunities that Westerners tend to take for granted. Jobs, security, education, a government that is more protective than predatory, these are the things that this Afghan middle-class desires.

They're not about to give up their cultural identity, nor will they cease being devout Muslims, but they are willing to cast a critical eye on some of the traditions and structures that have given this country over thirty years of war.

And that, I think, is what ISAF can accomplish here: buy the Afghan middle-class the time necessary to make their own changes, and find their own, better way of doing things.

If that's "nation-building" then so be it.

Taliban Justice

Note: The links below connect to a disturbing story, and an even more shocking photograph. Not for the faint-hearted or the squeamish.

A while back, I asked to be reminded of what we're doing here. Ultimately, is the cost of so many allied and Afghan lives, not to mention the financial burdens, worth it for what we may accomplish here. I still don't have an answer to that, at least not one that I find satisfying. My own opinion changes from day to day.

Time Magazine has a cover story about one Afghan girl's experience with Taliban justice. Time even used a photo of the girl on the cover of their latest issue. Needless to say, both are disturbing. The other day, in a post about WikiLeaks, I mentioned the Taliban's concept of "justice." That concept is on display in the Time story.

I won't editorialize the story here, except to say that it is A) one individual's story and should be read as such, and B) it certainly highlights one of the things that is fundamentally wrong with this place. To all who claim that we should reduce our presence here to simply hunting Al Qaeda with drones and let the Afghans sort out the rest for themselves, try going to Aisha's house and tell her that Afghanistan will be a better place under the Taliban. Somehow, I don't think she would agree.

Julian's Hitlist

Warning: What follows is largely a policy discussion. Read at your own risk.

Many people have already commented on the propriety of WikiLeaks and their release of thousands of pages of classified ISAF intelligence and incident reports from Afghanistan. As far as I'm able to determine, the responses have ranged from the overwhelmingly positive among the ardently free-speech/anti-secrecy crowd, to the crushingly negative from the big government hawks and GWOT fanatics.* Of course, the intel community is unsurprisingly alternating between horror and rage.

*In the former group seem to be a pretty high percentage of people who count The Pentagon Papers as a formative event in their lives, and probably consider the assassination of JFK an unresolved issue. The latter group, at the other end of the spectrum, is full of the same people who were puzzled by all the fuss over "enhanced interrogation" techniques.

Not unexpectedly, various senior government and military figures have condemmed the release of the documents as a breach of security, a violation of ethics or simply bad faith. In truth, it's probably all of those things, but debating whether or not laws were broken is kind of missing the point.

SecDef Gates and Chairman of the JCS Mullen have both publically and strongly criticized WikiLeaks for making the information available without first vetting it for details that might potentially put people at risk. Most of the furor (at least on CNN and the BBC) has been about the risk to US and ISAF servicemembers. A careful study of the documents could allow a clever enemy to piece together useful intel about our TTPs (Tactics, Techniques and Procedures) and thereby develop some counter-measures. In addition, in theory, the Taliban could learn the identity or operating habits of ISAF personnel, especially those engaged in intelligence collection and contact with the local population.

WikiLeaks' founder, Julian Assange, claims that the documents have been redacted to conceal the identities of ISAF personnel and this seems (so far) to be largely true. However, as Tom Coughlin and Giles Whittell report for The Australian, no such care appears to have been taken for the Afghans identified in the documents.

In just two hours of searching the WikiLeaks archive, The Times found the names of dozens of Afghans credited with handing intelligence to US forces. Their villages are given for identification and, in many cases, their fathers' names.

As anyone who has spent any time here can tell you, it's pretty simple to positively identify an Afghan with only his first name, his father's name and the name of his village. This is not like trying to find "Dave, son of Pete, from Cleveland." It's more like looking for "Dave Peterson from Lexington, Nebraska." Not all that hard, especially if the bad guys already have suspicions about their old friend Dave.

And, of course, the Taliban have proven that they are not adverse to casting their net rather widely when it comes to retribution and public displays of dissatisfaction. Can't find Dave, 'cause he's fled to the nearest FOB for protection? No worries. Just shoot his uncle and throw rocks at his wife until she's dead. Dave will surrender voluntarily to prevent them from taking out their frustrations on his kids.

So Mr. Assange and his cronies, under the guise of freedom of information, have just put hundreds, if not thousands, of Afghans in mortal danger.* Not just the informants who cooperate with ISAF or GIRoA, but their families and friends as well.

*Note that I say "under the guise of freedom of information" because I don't believe that Mr. Assange's** primary concern is dispelling the shadows of government secrecy. He's a modern tech-savvy equivalent of the anti-war protestors that were active during Vietnam. He's out to stop this war (perhaps all wars) and, ironically, he doesn't care who gets hurt in the process. Where's the Ohio National Guard when you need them?
**Is it just me, or does Julian Assange look like a guy who tried out for a role in the Twilight movies as "the geeky vampire?" Somebody should check his fridge and make sure there's no mysterious packages marked "Blood Bank" in there.

ISAF is not sitting on their hands through all of this. According to the NY Times, Pentagon officials are busy screening the documents to determine which Afghans are at risk of reprisals, but that will take time. In the race between the Pentagon and the Taliban to see who reacts faster, my money is on the bad guys. And they're already on the job as well. Also from the Times:

A spokesman for the Taliban told Britain’s Channel 4 News on Thursday that the insurgent group is scouring classified American military documents posted online by the group WikiLeaks for information to help them find and “punish” Afghan informers.

We need not guess what kind of "punishment" they're contemplating.

The point of all this, at least from my perspective, is fairly straightforward. We have over 1500 Afghans employed at my company, spread over every province in Afghanistan. Many of them have worked with or for the government, ISAF or the U.S. or Afghan military prior to coming to work for me. And a conservative estimate would be that there are thousands more in their extended families. Those are all people who are dependent on my company for a significant portion of their income and their continued well-being. In short, you're messing with my people. Even if only a small percentage of them could be classified as "informer" by the Taliban, that's still hundreds who are potentially named in the WikiLeaks report.

Consider yourself on notice, Mr. Assange. If even one of my people suffers because of your pathetic attempt at relevance, they will all know who is to blame. And Afghan justice is often a very personal affair. I only promise that I won't let them throw rocks at your head.

h/t to Abu Muqwama at CNAS

Personnel Changes

The Rug Merchant has returned to his roots and is now concentrating on.........well, selling rugs. Which seems fitting. He's still the head of the company, but he spends a lot less time hanging around the compound and screwing things up. Which is nice.

What's not so nice is that he took the Doctor with him to help develop the nascent carpet business. Which means that I've lost the single best employee the company had, a man whom I have depended on for 18 months to hold this outift together. He sticks his head in from time to time, and helps out when he can, but it's not the same as having him around on a daily basis. Needless to say, things are falling through the cracks and some of our supervisors have reverted to their status as useless mouth-breathers.

By way of compensation, I got to pick my new Ops Manager and I think I found a good one. So far, he's professional, focused and competent. Within a couple of days of being hired, he took it upon himself to visit all of our local sites in Kabul and check on the status of the guards and the clients. He didn't need to be told to do this, just assumed (rightly) it was something he should do.

As a former member of the Afghan Air Force (back in the 80s), he was trained by the Soviets (which is always a red flag; no pun intended). However, he spent the last twenty years living in the West and occasionally visiting family here, so he has a good grasp of the proper (i.e. Western) ways of doing business. As a bonus, much of his Western experience was actually in the security business, so I don't need to babysit him and he understands the basic concepts quite well.

Tomorrow we take 40 of our guys to the firing range for basic marksmanship training, so we'll see what the new Ops Manager can do. And I get to take out some stress on innocent pieces of fruit, which is always a good time.*

*If you've never shot a watermelon with an AK-47, I highly recommend it. It's a waste of good food, I admit, but it still makes me laugh a day later. Just remember to save some for the other guys to eat. Fresh fruit is a luxury here, so it's not advisable to use it all for target practice. Good rule of thumb: shoot half the fruit, distribute the rest, buy extra. Have fun, make friends, earn some loyalty.

Even Capone Had a Lawyer

Disgraced journalist* Gerald Posner, who was a lawyer in a previous incarnation, has now decided to return to his professional roots by taking on a few new clients.


*Is the term "disgraced journalist" at risk of becoming redundant, like "slimy lawyer" or "corrupt politician?"


Apparently, he's decided that the way to reenter the legal profession is to seek out the most oppressed, maligned and downtrodden people he can find, and then write laughably stupid letters to the editor on their behalf. So, he trolls the world for suitably aggreived clients and settles on..................the Karzais? WTF?


Specifically, Posner, in a letter posted on the WSJ online, objects to the WSJ's earlier characterization of Mahmood Karzai (younger brother to Hamid) as a money-launderer and smuggler. Mahmood was one of two Afghans personally named in the recent report (although of course he's hardly the only one suspected of moving large sums of cash to Dubai).


After conducting his own interview with his new client, Posner concludes:

Mr. Karzai has never transferred large amounts of cash out of the country. He is willing to take a lie-detector test on this matter. This unproven and false accusation hurts him since he is the only Afghan businessman I'm aware of who is investing his money into the country—in large real-estate projects in Kandahar and the nation's infrastructure, such as its only cement plant*— rather than taking money out as many others have done. No Afghan businessman or politician or public figure is more transparent than Mahmood Karzai.

Is he seriously claiming that Mahmood Karzai is "the only Afghan businessman" investing money into the country? That's beyond stupid; it's insultingly stupid. Even my moronic boss, The Rug Merchant, no angel himself, has invested millions of US dollars into Afghanistan, and facilitated the investment of millions more.


*And those real estate deals and the cement plant? Hardly examples of free enterprise at work. There's only one cement plant in Kandahar because Ahmed Wali Karzai, the President's other brother (the really naughty one) only allows one cement plant in Kandahar, so he can charge what he likes to construction companies. Monopolistic extortion. The real estate deals are based on the Afghan conception of emminent domain, basically "I have more guns than you, so get the hell off your land and give it to me so I can rent it to foreigners, OK?"


According to Charles Homans at Foreign Policy, Posner is representing other members of the Karzai clan as well, including older brother Qayum and the aforementioned Ahmed Wali. Posner is quoted as saying, "They're really proud of the reputations they have earned." That statement is so bizarre I can't even begin to ridicule it.*


*Although I suspect that Ahmed Wali Karzai truly is proud of his reputation as the "King of Kandahar." It's just that he's so far gone as to actually believe that he is a virtuous and magnamimous emir, rather than a brutal thug and petty tyrant.


On the upside, I don't think anyone can accuse Posner of plagarizing this stuff, since no one else would ever consider writing it.

Bill Shaw, Free and Clear

Well, a while back I promised a post on Bill Shaw, the ArmorGroup country manager who was convicted of bribery in Afghanistan and jailed for two years in Kabul's notorious Pul-i-Charki prison.

I had planned to discuss the definition of "bribery" as it applied to this case, as well as the rather obvious double standard at work in Afghan justice.

Alas, my procrastination has made all of that somewhat irrelevant. The BBC is reporting that Shaw will be released in the next few days and repatriated to the UK as soon as practicable. The official reason is that an appeals court found a "lack of evidence" to sustain the conviction. A secondary reason is the probable behind the scenes pressure from the British embassy that got him sprung early.

In the end, the Karzai administration made their point that it's not only Afghans who are involved in corruption here.* PSC employees are put on notice that the government is keeping a close eye on them, and government functionaries are now terrified of the omnipresent anti-corruption police.

*The are certainly the bulk of it, but Westerners are hardly as clean and pure as they sometimes claim.

I'm hesitant to call what Shaw did "bribery" but there really isn't a better word for it. He claims that he was told the $20,000 USD he paid to the Customs Department was fine for improper licensing. I don't doubt that's what he was told, but I am highly skeptical of his claim of ignorance. He knew perfectly well that it was an off-the-books "service fee." We've all done it, myself included.* I suspect that, if a proper accounting could be made, one would find that millions of unaccounted dollars have changed hands simply to navigate the difficult maze of licensing B6 armored vehicles. Bill simply had the bad luck to be made the poster-child for Karzai's attempt to deflect criticism from his own shortcomings.

*Don't ask what happened to the brown envelope full of cash that was in my safe until a few days ago. It was a "service fee."

Either way, I'm glad he's out. Pul-i-Charki is a hellhole on par with Black Beach Prison in Equitorial Guinea. Most who go in for any length of time are never heard from again. I doubt that even a man reportedly as tough as Bill Shaw could have survived two years in there.

As a side note, despite the "lack of evidence" found by the appeals court, the conviction of Shaw's interpreter and bodyguard was upheld and he's facing another eight months inside. I hope that ArmorGroup won't forget that one of their employees is still in peril. How we treat our local nationals is a good indication of the true nature of a private-security company. ArmorGroup still has an outstanding debt to be paid to Maiwand Limar. Assuming he lives long enough to collect.

What We're Fighting For

On most days, I have trouble seeing the good side to this place. Very occasionally, I find some small bit of encouragement in the people here. And all too often, I'm reminded of what a primitive, atavistic culture this is.

Someone remind me again of why we're here.

$1 trillion USD of.......oh, screw it.

ISAF military operations, corruption in the government, strategic planning by the Obama administration, the weaknesses of current counter-insurgency theory, and all sorts of other Afghanistan-centered topics generate a predictable response in the blogosphere. Often the commentary is juvenile, hyperbolic or just plain wrong, but generally it barely rises beyond the level of nitpicking among COIN specialists or partisan hackery. There's often an undertone of negativity and defeatism, as the old saying about "bad news selling more papers" applies just as accurately to blog traffic, but no single article usually creates quite the firestorm that seems to have ignited over this article in the NY Times.

Maybe it's the overwhelming eminence of The Grey Lady, or perhaps their oft-perceived liberal bias or maybe simply the fact that the headline seemed custom-made to demand investigation and counter-point.*

*Here's a fun mental exercise: skim any major US paper (or British for that matter), reading only the headlines. Formulate in your head your own perception of the days events, and then go back and actually read the articles. I'm betting that the headline-induced perception is significantly different than the reality described in the articles.

To summarize, underneath a headline that read, "U.S. Identifies Vast Riches of Minerals in Afghanistan," the text of the article went on to say:

The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself, according to senior American government officials.

That's a pretty shocking headline, and an exceptionally bold opening paragraph. The rest of the article includes phrases like "the vast scale of Afghanistan's mineral wealth," "stunning potential" and (my personal favorite) "the Saudi Arabia of lithium."*

*Afghanistan is probably one of the few countries that aspires to be the "Saudi Arabia" of anything. Personally, I'll take decadent poverty over the Vice and Virtue Police.

Apparently, there are potentially significant deposits of iron, copper, cobolt, gold, lithium and something called niobium.*

*So who gets to name these things anyway? Is "niobium" really the best name we could come up with for a mineral? Sounds like a particularly unimportant part of a dog's salivary system. "Well, if you ever want Sparky to lick his own ass again, we'll have to remove his infected niobium."

As the article goes to great lengths to emphasize, all of this is potentially hugely beneficial for Afghanistan. Mining, especially for iron and copper, is largely low-skilled industry, which suits Afghanistan's total lack skills rather nicely. I assume that lithium, cobolt and niobium require a bit more technology and know-how to extract, but still the revenue would be nice for a cash-strapped government. Someday, in the distant future, maybe these deposits will generate some revenue for the government. It will take billions of dollars of foreign investment, not to mention replacing a tenacious insurgency with a functioning government, but at least it's possible.

I'm no optimist when it comes to the eventual fate of this 12th century shithole, and the article didn't sufficiently address the difficulties and dangers of this possible bonanza. It also fails to clarify where the $1 trillion USD figure came from, or when this "discovery" was actually made (Hint: the guys who originally stumbled on this had the hammer and sickle on their passports). But even I was a little put off by the exceedingly negative "gotcha" reaction of the blogosphere.

A sampling:

• The normally restrained Blake Houshell at Foreign Policy: Say What?
• The (almost) always reliable Andrew Exum at CNAS (who actually cites Paul Collier's The Bottom Billion in his analysis. Seriously?)
• The not-entertainingly snarky Conor Friedersdorf at The Atlantic.
• Conor's lazy comrade-in-arms, Andrew Sullivan, who doesn't even bother to offer his own analysis and would rather just jump up and shout, "Ooooh, me too, me too!", and then throw around phrases like "imperial temptation" and "US exploitation."
• The ever-cranky Steven Walt (also at FP), who does Sullivan one better by citing Jack Snyder's El Dorado myth, and finally
• the perennial FP doomsayer Tom Ricks*, who also outsources his response to a "old Afghan hand," a guy who was a Director of USAID in Afghanistan. In the 1970s. Well, he's certainly "old."

*Is it just me, or is Ricks' constant harping on the supposed "unraveling" in Iraq starting to sound like a guy hoping for a predicition to come true, regardless of the consequences? Things in Iraq are not good, but are ever so slowly getting better, but sometimes I think Ricks would prefer that the country falls apart so he can stand up and say "I told you so!"

Tomorrow, a sampling of some reactions from actual Afghans to the supposed news that their country holds impressive mineral wealth, along with a few thoughts of my own. In the meantime, there are plenty of more relevant, interesting and important articles in the NY Times recently. For examples, see here and here.

N.B. Apologies for the "wall of text" but I couldn't find a way to communicate the salient points in more concise language. Verbosity was always one of my faults.

Ummm.......WTF?

I've said recently that the Taliban doesn't gain their intelligence from reading The New York Times or any other Western publication. Most of them can't read in their own language, much less in English, and they have robust networks of local informers and agents that provide them all the intel they need.

However, that said, this strikes me as a particularly muddle-headed approach to journalism. Filkins writes a blog post about how simply meeting with Afghans puts them in danger, and describes the difficulties that a friendly tribal leader undergoes to meet for a short chat. And then he identifies the Afghan by name, even going so far as to say that he lives "about 30 minutes outside of Tarin Kowt" in Uruzgan Province.

Armed with nothing more than that information, even I could probably locate this guy in 24 hours or less just by going to TK and asking around. The Taliban wouldn't even need to do that; they probably recognized the guy right off the bat.*

*The possibility exists that Filkins changed the name or intentionally scrubbed some of the details from the story. If that's the case, he doesn't mention it in the article, which simply opens the door to more randomized retaliations as the bad guys search for everyone who might be the subject.

I usually respect and enjoy Filkins work for the NYT, but this seems to me particularly bone-headed.

WTF, Dex?

The Lone Guerilla Paradox

Over at DefenseTech, Greg Grant has a brief piece on a particular difficulty of COIN operations called The Lone Guerilla Paradox. Basically, as Grant puts it:

In a village, a single insurgent fighter represents a “monopoly of force,” controlling that village even if challenged by an entire battalion of government troops doing continuous battalion sweeps.
The only time the lone guerrilla doesn’t control the village is the few hours when the counterinsurgents sweep through, once they leave, the guerrilla’s monopoly is re-established.

The comments section of the DT post are unsurprisingly alive with a bunch of back-and-forth about current ISAF practice, the pseudo-history of guerilla warfare (complete with bullshit examples) and some partisan hackery. Oh, and a bit of Obama-bashing just for flavor.

All of the discussion about whether or not the U.S. Army (or the Marines) can effectively wage counter-insurgency warfare, or whether they have in the past, misses the basic point. I guess that's to be expected, since Grant misses the salient issue as well.

Certainly, ISAF/Army/Marines has to be better at waging counter-insurgency campaigns. There's been much improvement in the last few years, and there will be more going forward. Also true is the fact that the ANSF needs to be be better at protecting their own people and more effective in the field. Again, they've improved but they still have a long way to go.

But, contrary to what Grant (and his commenters) seem to think, this was will not be won by ISAF, the U.S. Army or Marines. It will not even be won by the ANA and ANP. No conventional security forces will ever have the breadth and depth of coverage to truly eliminate The Lone Guerilla Paradox. They cannot be everywhere all the time.

To return to Grant's quote from above:

The only time the lone guerrilla doesn’t control the village is the few hours when the counterinsurgents sweep through, once they leave, the guerrilla’s monopoly is re-established.

Not necessarily true. This war will be won when we reach a point where, in the absence of a security sweep, that Lone Guerrilla tries to exercise his "monopoly of force" over villagers and they turn on him and beat him to a bloody pile of rags. Because they believe it is in their interests to do so. That is the ultimate goal of counter-insurgency. It's not hunting bad guys with SOF night raids, it's not joint battalion-sized sweep and clear missions, it's not even improved irrigation and some reconstruction funding. It's convincing the general population to pick the right side and act upon that choice. All of those other elements are necessary but insufficient conditions for victory.

The Afghan people are not simply victims in this conflict; they are also the prize and, ultimately, the solution to the Paradox.

Tough Choices

A pair of interesting articles recently by C.J. Chivers of the NY Times. Despite what one thinks in general of the Times, some of their reporters are the best in the field in Afghanistan, including Chivers, Dexter Filkins, Alissa Rubins and Carlotta Gall.

Chivers' latest pieces concern the difficult choices that U.S. Army Medevac crews make on a daily basis when confronted with wounded or injured Afghans. Officially, the U.S. Army position is that non-combat injuries are not their responsibility. As they correctly point out, there simply aren't enough airlift and medical facilities in-country to serve as the first point of treatment for routine injuries. What assets are in place are focused (rightly) on providing the best care they can to wounded soldiers and Marines, and there just isn't enough to go around. No TOC officer wants to be the one to deny a Medevac request to a Marine because the chopper is busy transporting an Afghan with a farming injury.

On the other hand, there are potentially significant benefits to a counter-insurgency operation in treating and assisting the local population with medical emergencies. MEDCAPs (Medical Civil Assistance Programs) are important elements of local COIN operations which build trust and rapport with locals and provide an opportunity to gather valuable information about Afghan villagers.*

*There's even a variant of the MEDCAP called the VETCAP which is, you guessed it, a Veterinarian Civil Assistance Program. Basically, Army vets go out and treat goats with modern medicine. Depressingly, I've heard many more positive reactions from Afghans to the VETCAP program than the MEDCAPs. Apparently, children are cheap but goats are expensive.

Chivers gets to the heart of the problem with two contrasting articles here and here. I noticed that the second article took the form of a blog post rather than an actual piece in the paper, and I can't help but wonder if Chivers is trying to emphasize one aspect of the story over another. Points however for putting up both and thereby illustrating the two sides to the story.

Key passage from the first story:

While the pilots stared at the message board, wondering whether this time the mission for Sadiq would be approved, an officer at the second outpost issued a blunt challenge: would whoever denied the mission, the officer wrote, acknowledge that they knew the boy would die?
The typed answer came back on the screen. The mission was approved

Bravo to the unnamed Marine officer at the outpost who put his higher-up on the spot by insisting on an acknowledgement of the gravity of the situation. Sounds a bit like blackmail, but sometimes it's helpful to remind the FOBBITs that their decisions has consequences.

Make a Buck, Take a Buck....or Two

By now, nearly everyone is aware of the endemic corruption of Afghanistan, which extends not only to all branches and levels of government but also to commercial and business activities, quasi-governmental organizations and aid/development organizations. Even ISAF is not immune to the taint of theft, bribery and corruption that exists here.*

*For instance, head down to the Bush Bazaar** and see the vast array of pilfered, purchased and purloined items for sale that only recently were the legal property of a NATO military force. Uniforms, tactical gear, body armor, MREs, boots, all of it available at a considerable discount, and all of it to use the Goodfellas terminology "fell off the back of a truck." I least one hopes it's stolen. Stories, perhaps apocryphal, exist of U.S. Army uniforms for sale in the bazaar with the bullet holes stiched up and some suspicious looking dark stains.
**Yes, it really is named after former-President Bush, although it's worth pointing out that back in the 80's there was a similar market selling stolen Russian gear and the locals called it the Brezhnev Bazaar. Re-selling of stolen goods has a long and glorious tradition in Afghanistan.

Basically, everyone here, from the lowliest shopkeeper to the highest government official* is in a mad scramble to grab every Afghani, rupee, ruble and dollar that they can get their hands on before ISAF finally bails out and this place returns to the Dark Ages from whence it came.

*Yeah, I'm looking at you Karzai. And your scumbag brother too.

Now I don't generally fault the average Afghani for trying to make a buck (even off of stolen goods). Most locals live on $100-$120 USD a month, and have to care for an extended family. As long as they do what they say they will do, and don't try to cheat me or my people, I can live with it.*

*Unfortunately, the list of Afghans I know personally after fourteen months here who haven't 1) broken a promise to me, or 2) tried to screw my company, my guys, or me personally, is short enough that I can count it on my fingers. With fingers to spare.

However, the "official" corruption, especially of the police, is something that I cannot forgive. The common argument is that the police aren't paid very well (true) and therefore one should expect a certain level of corruption (false). The fallacy of that argument is contained within itself.

If the police aren't paid well (and they aren't), they could get jobs that pay nearly as well without all of the occupational hazards that come with an ANP uniform, like being reviled by the local population and targeted by the bad guys. I know there are jobs out there that pay just as well as the ANP without the attendant risks. I know this because my company (among many others) provides many of those jobs.

But Afghans join the ANP for reasons other than the official pay. Mostly, they join because a police uniform is license to do anything they want (including get away with murder- more on this later) without fear of repecussion. It's not the pay they receive, it's not even the bribes they demand (and get), it's the near-total impunity that comes with the uniform and the Kalashnikov.*

*Think Georgia State Trooper with an automatic weapon and without those pesky Miranda rights or the ACLU looking over his shoulder.

To follow, a couple of posts that demonstrate in deplorable fashion the truly depraved and degraded state of the Afghan National Police. When this country descends back into the cesspit from which it never should have crawled, lots of fingers will be pointed at those supposedly at fault for "losing Afghanistan." Make no mistake about it. When Afghanistan is "lost" it will be because of the Afghans themselves.

Cast of Characters (Revised)

Note: What follows is the piece I was going to submit for the 100th post on this blog, but in the event I was too tired, too bitter (and too drunk) to get around to it. Here it is, slightly delayed.

Well, after over a year here in Afghanistan, I’ve finally reached 100 posts on this blog. Sometimes that seems like a lot of work, but it’s really only an average of less than one post every three days. Not particularly diligent, as anyone who knows me would attest to.
Anyway, rather than simply mark the occasion with a wasted post,* I thought that I would a retrospective look back at an earlier post, specifically the Cast of Characters that I wrote last March.

*Do you suppose that my aversion to “wasted posts” is part of the reason why I post so infrequently? Duh!

Below is the text of the original post (lightly edited), with additional comments in italics.

It occurs to me that I’m going to be referring to a lot of people repeatedly on this blog, and it would help to have some sort of system for identifying them. Obviously, since this is anonymous for OpSec* and professional reasons, I have to be somewhat circumspect in how I name people. Thus, I’ve devised the following cast of characters to guide readers through the swamp that is the Kabul private security industry. I’ll have to add to this later on as my list of associates and contacts grows, but here it is for now:

*That’s Operational Security for those of you who were wondering. Admittedly not as big a concern for me as it would be for a soldier or Marine out in the field, but better safe than sorry. I'm also doing it this way to protect the essential anonymity for professional reasons.

For those of you who think that using the actual names or pseudonyms instead of entirely fake nicknames would be easier, it might help to realize that there are six or eight very popular male names in Afghanistan, so any list of actual names would be highly redundant. Sometimes it seems that every third guy here is named Massoud. Confusingly, many Afghans go by only one name, which only adds to the difficulty.

The Rug Merchant (aka The Boss): In any other part of the world, this guy would be considered shady. In Afghanistan, he’s connected. Hyperactive to the point of mania, always carries at least three phones, one of which is usually ringing. Has not grasped the concept that talking fast and loud is not synonymous with communicating effectively.
Thirteen months of working closely for and with The Rug Merchant has convinced me that he is, beyond a doubt, the single worst business owner and the most despicable individual that I have ever encountered. Without a single redeeming quality, as far as I am able to determine. Dim to the point of retarded, manipulative and domineering, he is incapable of accepting responsibility for anything the company does (or does not do). This despite the fact that he claims sole responsibility for any successes and is sickeningly fond of touting the virtues (real and imagined) of “his” company to any and all. I have contemplated violence against others many times in my life (and followed through on a few rare occasions), but only with him have I truly contemplated homicide. Only fair, as he’s also the only the boss I’ve ever had who actually threatened my life.
The Godfather: One of the Western backers of this venture. A retired banker, experienced in finance and business, and a true gentleman in every sense of the word. Unfortunately only appears in Kabul every few months and only stays for a few days. Also the guy who got me this job, so my opinion of him is dependent on what kind of day I’m having.
My opinion of The Godfather has not diminished in the past year, except in one respect. He is such a gentlemen that he is incapable of discerning the true nature of the person he’s in business with. Constantly hopeful that The Rug Merchant will turn out to be the latent tycoon that he claims to be.
The Doctor: An actual medical doctor and the Deputy President of The Company. Good English skills, lots of experience and very easy to work with. My time here would be a lot more trying if it wasn’t for his patience and dedication.
If my opinion of the The Rug Merchant has deteriorated (from an already minimal level) and my opinion of The Godfather has remained about the same, my opinion of The Doctor has been enhanced considerably by working closely with him for over a year. Without a doubt, the finest Afghan I have met since I’ve been here. A remarkable man in a tough position.
The General: A former Afghan army officer (probably not actually a general), in charge of overseeing the training and deployment of the guards. Not the brightest bulb in the box, and speaks not a word of English, but we get along great after I gave him some of my imported cigarettes. Now we’re blood brothers apparently. Has a staff of three NCOs who conduct the drills and instruct new recruits. Also known as “Saddam” for his eerie resemblance to the former Iraqi dictator.
Actually, he is (or was) a General in the ANA, and a man of vast contacts across Afghanistan. Can arrange nearly anything with a phone call. Constantly at odds with The Rug Merchant, but a quietly indispensible member of the staff.
Smiley: One of the General’s many assistants, apparently his responsibilities are limited to drilling the new recruits in Afghan/Soviet style marching, which is pretty comical to anyone familiar with Western methods of drill. Always cheerful and eager to talk; somewhat hampered by the fact that he only speaks four words of English, which are repeated incessantly with a broad smile.
Smiley is gone, after proving his incompetence to anything more than march around the yard. Good riddance, as I struggled to find anything that he was capable of doing for us.
Hazmat (short for Hazardous Materials): Personal bodyguard and batman to The Rug Merchant. Always wears a cheap three-piece suit with a bright pastel shirt, and carries a slung AK-47 with him everywhere he goes. Earned his nickname because one can see in his eyes that something is broken in his head. Has a nasty streak and is overly impressed with his own importance, but is probably capable of even worse stuff given half a chance.
Hazmat is still hanging around, acting as a batman and personal assistant for The Rug Merchant. After months of clandestine observation, I have discovered why he keeps his job despite his total lack of situational awareness or weapon skills. As it turns out, his primary (perhaps only) ability is having a contact list of a large number of local women of less than total moral purity. In short, he’s a pimp for the boss. Pretty sure that falls outside the realm of proper Muslim behavior.
Frankie Avalon: A dead-ringer for the singer (circa 1962), without the singing voice, but a competent dancer. Works as the “intelligence chief” for The Company, which is a bit of a euphemism. His job consists of sitting in a small room watching three TVs and monitoring the internet for current events. Sends out half a dozen emails a day with morbid announcements like “Two killed by IED in Helmand” or “Aid worker shot in Kunduz.” A real bundle of joy, but his English is better than most so I talk to him a lot.
A lad whose talents are not fully realized, mostly because he is not able to demonstrate his keen intellect and surprising people skills. Never flustered, never angry, just placidly soldiers on, doing a boring job to the best of his ability. Could use more like him.
Mad Max: The best driver in the company, which is an extremely valuable skill in a place like Kabul. Given the option, I always choose him to be my driver. Able to find his way around Kabul traffic with surprising alacrity and is friendly and pleasant to boot. Carries a pistol under his jacket.
The pistol is gone, after a tense incident at a police checkpoint last fall. Still, although we’ve added a few good drivers lately, Max is still my favorite because of his openness and willingness to discuss every aspect of Afghan society and culture without taking or causing offense.
Hound Dog and the Pack: Hound Dog is my personal favorite among the PSDs (Personal Security Detachment, aka bodyguards). He would probably be insulted to be called “dog” but he reminds me of an old hunting dog that has been kicked once too often. Always looks a little downtrodden, but has excellent situational awareness and takes his job very seriously. Like the aforesaid dog, there’s something about him that makes one think he’ll bite back if pressed. The Pack is my generic name for the rest of the PSD team (since I don’t know their real names). Most of them are solicitous and professional, although sometimes a little slow off the mark. Tactical initiative is not a well-developed Afghan trait.
Sadly, Hound Dog is no longer with the company, although he has been replaced by my new favorite PSD. The rest of the Pack is mostly still around, although I travel a lot more now without them as I tend to move fast and low-profile, two things that Afghans are generally not good at.
Mutt and Jeff: Two of The Boss’s assistants, exact job description unknown. They meddle in training, admin, pricing and general business decisions. Since I don’t know what they’re saying, I don’t know if they’re useful or not. Mutt speaks some English, at least enough to ask “How you this day, sir?” Jeff speaks none at all, but that doesn’t stop him from trying to talk to me. Both smoke heavily (my cigarettes if they can get them).
Mutt is pretty scarce these days, having developed a series of family problems that keep him away from the compound. Jeff, on the other hand, is a constant presence and, as a retired ANA officer, has gotten us out of several tight spots with the authorities. Of course, his rather aggressive personality has gotten us into a few tight spots as well. Still smoking my cigarettes.
The Prince: So-called because his real name is the same as a prominent Gulf sheikh, Prince is the designated interpreter for The Company. Unfortunately, he never seems to be around when I need him and not all that much when I don’t.
I’ve found several new people who have better English skills than The Prince (and also speak Urdu and a little Uzbek), so I reassigned him to the Finance Department. Doesn’t have an affinity with numbers, but he does posses a small degree of the boss’ trust, so he’s qualified to handle cash.
Mr. Greensleeves: Unsure as to what he does exactly (or even generally). Most of all he seems to hang around the compound wearing bright pastel jackets (usually green- hence the name), joking with the rest of the staff. The best dancer in The Company, as proven at a traditional Afghan wedding.
As it turns out, Mr. Greensleeves is actually a pretty useful member of the finance staff. Or at least he’s capable of understanding the Ministry of Finance’s reporting requirements and keeping on top of them. Still wearing bad designer knockoffs from Karachi and Delhi, but I’ve managed to adjust his fashion sense to slightly less visually-assaulting clothes.
The Player: Another of the admin staff of indeterminate purpose, he always wears faded designer jeans, colorful T-shirts and RayBans (full disclosure: I wear my Oakleys as often as possible, to project the necessary degree of authority and anonymity).
Not popular with most of the staff (especially The Doctor), but I find him to be useful and efficient, if somewhat annoyingly subservient and sycophantic. It seems that I’m the only one that he makes an effort to work for, but that works just fine for me.
Eli: The finance guy who apparently is still learning how to use Excel (maybe they don’t have Dari language user guides). Good with numbers, but follows The Rug Merchant's lead to closely (i.e. anything to increase gross revenue, regardless of net profit).
Eli and I have come to a workable understanding over the past year. Before a major outlay, I run the numbers for him to prove that I’m right, and he backs me up when I’m trying to convince the boss to spend the money. Doesn’t always work, and he still refuses to have the fights that a Finance Manager should have, but he’s slowly coming around.
Bear: So-named because of his great bulk, hirsute appearance and massive paws. Bear is euphemistically referred to as the Facilities Manager, which means he is in charge of the logistics here, including maintenance and provisions. If the current conditions in the compound are any indication, a man woefully out of his depth.
Thirteen months have proven my initial assessment that Bear is a man of limited capabilities in a demanding job. The food still sucks, the compound is still a dump and we never have spares of anything we might need. Nevertheless, his personality and openness means he’s one of my favorite people to talk to at the company, regardless of the fact that he doesn’t speak any English. I’m told his Pashto poetry is quite good, but of course I can’t read a word of it.
Jeeves: My recently-assigned assistant for all-things-not-covered-by-someone-else, Jeeves is the guy who makes sure I have sufficient tea and food at all hours of the day and night. Pleasant to the point of deferential, has some limited English and is happy to talk politics when we can find the right words.
Jeeves is unfortunately no longer with us. Like most people of talent, he has moved on to bigger and better things, only to be replaced by a series of less competent individuals. Only one stood out from the rest and he’s gone now too. I still keep in touch with him and he is one of those remarkable Afghans that gives me some small measure of hope for this wretched country. Someday I’ll write a post just about him.
The Lion: Doesn't actually look or act like a lion, but he's Tajik, like Ahmad Shah Massoud, the Lion of the Panshijr Valley and one of my personal heroes. (More on Massood here). The Lion joined us after several years with the ANP's elite counter-narcotics commando battalion. He's quiet and reserved, but highly competent and professional. The Lion serves as our senior instructor. I had to personally insist to The Boss that we hire him and for that he is unfailingly loyal. If I had five hundred men like him, I'd own this country.
My initial instincts on the Lion were correct, except in one regard. Instead of five hundred like him, I could probably manage to run the entire country with no more than two hundred. Another of those quiet professionals which gives me hope for the future.

There are some additional personnel that have joined the company in the last year, but this is already too long for a blog post, so I’ll add them later in a separate list.

The Deep End of the Pool

So, a while back one of the locals comes to me and says, “Sir, we have a problem.” Generally, when one of my guys says that it means that they have been unable to do something that I asked them to do and they’re about to lay the blame off on someone else.

However, this wasn’t one of my guys. He was a local “fixer” that works for a subcontractor of one of our clients. Not normally somebody I’d have a lot of contact with, and before that day not somebody I knew more than in passing.

The tone of his voice and his body language immediately put me on my guard, hushed whisper, glancing nervously around, etc. I thought he was going to say that someone had been stealing, or that he was convinced one of my guys was a Taliban sleeper agent. Afghans love to maneuver themselves into the good graces of Westerners by speaking ill of other Afghans.

Not in this case. The “problem” he described to me really was a problem, not just for him but for our client’s entire operation. It seems that another local, a well-connected subcontractor, was muscling in other peoples’ business, forcing all the local subcontractors to use “his” vehicles, “his” suppliers, “his” security, etc.

This sort of cut-throat competition among Afghans for a slice of a big Western contract is pretty standard stuff. A big construction project is funded at levels that most locals can’t even conceive of. It’s not unusual for a construction job to be valued at $15-20 million USD, and that’s not even the really big ones. A good portion of that goes to the secondary and tertiary aspects of the job, like logistics, life-support and security. Everything from accommodations and food, waste-water treatment, trucks and equipment rental and high-speed internet or even satellite TV on the job site.

Naturally, when money like that is at stake, everyone (especially the locals) scramble all over themselves trying to grab a slice of the pie. Some of them are one step up from incompetent (a good portion are two steps below), many of them are companies that exist solely for the purpose of taking a cut and passing the work on to other locals, and a few are actually proper outfits that provide good service for good fees. And, on virtually every big job, one or two of them are little more than fronts for local criminal elements or ex-warlords.

For these guys, “standard business practices” involve strong arm intimidation of the other local contractors, trying to force them out of the bidding process, or making life difficult for them once they win a subcontract. Of course, the scumbags are always waiting in the wings, ready to capitalize on the “failures” of those subcontractors who fell victim to their tactics. It’s not unheard of for a local warlord to ambush the supply trucks heading to a remote job site, and when that results in a subcontractor unable to provide the items they’ve contracted for, a representative of the warlord shows up and offers to make the problem go away, usually by claiming that his security guys are better at protecting the convoy. Of course, “his” security guys are the same ones ambushing the convoy in the first place, so naturally when they get the job to deliver the supplies, the rate of ambushes drops off dramatically.

Normally, the big Western companies pay as little attention to this sort of local squabbling as possible. They’re here to build stuff (and take a huge chunk of US taxpayer dollars to do so), not get involved in the petty machinations of the locals. As long as stuff gets delivered, and services are provided, they generally don’t want to know who they’re dealing with. Ignorance is bliss, as the saying goes, and Americans are masters of intentional ignorance.

In this particular case however, the scumbag local (let’s call him Qasim, not his real name) was attempting not only to take business away from other local companies, but also insisting that the major US construction company utilize his services, and only his services, for all of their needs. Leaving aside that this is a breach of scumbag etiquette (Rule One: Don’t Involve the Westerners Directly), it also put the US company in a tough spot, since they had already written subcontracts with a variety of local outfits. If they back out on them now, those locals (some of whom are pretty well connected themselves) will scream to the government, which will bitch to the US Embassy about “bad faith” and the State Department-types (or AFCEE or US Army Corps of Engineers) will order a review of the entire contract. Best case: project is delayed by several months. Worst case: the whole project goes back out to tender. Bad news for everybody.

Qasim has been making rather crudely veiled threats to the staff of this US company, phoning them at random times to “casually mention” that he knew that a couple of their guys were on the way to Camp Eggers and what kind of car they were driving. Basically, saying “If I want to, I can hurt you guys. Make my happy or somebody gets snatched (or worse).” This obviously is an unacceptable security risk, so they came to us and sought our help. Mostly, they wanted additional guards and PSDs for their staff, as if throwing more guns into the equation would make the problem go away. Instead, we suggested that we send some people to chat with Qasim and see if there was a way to make him back off. Not by intimidation, ‘cause that generally doesn’t work with guys like that, but by accommodation. Perhaps a small fee, or a guaranteed piece of the next big contract, or maybe just employment for a few of guys as drivers or builders.

We were all set to do that when I walked into the client’s villa last week and found them all smiles and good cheer. “Problem solved,” they said, “no need to worry about Qasim anymore.” Needless to say, I was curious as to how they had managed to make this go away. Turns out, they didn’t have to. Someone did it for them. The official story is that Qasim was electrocuted by a faulty appliance while taking a shower (hey, it could happen). The unofficial story is that he crossed the wrong guy, insulted the wrong criminal, or screwed the wrong warlord out of his cut. Someone meaner and more ruthless than he was, evidently. But hey, you play in the deep end of the pool, you better know how to swim.

Welcome to Afghanistan, where business is a full-contact sport.

The Worst Job in Afghanistan

No, not mine, although it sometimes seems like it.

And not the ANP either, although I'm sure they think so every time they hit an IED or an ambush. I'm talking about these guys:

I have no idea what they're called in Dari/Farsi, but I refer to them as "ditch men." They're the guys who, for roughly $80 USD a month, get the charming job of scooping, scraping and sucking the stuff out of the drainage ditchs that line most major streets in Kabul.

In theory, the ditches are designed as a kind of stormwater drainage system to channel away rain water and keep the city from flooding. This, I suppose, they accomplish to a limited degree. Apparently, no one told the city engineers that in order for the ditches to function properly, the water has to first get into the ditch, which is unlikely when the streets are generally composed of hardpacked dirt. The fact that the concrete lip of the ditch is usually higher than the rutted track of the street doesn't help either. The swill they have to dredge out of these channels* is not only water and dirt. These things also serve as the preferred repository for any and all sorts of trash that Kabulis might wish to dispose of rapidly.

*With shovels and scoops, I might add.

In addition, and this is the really charming part, the primitive nature of Kabul's sewage treatment facilities and domestic plumbing arrangements mean that the mix is fortified by waste that should otherwise be chemically treated and buried somewhere.* Thus the traditional Kabul cocktail.

*Yeah, you know what I'm talking about here, right? No need for further details, I hope.

I've even seen dead dogs floating in these channels. And not freshly dead either. I suppose the dead cats just sink to the bottom.

The whole putrid mess mostly just sits there, alternating between slowly draining away and bubbling in the sun. Every once in a while, the ditch men come by and invest heroic efforts in trying to keep the channels clear. This they do, if it wasn't clear already, by hand. With a scoop.

And then they shovel the stuff into nylon bags (which are not leak-resistant) and load it into trucks to take somewhere I hope I never see.

No fancy equipment for these guys. They load those leaky bags of foul muck with their own two hands.

Yeah, you win. Your job is worse than mine.

Random Afghan TV Fact of the Day

Having spent a fair amount of time in the UK, I'm familiar with the breadth and depth of British humor. Some of it appeals to me (i.e. Monty Python, Coupling, Yes, Minister); much of it (Fawlty Towers, Blackadder) leaves me unimpressed, and some of it (Are You Being Served?, Keeping Up Appearances) is downright awful.

That said, I've always been baffled by the international appeal of this guy. He's quite the institution in the UK, wildly popular in France and hardly unknown in the US. Now I can confirm that, although he's not a household name here, he certainly has the ability to make a roomful of Afghans giggle like schoolgirls. And I'm talking adult male Afghans, men of serious demeanor and professional bearing. A former General and a serving Colonel in the bunch, and they were all about to piss themselves at the antics of the funnyman and his little yellow car. Perhaps it's the nonverbal style, perhaps it's the funny faces, I don't know.

I confess that although I don't generally find him funny, he's a lot funnier when everyone around you is laughing too. Guess I'll have to add Mr. Bean to the list along with Bob the Builder as TV personalities that Afghans can't get enough of.

Christmas Photos

No, not photos of my Christmas (you'll have to talk to my brother about those), but photos from a friend's family Christmas in the States. Obviously, I won't post them here, but rest assured they are what one expects from Midwestern American Christmas pictures. A properly-decorated tree, a room full of presents, various states of excitement in the kids, etc.

The interesting thing is that I asked my friend to send me some photos because some of my guys had been asking me about Christmas. They are of course aware of the holiday, and aware that it is (traditionally) a Christian holiday. Some even know the basic story behind it (baby, wise men, guiding star, etc.).*

*Although they seem puzzled by the idea that a baby born in the stables could somehow be important. In a nation full of people of humble beginnings, they still look slightly put out when they learn that Christ was allegedly born next to a donkey. One even asked me if there were pigs in the stable, preumably because pigs are considered unclean under Muslim tradition. No, I don't think so, I said, but I'm not sure he believed me.

They were however, deeply impressed with the variety and volume of presents that the children of this particular family received.* They were also intrigued by the TV in the background of one of the shots. "Is it plasma? Is it HD? Does he have one in every room?" For the record, it appeared to be a standard American TV set, and it's not like Afghans are unfamiliar with TV. They just think that Americans have more and better TVs than most (which is probably true).

*And I think it's fair to say that my friend's family is not overly lavish at Christmas. Sure, the kids get some good stuff, but not anymore than most kids at this time of year.

By far the most important topic of conversation upon viewing the photos was the children themselves. You see, this particular friend has three boys (a great strain on their mother, I'm sure). In a male-dominated society, boys are particularly prized as children and several of my guys remarked that my friend must be particularly blessed by Allah. Not bloody likely that Allah had anything to do with, I thought, but of course I kept that sentiment to myself.

P.S. One Afghan even asked, somewhat furtively, if the woman in one of the pictures (my friend's wife) was married. He's in the market for a bride, and apparently looking farther afield than his own clan. I told him that she was already married. He was visibly disappointed.