Tag: Afghanistan

A working farm village in Tarok Kalache, Afghanistan.

The village of Tarok Kalache was laden with IEDs and homemade explosives (HME) comprised of 50-gal drums of deadly munitions. Special Operations forces conducted a successful clearing raid on the village. Then Flynn introduced the Mine Clearing Line Charge (MICLIC), a rocket-projected explosive line charge which provides a “close-in” breaching capability for maneuver forces. The plan was for one team to clear a 600-meter path with MICLICs from one of his combat outposts to Tarok Kalache. “It was the only way I could give the men confidence to go back out.”

Not long after, Flynn shared one insight into the burden of command: “I literally cringed when we dropped bombs on these places — not because I cared about the enemy we were killing or the HME [home-made explosives] destroyed, but I knew the reconstruction would consume the remainder of my deployed life.”

Unsound, or no method at all?

“I looked at him, lost in astonishment. There he was before me, in motley, as though he had absconded from a troupe of mimes, enthusiastic, fabulous. His very existence was improbable, inexplicable, and altogether bewildering. He was an insoluble problem. It was inconceivable how he had existed, how he had succeeded in getting so far, how he had managed to remain– why he did not instantly disappear. `I went a little farther,’ he said, `then still a little farther–till I had gone so far that I don’t know how I’ll ever get back. Never mind. Plenty time. I can manage. You take Kurtz away quick–quick–I tell you.’ The glamour of youth enveloped his parti-coloured rags, his destitution, his loneliness, the essential desolation of his futile wanderings. For months–for years–his life hadn’t been worth a day’s purchase; and there he was gallantly, thoughtlessly alive, to all appearances indestructible solely by the virtue of his few years and of his unreflecting audacity. I was seduced into something like admiration– like envy. Glamour urged him on, glamour kept him unscathed. He surely wanted nothing from the wilderness but space to breathe in and to push on through. His need was to exist, and to move onwards at the greatest possible risk, and with a maximum of privation. If the absolutely pure, uncalculating, unpractical spirit of adventure had ever ruled a human being, it ruled this bepatched youth. I almost envied him the possession of this modest and clear flame. It seemed to have consumed all thought of self so completely, that even while he was talking to you, you forgot that it was he– the man before your eyes–who had gone through these things. I did not envy him his devotion to Kurtz, though. He had not meditated over it. It came to him, and he accepted it with a sort of eager fatalism. I must say that to me it appeared about the most dangerous thing in every way he had come upon so far.

I know, I know.  The heads.  You’re looking at the heads.

Kabul, September, 2010

A new diplomatic cable leaked by Wikileaks shows top commanders in Afghanistan wrangling over the issue of what to call yet another troop escalation to re-gain footing in their faltering nine-year effort to control the country.  “The Surge” used in Iraq was a fresh, sufficiently masculine and strength exuding name for the troop escalation, without actually referring to a “troop escalation” and being divorced from connotations of the ensuing gore and violence.  Public opinion tolerated, and was even perhaps vaguely stirred by “the surge,” which struck a nice balance between the need to project strength prudently while avoiding the pale of Rumsfeld’s premature “shock and awe” rhetoric so many years into an ageing war.

But by the time “the surge” was re-deployed by General Petraeus in Afghanistan, it had already become somewhat stale-sounding, and uninspiring.  Similarly, when George H.W. Bush invaded Iraq the first time, it was dramatically named “Operation Desert Storm,” with the troops being led by Stormin’ Norman Schwarzkopf, but using the same name for the second invasion by George W. Bush simply was out of the question, so the second military action was idealistically re-branded “Operation Iraqi Liberation Freedom.”

In its tenth year, support for the Afghanistan war is wearing thin, and “the surge” branding is thought by commanders to be losing appeal.  Cables revealed that among candidates for re-branding the latest troop escalation (and reasons for rejection) were:  

The billow and the swell weren’t manly enough.  The torrent seemed too excessive and “raging.”  The throb reminded everyone of headaches and boners.  The blast was too violently explosive.  The gush implied a loss of control — open wounds and broken pipes gush.  The pulse reminded everyone that Dick Cheney hasn’t one.  The uptick sounded small bore; plus it’s often used in the phrase “the uptick in violence.”  The heave was associated with vomiting and death throes.  The punch, the prod, the squash, and the squish sounded too aggressive, hectoring even.  The push and the shove seemed rude.  The squeeze were a band from the eighties.  Everyone agreed it was “great song-writing.”  The goose seemed “too butt grabby.”   The thrust and the poke were too phallic.  The press and the dig raised some eyebrows, but were somehow vague or basketbally.  The dragooning reminded everyone of good old-fashioned browbeating and rendition.  The ram, the steamroller, the bulldozer, pouring it on,  going to town on, putting the screws to, etc.,  were dismissed as signs of growing frustration with the brainstorming process.  It really was difficult to find a phrase having all the qualities of “the surge” without the negative associations.  Finally, one commander suggested, “Howzabout just tellin’ ’em  we’re “puttin’ some starch in our shorts?“”

The cables indicated that Petraeus will soon be announcing the nudge, something that can be done to persuade and encourage friends and allies without appearing overly domineering.

In monsoon season warm air flows north from the Arabian Sea until it collides with the Hindu Kush in western Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan.  

Brickmaker, Kabul, 2010

Lashkar Gah, Helmand Province, Afghanistan

An Afghan girl holds a toy received from US soldiers who have been delivering aid, including blankets, shoes and radios to villagers in Paktika Province, Afghanistan. (BBC)

From Kathy Kelly in Kabul:

While the US may be the world’s single super power in military terms, it faces another super power: the voices of war-weary millions who detest violence and killing. In Afghanistan, in the United States, and among the populations of countries whose governments have joined the NATO coalition, millions of people are calling for an end to war in Afghanistan.

On New Year’s Day, 01/01/11, people around the world are invited to raise their voices, through Facebook, Twitter, Free Conference calls, Skype, and blogs at several websites in a massive refusal to accept the Afghanistan war any longer. Let your New Year’s resolution be to stand for the people and end wars by sending a digital or spoken peacemaking message to people in Afghanistan.  By amassing millions of messages calling for peace, we can create yet another indication that ordinary people within and beyond Afghanistan have had enough of war.

NATO patrol in Oruzgan Province, Afghanistan