F-35s. Lockheed photo.

by ZACH ROSENBERG

“Does Buying Combat Aircraft Lead to Trouble?”
Combat aircraft made up about a third of worldwide arms purchases in time 2005-2009 timeframe. A new report by the renown Swedish International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) examines detailed buying trends and resulting political problems, and asks just what precedes what. Does buying sophisticated combat aircraft destabilize a country’s relations with neighbors? (H/T to Ares)

“Air Force Eyes Reducing Jets’ Fuel Reserves”
Civilian aircraft operators, particularly the ever-sensitive airlines, realized long ago that one of the heaviest components of an aircraft was the fuel it carried, and that reducing the amount of fuel meant more efficient trips. The FAA requires civilian airliners, in most cases, to have enough fuel for to stay in the air 45 minutes past expected flight time, taking into account alternate landing sites and the gas required to climb, descend and hold. In contrast, the USAF keeps a four-hour reserve, that results, perversely, in more fuel being burned as a result of the extra power needed to get that extra fuel airborne.

“Israel Given F-35s in Exchange for Settlement Freeze”
The U.S. has formally offered to give Israel 20 F-35s in exchange for a 90-day freeze on new settlements in the Palestinian areas. The F-35s are a major part of an offer that includes several major promises, including one that the U.S. will not recognize any Palestinian state without Israel’s permission. Freezing settlements and restarting direct talks between the Israeli and Palestinian governments has been a high priority for U.S. President Barack Obama.

“U.K. Will Retire Harrier Jets”
The United Kingdom, as part of massive defense cuts, is committed to taking the iconic Harrier VTOL attack aircraft out of service. Grounding the Harrier, which was originally developed and fielded by the U.K., will leave the U.K. without fixed-wing capability for its aircraft carriers before the anticipated arrival of the F-35s.

The riot. Getty Images.

by ZACH ROSENBERG

A blackened scorch now marks the spot where a U.S. embassy vehicle, one of two torched by rioters yesterday, came to rest. The vehicle, one of the ubiquitous SUVs that ferry foreigners all over the Kabul area, ran a civilian car off the road and into the median, killing four Afghan civilians. It is not uncommon to see NGO workers, contractors and even uniformed military personnel using the armored vehicles; the four DynCorp employees in the car fled under the protection of the Afghan National Police (ANP). Almost instantly after the accident an angry mob formed, composed, according to press reports, of hundreds furious Afghans.

The incident took place on a major thoroughfare, within sight of the New Kabul Compound, an American base across the street from the U.S. embassy. The ANP successfully cordoned the mob, but passersby and journalists reported hostility and stone-throwing. The mob appeared localized, spontaneous and at least partially composed of looters taking advantage of the situation, but they were reported to shout anti-foreigner and anti-Karzai slogans.

By nighttime the area was clear of rioters and burned vehicles, though several ANP stood around the area; most international organizations lifted the movement restrictions that had been imposed earlier that day. But the accident clearly hit a sore nerve with Kabulis, many of whom lack basic services and are deeply skeptical of the presence of foreigners. The incident has uncomfortable parallels to a similar 2006 incident when a U.S. military vehicle killed several civilians, sparking widespread rioting.

Informally and off the record, Afghans and foreigners with significant experience report rising anti-Americanism: though partial guarantors of very tenuous Afghan governmental stability, Americans are increasingly seen as occupiers, responsible for installing and supporting a government that inspires skepticism and loathing amongst its principals. Kabuli drivers slow down to stay well away from U.S. columns of Humvees — perhaps the only damper on what is could be described as a flagrantly enthusiastic driving culture. During a recent filming of Afghan Star, in which singers compete for fame and fortune, supporters of a losing candidate accused the winner of being backed by foreigners. Little boys pretend to shoot down the U.S. helicopters that pass over, an action seen worldwide that carries a somewhat sinister tinge here.

Much of Afghanistan’s small educated elite has fled, or have plans to flee, or have contingency plans, just in case. The recent Wikileaks trove contained the names and identifying details of what appears to be a large number of cooperators, confidants and informants — already few and far between, with their details exposed they are at significant risk of harm, virtually ensuring that U.S. troops will receive less cooperation in the future.

Crowd at a Kabul market on June 11, 2007. David Axe photo.

Kabul has perhaps the world’s worst tasting, but best guarded KFC rip-off, the notorious Afghan Fried Chicken. To eat this poor excuse for food and sip warm soda, one must pass by two AK-toting Afghan guards and step through a metal detector, possibly followed by a hand search. But AFC is among the more inclusive foreign-oriented restaurants — at least they allow Afghans to eat there. It is worth noting that some of the most expensive cities in the world for expatriates are in the developing world. Much of this expense is undoubtedly due to the massive costs required to separate the expats from, well, the developing city around them.

Kabul is swarming with foreigners from seemingly every nation in the world, working for NGOs, the U.N. and other international organizations, various military forces and governments and foreign contractors. Kabul is relatively peaceful and relatively safe, but it is still a war zone, and many of these organizations take war-zone precautions.

“The Kabubble,” as it’s known, is Kabul’s version of the virtual, and often literal, expatriate wall. Kabul is dusty and dirty; open sewers run the length of even the most prestigious streets. Street kids aggressively push chewing gum or burn herbs said to protect from the evil eye. Foreigners, women especially, are subject to unwanted attention that can unnerve and disturb.

But dotted in clusters around Kabul are certain oases. Standing out front of such an establishment, one is greeted by a constant stream of armored Land Cruisers and discreet private taxis. Generally they are guarded by at least one bored-looking armed guard, and from there are different levels of security. Once inside the gate, many places have a second gate with at least one more guard. The most secure have hallways and walls lined with sandbags. Inside the gates one enters what seems a virtual paradise — English-speaking waiters weave through rosebushes to serve alcohol and food at prices that rival any major Western city. Other foreigners abound, and in Kabul’s small-town expat community, a visitor is bound to see someone they know. Afghans are not allowed in many such places, but exceptions are routine for Kabul’s local elite. Less fortunate Kabulis are often puzzled and offended. At times, it can seem downright imperialistic.

The reality, of course, is that while undeniably decadent, these establishments are often a foreigner’s only place of sanctuary from a stressful city with few forms of recreation. Kabul demands much of its foreign residents. After 30 years of constant warfare, many Kabulis have developed a “take what you can, when you can” mentality with little consideration of the future. To a much greater extent than in Western cities, which have stable institutions that engender a certain amount of interpersonal trust, work in Afghanistan is often characterized by culture clash, mistrust, misunderstanding, deception and fear. Foreigners who have spent long periods of time in Kabul can often be distinguished by a certain physical otherworldliness, or else speak with an unmistakable weariness.

Combined with security precautions necessary or perceived, the result for many Westerners is a physical and social wall. Even after months or years in Kabul, a surprisingly small number of Westerners speak Dari, the local language; it is not necessary for their purposes. A number of foreigners with long experience in Kabul have remarked that the bubble is getting harder and harder to puncture as Afghanistan’s security worsens and movement restrictions are imposed. The Kabul Conference, set to begin on Tuesday, has put much of the expat community on “white city,” the term for a complete lockdown. The streets are eerily quiet for a workday. Many expat-staffed offices have shut down for the duration of the Conference. Hind attack helicopters circle the city, and already there has been one bomb in the upscale Macroyan neighborhood.

by ZACH ROSENBERG

First, it’s worth noting just where Afghanistan stands, and the Failed States Index is a good place to start. Note Afghanistan’s overall position as the sixth-most failed state in the world. The relevant measurement of corruption is “Delegitimization of the State,” in which category Afghanistan gets a score of 10 out of 10, the same score as Somalia, and just ahead of Chad and Sudan.

At first I thought a 10 was a little unfair. Are the rigged elections and blatantly corrupt politics really that much worse than Niger, victim of a recent coup? Is the corruption really worse than Equatorial Guinea, whose leadership is alleged to be tightly intertwined with large-scale drug smuggling? Maybe, maybe not; “massive and endemic corruption,” as the category is defined, is a certainty here, as is the ruling elite’s resistance to accountability, their links (and likely control over) to criminal networks and the distinct lack of support from everyone, from the Afghan population — all of it, as far as I can tell — to their greatest world-stage ally and current occupying force, the U.S. government.

The Afghan Analyst Network’s Kate Clark writes a blog post about just how you get a high-ranking government position. It’s an anecdotal but fascinating portrayal of grand corruption — and a partial explanation for why Afghanistan rates so low. Of particular interest is just how open and unworried the involved figures are portrayed. In some political systems corruption is handled subtly, through intricate channels and using vague language. In Afghanistan, an interested minister simply calls the target and makes an offer. The money flows out by the boxful; much of it goes to Dubai, the region’s financial (and money-laundering) hub, where many high Afghan government officials own property.

There are reports that corruption investigations are being actively blocked, surprising nobody. For detailed information on corruption in Afghanistan, the Afghan Evaluation and Research Unit has an excellent report about state-level and local corruption, including a good primer and context. Integrity Watch Afghanistan’s new corruption survey puts some good numbers on the perception of corruption among the population. It’s high, in case you’re wondering. The perception of corruption goes a long way toward encouraging support for the Taliban, and recognition of this has led to some drastic action.

RNW photo.

by ZACH ROSENBERG

In May, a group of irate villagers in Gizab, Daikundi Province, an area largely left alone by NATO forces, banded together to take on the local Taliban head first — and won. This is the local turnaround we’ve all been looking for: a spontaneous locally-inspired, -organized and -led revolt against the heavy hand of the Taliban. And people said Iraq’s Anbar Awakening couldn’t work in Afghanistan, the fools! Foreign government and military personnel greeted the news with unabashed optimism:

U.S. diplomats and military officials view the rebellion as a milestone in the nearly nine-year-long war. For the first time in this phase of the conflict, ordinary Afghans in the violence-racked south have risen on their own to reclaim territory under insurgent control.

It is a turnabout that U.S. and Afghan officials were not certain would ever occur. One U.S. commander called it “perhaps the most important thing that has happened in southern Afghanistan this year.

The important takeaway questions are, one, is this important, two, can this be replicated? The answer to both is “doubtful.”

For starters, Daikundi is an isolated, relatively unpopulated province, so unimportant to NATO even before population-centric counter-insurgency strategy took hold that it was essentially ignored (except by Special Forces, which is everywhere). Its main function for the Taliban, The Washington Post‘s Rajiv Chandrasekaran notes, is a transit and transfer point to bigger and better places. It’s a place where the Taliban doesn’t exert much force, but still more than the Afghan government or NATO.

This is not exactly a decisive overthrow either; despite an astounding temporary success, little guarantees the new “neighborhood watch” will be able to maintain a coherent, functional, well-armed institution should either the Taliban or Afghan government decide to assert dominance. And of course, events here are never as straightforward as they seem. Martine van Bijlert of the inestimable Afghanistan Analysts Network, whose post on the issue is really worth reading in full, fills in some context on what happened after the battle:

The appointments [of the revolters, to official power] represent a return to power by local khan families of two of the local Achekzai subtribes. This is not necessarily problematic, but the potential informality of the set-up (locals in local government, heading local forces) provides ample opportunity for another round of factionalism and exclusion. In April it was the Taliban that was kicked out by the population, but several years earlier the population rose up against a district governor that had crossed the line in terms of exploitative and intolerable behaviour. The fact that the Special Forces have decided that Lalay and his men are the “good guys,” just because they asked for their help, does not mean they will necessarily help win hearts and minds.

People from Gizab have complained for years about the neglect of their predicament. The message over the years has always been the same: It will be easy to get rid of the Taliban, there are not that many and the people will join in — but what happens after is what is important: who gets appointed, how will they behave and will the government pay attention to the needs of the people. That questions still looms over Gizab.

So, these are not necessarily good guys — maybe not the Taliban, but not necessarily friendly or cooperative, say nothing of desirable or accountable power brokers. The U.S. has an ongoing history of notoriously short sight in deciding who should have power, a situation that by some interpretations led more or less directly to the current one. Note that U.S. support for vicious and viciously corrupt warlords in Afghanistan continues to the present day, on the national as well as local levels. While supporting Lalay’s uprising for uprising’s sake seems to be a good idea from afar, some analysis must be carried out to answer questions, including: what effect might this new armed force have on area Pashtun clan relations? How might the local Hazara react? Just what role will this force have in official governance and security, and how can NATO ensure they don’t defect to a friendlier Taliban?

Leaving aside the issue of whether this should be replicated, can it be replicated? Daikundi is known as a province that has a relatively high level of appreciation for NATO troops and relatively low level of violence. Much of the population is Hazara, who remember their brutal treatment under the Taliban. Also note the lack of Afghan government presence in Gizab, which certainly played a role in the uprising — I can only speculate on how or to what extent, but it is a factor worth examining. Official Afghan government outposts tend to bring with them outright extortion, terrible corruption, and Taliban attacks — as Registan’s Christian Bleuer notes, basically the same as the Taliban, but without the school burning (you can bet that if the Taliban built a madrassa, the Afghan government would burn it). Should Gizab locals have reacted the same way to the same stimuli by Afghan government, which is not an unlikely scenario, they would have risked being labeled Taliban, in which case those heroic U.S. and Aussie Special Forces would kick in their doors and maybe shoot a few, definitively losing area hearts and minds.

As to replicating, the ever-snarky Bleuer breaks down the process:

1. Get Taliban to be jerks to locals.
2. Get Taliban to kill some locals.
3. Get Taliban to try to extort $24K from locals.
4. Get Taliban to kidnap some angry dude’s family.
5. Special Forces with ZZ Top beards.
6. Get locals to go crazy on Taliban.
7. EXECUTE EVERYBODY!!!
8. Australians.
9. ?????
10. Profit.

He goes on to speculate that we’re clearly about to win the war and become ludicrously rich and even introduce Gizab to thrash-metal, thereby neatly solving all Afghanistan-related problems forever, The End.

Encouraging such local uprisings is an official plank of America’s Afghanistan strategy. Not to say the Afghan government is effective at anything — note the recent Failed States Index, in which Afghanistan’s government ties for legitimacy with Somalia — but backing the rise of local power-brokers has a lot of potential negatives, among them the exact same thing that got us into this mess: backing local power-brokers at the expense of a coherent central government.

Afghanistan. David Axe photo.

by ZACH ROSENBERG

On a calm April night at Combat Outpost Baraki Barak, a survivor is recalling the bomb that nearly killed him a couple of days before. He was in his MRAP when a command-wire IED blew it up; he pulled people out of the burning truck, got them onto litters, and picked up his weapon, ready to kill, but as in many of these attacks there was no clear target to shoot. The seriously wounded were airlifted and the surrounding Afghan population yielded no intelligence; the unit circled their remaining trucks and watched the stricken truck burn. He was sent to the hospital for a nasty cut on his head, only six stitches wide but down to the bone.

At the hospital he looked in on one of the troops he pulled out, a 19 year old on his first deployment. “I’m not gonna lie,” he says self-effacingly, “I acted a bitch and started crying. I meant to go in there and console him but I think I only freaked him out more.” The 19-year old was sent to Walter Reed, and the soldier was kept under observation a few days. When his truck dropped the ramp at COP Baraki Barak, he bolted out and immediately threw up. “That’s PTSD for ya,” he jokes. All he wants now, he says, is to go home safely and take his first legal drink in the U.S. At 21, the soldier has earned a Purple Heart and a Medal of Valor recommendation.

When asked why he is ordered to take such risks, the wounded soldier responds immediately. “To tell you the truth, I don’t fucking know.” He’s understandably rattled by his recent experience, but he is not alone in his sentiments. In no way did I conduct a comprehensive survey at COP Baraki Barak, but anecdotally his questioning is widely shared.

The now infamous Rolling Stone article generated an instant firestorm surrounding the comments of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top commander in Afghanistan. But as Blake Hounshell notes at Foreign Policy, many people miss a notable part of the article: nine years in, the grunts at the bottom are losing faith in their leadership.

At COP Baraki Barak, raising the subject of COIN and the inevitable risk it brings to soldiers brings shrugs and reminders of the deep commitment soldiers have to obeying orders, no matter how stupid — on the record. Off the record, when the soldiers speculate freely on their superiors attributes, many are brutal: they’ve forgotten their
roots, they’ve sold their souls for political expediency, they misinterpret the situation, they aren’t paying attention, their hearing is selective, they are Olympic-level idiots.

Not to say the soldiers would prefer to carpet-bomb and massacre their way through any situation, but they are nervous, heavily armed, and increasingly frustrated at what they see as high-risk, low-payoff missions. They are skeptical that holding fire will reap greater safety in the long run. One soldier tells a story about watching Afghans dig, night after night, on a stretch of road visible from an American observation post. Each night the same thing happens: when soldiers are sent to check it out, the men run; sure enough, the next day an IED blows up in that spot. A few days later, the men are back digging. Instead of shooting them from the safety of their outpost, the soldiers send out MRAPs to intercept them, and again the men run. The cycle repeats.

The choice under COIN, as the next shift at the ECP tells me, is binary. Option 1 is to leave, “like the Russians,” presumably suffering the shame of defeat. Option 2 is to “stay an entire generation, until every fucking person that has this mentality dies.”

Of the officers who spoke on the topic with me, all expressed a clear vision of how to practice COIN in their area of responsibility. Of the enlisted who spoke with me, few demonstrated a clear understanding of COIN — their concerns are different, they don’t have to put much thought into strategy. I once heard someone suggest that the fate of the Afghan war be literally decided by enlisted vote, which would clearly be a terrible idea. But they are the first to receive the feedback of strategic mistakes, and sometimes a worm’s eye view is more accurate than an eagle’s.

ANA. ISAF photo.

by ZACH ROSENBERG

On a combat outpost in Logar Province, a group of young American soldiers sit around on guard duty, bored to tears, swapping stories about the Afghan National Army (ANA). Between drags of his cigarette, one soldier tells a story of his time guarding the COP’s senior medic. One day, it seems, a senior ANA officer came to the clinic complaining of an infection to his penis; after some time and much sheepishness, it emerged that the ANA officer likely contracted the infection when he had sex with a donkey. He was given antibiotics. Around the guard post, the other soldiers nod; they have similar stories.

In a recent piece in The Atlantic, Daniel Byman and Christine Fair write about the stupidity of large parts of the jihadi movement, including sordid anecdotes of sex with animals, pornography, suicide bombers blowing themselves up before their meant to, the sheer idiocy of some of the world’s most notorious terrorists. The reminder is a necessary one. This is a time when negative articles continuously appear, one right after the other, stressing the Taliban’s strength and support.

But neither are America’s allies immune from whatever lure donkeys apparently possess. The terabytes of porn the Taliban look at are doubtless outclassed by any U.S. Army base. For the talk of the hypocrisy of the Taliban’s supposed religious conservatism this conveys, the Taliban have managed to stake out the religious high ground, which is not a very difficult task given the competition from Karzai’s government of flagrant violators and the defiantly secular NATO nations.

In some ways, the West’s failures are more egregious than the Taliban’s. Byman and Fair note the case of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, one guy with some explosives in his underwear, who slipped effortlessly through security measures that have taken billions of dollars and years of effort to put into place. He failed to blow up his target, thankfully. He wasn’t very smart, but he didn’t have to be: Abdulmutallab made it so far due to failures of intelligence and coordination. The same basic idea is evident in the old U.S. obsession with port security, which despite billions of dollars and days of rhetoric no terrorist is yet known to have attempted to breach. Or nuclear and biological terrorism countermeasures — not to say these were necessarily bad ideas, but if we overestimate our enemy, isn’t that our failure?

Perception, not reality, is the most important factor in determining what side a person will support. Let half the Taliban suicide bombers blow themselves up by accident — they only need one to do it right. NATO’s technology, resources and experiences, light-years ahead what the Taliban has available, makes any minor Taliban success a great failure for NATO. The same cannot be said of NATO’s successes.

As Amil Khan notes on the blog Abu Muqawama, the clear presence of lots of idiots isn’t necessarily a good sign; it means that the jihadi movement is finding lots of people in general. It only takes one idiot to press the right button once, Khan says; meanwhile the smart jihadi are engineering the really complex operations that undermine the Afghan government and NATO.

I would add to this — not exactly news, but still — that the jihadi movement operates with a high degree of autonomy, in which independent groups or individuals can initiate large-impact action. That sort of autonomy allows for a high degree of creativity and operational diversity. Thus far, we’ve been lucky in that the clever operations have been largely confined to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Byman and Fair suggest that the idiocy of many jihadi could be used to discredit them. There is an argument to be made that the U.S. no longer has any credibility among the potential target audience. Imagine, for example, a story in a Pakistani newspaper about some gross Taliban ineptitude — maybe the suicide-bomber embrace where one bomber killed six would-be bombers by accident. Place that story on the page opposite another about the tough times Marines are having outside Kandahar. The takeaway message is that the Taliban may be idiots, but that the U.S. can’t counter them.

Zach Rosenberg photo.

by ZACH ROSENBERG

As the U.S. and Afghan armies gear up for the offensive in Kandahar (or not — in rumor-rich Kabul, various sources have it beginning anytime from tomorrow through the winter) the U.S. is increasingly in a political conundrum. On one hand, there’s no good to come from allowing the Taliban a free hand in Kandahar, and that whatever happens has to work, or else. While few suggest the Taliban can take the city over completely, they currently do enough to keep the population from conclusively siding with the national government. On the other hand, it is increasingly apparent that the U.S. may not possess the necessary political resources to win the population.

Chief among these resources, of course, is an agreeable Afghan government that can demonstrate good governance and political cohesion, which the current national government largely fails to do. The U.S. has not been particularly successful in staying on the same page as the Afghan government. Despite promises to enter Kandahar with arms extended and bring security and good governance, the predecessor offensive on Marja has yet to bring real dividends.

The thing is, Karzai’s priorities are increasingly diverging from the U.S. The resignations of Amrullah Saleh, the head of Afghanistan’s national intelligence agency, and Hanif Atmar, the Minister of Interior, while supposedly connected to security lapses at the recent Peace Jirga in Kabul, hint at deeper problems. Saleh and Atmar were said to share key priorities with the U.S., and were widely acknowledged to be among the most reliable members of the Afghan government. As always, rumors are rife about the true instigation and meaning of their resignations, and one possible consequence is that Karzai gets more direct control over key security services. Karzai, who appointed one of Afghanistan’s most notorious warlords to chair the Peace Jirga, has never seemed especially enthusiastic about either the planned Kandahar offensive or the good governance meant to follow it.

The Kandahar offensive, and subsequent claims of success, appear to be a foregone conclusion. Based on past evidence, a strong Taliban presence and bad governance after the assault seem similarly inevitable. I plan to keep a close eye on Alex Strick’s Twitter feed when the time comes.

Peace Jirga. RFERL photo.

by ZACH ROSENBERG

Sidiqua, 18 years old, cries gently as she talks about her life. At the age of three, Hezb-i-Islami rocketed her home while assaulting Kabul; the first rocket put a piece of shrapnel in her back that the local hospital had no capacity to remove. The second killed her mother, brothers and aunt. Her father, bearing permanent mental scars, cannot bear the pain of seeing her; though he has a home in Kabul, she is not allowed inside it and he often sleeps in the streets.

Without family, a crucial part of Afghan social life, Sidiqua is adrift. She is unemployed and broke. The government, which gives her 8,000 Afghanis a year — about $160, well below the cost of living — denied her request for land, Sidiqua says, because she is a woman and cannot build a house. To survive, she moves between the houses of her neighbors. “I need my mother,” she weeps, “where is my mother now?”

At an NGO-organized “Victim’s Jirga” in a Kabul hotel on Sunday, Afghans from all over the country gathered to share their grief and voice their hopes for the future. After speaking in panels organized by conflict period — the civil war, the Taliban era, and the current era — the victims were split into eight working groups to debate questions about the past and the future.

The Victim’s Jirga comes in advance of the widely-anticipated Peace Jirga, from which many hope a comprehensive reconciliation plan will emerge. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has frequently stated that the only end to the current conflict will come through negotiation, a position supported by U.S. President Barak Obama and other NATO heads of state. Negotiations have already occurred with at least one major figure in the insurgency, Hezb-i-Islami commander Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.

Sidiqua, whose family was killed by Hekmatyar’s militia, said she would not forgive Hekmatyar or accept any outcome in which he would be allowed back into Afghanistan. Other Jirga attendees who were tortured or saw their families killed by Hekmatyar and other insurgent leaders hold varying opinions on forgiving the past in exchange for future peace. But many victims face a more immediate problem: Karzai’s wholehearted acceptance of warlords means that many abusers are members of the Afghan government.

One such victim is Abdul Halim Aziz, a laborer from the Rustaq district of Takhar Province. In 1989, he says, a local warlord named Perankol Sie massacred 56 people, nine of whom were members of his family. Aziz took his family and fled until Karzai came into power, when Sie, now a parliamentarian, sent Aziz a note saying that he could return home without fear. Aziz did so. In 2006, Aziz says, Sie kidnapped two of his sons, ages six and eight, from their school, killed them and dumped their bodies in a nearby river.

When Aziz brought more than 100 villagers to Kabul to confront Sie, he was granted an audience with Karzai, who, according to Aziz, told him that he should forget the killings because he was young and could have more children. Though Karzai then issued a proclamation for a parliamentary hearing, Aziz was not allowed into parliament and the issue was left to stagnate.

“I have no expectation from the government of Afghanistan, the parliament or anyone. Whoever is in power, they are always corrupt, they are money hungry, they are power hungry,” says Aziz through a translator. Aziz says his only wishes are to move his family to safety outside of Afghanistan and push the international community to act. He looks tired as he says this; his story is documented and compelling, and he has already been interviewed several times today.

The victims are divided into eight groups of perhaps ten victims each to debate three central questions — how to remember the past, how to achieve peace and the nature of justice. Each group sent a representative up front to explain their answers, written on large sheets of butcher paper.

“By the name of Allah, I am Ahmed Shah. I am a victim of war.” Shah, wearing a traditional salwar kamiz, had written his group’s points out with the hook on his right hand. His left arm has neither a hand nor a hook. A man behind him held the microphone to his mouth. “If the victim’s views are not considered,” Shah says, “we will not have true peace in Afghanistan.”

Though the crowd at the Jirga was self-selecting, their suffering is by no means rare. After 30 years of war and brutal oppression, nearly everyone in Afghanistan has horrific stories. If they have not lost family and friends, been tortured, witnessed horrific violence, killed people — or all three — then they are close to someone who has. In a number of cases, the perpetrators at whose hands they suffered are members of the current government.

So it is not surprising that though the individual working groups differ on the exact role of government in addressing their concerns, all eight groups unanimously demand that the government purge itself of human rights violators. In doing so, the victims are seeking justice for the atrocities committed and insurance that they will never happen again.

Attempts to remove powerful human rights violators from government would, first, remove the leaders of large swaths of government, two, potentially destabilize the government. That the victims seem willing to pay the associated costs might suggest, first, that they are ignorant of the costs, though this is unlikely given their experiences; second, that their desire for justice or hopes for the future cause them to downplay the costs; third, that the current situation is not so unbearable that the costs outweigh the benefits. The desire for justice is likely; as noted earlier, this is a self-selecting group that has suffered heavily, that is willing to trust civil society and tweak the nose of both the Taliban and the government by speaking openly against both parties.

What particularly interests me is the third possibility, that they do not represent particularly extreme views and are willing to pay the costs of greater instability in exchange for greater potential stability down the road. This suggests that they find the current tenuous security situation relatively bearable, and are more concerned with government malfeasance than the Taliban insurgency.

As Reuters notes, Jirga attendees are divided as to whether or not to talk with the Taliban. If victims of violence are accorded a special voice in the upcoming Peace Jirga, it is unclear how their representatives will weigh in on that issue.

Though the Peace Jirga is not tasked to deliver justice, it is a question that will undoubtedly weigh heavily on attendees: if achieving peace comes at the cost of justice, or vice versa, which is the preferred outcome?

Altimur TOC. Zach Rosenberg photo.

by ZACH ROSENBERG

“Fuck! IED strike on Anvil!”

A truck from Anvil Company, a unit patrolling in the neighboring district of Baraki Barak, had been hit with a massive command wire IED.  They were reporting an unknown number of casualties. Two F-16s over nearby Wardak province were ordered south to provide overwatch; someone called out the coordinates of the stricken truck, and the entire room recited them in unison, then dissolved back into individual bubbles of speech.

“That’s the same place as that IED this morning,” Fellinger noted.

“Attention in the TOC!” All the talking ceased at once. “Bulldog Seven believes there were injuries on the vehicle.” For a half-second the room was quiet but for muttered curses; after a second elapsed, the room had recovered back to full volume. Fellinger and a subordinate discussed instituting a connection blackout — whenever serious injuries have occurred, the military blocks Internet and public phone lines to prevent the news from escaping before the relevant families have been called. The back of the TOC was crowded with people coordinating the medevac, which arrived on scene in less than 10 minutes.

In Charkh, the insurgent jumped on a motorbike and took off; it was speculated that he heard one of the assault team’s helicopters before the team was in place. TF-10 was in pursuit until they too were hit by an IED and reported wounded. A second medevac mission was ordered.

“Alright, this is a bust,” Fellinger said.

“God damn it, we were one minute away!” Corn said.

The tropical island was replaced by an image from a Shadow UAV, a small Army-controlled drone. The Shadow was directed towards Anvil’s burning truck. The truck was equipped with a Mk19, a large grenade launcher; Anvil reported that grenade rounds were cooking off, and that the truck looked set to burn all day. In the image beamed by the Shadow, the truck burned brightly

“Attention on the TOC!” Immediate silence ensued. Animal, the AH-64s supporting the SF raid, reported a large number of military-aged males, who quickly split up and go in individual directions. “They know exactly what they’re doing, sir. We’ll be chasing them for years.”

It seems that nearly all soldiers in Afghanistan chew tobacco, and Fellinger is no exception. He stood near the door of the TOC, observing with arms folded, occasionally spitting brown residue into a trashcan.

From the beginning there were problems with communication. Much of the TOC uses mIRC, an instant message program, to communicate with command centers and combatants, but some use old-fashioned radio. Because the radio is line-of-sight, there are many large radio blind spots throughout the country. TF-10 is outside of the TOC’s jurisdiction; the TOC is helping out for this mission, but TF-10 does is under no obligation to send them updates.  Consequently, there were long periods of darkness from the SF team, and their exact location was frequently uncertain.

The Predator focuses on another suspicious group of men, 200 meters from the last reported position of Nomad, a counter-IED column that linked up with TF-10. Everyone has an opinion on who the group might be. “It looks to me like they’re trying to set up an ambush,” says one person. Due to communication problems, they could be anybody: are they hostile?  ANP? Nomad?

“Those cannot be our guys,” said Corn. “They can’t run like that with their gear on.” The mysterious group moves into a building, which the Predator circles.

A half-hour later, darkness has fallen outside and the TOC has calmed down. The Predator circled another building.  The Shadow UAV has left, replaced once again by the serene tropics. The ANA, who usually have a bored-looking representative sitting against the wall, has gone home for the day. The day’s serious injuries have already touched down at Bagram Air Field, waiting for transportation onward to the U.S. Fellinger, waiting for his convoy to Shank to visit his less injured soldiers, quietly talked football with two subordinates. With everyone relatively relaxed, other quiet conversations have sprung up. One of the Air Force’s Joint Terminal Attack Controllers (JTACs) left his air support — now two F-15Es — in the hands of his apprentice to tell me about his job.

Fellinger disappeared, and Corn ambled around the TOC, telling anecdotes and announcing significant events. The motorbike on which the insurgent fled reappeared at his house. From the center of the TOC, Corn announces that TF-10 “is going to pursue Fuckstick. That’s his new callsign. Fuckstick.”

Corn was clearly disappointed in Fuckstick’s prior escape. The insurgent had been the target of a number of prior SF raids, but always gotten away. Tonight’s raid was the closest yet. “I think the man sold his soul to the devil,” Corn said. “He’s doing too many things right.”

Elsewhere in the TOC, things have returned to normal. The frenzied excitement of the afternoon has been replaced by the ennui of routine. Anvil requested arrangements to tow their stricken truck; the back axle was intact, so it did not appear difficult. The suspicious group, it was decided, was actually Nomad. A radio operator idly jabbed his combat knife over and over again into the wooden table. Another, an injured infantryman, described his impatience with his assignment as he waited for his injury to heal.

In the darkness, one element of TF-10 — they have broken into two parts — approached and surrounded the building.  Gunfire will appear as a flash on the Predator screen, a Sergeant explained. “This guy is pretty violent. If he’s in there, we’re probably going to see some fireworks.” Someone emerges from the house, walks into an outhouse on the corner, and walks back.

In the TOC, all eyes glued themselves to the Predator feed as TF-10 reported themselves ready to storm the door.Despite the Predator’s infrared vision, the individual SF team members appeared blended into their surroundings. The house is surrounded, like many Afghan homes, by a large mud wall. TOC personnel speculated where the team would breach.

“It’s the door painted with, ‘The Door,’” someone opined

“It’s the one with the welcome mat,” someone else tossed out.

“They’re SF, man. They put the fucking cloaking device on,” Corn said.

The second team arrived and stacked up at the main entrance to the compound. From the TOC, they arrived in total silence. They may have knocked, as someone came out of the house and opened the door. Quickly, TF-10 flooded the compound, running up and into the house, emerging on the roof and over walls. After just a few minutes, they trickle out empty-handed. The insurgent has escaped again.

People watching the raid left one by one.

“Fuck it,” Corn said, “I’m going to eat a cheese sandwich.”

Burning trucks. Zach Rosenberg photo.

by ZACH ROSENBERG

The building at Forward Operating Base Altimur — in Mohamad Agha district, Logar province — that contains the Tactical Operations Center is surrounded by a fence topped with barbed wire. To contact someone in the building, the unauthorized — interpreters, reporters, contractors — gather outside the gate, waiting for some kind soul with access to whom they can petition:  So-and-so is inside, can you please tell him I’m outside?

Most with access will readily agree to ask around on the unauthorized’s behalf; they are used to the routine. If the desired party is not available, as frequently occurs, the kind soul will open the door and step outside, holding the door open, announce the outcome, and duck back in. If not for their ready conduit, some key members of FOB Altimur would never be found, their existence only found through their effect on the battlefield, like a distant planet only known through its effects on its parent star.

Outside the door of the TOC is a special nook for a coffee pot, a wanted poster, a rack for weapons and, above that, a rack for the cellphones that a large sign on the door warns strictly against carrying through. All who enter the TOC pass underneath a samurai sword, pinned unobtrusively above the door: the U.S. Army’s equivalent of mistletoe. The first thing to catch a visitor’s eye is a bank of LCD screens against the opposite wall. The screens display maps containing various nuggets of information, save one that displays a serene picture of a tropical island and a sailboat against a cloudless sky.

Major Stacy Corn laughed when asked about the island picture. He didn’t choose it, but he claimed to like it. Corn is usually the ranking officer in the TOC, and the most active. While the other TOC personnel alternate between sitting still or rushing around, Corn rambles back and forth, constantly ordering, delegating, interjecting, requesting, listening, cursing, laughing, joking, speculating and relating anecdotes. As such he is often the moving center of the TOC; even sitting down he is tracking the conversations around him, laughing and tossing out comments. Once he paused after telling a typically curse-laden story, made eye contact with me, ripped off his name tag and said “my name is spelled ‘F-E-L-L-I-N-G-E-R.’”  Then he laughed.

Lieutenant Colonel Paul Fellinger is the battalion commander. He bears a passing resemblance to John Malkovich, were the actor to shave his head. Though also in constant motion, he moves quietly and quickly. Several times during my evening in the TOC, I was surprised to find him standing next to me, looking intently at a subordinate or computer screen. His presence in the TOC is unpredictable, as he is frequently out representing the battalion at this meeting or that briefing. He speaks with the calm conviction of somebody with ideas, and he has a reputation as a sharp thinker.

One day in late April a riot began outside Pul-i-Alam, the capital of Logar Province in which sixteen fuel trucks were set aflame. The black smoke was visible for miles and hung in the air for hours. The riot began in response to a Special Forces raid the night before in which three civilians were killed; one was a schoolteacher and mullah at the local mosque. Such raids, it must be noted, are considered a potent and necessary weapon by American troops and are deeply unpopular among Afghans. Two companies of Afghan National Army troops were dispatched to deal with the riot. Fellinger’s convoy, originally destined for a press conference with the provincial government in Pul-i-Alam, was instead dispatched to nearby FOB Shank for several hours of meetings.

On his way back to Altimur, Fellinger kept one eye on a broken-down car — were they faking? Could it be a bomb? — and the other on two CH-47s lifting off from Altimur. The CH-47s, escorted by two AH-64 attack helicopters, were headed south towards the town of Charkh, capital of neighboring Charkh district.

Charkh is a town with a significant Taliban presence. The populace there is less helpful towards U.S. and GIROA (“jai-row-ah,” as Americans calls the government of Afghanistan) forces than neighboring towns. On the date in question, Army intelligence officers reported that local families had vacated the town center, a sure sign of a pending attack, and that locals who tend shops at the tiny American outpost there had requested to close their shops due to threats.  Charkh is a town known to contain many high-level insurgents.

HUMINT had placed one particularly egregious insurgent at a specific house in Charkh. Thought to play a major role in fomenting local violence, the insurgent has been the subject of a number of Special Forces raids. The insurgent had been kicked out of the feared Haqqani network for his brutality. He had thus far escaped capture, and this had gained him a measure of notoriety among local intelligence personnel.

The CH-47s lifted off with a combined team of Special Forces from Task Force 10 and Afghan National Police that were to dismount nearby, walk to the house, observe and then raid it, capturing the insurgent. The flight time was in single digits; despite the enormity of the country, significant attacks often take place within sight of a FOB or Combat Outpost. As soon as Fellinger arrived at Altimur, he rushed to the TOC.

Orbiting 15,000 feet over the house, a Predator drone beamed a live image of the insurgent’s house to a screen in the corner of the Altimur TOC.  The SF/ANP team reported that a man matching the insurgent’s description had gone outside and was pretending to garden.  The crowded TOC was glued to the Predator feed amidst a din of speech — conversations, people talking into phones, into radios, commands given and acknowledged. Suddenly a yell cut through from the other side of the TOC:

“Fuck! IED strike on Anvil!”

To be continued.

Related:
Zach in Afghanistan: The Aeromedical Evacuation Shuffle
Zach in Afghanistan: The Lament of Reach 236
Zach in Afghanistan: Inside the Air Force’s European Air Ops Center
Zach in Afghanistan: The Mil Air Gods Frown
Zach in Afghanistan: Stuck in Germany
Zach in Afghanistan: Rota Layover

Patient loading. Zach Rosenberg photo.

by ZACH ROSENBERG

This mission is extra-urgent. Instead of the usual hour given to Alpha alert launches, flight nurse Major Richard Foote and his Aeromedical Evacuation (AE) team have only a half hour to set up an airplane, receive four patients and get into the air. Foote’s AE team, composed of two flight nurses and three medical technicians assembles in the hut’s tiny conference room for a hasty briefing.

Nothing is known about the four patients, save that they are coming from Bagram’s base hospital and that one is accompanied by a Critical Care Air Transport Team (CCATT, or “C-cat”), required by only the least stable patients.  “It’s pointless to speculate, to try and guess about our patients,” Major Foote says.  Though the patients would normally be brought to the massive Landstuhl hospital complex in Germany, a volcanic ash cloud has shut down European airspace; the patients will instead be brought to Balad Air Base in Iraq. The team has never been to Balad and has no way back, but unusual destinations and uncertain conclusions are a fact of the AE life.

Today the team is in luck; a Charleston-based C-17 idles on the flightline outside of the hut. Though it was meant to haul an MP unit on its first leg home from a six-month deployment, AE has commandeered it. It is an abnormal occurrence: AE usually has a C-130 at their beck and call, an aircraft perfectly suited to their usual role of ferrying patients to Bagram from remote areas of Afghanistan. From there, a Ramstein-based AE team will fly down to pick them up. It is uncommon but not especially rare for a Bagram AE team to fly outside Afghanistan, depending on the circumstances — Foote has been to Germany seven times.  Because flying to Balad requires a long detour around Iran, the larger, faster C-17 is preferred for today’s mission. AE teams almost always have priority.

The AE team races through C-17 procedures — electrical outlet locations, potential emergency scenarios, etc. — and rushes to perform preflight checks on their equipment. The AE team carries equipment for nearly every scenario: stretchers, a stretcher rack, a defibrillator, two suction machines, IV machines, oxygen tanks — 600 pounds, in all. It is enough that AE can deal with most eventualities. The gear is not always the newest or most capable, but it is reliable.

The CCAT team brings another 900 pounds of gear. A CCATT comes along when a patient needs special care beyond what the AE team can provide. Whereas the AE team specializes in adapting aircraft for patients, CCATT is only focused on patient care. They always travel with an AE team for that reason.  A CCATT is composed of a respiratory nurse, a critical care nurse and a doctor in a specialized field. They train at civilian trauma centers in cities like Baltimore, Cincinnati, St. Louis.

An aircraft can be a dangerous environment for a wounded person. Pressure changes, turbulence, the shock of moving, limited supplies — these are all concerns, and though the AE and CCAT teams do their best to address potential issues, there is only so much to be done. In the civilian world, a patient is not usually moved by air until they are stable, no matter how grave the need. As Major Foote notes, “The idea of stable here and stable back home is different.”  Breathing problems, bleeding and high pain levels are no obstacle. “We never decline a patient from an FOB.”

There are three AE teams at Bagram that each fly three or four times a week.  There are three more AE teams at Kandahar, and a few more scattered around the country. Though Bagram is the clearinghouse for all casualties leaving Afghanistan, both Bagram and Kandahar have Level III trauma centers and various strengths. Kandahar also has a long runway and a major base; there are various theories about why patients aren’t flown directly from there to Ramstein.

Sergeant Brad Diecker, a medical tech on today’s Bravo alert, explains that they could, in theory, fly nonstop to the fabled burn unit at Lackland AFB. A law student at the University of Dayton, he joined the Air Force Reserves straight out of high school. Diecker tells me about the only patient he keeps track of: a Canadian soldier, energetic and humorous after being shot in a firefight. “Our job is different. We don’t want to work because it means someone’s been hurt.”

Supplies are unloaded into the C-17, and the crew sets up with the rapid ease of experience. Stretcher racks are set up, oxygen hoses and electrical cables are connected, everything is stowed. Within the half-hour time limit, everything is ready. The medical teams wait on the bus from the hospital.

The hospital bus arrives with all patients conscious. The first patient fell off a wall and broke his collarbone. The second is a Special Forces soldier with acute pancreatitis. A contractor with a heart attack is CCATT’s patient. There’s also a young Marine with a gunshot wound to the chest and grenade fragments in his arm. As soon as the last patient is strapped in they close the ramp and blast off.

Two days later, the medical teams have not yet returned from Iraq. In their absence, their AE squadron holds another of their frequent parties. Because the AE crews return from Germany bearing fresh fruit and milk which they trade with other squadrons for favors, tonight’s party features a band and BBQ, as well as fresh pineapple. An AE team from Kandahar is stranded in town; a Bagram team returns from a mission and joins the party.

The Alpha alert team is there, as always, and a C-130 awaits them on the ramp.

Related:
Zach in Afghanistan: The Lament of Reach 236
Zach in Afghanistan: Inside the Air Force’s European Air Ops Center
Zach in Afghanistan: The Mil Air Gods Frown
Zach in Afghanistan: Stuck in Germany
Zach in Afghanistan: Rota Layover