The Wicked and the Evil

The Wicked and the Evil
Crash Test Dummies – Songs of the Unforgiven

There are those who kneel to worship
And beg for clemency
There are those who know the hardship
Of a conscience that is not free

Some are weary, some are cold
Some barely half-alive
But the wicked and the evil
Eat, and drink, and thrive

The prisoners feel the scorching sun
As they toil among the rocks
Some are grim, some resigned
But not one ever talks

Some are weary, some are cold
Some barely half-alive
But the wicked and the evil
Eat, and drink, and thrive

The sinner knowing he has sinned
Is not saved, he is cursed
For no matter how he may repent
He's done his worst

Some are weary, some are cold
Some barely half-alive
But the wicked and the evil
Eat, and drink, and thrive

The perfect song for Afghanistan today. Kleptocracy at its finest, where corruption has to be categorized into “functional” and “dysfunctional”, where bribing someone to do their paid job is more common than trying to bribe them to not do their job.

It’s not hard to spot the wicked and the evil in Afghanistan today. They are, of course, the drug barons, the warlords and probably a majority of the ministers and governors across the country – the obvious ones. The generals and the police chiefs tend to be more subtle – demanding rent for soldiers quarters that they themselves pay no money on, or extorting money “for better rations” for policemen. But corruption has permeated every corner of this society.

My last interpreter, in his quest to emigrate to the United States, found himself paying Afghan Government clerks bribes just to get them to complete the paperwork that they were paid to complete as part of their jobs. He also had to pay the baksheesh to the Pakistani consulate for the visas required for him and his entire family to visit the US Embassy in Islamabad – they handle Afghan immigration, not the embassy in Kabul. It becomes such a regular part of life that people hardly notice – they just turn and pass the charge on to someone else as time goes by.

How do you bring a kleptocracy into the modern world. I can probably advance the argument that it won’t be that hard – they just need to learn how to play with computers and they’ll fit right in. But, just as in America, where Joe the Plumber probably hasn’t seen many benefits from the Bank and Auto bailouts yet, here in Afghanistan, it will be a very long time before Ahmed the Pashtun sees anything any less corrupt.

We’re a month into the anti-corruption 6 month deadline… haven’t seen any changes yet. One down, five to go.

Cassandra Calling...Again

I’ve said it before here on the blog somewhere – I often feel like Cassandra, which leads to some interesting lines of thought.

Cassandra was Pandora’s sister. Apollo fell in love (more likely lust, given his reputation) with her and tried to seduce her by giving her the gift of prophecy, but she rejected his advances. As punishment for spurning him, Apollo twisted the gift – no one would believe her prophecies. Cassandra was driven to madness in fairly short order thereafter.

Years ago, when we were first starting our punitive, pre-emptive wars, I sat at my desk and tried to imagine how I would strike back at the US if I were in Osama’s shoes. Now granted, my cultural mindset is in no way comparable to Osama’s, but this exercise has often proven useful in the past. It is a way of coming up with the “most dangerous enemy course of action”. Military planning doctrine is to use the “most dangerous enemy course of action” and the “most likely enemy course of action” into consideration. You plan your main effort against the most likely course of action and you build a contingency plan to deal with the most dangerous.

My worry years ago was that if Osama was as evil a thinker as I can be, then he would find a way to strike back at our military asymmetrically. The best way to do that, I felt, was to strike back at the home bases of the troops deployed to find and kill him. This would serve two purposes, both which would benefit him. It would demoralize some elements of our forces – create a strategic psychological distraction, and at the same time would enrage these same forces, potentially causing them to commit atrocities in violation of our rules of engagement and the laws of war. He, in turn, would use these atrocities to further his campaign to turn the conflict into a true Jihad, portraying us as being anti-Islam. His defense against our counter charges would be that the Koran speaks of only two lands – Dar al Islam – the land of submission to Allah/God and Dar al Harb – the land of war.

Conventional wisdom would have it silly to attack a military base, but conventional wisdom is often wrong. The only personnel with ready access to weapons are the usually undermanned Military Police-type units and possibly contract security guards at the gates. The military bases have huge housing areas full of families with either a father or mother deployed. There are commissaries and post exchanges and administration buildings, all soft targets full of unarmed people once initial access is gained.

As it turned out, Osama never did hit our bases – he never had to. We provided enough ammunition to keep his propaganda campaign going with Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo and Bagram. Then, last week, in a what had to be a vain attempt at martyrdom, one of our own committed the act that I had conceived as Osama’s most dangerous course of action.

Twice in the past two weeks now, we’ve had our own turn on us. First in Helmand Province, an Afghan Policeman opened fire on a British unit and his own comrades, killing five before escaping. This week, there are thirteen dead in Texas because a US Army Officer could not reconcile his personal beliefs with the orders he had been given and the information he had received as a military psychiatrist. Rather than resign publicly as the senior Department of State official in Zabul Province, Matt Hoh, did recently or quietly as many more have, he chose to punctuate his protest with mass murder.

At the risk of sounding like Cassandra again, I expect an insanity defense to be presented. However, in the military justice system, insanity is not a defense to the act, but merely mitigation in the sentencing. I expect the officer to be found guilty of twelve counts of murder in the first degree, and quite probably sentenced to death, which will be reduced to life imprisonment due to the insanity. Death would make him the martyr he wishes to be – the exclamation point to his protest. Life in Leavenworth will mean disappearing from all but the memories of the victims and their families – an ellipsis instead of an exclamation point. Perhaps that is a better punishment – almost Cassandra-like, in its own way. A lifetime of insanity, knowing that your protest was in vain.

While I feel no pity or sympathy for Nidal Malik Hasan, I have to admit to feeling a slight bit of empathy. On the last day of combat operations in Operation Desert Storm, I too was confronted with a situation seemingly completely antithetical to my core beliefs, both as an Army Officer, and as a human being.

The last several hours of Desert Storm were basically a race. We were racing to retake every square inch of Kuwait from Iraqi control and the Iraqi's were racing to stay ahead of us to avoid capture. In doing so, they abandoned equipment seemingly haphazardly in their single-minded flight. They also, as it turned out, abandoned their wounded.

We had reached our stop position in Northern Kuwait by mid-morning. We, in short, were exhausted. We had been going for virtually the entire 100 hour war with less than 4 or 5 hours of sleep interspersed. Despite this exhaustion, my boss, the unit intelligence officer and the intelligence sergeant took a wheeled vehicle back to look at some abandoned equipment we had passed earlier in the day. This was at the end of the Cold War and we intel types could not pass up the chance to look at some functional Soviet-made equipment. They took off and left me in the command post with the junior intelligence sergeant.

After a bit, we heard them on the radio. "Demon 2 Alpha, this is Demon 2, over."

"Demon 2, this is Demon 2 Alpha, go ahead, over"

"Demon 2 Alpha, this is Demon 2, tell Demon 3 to send the Band-Aids to my location, vicinity charlie papa 41. There are at least five zero wounded Iraqi soldiers in bunkers this location who need medical attention and will not last the night."

"Demon 2, this is Demon 2 Alpha. Roger. Verify charlie papa 41, five zero plus casualties. Wilco."

What that basically said in the radio-speak of the day was that my boss had stumbled upon an abandoned Iraqi field hospital that we had overrun unknowingly in our haste. My boss was asking me to go to the operations section (Demon 3) and ask them to send the Medical Platoon (Band Aids) back to checkpoint 41. The wounded were in underground bunkers, essentially holes in the earth, with no heat or light. The nights were getting down close to freezing, hence the warning about not lasting the night.

I put down the radio handset and walked out of my command post vehicle and over to the Operations command post vehicle. There, on duty, were three Captains (I was a First Lieutenant then). I reported what my boss had told me and requested that they send the medics over.

They refused to do so. They told me basically 1. the medics were asleep, 2. who gives a fuck about wounded Iraqis, and 3. these fucks were shooting at you three hours ago, what are you thinking, and 4. who authorized Captain S. (my boss) to go back there anyway.

I first tried to persuade them by telling them that we had to do this - we owned the land now. I was told to leave.

I then tried to use the argument that if we took no action, that this could be considered a war crime. I was told to leave now - in rather profane terms.

Finally, almost in tears of complete frustration, I implored two of the three whom I knew were West Point graduates (as I was) that this was our Duty and Honor at stake. I was then bodily pushed out of the operations track and ordered back to my vehicle amidst tauntings at my lack of emotional control.

I can honestly say that I have never been so frustrated in my adult life. My intelligence sergeant had heard most of the interplay and saw the tears streaming down my face. He was very perceptive and afterwards told me that he knew that I was "on the edge of a cliff." He jumped into my vehicle and spun the dial on the safe, locking it. That was where we kept the grenades. Pretty astute on his part.

Luckily for me, before I could get to my vehicle, the Battalion Executive Officer showed up. He saw the look on my face and assumed that something tragic had happened. He stopped me and asked me what was wrong, so I told him. This Major got it instantly. He directed me to use his radio and relay the message to the Medic Platoon.

When I did so, the Captains in the Operations track tried to cut me off, telling the Medics to "Disregard Demon 2 Alpha's transmission". The XO heard this and told me to use his call sign and that he would deal with the Captains. He went into the operations track and the yelling began.

I got the message to the Medics and off they went. When they got there, they found over 120 wounded Iraqi soldiers in the bunkers and they assisted another unit that had come upon the scene, the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment, in ensuring that the wounded received proper care.

The Captains were verbally reprimanded and over the course of the next few days, each of them, individually, apologized to me for their conduct. They blamed their actions on their exhaustion and their misunderstanding of what I was telling them. The Battalion Commander also talked to me, subtly pressuring me to take no further actions. I took no further actions, seeing how the realpolitik was shaping up. The histories make no mention of the event nor of the medevacs. The closest there was to an acknowledgement of what happened came almost ten months later, when I was awarded the Bronze Star Medal for my actions during the war. In presenting it, the same Battalion Commander joked (poorly) that he wasn't sure if it was for telling him where the Iraqi forces were, telling him where the Iraqi wounded were, or not killing his three Captains (who had all been transferred out by then).

In all truth, I don't know to this day. I do know that were it not for the timely intervention of a decent human being, I might have snapped due to my inability to reconcile the orders and actions of my superior officers with what I knew in my heart of hearts to be right. I have to believe that this was the same pain, anguish, and frustration that Nidal Malik Hasan was feeling, misguided as it may seem to the rest of us.

Pity, no. Sympathy, none at all. Empathy - a little, yes - for I have stared what had to be a similar madness in the face and felt its fury. At West Point they taught me that often one must choose the harder right over the easier wrong. Easy to say, hard to implement when the adrenaline is coursing through your veins.

Over the years, I've shared this story with a select few, usually veterans. A few of them have told me their own, similar stories of staring the Berserker in the face, looking over the edge of the abyss and feeling the pull towards madness. I offer it now, not as excuse, but as possible explanation to those who do not understand.

In the current case, perhaps the cruelest twist of all is that Nidal Malik Hasan was, by training, a healer. A healer who dove into the pit and became the opposite - a destroyer of life. To use another religion's deity - he became Shiva-like - creator and destroyer, a paradox. By most mainstream interpretations of Islam, he is simply what we perceive him to be, a murderer. He did not strike directly at his tormentors - he struck randomly, just as Osama did on September 11th. Mainstream Islam says that as such, he will be forgotten by Allah and tormented in Islamic hell. I think he will have pretty much the same in this life as well.

We few...we happy few...

We few, we happy few, we band of brothers:

For he today that sheds his blood with me

Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,

This day shall gentle his condition;

And gentlemen in England now-a-bed

Shall think themselves accurs’d they were not here,

And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks

That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.

---Henry V – Wm Shakespeare

It was Veteran’s Day last Wednesday. I spent the morning in a helicopter taking the long way from my Forward Operating Base to Kandahar Air Field. The long way because when I jumped on, there were about 15 Dutch Soldiers already on board with their gear. The Crew Chief told me they were heading to Deh Rewood – the second largest city in Oruzgan Province to drop them off and pick up some more that had finished their tour and would be heading home.

The flight up was beautiful – CAVU – ceiling and visibility unlimited – old aviator speak for not a cloud in the sky. The Dutch Soldiers were nervous, but trying to look cool in front of each other. I remember the feeling well. For me it was also on a holiday – New Years Eve, 1990. The 747 I was on was landing at King Fahd International Airport in Ad Damman, Saudi Arabia. It was filled with soldiers from my battalion, 1^st Battalion, 34^th Armor ,1^st Infantry Division and we were going to war. We too were doing our best to be cool about things – like this was just another training deployment. I know my stomach was churning as we descended into the darkness – having no earthly idea what to expect. I saw the same look in these young Dutchmen – full of bravado – piss and vinegar (remind me to write a story on that sometime), but their eyes betrayed the butterflies they were feeling as the helicopter started its descent. I think I managed to catch the mixture of cool and butterflies in the picture.

The flight back from DR to KAF was totally different. There were about 30 soldiers who got on (I didn’t count, but a full load). This group was a band of brothers. They had lived together and likely fought together in a combat zone. As the bird lifted, I think every one of them was smiling, and by the time we landed at KAF, there was a spring in their step as they debarked the aircraft. I remember that feeling too in May of 1991 as another 747 landed at New York’s Kennedy Airport– and look forward to it again here soon as my time here wraps up.

I received many greetings and thanks from friends from all over the world yesterday (gotta love Facebook™), thanking me for my service. One, in particular, put a lump in my throat and made me think. It was from a still-serving officer who has worked for me from time to time over the years. He thanked me for being a great mentor and credited me, at least partially, for the success that he has achieved. That brought back a flood of memories of similar occurrences over the years. The farewell letters from NCOs who wrote me after they retired, thanking me for being their last officer in charge or section leader or whatever. The warm affection I feel from them when I run into them a year, five years, ten or more years later. What I realized yesterday was that these grizzled professionals were not just thanking me for being a good boss… they were thanking me for upholding the trust – both the ethereal trust of officer and gentlemen, but also for trusting them to do their jobs. They were (and are) telling me that they were considering me one of their “band of brothers”.

I am honored by this belated realization and humbled by it as well. What I would like to convey back to these men and women is that they touched my life as well - and while I may forget their names as I age, their faces never age in my memory. I thank them all for helping me become who I am today as well.

My feelings are nothing unique, nothing new. HBO's mini-series "Band of Brothers" tried to show this bonding, this respect and, let's face it, love, that goes far beyond mere friendship. "Saving Private Ryan" did it in film, and "The Best Years of Our Lives" did it both more eloquently and subtly shortly after WWII.

While the title Veteran's Day is both appropriate and proper, I like what the Commonwealth countries call it even more - Remembrance Day. Remembering the sacrifices of the one and many bands of brothers over the years is the first step in making their sacrifices mean something.

I do not think it is appropriate, however, to wish someone a "Happy Veteran's/Remembrance Day" - I think it is far more appropriate to tell them to "Have a thoughtful Veteran's/Remembrance Day." And so I wish it for all of you as well. Remember - and LEARN!

Hooah

SLK

Apologies

Well, it's been another long blog-less period. Half of my defense is that I have been very busy, the other half of my defense, if it can be called such, is that when I've had some down-time, I haven't felt like writing, or if I have felt like writing and actually did it, I did not finish the thoughts. Mea Culpa.

So, here in the next couple of days, I will try to publish several pieces that I've been working on.

Enjoy

SLK

Happy Anniversary!

I started this over a month ago, then saved it as a draft, then promptly forgot about it. At first I was going to delete it, but then thought what the heck - just because I spaced it off doesn't mean that I feel or felt it any less. So here it is, a month late and out of sequence.

Happy October and Happy First Anniversary of my arrival on the far side of the world. Just over one year ago I arrived at my tiny Forward Operating Base near Kandahar to begin my adventure and new job of teaching/mentoring the Afghan National Security Forces.

It's been an interesting year. Looking back over my entries these past 10 months, I'm amazed at what I haven't chosen to write about as much as I am by what I did. The good news is that the weather has cooled off enough that generators are no longer the bane of my daily existence. That is a good thing, since the Afghan side is currently short one - blown head gasket, see previous blogs on "Fixing the Army" for the fun involved with fixing it.

I realized that I haven't written much about friendships here. Most places I have worked, I tend to have many friendly acquaintances but only one or two people that will remain friends beyond the work environment. Until recently, most military personnel were only here for six month tours. I arrived at the end of the New York National Guard's tour, was here for all of the Virginia Guard's tour as well as the short-lived Alabama/Tennessee Guard's stay (they were reassigned in another area because of internal Army politics - which was too bad, they were great guys), and am now working with the Kansas Guard under Active Duty leadership. Likewise the Coalition Forces members here have rotated regularly... I've gotten to know British, Dutch, and Canadian officers and men and learned much from all.

The longest-lived friendship here is with another US contractor, who has been here almost nine months. Ron is NOT what one would expect to see. He is a solidly built African American with long dreadlocks and a full beard. His expertise is communications and satellite equipment and he knows his stuff. He has the type of personality that everyone gravitates to. He left the other day for the states for a medical procedure. Not much fun to have your gall bladder go on the fritz in a war zone - I hope everything works out and he makes it back when he plans to - he's one of the good guys.

A few weeks ago another friendship changed when Jerry, a Dutch Major, finished his tour of duty and went back to the Netherlands. He and I didn't always agree, but we "got" each other. phrase he taught us was "You can go now.", used whenever he was getting the worst in a discussion. In exchange, I taught him the proper usage of the phrase "You Dick!" He introduced me to some wonderful Dutch cookies and other foodstuffs and I introduced him to "Firefly" - the short-lived US TV-series from a few years ago. I will miss evenings watching movies and Firefly on my computer with him, munching on cookies and Dutch sausages and the like. He's good company, but then again, he's good people, one of the band of brothers.

I've also established friendships with several Afghans. Friendships with the Afghans are a little different. Many Afghans want to be your friend, for friends do things for each other and buy things for each other. They might give me a ring or a scarf for my wife, then expect me to buy them a computer - after all, I make more money than they do, so it should be no problem, right? Luckily, I do have a few who are happy just to be friends, to share a cup (or six or seven) of chai or a meal together, and talk of families and houses and better days. These are good men that can put aside major cultural differences and accept others without judgment. I just hope that all the players here leave them a country that can be put back together again - or if not, can fragment without a civil war ensuing. High hopes, to be sure. No matter what happens, I wish only the best for men like Ahmad Shah, Mirwais Noorzai and Haji Mohammad. They are good men, in any culture, who I am proud to know.

As for the rest, the pleasant acquaintances and such, are like ships that pass in the night. Sometimes you see them and remember them, other times they become lost over the horizon as time slides inexorably on.

Hooah

SLK

Counter-Fear-Based-Operations

A few years ago, the US Military came up with a new euphemism for its emerging operational doctrine. “Effects-Based-Operations” or EBO seemed to be the perfect catch-all – it was short, catchy, ostensibly said what it intended to mean, and conveyed a sense of “thinking through things” before letting the cannonballs fly. It certainly was not as evocative or provocative as “Shock and Awe”, especially as Shock and Awe apparently did neither outside of the immediate blast radius of the bombs. Unfortunately, as much of corporate America already knows, coming up with an advertising campaign is often much easier than creating a product worthy of being advertised.

The challenge to the US forces has been to come up with a clear effect desired that can actually be realized by the operation planned. We want the effect to be the removal of the Taliban or other insurgents from an area. So, we plan a kinetic operation that involves major military muscle movements to go in and clear a district (or two or three) of Taliban. Sure enough, the insurgents all but disappear – nobody has seen them, “No Taliban here – they are all in the “next” village – but they are very bad”. And so forth. Eventually we give up, declare victory and pull back to our bases and then we wonder how the insurgents all reappear so quickly. After all, these people should embrace freedom and democracy, right? The root of this problem is, as David Kilcullen recently put it, “We’ve been fighting the insurgents, not the insurgency.”

The Taliban and other insurgent forces in Afghanistan, on the other hand, have a very clear idea of the effect that they want to create. Fear. Pure and simple, FEAR. I call their doctrine “Fear-Based-Operations” or FBO for short, and it is wonderfully simple and almost guaranteed to work, as opposed to our own Effects-Based-Operations. It is basically an information campaign backed up by targeted kinetic operations, in effect, turning our normal “kinetic ops with information supporting” on its head.

This nature of the fundamental relationship between kinetic operations and non-kinetic, or information operations marks the main difference between EBO and FBO is the. Kinetic operations are those involving troop movements, close air support, troops in contact, presence patrols, etc. Non-kinetic, or information operations are those designed to change perceptions and or beliefs. In the old days, information operations involved leaflet drops, “psyop broadcasts”, and radio propaganda. The US and Coalition militaries see the kinetic operation as the main effort with everything else supporting – even when it isThe Afghan Insurgents actually make it much simpler. It is a broadsheet posted on the door to the village mosque in the night. The sheet informs the residents that anyone found with ink on their fingers on election day will have their finger cut off, or their head cut off, or their family massacred in their sleep (all of which have been threatened this election season). This non-kinetic message instills the fear of the unknown – can they follow through, will they follow through – is it worth my finger/head/family to vote?

All it takes are a few kinetic actions to cement this fear in the average Afghan psyche. One or two people are made examples of beforehand – beaten for having a voter-registration card, or blown up by an IED after visiting a registration center. Of course, the insurgents are not bound by any law of war, criminal law, or anything else, so they have the freedom to do these types of actions. We, the coalition do not have this same freedom – we must fight for and by the rule of law, which is actually a huge advantage, but we squander it miserably.

The only way to counter Fear-Based-Operations is to create the opposite of fear – Hope. Hope is a commodity in extremely short supply here in Afghanistan. It has been crushed and ground out of the everyday existence of many Afghans over the past 30 years of virtually constant warfare. This withering if hope is shown in the omnipresent “Inshallah” – as God wills it. The main difference is that people WANT to hope – they do not want to fear – so hope, like a perennial weed, keeps creeping back into the psyche. After all, it’s got to get better than this, right? Inshallah?

So, the challenge to the Coalition Forces in Afghanistan is to create and implement “Hope-Based-Operations” where “Hope” is the desired effect. Now, after we roll into a village, “clearing” it of insurgents, we must roll in the civil assistance – in a coordinated effort. This means we should probably screen and train the Police and Government officials who come in to reestablish the Government presence beforehand – no corruption allowed. If we damage property, we fix it better than it was before. We help the village help itself improve by supplying materials and technical skills – but we hire and pay the villagers to do the labor to instill ownership. We do what it takes to get the family, village, and tribal elders to support us, reinforcing their respected positions vis a vis the Government officials. If we kill someone, we make it good with the families (even if they are bad guys). If we detain someone, we inform the village elders so they can inform the families. Mostly, we show patience and we follow through on our word and reinforce the rule of law.

The messages we MUST convey are direct contradictions to the messages the insurgents cannot but send: “They take, we give”, “they hurt, we heal”, “they destroy, we build”, “they come and go in the night, we stand by you 24 hours a day”. These are the very essence of Counter-Fear-Based-Operations. The Coalition cannot do it alone – the Afghan Security Forces must buy-in and adopt this wholeheartedly.

Unfortunately, the bulk of the US Military is ill-equipped to implement or execute this type of strategy. Bluntly speaking, they have been trained to kill and destroy a conventional enemy – and they are exceptionally good at that. They distrust these “touchy-feely” ways and just wish the “damn Taliban bastards would come out and fight like men”. Hooah! What is needed is to assemble a group who can do this, who have been trained by the likes of Chuck DeCaro in his SoftWar Doctrine at the National Defense University or guys like John Nagl – a soldier with a thousand pound brain if there ever was one. Unconventional thinkers who “get” that hope beats fear just as paper beats rock every time.

This group could then train and advise the Coalition leadership in Afghanistan, to include the Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police forces. They have leaders like LTG Karimi of the ANA and LTG Mangal of the ANP do understand these concepts and who can provide the direction from above. At the lower levels, we control both the purse strings and most of the logistics infrastructure supporting these forces.

I realize that this may be “pie-in-the-sky”, but there is a rising chorus singing almost this same melody. The question at hand is do we have the right composers and conductors who can bring out the power and the beauty in the music? Not without help.

"Fixing" the Army

It's been a fun month or so here in Kandahar since my last post. July is the hottest month of the summer and the heat effects everything. The overall climate here is similar to Las Vegas or Phoenix, but with one major difference - Electricity. Stable, reliable electricity.

The trend in America (and also the NATO countries) since the Wall came down has been to downsize the militaries - cut the nonessential functions and create the "leaner, meaner" military that can deploy anywhere on a moments notice. This we have done, but in the process have created something we didn't anticipate - a bonanza for contractors and suppliers.

Armies used to be huge - they were designed to be entirely self sufficient in hostile territory. There were entire units dedicated to such seemingly non-military and mundane things as Power Generation, Laundry and Bath Services, and Pipleline Installation and Operations. Yet, when operating in the field, these units became indispensible to support the soldiers. But huge Armies are hard to move and very expensive to maintain in peacetime. Once the Wall came down, we decided that we didn't need these "luxuries" and, in keeping with the corporate strategy du jour, downsized them and outsourced them. However, in using this corporate model, we have become dependent on the contractors to literally keep us running. Let's look at electricity as an example.

In America, we take electricity almost completely for granted. It is almost always there, and when its not, there's normally a good reason. It is also stable - we know that when we plug something into a wall socket that the current will be 110 volts - not 175 or 39 or 500. Here, it is neither omnipresent nor is it stable. The most stable power source here is generators (yes, I'm ranting on generators again, sorry - big part of my life here). Yet generators are mere machines, and like most machines, need maintenance.

Generators are probably the most critical item in the Coalition's effort here in Afghanistan. Grid power is, at best, unreliable in most parts of the country, if it is available at all. Here, in Kandahar City, grid power is on for maybe 18 hours out of every 48. When it is on, it is very "dirty", with spikes and drops - both of which are damaging to anything depending on it. Voltage regulators and surge supressors are essential, as are Uninterrupted Power Supplies to keep things going through the spikes and drops, and outright outages. So much of our effort depends on technology that is electrically driven that I do not believe I am reaching too far with my first sentance of the paragraph. Simply put, without generators, we fail.

Unfortunately, in our quest to downsize and streamline, we have lost much of the inherent capacity we once had to maintain our generators. Every unit used to have Generator Mechanics on its manning roster - no more. The tactical generators have been simplified, "soldier-proofed", and the maintenance has been shifted to a much higher echelon, with the result that the Generator Mechanic positions were consolidated, downsized, streamlined, and, for the most part, eliminated. Most of the time, however, we are not using tactical generators though - we are using commercial grade generators just like the ones you see at construction sites or next to critical facilities. This is where the lack of mechanics hits hard - we expect that since we can outsource the generators, we can outsource the maintenance too.

I'm sure this made perfect sense to guys like Rumsfeld. No need to carry these "non-essential" functions when they could be outsourced. This was how we made the Army "leaner". And it wasn't just Generator Mechanics, but Cooks, and Electricians and Plumbers and a myriad of other specialties that don't make much sense in a garrison army in the US, but make a huge difference in the field.

In the US, if something like a generator fails, one simply opens the telephone book, looks under "generator" and starts calling until a satisfactory deal can be arranged. The odds are generally better than even that the work will be completed competently and things will be back to normal very quickly. In my house recently the main spring on my garage door failed. Within 48 hours my wife was able to contact a reliable contractor who replaced the spring, checked the rest of the operating mechanism and offered a warranty on the work for a reasonable price.

Here, the first challenge is that there is no telephone book. You might try an internet search, as some firms have found the web, but if your generator is out, you may not have power, so that is not a guaranteed method. The solution here is to have a "fixer". A fixer is a guy who knows everyone, or at least convinces you that he knows everyone. You tell him the problem, he contacts someone (most likely a relative) who has some knowledge ("some" being very relative) of the problem who will come fix it for you. There is no certifications, no guarantees that the guy who shows up has ever even seen your particular type of generator - his experience may be on repairing bus engines, but they are both diesel and that is close enough... for them. Oh, and the fixer gets a cut off the top - probably from both sides.

The "mechanic" who shows up (or the electrician or any other "professional") may or may not have tools, most likely will not have basic parts like filters or fluids. You must supply these or pay an extra arm and/or leg to have them get them. They, more often than not, know where to get them while you do not. They always say that they are going to "the bazaar" to get things - I wish I could go see this bazaar - we've had them get everything from folding chairs to 200 amp main circuit breakers to wireless routers to the aforementioned generator filters. I figure it must make Costco look like a poor imitation. In reality, it's just a matter of knowing who to talk to and negotiating a price. The mechanic will generally tear into whatever the problem is, creating a pile of nuts and bolts and miscellaneous pieces until the unit is completely non-functional. Then he will announce that he does not have a requried part, tool, or capability and must go back to the shop. Once he returns, most likely the next day, he will masterfully put everything back together again and announce that it is now fixed. Sometimes it is, sometimes it's not, but that will just mean another service call for him, for now he has established a relationship both with you and your fixer.

The result is that both the US Army and our Afghan allies are now dependent on these maintenance services. We do not have the personnel with the expertise to train the Afghans, and they do not have dedicated Generator Mechanics on their manning documents (because they copied ours) so they fall into the same cycle/trap. The end result is that lots of money ends up changing hands to ensure that the generators (and the plumbing, wiring, HVAC, etc) keep working - with less than optimum results. I have to wonder if it wouldn't be cheaper to add a Generator Mechanic, an Electrician, and a Plumber to every units manning document - but that would go against the leaner Army. Oh well.

It’s Hot – And It’s Barely Summer!

We topped out at 118 in the sun today (a mere 110 in the shade). It’s going to be a long hot summer the way things are going.

One of the things we have managed to accomplish here is get the Afghan Officers addicted to Air Conditioning.  They are adding them right and left – and not central air-type A/C – they add individual room units that cumulatively draw a huge amount of power.  Unfortunately, most of them have no concept of where the power comes from – they know that the generator does something (for when it is off, there is no power) but they cannot seem to grasp that the generator has limits to what it can produce.

I find it interesting that the climate here is very similar to Phoenix, Arizona – perhaps just a shade warmer, but pretty much the same. In Phoenix, the most common type of air conditioning is the “Swamp Cooler” – basically a fan that draws the dry air through damp filters, then blowing the now cooler, moister air into the house or office.  Here, they act like they’ve never heard of such a thing.  The air here is certainly dry enough (thank the maker – if it were any more humid it would be unbearable) and we have plenty of nonpotable water…. Hmmm, maybe a fortune to be made – or not.

The demand for air conditioning leads, in turn, to a demand for larger generators, which, in turn, leads to rewiring entire complexes to handle the increased circuit loads. This cycle is magnified many times over, for basically everything, large and small.  Today, the senior US mentor here was asked, in the form of a demand, to provide carpets (rugs) for the floor, curtains for the windows, and doilies (I’m not kidding) for the tables.  Our response was to tell them to fill out the Afghan Army/Police requisition forms and send them through their own channels. Oh, no, that cannot be done, for they will not fill the order, we are told. So why should we be expected to do what their own government will not?  I was asked to provide a hot plate for boiling water for chai – I told them that I would donate 5 dollars if everyone else would as well and someone could go to the bazaar and buy one, since I would use it too.  Oh no – we should provide it for them, for we have more money than they do.  Riiiight.

We asked the Afghan Officers last week what is going to happen when the Americans and Europeans leave this country. “We die” was the answer given.  Hard to build a country when even the senior Police and Army Officers have that attitude.

It Just Goes to Show You… It’s Always Something!

It’s getting to be summer here in Kandahar – getting to be is defined as over 100 degrees most days but not yet over 115 yet.  The temperatures put increased strain on everything, but mostly on the electrical infrastructure, what there is of it.

A note on my limited expertise here – my first real job was as a mechanic’s assistant for a small construction company. As such, i learned a great deal about small and mid-sized diesel engines, generators, and air compressors.  Who knew that 30 years later, that experience would come back to help/haunt me.

On the police side, we’ve been wrestling with two overheating generators since before I went on a much-needed leave in June.  They were starting to overheat then, when the temps were just in the 90’s during the day.  By the time I got back in late June, they were going down every afternoon for 4-6 hours. Finally, we figured out that the radiators had become clogged with a mixture of oil and dust – oil droplets from a leaking crankshaft seal on one and from spilled oil beneath the other had combined with the omnipresent dust to almost completely clog the radiators.  This, combined with the fact that the generators are sitting in direct sunlight let to them overheating anytime the temperature went over 100 degrees – which was every afternoon.  We had to totally disassemble the cooling systems and remove the radiator assemblies and send them downtown to clean them (no pressure washers available here).

Within two days of fixing that, the main circuit breaker tripped and wouldn’t reset. Investigation showed that it was a 160 amp breaker. We knew from the readouts on the generator that they were pulling more than 160 amps from time to time – and this proved it for sure.  So we requested that it be replaced with a 200 amp breaker.  From what we can tell, the electrician installed it backwards. It lasted one day then destroyed itself in a spectacular fashion, almost taking the rest of the circuit box with it.  When we went to replace it, the new electrician refused to put another of the same brand in – saying “That is cheap Chinese shit”. We sprung for a Siemens breaker (7 times as much) that easily weighed twice as much as the Chinese one.  As we were installing it, we noticed that it was counterintuitive – we are used to installing switches with “on” at the top and “off” at the bottom – but in this case, the breaker had to be mounted the other way – in tiny letters molded into the housing it had “load” on one side and “line” on the other.  Load being the use side and line being the supply side.  We turned it around and so far so good.

The very next day, we started to have serious problems on the US-side of the base.  We have been “blessed” with two bona-fide US certified contractor electricians.  So far, almost everything they have touched has been degraded. First, these experts told the commander that we really didn’t need the roof over the generators as the generators don’t need shade.  In the words of Bill Cosby’s Noah… Riiiiight!  The very next day we overheated a generator – FOR THE FIRST TIME!  Since then, it’s been a series of power outages as they attempt to “fix'” things that were working fine. Today they managed to short out the main switch box – twice, both times resulting in fires, melted cables, and no power during the heat of the day. They, of course, blame it all on the shoddy work done by the Afghans, but we had no problems of this type until they started playing with things.

At the going rate, it’s going to be a long hot summer.

Inspirations

Well, it’s been a pretty good week here for me this week. For whatever reason, the stars all were in my corner, in both tangible and intangible ways – which is pretty cool to look back on.

Do you ever hear or see or learn something that just overwhelms you with the “rightness” of whatever it is? The song that just grabs your heart and squeezes, or the dance performance that takes your breath away or the "click" when something suddenly makes sense? I had a couple of those experiences this week.

First, I read “Three Cups of Tea” by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin. WOW. If you haven’t read this book, please, read it. Then donate to his efforts. It is not often that a book can bring me to tears of pure joy and happiness – that overwhelming “rightness” of being. This is a man who is truly fulfilling his destiny – and is helping thousands of others to fulfill theirs. Having been exposed to similar conditions here in Southern Afghanistan to what he describes in Pakistan and Northern Afghanistan, I know the truth that he speaks. It is so simple, yet so profound – education is the answer.

One of the basics I learned in a Physics class somewhere was “Nature abhors a vacuum.” This applies to education. The one thing common to all humanity is the innate desire to learn and grow, to become something more than we already are. If there is no formal process or curriculum for education, superstition, folklore, and myth will fill the resulting vacuum. This vacuum in predominantly Muslim countries has led to the rise of the Wahhabi Madrassas system, “schools” funded by a very narrow minded sect of Islam that teach nothing but victimhood and hatred, using select passages from the Holy Koran to justify and reinforce their teachings. Often, these Madrassas are little more than pre-paramilitary schools, designed to do nothing but create potential martyrs for Islam – and a very narrow slice of Islam, at that. As Mortenson and Relin explain in Three Cups of Tea, these Madrassas don’t teach reading, writing, and arithmetic, nor do they teach geography, chemistry, biology, or physics. They teach the “Lesser Jihad” through rote memorization of the Holy Koran, in Arabic, a language that most of the students never really learn to speak as a language, just becoming able to recite suras from the Holy Koran. (The “Lesser Jihad” is the challenge of bringing Islam to the uninitiated – most often seen as war on non-believers. The “Greater Jihad” is the battle within to become a better Muslim by following the Holy Koran and the teachings of the Prophet Mohammed, PBUH )

The saddest part is that the Wahabbi financiers, generallywealthy Saudi and Gulf State individuals, seemingly practicing ‘zakat’, or the giving of charity - one of the five pillars of Islam,get it better than we generally do. They are pouring their money into building these Madrassas because there is no competition for the young minds and bodies, no other education system to counter them – until Greg Mortenson comes along, at least. The end of movie Charlie Wilson’s War said it all – we had been pouring in almost a billion dollars in military aid to the Afghan Mujihedeen per year, then the Soviets quit and withdrew. The next year, Representative Charlie Wilson tried to get a million dollars appropriated for reconstruction aid, some of which would have gone to schools, and was flatly turned down. We had “won”, doncha know. And in winning the battle, we began to lose what eventually became the war we are now fighting. I have to wonder if we had pursued reconstruction and education efforts in Afghanistan and the border areas of Pakistan through the 1990s, whether Osama bin Ladin would have found such ripe ground here when he was expelled from the Sudan in 1996. Three Cups of Tea should be the basis for how we help Failed States (and Nearly Failed States).

The second inspiration this week was much smaller in scale, but almost as moving. It was watching the performance of a 47 year old unmarried, unemployed woman named Susan Boyle on “Britain’s Got Talent”. Here is a middle-aged woman who has the courage to go out and sing on this potentially cruel program. She is not attractive in the conventional sense that is so important on television. You could see the audience and the judges preparing for a big laugh at this woman’s expense. She announces the song she will sing ("I Dreamed a Dream" from Les Miserables- an inspirational song in itself) and you can see the judges rolling their eyes, girding themselves for what, from all appearances, must be a terrible performance. And then something absolutely magical happens. Something that happens often in movies, but so seldom in real life... the music starts, and she begins to SING! And I mean SING, with every ounce of her being – and it is wonderful, powerful – I mean she NAILS IT! The gasp from the audience is audible. The raw emotional impact literally brought audience members to their feet. Even Simon Cowell, notorious for his biting wit, is completely blown away, his expressions and body language while she sings show that he is moved as well. Check it out for yourself… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY . Thank you George for sending it to me - and thanks to Mark for forwarding it to make sure I saw it.

So there they are, my two inspirations for the week. They are completely different in form and function, but share the common thread of the triumph of the human spirit. I am still shaking my head in wonder at both of them, but I am extremely happy for the experience of them both, for they both touched me profoundly - I am a better person than I was before this week.

The Answer (as opposed to "The Secret")

I figured it out. It came to me while reading a memoir of our nation’s recent Iraqi adventure – a rather depressing read, by the way. This epiphany is so wonderfully simple, yet so awe inspiring in its applicability to every one of the current “issues” our country and we as a people face in the world. I can tell you “The Answer” for what is wrong in the world today. Are you ready for it? Can you handle the truth?

It’s this: Lack of Personal Responsibility and Accountability. It sounds crazy, doesn’t it? I mean, really, we’re all responsible people, right? We have our families, we have our bills, most of us are making the mortgage payment and putting food on the table – we are responsible grownups. But we are not. We have given up so much control of our lives to other people and other things that we don’t take the time to really know what we are doing. And, at a certain point, at some certain dollar value with lots of zeroes, Personal Responsibility and Accountability ceases to be a factor at all anymore.

Let’s start small. I had(!), as probably most of you do, most of my retirement savings in “Safe Long Term Investments” – IRA’s, Mutual Funds, 401K’s. But I really can’t tell you how any one of those financial vehicles differs from the other. My mutual funds send me a prospectus or synopsis or some kind of a report every six months and I can say I’ve actually looked at it – once or twice a decade or so, mostly to see where the "highly paid fund manager" (highly paid is defined as someone who makes more than twice as much as I do) thinks he should invest my and a bunch of “other people’s” money (remember that phrase – it’s key).

Do any of you really understand how these Accounts and Funds work? What exactly does a Fund or Account Manager do every day to earn that high pay? I know I have the picture in my head of an earnest individual (balding, rumpled suit, rolled up sleeves, green eye shade) who is tracking every one of the stocks in their funds every single day, looking at projections, reading profit and loss statements, wetting their finger and holding it up to see which way the financial winds are blowing, or something like that. Perhaps that is what they do, sometimes, but I bet they spend a lot of their time in meetings with other fund managers listening to Branch or Division Chiefs tell them that they are not making enough money for the firm itself. That they are paying out too much in commissions because they are trading stocks too often or paying out too many dividends to us investors, because – and this is part of the secret – it’s not really “our” money anymore – we have given it to “Them” to manage for us, because we cannot do it as well as they can. We have transferred our personal responsibility for our money and investments to “Them” and our money has become “Their Money”. But it’s not really “Their Money” like it was their “Their (Personal) Money”, it’s “Their (Other People’s) Money.” Either that or these places are something like LA Law or Ally McBeal reruns and everyone is chasing everyone else around to have an affair with… but I digress.

Once “They” (pronouns are going to kill me here) have the money, it is “Theirs”, the company’s. And the first rule for companies in business is to make money. So they use Their (Other People’s) Money to make more money, keep some of that and give some back to us, the investor/"other people". This serves two purposes, one, it makes us "other people" feel like we have been responsible with our money for it is increasing in value and it also increases the amount of money that “They” can then use to make more money because most of us just let the money accrue in the accounts. The money they keep for themselves pays those highly paid managers (and even more highly paid Branch and Division Chiefs) their paychecks and bonuses and puts fuel in the Gulfstream jets and all of that.

The problem with Their (Other People’s) Money is that they treat it like what it is – other people’s money. Ever wonder why used rental cars sell for so much less than “regular” used cars – it’s because people have driven them like they are rental cars – they are “other people’s" cars. In my last job I traveled quite a bit and the company would provide a rental car most places. Usually the cheapest thing with four wheels and an engine but it was better than the riding the bus in a strange town. And usually I would find that there was no need for a gas pedal – a simple switch to go from coast to full power was all I really needed most of the time – well, that and maybe a brake pedal. Short of trying not to wreck the car, there was no need to really take care of it, as it was basically an “other people’s" car” – not "my" car. And worse, if I did wreck it, there was insurance that would cover it, so I wouldn’t be out any of “My Money”.

So now the picture is clear – these people were using what once was “Our Money” that we transferred to them to become “Their (Other People’s) Money” like it was a bunch of rental cars. They knew that we wouldn’t pay close attention to what they were doing, and that if they wrecked it, the government would step in and insure them so they would not be out any of Their (Personal) Money.

There it is, the financial crisis in a nutshell, and we let them do it through our ignorance, trusting, and, in no small part, greed. But it’s worse than that. We are doing this with entire countries.

Since this epiphany came to me while reading about Iraq, let’s talk about Iraq. Our former President, aka "The Decider", decides to change the regime in Iraq, and does so. At that point he should have became personally responsible and accountable for what happened next. As every good executive does, he delegated authority to a highly paid manager, Paul Bremer, and sent him over to run the place. Unfortunately, this manager did not feel any sense of personal responsibility and accountability because even though it was his country to run, it was “His (Other People’s) Country” – and he drove it like a rental car, doing things that he would not have done if he felt that he would be personally held responsible for the consequences. So, he fires all of the Baath Party members that were the civil service of Iraq and disbands the Army – putting most of what we would have called the upper middle class out of work, all at once. Chaos follows, but this man has an insurance policy – the US Department of Defense. They will “pay off” and make his stupid decisions seem less stupid over time – to the tune of 4,000 plus US lives (and a bunch of Iraqi lives as well).

How about here in Afghanistan? Same thing. It is “NATO’s (Other People’s) Country” – nobody really gives a flying flip about outcomes beyond their tour of duty, and if they do, they soon become disabused of such silly notions (like when I was young and would actually take a rental car through the car wash before taking it back – I didn’t want to be thought less of for bringing back a dirty car). I’ve already written about the “not my job” and “I’m too short to worry about that” attitudes – “short” being a term used to describe coming up on the end of a tour of duty. The problem is that that attitude starts about the second or third day here for some people. And the Afghans are kind of like us with our mutual funds – they have handed the country over to us – the highly paid country managers – to make it better for them. Now they don’t have to take any personal responsibility either – it’s someone else’s worry. So if the generator runs out of oil because nobody checked it – Inshallah, ask NATO for another one. If half of my unit’s weapons disappear over time, no worries, ask NATO for new ones. We are their insurance policy, just like the Government is for the big banks.

Of course, the problem is, eventually it comes back to be “Our/My Money”, just as my diminished retirement accounts are now “My (much less) Money” and the Bailout/Stimulus (I’ve lost track of what is part of what anymore) is “Our Government’s (much less) Money, Iraq has already become “Our (lots and lots of) Money” and Afghanistan is fast becoming “Our (lots and lots more) Money”.

Colin Powell, it is apocryphally told, espoused the “Pottery Barn Rule” – If You Break It – You Buy It (Pottery Barn, for the record, disavows this as a “rule”). He knew that we were going to break Iraq, and we have bought it many times over since. We have broken Afghanistan (didn’t take much), and are buying it now, after putting it on layaway for a few years. We have broken our financial system, and now are trying to buy it back. But here’s the rub – Paul Bremer took no responsibility for his decisions and has not been held accountable for the consequences; none of the “highly paid managers” – to include Corporate CEO’s – of the American Financial Industry are taking any personal responsibility nor are they being held personally accountable (I don't count Madoff - he's just a crook), and the same applies to the leaders of the American Automobile Industry. Evidently, the buck does not stop with them. It’s passed to us. Harry Truman would be appalled.

Here’s the kicker – my friends with small businesses, restaurants, and such – they are forced to take responsibility and are held personally, financially liable. Why aren’t we holding our corporations and our government to the same standard as they hold us to? I once heard that if you owe the bank a thousand dollars, they own you and get to make the rules, but if you owe the bank a million dollars (probably billion now), you own them and get to make the rules – I guess that’s really true.

The Answer sucks, doesn’t it.

Return to Blogville

It's been almost two months since I last wrote and the muse has finally returned. The first month was spent with my family on leave and closing the door on my military career. The second has been spent getting my feet back on the ground here in Afghanistan.

Leave was simultaneously a huge morale booster, a profound disappointment, and a huge emotional sense of relief.

Spending time with my family was wonderful in every way. Prolonged separation gives one a sense of perspective on what is normally taken for granted. I found that things that annoyed me prior to starting this job no longer did so or did to a much lesser degree. All in all I loved every minute of it - I can only hope that when my boys are older, they will look back on my visits and smile at the good memories. I know that I will.

The profound disappointment came with the end of my military career. After 22 years as a commissioned officer, I requested to be retired from the Army National Guard, effective 30 June 2009. The leadership of the Idaho Guard was no longer willing to make the required accommodations for my work here in Afghanistan. My disappointment was really for how shallow and short-sighted the IDNG has become a an institution since 2005. There is no strategic vision there beyond preserving the status quo. Any advancements made are "on the margin" - or other people's ideas that are basically "low hanging fruit". That lack of energy, lack of a mark on the wall that defines what the Idaho National Guard could be in the future also explains the huge sense of relief I felt when I handed the Adjutant General the signed request to retire. It felt like a thousand pounds had been lifted off of my back. The negative energy at Gowen Field is palpable - the exact opposite of what I wrote about feeling in Washington DC on Inauguration Day. I hope that changes soon, for the sake of the still-decent people that work there.

All in all, I'm glad to be back in Afghanistan, but disappointed in some of the short-sighted decisions that are being made here - hmmm, I'm seeing a trend here... impatience with lack of strategic vision... that's one of the services I provide through my company - Astrolabe LLC. Strategic Vision - redefining where a company can be, based on its strengths and an honest appraisal of where it is at today. Unfortunately, here in Afghanistan as a contractor, I get exactly no vote, whatsoever. All I can do is point out the relative costs and benefits, as I see them, to the military chain of command then abide by whatever decision is made, short sighted or not. C'est la vie, c'est la guerre. KAFka Castle, watch out, I may be moving your way!

Inauguration Day - Washington DC

By pure luck, my leave travels put me in Dulles International Airport, outside of Washington DC on Inauguration Day. I knew that there would be a lot of positive energy in DC today, but I was totally unprepared for just how overwhelming it is.

Like most of America, I'm watching the images from the Capitol Mall on television, but I swear, I can feel the energy here. It's like an overwelming urge to cry for happiness. Even people who didn't vote for him seem to feel the sentiment - some try to poo poo it as ignorant sentiment or marginalize it by calling him "the Messiah", but that tells me that they still feel it.

I've become very sensitive to "energy" in the past few years, as my awareness of what I consider to be the real universe has grown. Negative energy is like a drain - a suction, it drags me down, leaving me weary, both mentally and physically. Positive energy is a euphoric - it just fills me up with joy that just wants to bubble out.

There is something special about someone who can fill the Capitol Mall with people when the temperature with wind chill is hovering around 10 degrees. I don't think it is all people who believe, as some of my more right wing acquaintences have stated, "that Obama will be making their car and house payments for them." He, BTW, is not a generally positive energy person - he exudes negativity and fear, and he's not alone. I think fear has become almost an epidemic since 9.11 - we should be afraid, very afraid of the unknown and trust those who know better and would look out for us, you know them - the government, the banks, the mortgage companies, etc. We saw how well they did. Then here comes a guy who asks us not just to believe in him, but to believe in ourselves as well - and that positive energy starts to seep through.

I wish Obama all the best - the best advice, the best judgement, the best conditions, and the best tools to run this country for the next 4 years. I think he has surprised a lot of people with his cabinet picks and am willing to bet that his administration will not be as ideologically "to the left" as many have feared. But I think that that just shows both his realism and pragmatism - it's more about making change than talking about change. I think that Clinton tried for too much too quick - tried to shift the country from 12 years of a Republican/conservative executive branch policies too soon, losing both respect and influence in the process. I expect some quick changes - reversal of the abortion gag rules, clarification and statement prohibiting torture, possibly even an executive order on "don't ask, don't tell" - all firmly within his perview as President and head of the Executive Branch. I expect quick action/debate on the economic crisis, but it won't be a one sided thing - it will be based on a bipartisan coalition - trying to make the best choices for the short term without sacrificing the long term. But I'm rambling...

Anyway, it is a joyous day here in DC - I wish all of you could be here to share the energy with me - it is intoxicating!

Afghanistan - A Place Where If It Can Go Wrong, It Will! By Design!

It's been a fun week - using "fun" in its most ironic sense.  One of the skills I've developed over more than 20 years of intelligence work and 43 years of life experience is a strong sense of what could happen - which, if I give it some thought and weigh the various probabilities, i can give a pretty fair assessment of what will happen. I'm not talking Nostradamus stuff here, just the basics, maybe a step beyond the "you get a BB gun, you'll shoot your eye out" level in "A Christmas Story."

So, there I was, back in October, brand new to this Forward Operating Base (a grandiose name if there ever was one), walking around when I noticed that the power cables running from the generator to the housing area were just barely buried under the crushed rock that is the ground here. We're not talking gravel, we're talking fist size rocks that have been spread 4 - 6 inches deep over most of the FOB.  These cables were not protected by any type of conduit, or even taped - just insulated cable that had been run from generator to power distribution boxes, then the rocks poured over them.  We drive heavy (20 ton) vehicles over these rocks/cables. Now, I'm not a certified electrician, and I have not stayed in a Holiday Inn Express since leaving the United States, but that struck me as asking for trouble. I brought it up to the "FOB Mayor" - the guy you go to when a toilet clogs or there's no hot water and pointed it out to him. His response was all too typical "That's what the contract called for."  When I clarified that the rocks would tear the insulation, thereby letting water in when the winter/rainy season came, he gave the second response that I really hate to hear: "I'll be gone by then - someone else's problem."  Well, it's rained for the past 3 days/nights - not steady, but sometimes very heavy.  Yesterday morning the wi-fi was down on the FOB - why?  Because water had gotten into the power cables that serviced the room that had the wi-fi hub.  It took all day to get an Afghan electrician out to run new cables to rewire the four rooms that were shorted.  Oh, guess where the new cables run?  Now they are on top of the rocks (it wasn't in the contract to bury them).

The second of my "Cassandra" experiences (for those of you not familiar with Cassandra, she spurned Apollo's advances and he cursed her with being able to fortell the future, but no one would believe her - she slid into insanity shortly afterwards) was in one of our two latrines (bathrooms to you non-military types). I noticed that in one of them, you occasionally did not get hot water, you got nothing but steam.  That is usually not a good thing.  When I looked at the hot water heater, it's temperature gauge showed between 60 and 70 degrees celsius - that's 160 degrees F!  This is the same hot water heater that melted the guts in the toilets.  I continually have brought up this issue, to no avail. There was talk of moving it to the laundry room to replace the non functioning water heater there, but it never made it to the top of the priority list.  Well, it is now. It blew up this afternoon. Literally. Filled the room with scalding steam. Luckily, no one was close enough to it to be more than scared and were able to get outside before the boiling water got too deep.

I relay both of these experiences because they show an attitude of ours that will result in our defeat if left unchecked.  The attitude of "it's someone else's problem" is a poison to the work we are, ostensibly, trying to do here.  That, combined with our complete dependence on the contracting mechanisms to get anything done is positively ludicrous.  I found out that I have "upset" the local handyman because I do things myself to improve my situation (I put linoleum down on my floor, built my own shelves, installed two washing machines and a dryer in the laundry room, etc.) rather than pay him to do it or arrange to have him paid to do it out of official funds (it costs three to four times as much if it's being paid for with "official funds"; go fig.  With the materials, i could have rewired those billets rooms - and I probably would not have charged 2500 dollars to do it - but we are the military - we're supposed to be self-sufficient for that kind of thing, aren't we? I'm reminded of the book"The Sand Pebbles" (and subsequent movie with Steve McQueen and a young Candace Bergen.) A main theme of the movie is "breaking peoples' rice bowls."  Well, if we want change in Afghanistan, we're going to have to break a few rice bowls (pilau bowls?)  We are pussyfooting around, trying to fight a politically correct counterinsurgency. There is no such thing.  The US Forces try not to offend the NATO/Coalition forces and vice versa. Somewhat ironically, no one has a problem disrespecting/offending the Afghan forces, as I've related in previous entries.  The end result is nothing of lasting significance gets done.  I'm wondering if anything of lasting significance is "in the contract" implied by our presence - only time will tell, I fear.  

You want to end the Afghan conflict quickly? Once the troop surge is in place, inform everyone, US and Coalition, that nobody rotates out or goes home on leave until the Taliban are defeated, the people have electricity and access to water, and a functioning government is in place. That way it can't be "someone else's problem" and no one will want to wait around for the contract to be let. Within 6 months this country would be turned around on the right track.

A "KAF"ka-esque Experience

Having once been forced to read Franz Kafka's "The Castle", I find it somewhat humorous that the closest existing monolith to bureaucracy that I have ever found is known commonly by pronouncing its acronym as a word, KAF. It isn't exactly irony - more of a fascinating coincidence, of epic proportions.

Kandahar Air Field, KAF, is the main operating base for the Coalition Forces in Southern Afghanistan. It is co-located with Kandahar International Airport, an architecturally fascinating structure in its own right, built by the United States in the 1960's when we and the Soviets were vying for Afghan favor. We built this airport and a huge irrigation project near Lashkar Gah in the southwest. The Soviets built a tunnel through the Salang Pass, north of Kabul. The irrigation project was of limited success as the soils were found to contain too many residual salts and the tunnel was the site of a major disaster for the Soviets when, during their war here, a major fire ensued with a convoy inside the tunnel causing many fatalities.  Kandahar Airfield's claim to fame was as the "Last Stand of the Taliban" against US and Northern Alliance allied forces in the opening days of Operation Enduring Freedom in 2001.  Now, it is a huge complex of well over 20,000 personnel, from most countries participating in the ongoing conflict.  It is the location of the headquarters for the International Security Assistance Force, ISAF, and the headquarters for Regional Command-South, the geographic command for the area as well as for COMKAF, the headquarters for running what amounts to a small city, in its own right.

KAF is a sprawling mix of barracks, tent cities, logistics yards, headquarters buildings, storage facilities, maintenance shops, aviation support units (it is, after all, an air field!), dining facilities, restaurants, coffee shops, and shopping centers.  Yes, restaurants, coffee shops, and shopping centers - oh, and a movie theater and a hockey rink (well, floor hockey, but it is regulation size!).  The "Boardwalk" is the social center of KAF, a huge square, well, boardwalk, ringed with shops and restaurants, ranging from American fast food (Burger King, Pizza Hut and Subway) to soon to open Italian and Thai sit-down restaurants.  There are two coffee shops - a Tim Hortons- kind of a Canadian Starbucks, only better coffee (I always have thought Starbucks coffee itself tasted burnt) and with free wi-fi (great coffee and donuts too) and a "Green Bean" - not as nice, but does have better chai (tea) in my personal opinion (at least the one in Kabul did, the one in Kandahar hasn't been open when I've been there).  There are also numerous shops selling souveniers from Central Asia, jewelry and semi-precious stones, tailor shops for suits and coats, embroidery shops, and electronics/dvd shops.  This is in addition to the British, Dutch and American post exchange stores. Life is not bad if you live at KAF - and the shops and restaurants appear to be virtual licences to print money for their proprietors.

The denizens of KAFstan (literally, land of the KAFs) take all this in stride. There are posters to instruct you what do do in case of rocket attack (the base is big enough to be an irresistable target for the rocketry enthusiasts among the Taliban - luckily it is also big enough that odds of major damage or serious casualites are pretty slim).  There is even a sign in the Tim Horton's informing patrons that "Tim Horton's will close upon the sounding of the Rocket Alert and will reopen 15 minutes after the All Clear."  Pretty surreal on first glance.

What makes it truly KAFka-esque (sorry, can't resist), is that fully half of the people at KAF exist solely to facilitate the lives and duties of the other half.  There are large areas where the service workers live - all those folks who run the stores, cook the food in the mess halls, pump the porta-potties (although most of the "permanent" buildings have indoor plumbing) and service all of the generators and heaters and air conditioners and what not that keeps this city functioning.

Then there are the headquarters themselves.  I've served in headquarters units at various levels from the tactical combat level to the theater level. Never have I seen more bureaucracy than here. All in all, KAFstan is a monument to the seven deadly sins - Sloth immediately comes to mind, with staff offices not bothering to coordinate actions between themselves, despite being only a few hundred feet apart and then expecting field (non-KAFs) units to sort it out on their own (we once had three different SOPs for a specific action being circulated by three different staff offices,they were mutually contradictory).  Pride, for KAFstani fecal matter stinketh not - even if there are three flavors of it circulating about - the problem is clearly that of the non-KAFs for bringing it up. Gluttony, for thou shalt not interfere with their access to Tim Horton's or the mess halls. Greed in wanting to keep all that glitters for themselves, sharing only under duress with the dirty, unwashed masses (non-KAFs).  Simple things like no taking sodas or any food items from the mess hall, for thou will then be denying profits from those who would sell sodas or food items to those who did not arrive in time.  There is Wrath, for hell hath no fury like a KAF who hath been scorned, especially when it was there job to ensure that three different versions of a SOP did not go out to the non-KAFs, thus provoking their scorn.  Envy in that the KAFs wax nostalgic about how "lucky" the non-KAFs are to be getting all of the combat decorations (and most of the Purple Hearts!) while they toil away diligently for service medals. Finally, there is Lust - for which I can only report as has been reported to me - there's lots of it.

The true comparison to "The Castle" comes when dealing with our Afghan allies.  Never have so many been scorned by so few. The restrictions that have been placed are absolutely insulting. Coalition must have Afghan National Police present in all convoys. This makes sense, for if there is any type of incident, it's good to have 1. Afghan Police witness the incident and 2. Afghan Police to calm down the locals who may have gotten caught in the cross fire/blast radius. What doesn't make sense is that they are basically "persona non grata"on KAF - they must be escorted by coalition personnel wherever they go and aren't allowed to use many of the facilites (nor do they have the money to pay the prices charged!) Many units just leave their ANPs to park outside the "secure zone". These ANP officers roll with our convoys in unarmored 4-door Ford Ranger pickup trucks while we are in up-armored HMMWVs and Armored Mine Resistant vehicles.  That takes guts, and yet we treat them like the enemy at worst and as suspect/barely competent  allies at best. When an Afghan General travels, he chooses bodyguards that are personally loyal to him - usually family members. They too are usually left outside the gate if there is no assigned Coalition escort. Space does not permit me to list all of the slights and insults that KAF's rules serve out to our Afghan partners - those that we are here solely to help - remember?   

The fate of a senior Afghan officer trying to go to a meeting (that he's been invited to) on KAF is something like that of "K" the land-surveyor in "The Castle" - always on the outside, stripped of dignity, and then having the wealth and opulence and power of the West dangled before their eyes.  What an example we set.  I'll have more to add about examples in another post.  For now, I'm glad that I don't live at KAF!