Outside the Wire

Spent most of the day out meeting with Afghans. It was a really fun day. We went outside the 'green' zone, but still within some other zone that is considered moderately safe. I'm not sure why they say that though because it looks plenty open to me. I met with several afghans both high and low level. It definitely interesting and stimulating. I was trying to remember all the nuances they told us like don't show your feet, try the food they offer, etc. It seemed like every time we sat down to talk they were serving us chai tea. Which is good, except the restroom facilities aren't really up to American standards. I had a Kabob for lunch. It was spicy chunks of beef in a long piece of nan bread that is folded over the meat. To eat it you unfold the nan bread and tear off pieces then grab and eat a chunk of meat with the piece you tore off.

We stopped by the Afghan criminal investigative unit (think CSI). They are hurting. Unfortunately their advisor/mentor is EUPOL. So they are chronically short of supplies, and people. For example, they have a hard time just getting fingerprint plastic or crime scene tape. I felt bad for them because they were asking us to help them get supplies when all we went over there for was to learn about their fingerprint processes. My supervisor said that America is really the only organization here that is spending money, so his Romanian EUPOL mentor probably just can't do anything to help. He said he could probably justify some supplies as part of his biometrics effort. But it really exemplifies all the problems this government has. What's the use in having a large biometrics database if the police don't even have robust crime scene investigators to pull prints and such? I felt so bad for him I wanted to get on the net and order some fingerprint plastic for him myself.

At the end of the day I stayed back to talk to some young cop who was assigned to guard the lab while my supervisor went to go argue with some afghan general. He seemed like a really good kid. He'd been a policeman for about 4 years. He didn't seem the have much authority or power, but he was nice enough. Some other guy had to translate though because his english wasn't that great.

All in all I'm feeling overwhelmed with all the acronyms and politics. It's going to take a while to learn all the moving pieces for this program. I'm starting to understand what we (as deployed servicemen) need to do to help this country. I'm still not sold that we should be doing it, but I am sold that we are doing a good thing. There are several hard pieces. One of them is just finding good soldiers/sailors to help this process along. My supervisor is really good at this job. But I've seen other people of the same rank/experience that just don't want to get involved and don't want to go outside the wire to work with the afghans on their problems. So maybe that is what McCrystal is hoping, that by piling so many people into the country, there might be enough good leaders in the mix to get this government functioning properly.

Right now I'm just hoping to get out of this tent soon and into a regular room. I took some pictures of the snow this morning, but I can't upload them yet. Internet here costs $70-$100 per month for really slow service. I think that's a ripoff but I'll probably subscribe once I can set my laptop on a desk (there are no desks/chairs in the tent and I'm on a top bunk). The ISAF base has free wifi. I heard Gen Caldwell was trying to setup Eggers like that as well. I hope so - that's the least he could do considering I was pulled away from my family to spend a year here.

Oh, I forgot to mention that I went to ISAF yesterday afternoon for a video conference. You can walk there from Eggers. It's only about a mile away and still in the green zone. We drove though because of the snow. They have a really nice area called the beer garden. Unfortunately they don't serve beer there.