Victory Day

Afghan's are celebrating some victory day (over Russia I think). So they have Wednesday-Friday off. That fine by me because I'm ready for a break. It's been a frustrating week. Afghan politicians are so greedy. Their strategy for any given policy seems to be whatever maximizes the amount money we dump into their country. Even if the solution is worse off for them. It's been one of those weeks where I can't imagine this country not falling into chaos when we leave.

Fine Cuisine

We went to the MOI today. Nothing special, just a normal day where we have a list of items that need to be discussed. For example coordinating biometric enrollers showing up at some place that our Generals have made a priority.

Afterward we walked to a French restaurant for lunch. It was incredibly beautiful. Run by an older french gentleman and his wife (who looked afghan but spoke french).

It's hard to describe how nice it was there. The weather was perfect so we sat outside. The other patrons were westerners - presumably european by the way they were dressed. There was a group that came in after yoga. And there was a group of what looked like back-packers. I didn't really listen to the conversation, I just enjoyed the peacefulness of the environment. It was surrounded by walls and a steel gate so it felt relatively safe. There was only one questionable building that overlooked the outdoor portion that could house a sniper position. But I still felt relatively safe because I think that building was behind the second of the MOI checkpoints.

There are so few opportunities to relax here, when it does happen the feeling is incredibly powerful.

MCIT

Today I visited the Afghan National Data Center (ANDF) at the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) with LTC Anwar. That place is very nice. From the outside it looks like a normal trashy building, but the inside has a modern data center. I'm trying to convince Anwar to move our mainframes there so he doesn't have to worry about power and generators and dust, etc. He seemed moderately warm to the idea.

The people there were very smart and educated. It's refreshing to know that the country has those kind of people and that they've found their way into the government. Whoever ends up in charge of the country, I hope they retain the educated workforce. They are doing a great job of propelling the country into the 21st century.

Here's a picture of Anwar during the tour. They made us where shoe protectors to keep dust from falling off our shoes.

Pashtunwali

Long day today. We picked up some biometric kits and an officer at MOI then drove out the the detention facility (ANDF) at Pol-e-charki prison. We got there just before lunch. The Kandex commander gave is lunch in his office. It was basically the same mean I've had the last couple of times I was there. And it was just as good. As usual, I ate too much and still only ate half of what they gave me.

The officer we brought with us checked the configuration on all the kits they had there. It took about 3 hours. MAJ Perez took a tour of the prison. I hung around outside an watched the prisoners. They were pretty interesting to watch. I had a pashtun interpreter with me. He was telling me what the prisoners were yelling at each other about. He said they were just talking politely asking how each was doing. How their health was. They stared at me for a little, but mostly they ignored me. The interpreter said they he didn't hear them saying anything about us. He said that Pashtuns were very respectful people in general. He told me that once one of the nastiest detainees was yelling and cursing at him but the elders told him to be quiet.

Many were playing soccer. A couple of times they kicked the (mostly flat) soccer ball over the razor wire accidentally. I threw it back to them. An Army major went and talked to them for a bit about their conditions. The only thing they really complained about were their shoes. Apparently they wear out fast. They are more like sandals than shoes.

The interpreter was a young American from New York. His parents were from Pakistan. I talked to him for a while about what he's learned whiles he's been visiting the prison for the last few months. (Not interrogation wise - I don't think they do that at ANDF.) He talked about how tribal this culture was. In Iraq, although there is sectarian violence, they have strong nationalistic feelings. There's much less nationalism in Afghanistan. Most people align with their tribes. The prisoners, who are mostly Pashtuns, used to run the country. Now all the Army and guards are composed of Tajiks. He also mentioned that the guards seem scared of the pashtun detainees. All in all, they were very interesting to watch. It's hard to describe, but they didn't really look like prisoners. They looked more like a tribe of men - all ages - who happen to be stuck behind a fence for the moment.

Talking with this guy, it sounded like working out the political complexities of getting the tribes to agree to work peacefully together to form a single nation-state may be insurmountable. He also reiterated something I've heard several times before, that this country would crumble apart if it isn't run by a Pashtun.

Lecture

This morning we had a meeting with LTG Yarman, the head of CID. He's a very good leader - I think I've mentioned him before in my blog. We were talking with him about the process for investigating biometric matches. It was a long conversation, mostly because of translations. After a couple of hours, when our business was concluded, LTG Yarmand wanted to talk about a really nasty incident where NATO forces killed some civilians.

http://www.theage.com.au/world/us-troops-accused-of-coverup-over-womens-killings-20100405-rn44.html

Min. Atmar had sent him down to investigate and he gave us a detailed account of what happened. He drew a diagram on the whiteboard and showed us what happened where and at what time. The incident was so bad because the soldiers involved knew they made a mistake and apparently tried to cover it up. Yarmand's point as he went though this was not to point out how screwed up the operation was, but to show at each step how the failure was likely related to a misunderstanding of the Afghan culture, and that the onus is on us to understand their culture if we are going to be performing such dangerous operations.

I've known about that incident for a while, but fortunately it hasn't hit the mainstream media hard. Stuff like that makes our job so much harder. Things are bad enough with nearly every person I know distrusting Karzai and his intentions. It is true that tensions are building between many Coalition Forces and afghan politicians. At the my level relations are good because we've because we've built personal relationships with our afghan counterparts. Yarmand for example knows how hard we are working to improve their capabilities and appreciates our efforts. I don't know what's going on at the head-of-state level that is causing things to sour. Except the fraudulent election. That has almost every American I know upset.

M4

Today was a meeting day. I was even called into a meeting while I was walking to a meeting. The meeting I got called into was pretty cool though. They call it the CUB: Commanders Update Briefing. The commander being Gen McCrystal (whom they refer to as M4). It was a Video Conference with many coalition generals and the ambassador. It was neat to hear them work though the problems across the country. It makes movies like The Green Zone seem pretty ridiculous.

Here's a picture someone took of me traversing the dangerous part of the hike yesterday:

Ghar

Friday is low battle rhythm day. We don't have to be in until after lunch. So much of the directorate hiked up Mt. Ghar this morning. Mt. Ghar is located at KMTC. It's the hill that the firing ranges are up against. They don't run the ranges on Friday.



It took about an hour-fifteen to get to the top. It was pretty steep in many places. The trail would be off-limits to causal hikers in America. I was tired from the beginning. Of course I don't work out so I've gotten a bit out of shape. It was a great hike though. Climbing was easier near the top. Perhaps because it was so steep I had to move slow. Here I am enjoying the view at the top:



Here we are leaving. That ridge is even worse than it looks. One side is a drop-off and the ridge itself doesn't have may footholds. This is the part where you don't want to look down.



We stopped at Camp Phoenix on the way back for lunch. We also checked out their bazaar. It was huge. Much bigger than Eggers' bazaar.

We made it back to Eggers right on time, at 1300.

Bye SMSGT Jackson

Today was a fairly slow day. I didn't really go anywhere today. I worked on several more contracts and invoices for those contracts. I drove over to visit Walter after lunch to return something I borrowed. We had a bottle of water in the Beer Garden at ISAF. It's actually a very nice garden. I should have taken a picture for you.

This evening they had a going away party for an Airforce guy that's leaving. We ordered Lebanese food, which was terrible. What a waste of money. Don't order from The Grill if you come here. The party itself was nice, but it's hard to get all teary eyed when the guy was only here 6 months or less.

Anwar's Visit

More contracts work today. I'm finally starting to feel like I got a handle on the ~15 contracts that were turned over to me. I got my Contracting Officer Representative (COR) certification letter yesterday.

Normally I wouldn't be interested in doing contracts work but these are small contracts. An example might be leasing a vehicle. It's a small and simple contract, but it still takes maintenance because the finance process here is so cumbersome. The contracts I'm working on are not for Biometrics, but for another group of afghan police. The same group that I got weapons for a while back. They are really good guys so I don't mind helping them navigate the system here. In return they save more lives than anyone else I've met here.

The Airforce guys brought Anwar over to our office to visit today. I hadn't been to MOI in a couple of weeks. He was happy to see me - I got a big hug. I promised him I'd start coming over more to MOI when he found a technical person for me to train on their computer systems.

Here's a picture of Anwar enjoying our DFAC icecream:



Here's a picture I took the other day of a traditional Afghan meal someone had setup at the bazaar:

Steaks

The previous two days were uneventful. Almost all contact and admin work. Lots of reviewing documents and meetings. Today was more fun. I walked over to the embassy for a meeting. I brought some lollipops for the kids that are always out on the street. The meeting itself was funny. It was about the National ID card program. The organizer of the meeting said she needs a couple of days to review the documents so she'll schedule another meeting then. But I was happy to get out so I didn't mind. I walked over to ISAF afterward and had lunch with Walter. Then he gave me a ride back in one of his beatup vehicles. This evening I got to do something very cool as well. I'll refrain form saying saying exactly what, but if you get to know the right people there are opportunities to see a little more here.

Don't Shoot the Sheep

Today was a long day at the range at Camp Julian. Oddly there were sheep herding kids around the range. And they'd come up to us and ask for food or something. Eventually an ANA guy shooed them and their sheep off the range.





Camp Julian is near this bombed out palace. I think it's called the Queens Palace. I don't know what the story is with it.

Stuck at the Bank

It seems banks are slow even in Afghanistan. I went to a bank today with an Afghan we work with to try and figure out why he hadn't gotten our funds transfer. I didn't strictly need to go because I was there with an American contractor who was taking care of everything. I went because it's easier to get stuff done with someone in uniform. Also, it was important to show the Afghan that we are serious about trying to get him paid, even though it's probably NTM-A finance's fault. (The finance office sucks by the way. They actually work bankers hours which is really frustrating for those of us working the standard 12-hour days trying to get stuff done.)

Anyway, so here I am, sitting in a bank for an hour in full battle gear. If I go to MOI or someplace like that I'll leave my armor in the car. But since the bank was on an average busy street, and we just parked on the streat, I had to stay jocked up. I'm sure I looked odd by the way all the afghans were looking at me. It felt plenty safe though. There were a few cops around directing traffic and the bank had security.

The afghan was a really nice old man. Especially considering that he was supposed to be paid last September. He said a bunch of stuff to me, but my translator basically said the he was just thanking me for making Afghanistan a better place and that he will wait for us to get him his money. I felt bad that he came all the way over here for no reason. I'm going to go harass contracts and finance tomorrow to see what went so wrong here.

Nothing much else today. Just several boring meetings.

Grapes

Yesterday I walked down an alley that I use every day and for the first time I noticed its covered by a grape vine:



We convoyed out to KMTC today. We had lunch at Warehouse first. Their fillet and potatoes weren't that good today. But they had great bread and cheese as usual. They also had a couple of mostly-intact cooked pigs sitting out on a big platter. I suppose they were just for show, but the cooked smell emanating from their flesh was not appetizing.

We spend an hour or so at KMTC. We didn't bring an interpreter this time so it was slow going. Mostly I just hung around outside watching the afghan recruits and wondered what kind of life they came from before joining the Army.

We stopped my Camp Alamo for a while to check out their facilities for the people who are going to be staying out there for a week or so at a time. Although its an army run camp, its actually nice. The showers and restrooms look better than at Eggers. Berthing is in a shared tent, but it seems relatively quiet and peaceful. KMTC is surrounded by beautiful hills.

Scrubbed

I didn't get a chance to zero my rifle. The mission was scrubbed for some reason. Maybe the weather because it's been raining the last couple of days.

I've spent the last couple of days at the office. Nothing exciting, just paperwork and Contracts training.

I did spend some time today cleaning my rifle. Loading ammo. Mounting magazine pouches on my IBA.

We got an email saying that we can't walk to ISAF anymore without wearing our IBA. Well, actually we are allowed, but ISAF won't let us in anymore so it would be pointless. ISAF HQ rules are that you have to wear body armor when you are walking around the green-zone. So they started enforcing those rules on all their visitors as well.

Who's Laughing Now

Remember I was making fun of the Air Force guys for having to take remedial shooting training so they wouldn't be confined to base? Well, my directorate decided to sign me up as well, even though its not required. So I spent all evening in powerpoint hell going over basic riflemen skills.

However, the timing is actually fortuitous because I got my M16 today. I requested one from the Navy a couple of months ago because I keep going on missions where a long-gun is required. Normally I borrow someones but that's not a great solution. Now I finally have my own weapon. Getting my weapon was somewhat screwed up because the guy who had it at ISAF had to go home on emergency leave. Walter actually found it for me and the roommates dug around and found most of my stuff. There are a couple of things missing like a cleaning kit and a strap, but I can buy that at the PX.

Anyway, this marksmanship class will give me a chance to zero-it. There aren't many opportunities to go to a range here so I'm glad this came along.

The rest of the day involved biometrics program planning, and trying to fix some problems with the IED program. We inherited some serious contract problems that we are trying to fix. I'm having to do special contracts training to take over the tasks. That's some boring stuff too.