D & D Part 2.

So, one of the stipulations of my blog is that I can't talk about things that aren't currently in the press. So, I danced around this a bit in my previous posting. Below I'll post a news article about one of our locally engaged staff being assassinated last night. I had actually wanted to write about this man at some point because he embodied one of th few things I admire in human beings and that is dedication.

As mentioned in this article, you'd see this guy around camp at all hours of night doing his rounds well past the time that most people who have quit for the day. A friend of mine commented on facebook that he was the hardest working man on the PRT and I don't think that's an exaggeration at all. The most impressive thing about it is that I knew for a fact that he wasn't paid for any of the work he did after 3pm or on weekends, but he did it anyway because it needed to be done.

He had nothing to do with the fight and still someone found the need to take him out because he was affiliated with the coalition forces. I'd like to believe that the human soul couldn't sink the depths required to deliberately target an innocent man to send a message, but apparently that's not the case.

Kandahar = Alexandria

So, in other news I found out an interesting factoid about Kandahar the other day: Kandahar was actually founded by Alexander. Apparently the etymology of the word Kandahar is from the local word for "Alexander". Neat huh?

You know what's even neater? Seeing the foundations of his castle:

As you can see I've taken being a civilian to heart, ill fitting and sloppily put together gear.

Go me.

Death and Dying

I apologize a little bit. I've turned this blog more into a forum for me to express the random things that are running through my head as opposed to an update on what is going on with me in Afghanistan. I'll try and post more about what's going on in Afghanistan but I need to write about one more thing before I get back to that. It's on the subject of death and dying and in particular how it pertains to the issue of war. So let me be upfront with something:

Creativity

By all accounts I was a failure of the public education system in Chicago. My class rank was something like 152 out of 154 and I had to attend 4 years of summer school despite starting high school 2 years earlier than most. It wasn't really for a lack of ability. I eventually did quite well in college and the juxtaposition of my dismal grades with my test scores were always a source of contention with my teachers. Obviously there were several factors that contributed to this later on in my high school career but the reality was I had given up on school a long time prior.

I actually remember when everything went down hill. It was the second grade... stay with me here..

Following up

Subsequent to my last post my friend has had a version of her letter posted on Foreign Policy's blog. The link can be found here: http://afpak.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/07/12/voice_from_kashmir

After posting my last post her and I had a very interesting exchange regarding the nature the place of emotions in things like this. We were discussing whether or not it was worthwhile to tone down our response to these types of things. I was suggesting that sometimes it may it is necessary to tone down your emotions in order to get your point across. Her response was something like, well not all of us are as emotionless as you. Somewhat inadvertently this discussion sent me down an introspective trail that I hadn't really intended to go down. I've written down some of my thoughts on it after the jump. 

Perspective

A while back, when I was getting ready to go to Iraq and when I went to school, a big topic of discussion was whether or not we were able to get an accurate reflection of what people really thought about what we were doing in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. I haven't really seen it discussed a lot lately and I'm not sure why. It could be because the international uproar over our engagement has died down or maybe it's just not as relevant as we've changed our tactics for dealing with the populace.

Yet, it's still something I often consider as we talk about whether or not we can succeed in places like this. When I first started to study the social sciences I was incredulous at how disconnected and utterly worthless a lot of the discussions were on some of the key issues facing the problems I grew up experiences. Bottom line: Inner city schools suck and paying teachers an extra 3 grand is not going to change that. So, I often wonder how skewed our perspectives are when we talk about bringing stability to places like Kandahar. 

I'm writing this because I got an interesting letter from a friend of mine from Kashmir. She talks about the ongoing situation in Kashmir and one of the things that jumped out at me is how things are portrayed in the local media and how skewed some of the perspectives of people involved in the conflict are. I obviously can't attest to the veracity of the letter and while I'm sure there is some level of bias to it, I wouldn't even know where to begin picking it out. So I present it here in its unadultered form with the caveat being that none of these are my thoughts and definitely not that of the United States Government: 

John McCain comes to visit

When you work for the State Department one of your biggest responsibilities is to handle visits from high ranking officials who are interested in what is going on in whatever region of the world you happen to be in. In peace time these types of visits can be career makers or breakers. When I was in Karachi I was flown up to Lahore for an entire week to staff the visit of Secretary Clinton to Pakistan. It was an interesting experience to say the least. Here's how the typical exchange went:

Overstressed Staffer: Do you think we have these chairs in the right place?!?

Me: I don't know. It's a conference table? Actually, I don't really give a shit. Feel free to move them however you want. I'll be in the shade.

As you can imagine I enjoy these things immensely and don't avoid them like the plague at all.

Yea. So, aside from high level official visits there are can also be CODELS or Congressional delegations. This is when policy makers from Washington visit a particular place to get more information about the impacts of a strategy or a particular policy that we my have. You can imagine that Kandahar has suddenly become a very popular place. The new counter insurgency put forward by McChrystal predicates success on making demonstrable progress in Kandahar. It's the second largest population center in Afghanistan and the "Spiritual home" of the Taliban. In the midst of the new emphasis on Kandahar, we're in the process of transitioning from a Canadian led engagement to a US led one. I'll talk a bit more about this later, but needless to say everything is coming to a head here. Article on McCain's trip visit after the jump.

Regardless of whether we succeed or fail it's likely that the politicians will be jockying for to place blame or claim credit and they'll all need to prove that they know what they're talking about by making a visit. So, I can only imagine who else will be stopping in over the next few weeks/months.  This week we had John McCain, Joe Lieberman and Lindsey Graham come through for a visit. Should be interesting.  Article on the McCain visit after the jump.

So what brings you out here?

I was having lunch with an older member of the PRT. He's a guy who in all reality has no business being here because he's done enough in his life that he probably doesn't have to worry about his legacy. Yet, here he is. I was sitting there wondering what would bring him out here when he caught me off guard by asking the same question.

Him: So what brings you out here? I'm sure you could be doing something else back home.

Me: Uhh..I don' t know. I guess it just seems like the place to be.

Canada Day!

So, apparently our friendly neighbors to the north celebrate their national day about the same time we do. Who knew? I didn't. Apparently that's offensive or something. Anyhoo. It was a good as time as any for the Canadians to celebrate monthly "Beer call".

One day a month every Canadian soldier and civilian gets "exactly" two beers to consume as they see fit, i.e. at a designated time and place. It's a festive time to say the least. This year, they did up the common area, otherwise known as the 1 star Mexican, in full Canadian regalia. They even went so far as to forcibly apply Canadian tattoos to unsuspecting Americans. I got two. Pictures after the jump.

Confronting the past.

I officially left home when I was 17 years old. It wasn't an ideal situation. For all intents and purposes I was a high school drop out, I had no money, I had no job and worst of all, I had a pretty nappy fro. Seriously. It was pretty atrocious.

After drifting for a couple of days I met up with a guy who was more of a friend of a friend at the time. We'll call him C. C and I we were both in the preparatory program at our high school together and we both had done everything in our power to not avail ourselves of that opportunity. Even still, I wouldn't say that C and I were close at that time as we had come to know each other at a time when I was still struggling with who I was as a person, while C was always a popular, confident kid. Nevertheless we still had several mutual friends and maintained a cordial relationship at best.

Even still, C would invited me into his house where I ended up living for several months. I consider C one of my dearest friends today. His family didn't have a lot to go around. I slept on the floor under my jacket initially and under a sheet eventually. They still took me in like one of their own and I never forgot that. Today I meet people and half the time I'm convinced they want to talk to me because I have a good job or I work in an organization they want to know more about.

Back Then? LoL. Not quite. I had nothing to offer them. I could have died or ended up in prison and nobody would have batted an eyelash. It's not exactly newsworthy when a poor black kid falls through the cracks on the South side of Chicago. Yet, they still offered me a hand. That's some real shit.

Deployment Fro

It has become somewhat of a tradition for soldiers and those who work in places like Afghanistan and Iraq to grow out their beards while away from home. This phenomenon is affectionately referred to as the "Deployment Beard". It's a horrible tradition that often makes people look like mangy vikings after spending several months deployed. The bottom line is that there are only a select few people in this world who can pull off a beard effectively, and I am not one of them. 

When I try and grow out my beard I look like the combination of a 14 year old kid and someone whose face just got attacked with a weed whacker after spending several months in prison. It's pretty appalling. If only puberty hadn't left me behind. However, not wanting to miss an opportunity to make an ass out of my self for other people's amusement, I have embarked on an alternative course of action: The Deployment Fro. I may not be able to grow a beard but I can definitely grow a mean fro. I only hope that this trend becomes as pervasive as the deployment beard. I'll provide monthly updates on the progress of the deployment fro, with pictures! So, on that note: June 28th update: 

It never gets any easier.

I've been at the Kandahar Provincial Reconstruction Team for three weeks and I just attended my third memorial service. On a day to day basis it's easy to forget that you're operating in a war zone, especially if you never leave the camp or live in a place like Kabul. You go about your day to day business and never really have a connection to the people who go outside the wire looking for trouble, so hopefully I and those back home won't have to. But it's hard to ignore it when the reminder is right there in front of you all of the time.

Every person on the camp shows up to these memorials. At the end, everybody except the Soldier's unit dispersed while the unit pays their respect to the deceased. Generally most people don't look back. Today I stayed behind for a bit to watch as the unit filed through to give their comrades one last salute. I don't know why I did. I guess it just seemed like the thing to do. Or maybe I was just a little lost in the moment; trying to comprehend what would it means to never come home. You'd think that I'd be used to this by now, but it never gets any easier.

Afghan Weekend

By far, the most asked question I get is "What do you do for fun?" in Afghanistan. The answer to that question is "not alot". This is usually a surprise to most people and I'm not sure why. I guess people are so used to me finding any and every way to have a good time that it's hard to imagine that I wouldn't be setting the Kandahar night life on fire. Alas, it wasn't meant to be. For those interested I'll detail the typical "weekend" in Kandahar after the jump.

Kissinger on Afghanistan

I made a visit to Dand today and heard the inevitable "Dan is in Dand!" jokes about 47 times. It was an interesting trip. I'll probably write more about it when I get my pictures from the trip later. It's an interesting area which will likely have a microscope on it over the coming months/years. I'm writing this short update to share an article I found to be fascinating.

I can't claim to be a fan of Kissinger but he makes what I find to be a novel suggestion in that we should be engaging Afghanistan provincially. I've always wondered how the decision was made to make a strong central government in Afghanistan considering the lead role that America had at the time and the political party in charge at the time. Anyway, If I haven't passed it already I've rapidly approaching that line between what I'm not supposed to talk about in an online forum..so I'll just show the link with the text after the jump.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/23/AR2010062302193.html?wpisrc=nl_pmopinions

Rough Day

Yesterday was a pretty rough day for me.

One of the hardest parts about being deployed to places like this is having to manage the expectations and desires of the people in your life. In some cases people are understanding about the fact that you are so far away from home, but with instant communication and email its easy for people to lose sight of the fact that you are in a place like Afghanistan and that there may actually be some things going on that transcend your relationship with them. What may be a reasonable expectation of discourse and engagement for a personal relationship can very easily cross the line of unreasonableness when someone is in Afghanistan. This came to a head yesterday with an individual who I was particularly close to and lets just say it didn't end well.

That was fast

Well...that took all of of 5 minutes. The biggest news regarding Afghanistan:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2010/06/22/ST2010062202674.html?sid=ST2010062202674

Obama orders McChrystal back to Washington after remarks about U.S. officials

Knocking the dust off..

In Kandahar City. Yep, that's where I'm at right now, on the cusp of another major engagement of the United States Government in what we used to call the Global War on Terrorism.

It's hard to imagine that it has been six years since I first put some of my thoughts to keyboard on this blog. A lot of things have changed since then, the least of which being myself. I'm now a State Department Official specializing in reconstruction and political stabilization. Although I find myself in the same places as before I'm definitely a long way away from the Infantry and the JSOTF. I've been with the Department for almost three years now. The office I'm in is not much older than that. It was created in response to some of our 'difficulities' in places like Iraq and Afghanistan but given a mandate to change the way in which we approached complex emergencies and crisis environments around the world. Through this office I've worked on Georgia, Kosovo, Pakistan, Haiti, Sudan and now Afghanistan.

It's been fascinating to watch us grow from a shoestring operation to one that is helping guide some of the most critical foreign policy engagements of the day. Actually, interesting is probably the better word. It's been interesting.

As a soldier I took it for granted that we had it all figured out, and that all we had to do was execute our mission for things to work out. The reality is that we didn't then and it's arguable whether or not we do now. As the years have gone by I've had the opportunity to have a front row seat as the US Government has grown and refined its approach to these type of environments. Interesting. Yea. That sounds about right.

Which brings me to today. 8 something years after we invaded Afghanistan we've hinged our entire strategy on making demonstrable progress for the average Afghan in places like Kandahar, a historical base of operations for the Taliban movement. The contrast between this and similar "make or break" operations in places like Fallujah and Mosul is striking. Sure, we talked about building a better life for the average Iraqi and "Winning hearts and minds" but that was more of an euphanism for kicking ass and taking names. I remember sitting in my slit trench less than a mile outside of Fallujah watching as heavy artillery and air assets pounded the city for weeks and weeks before our eventual assault.

In Kandahar today? Not so much. There are no howitzers pounding away in the distance and the number of warplanes bombing buildings inside of the city is way down. We aren't encouraging a mass exodus of civilians and the city itself is still in relatively good shape. Even the Generals are talking about putting governence first and emphasising that this will not be a "military" campaign but rather a concentrated effort to link the government of Afghanistan with its disenfranchised people.

Is this better? I guess we'll find out. At least it'll be interesting to watch.

-----

I'm resuming my contributions to this blog to chronicle my life here in Afghanistan. I'll probably also use this as an opportunity to put down some of my general thoughts of life and my place in it. It's been very fascinating to go back over what was running through my mind before as I approached war for the first time. I can only imagine what it will be in many years as I chronicle my growth as a person and what that means when I approach what is hopefully my last war. As before, I won't comment on ongoing operational engagements until they are well over. I may however highlight news articles or events that I find particuarly relevant.