The American Spectator : August in Kabul

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August in Kabul

By William R. Polk from the November 2010 issue

A foreign policy veteran reports on his fact-finding visit to war-torn Afghanistan.

Kabul, Afghanistan, August 24, 2010
My first visit to Afghanistan back in 1962 began driving up the Khyber Pass from Pakistan. That was the proper way to arrive since, as a boy, I had learned from Kipling that the Khyber was where the wild tribesmen hung out. On the rocky walls of the pass were the signs of the passing of the British and Indian regiments who for a century had been fighting them.

I was going to Afghanistan to write what would be the first American national policy paper on the country; so Kabul, then a sleepy little city of about 50,000, was to be the jumping-off place for my 2,000-mile trip around the country by Jeep, horseback, and the occasional plane. I fell in love with Afghanistan from the first. To me it is the Wild East.

A decade later, in the 1970s, Kabul had hardly changed, but the regime had. Afghanistan was in a sort of golden age of reform. The markets were full of furs, rugs, and the melons Babur Shah thought worth more than all of India. Hippies flooded into the country equipped with their parents' credit cards, to the delight of local merchants. The university was filled with earnest young men and bright, alert, and daringly dressed young women. It had an air of hope and excitement. And the government was determined to make the country the Switzerland of Asia.

Today's entry, no less exciting, is stunningly different. Hope is gone, fear is everywhere, and the Khyber is all but impassable. The takeoff point today is Dubai airport, a huge shopping mall almost entirely manned by Filipino expatriates, with airlines flying to and from every part of the world. The modern Airbus to Kabul had pilots of dubious back-ground and an airline magazine which, instead of the usual ads for perfume and watches, touted fully armored cars:

You are moving in a dangerous region, you find yourself in the wrong place at the wrong time; within a matter of seconds, your vehicle has become a target. Not a problem if you have to have an armored vehicle from GSG...GSG’s armoring provides you with valuable time, enough for you to grasp the situation, assess the threat and be able to react appropriately.
—GermanSupportGroup.com

The magazine also provided enticing pictures of war-shattered buildings. “Welcome, most welcome!”

Kabul’s “International Airport” was even more spartan than the airport I knew in the 1970s, although we paraded past dozens of planes of other airlines. It is the hub of a United Nations virtual airline of helicopters and jets. What appeared not to have changed was that the Afghans were still the same polite and welcoming people I had known in previous trips. Then signs began to appear of war’s ugliness. An American embassy expediter met me. He half bowed and shook hands; then to my surprise he squatted on the floor. Why were we not walking out to the car? I asked. He replied that he had seven other arriving Americans to escort into Kabul. We were just a trickle in the daily flood of new American arrivals that appeared to make up half of Kabul. The expediter rather proudly said that I had been honored with a special car. Then why, I asked, could I not just get in and go? “Ah,” he replied, “it is not that easy.” Not even embassy cars were allowed within about 200 yards of the terminal, and no one could walk to the guarded car park without an escort. First lesson: nothing in Afghanistan is easy.

The embassy had informed me that I should rent a “high danger” package from a private security company known as Afghan Logistics, consisting of an armored Toyota 4Runner, an armed bodyguard, and a bulletproof vest at 20,000 Afs (roughly $450) daily. The rates included the driver’s salary, fuel, and taxes. No bullets were stipulated. I guess they were extra. However, the daily rate was only for eight hours and overtime was at double rate. My escort officer said these arrangements were necessary, standard procedure. I declined, calculating that such a display would mark me as a worthwhile target.

That was my experience in other high-danger areas. As a U.S. official, I had arrived in Algiers in 1962 during the confused and nearly frantic week when the French had more or less completely pulled out and the “external” army of the Provisional Algerian Government had not yet taken over. The “internal” or wilayah guerrillas had fought an army 30 times their size and had worn it down, but almost none of them could read. So with them a smile and a handshake were better than a diplomatic passport. Even there, as in Saigon, I felt safe walking around the city alone, but Kabul proved to be different.

IN KABUL TODAY signs of danger are all about. Thousands of armed private “security” guards of many nationalities, as well as Afghans, are at every doorway and on virtually every block. Cars are checked at intersections by Kalashnikov-wielding men. Some but not all are policemen. Anyone who counts has his own private army of guards. So, taken as a whole, the 50,000 or so “security” forces who roam Kabul constitute a new virtual nation—or actually nations, plural—as they come from everywhere: Gurkhas from Nepal, Malays, Samoans, various Latinos, and Europeans with a mixture of what looked like a delegation from an American weight-lifting club—alongside Afghanistan’s already complex mix of nations.¹ They are “embedded” with our military and with all the diplomatic missions and the Afghan power elite.

Our ambassador travels with a guard of mercenaries rather than one of Marines who, in my days in government, were charged with guarding the embassies. The British deputy ambassador told me, with what I thought was a flash of pride, that the British had a ratio of only one mercenary for each Englishman, whereas the American ratio was three to one. As for Afghans, they hire bodyguards partly for prestige, but also because of a genuine fear of private vendetta by any of the scores or even hundreds of warlords or assassination by the Taliban. Having a dozen or so gunmen is also the road to riches.

Unemployed young men and even off-duty policemen routinely shake down passersby, shop keepers, and even households. Scruffy fellows loaded down with Kalashnikov machine guns, grenades, and pistols, and cavalier about reading government documents, they pose an implicit threat to almost everyone. The “on-duty” police can do nothing about them because no one can tell who they are or who stands behind them—ministers, heads of government departments, warlords, or perhaps the Taliban.

Let me dilate on that. The Taliban is diversified in command structure. So whatever the center, which is presumed to be far away in Quetta, Pakistan, decides may not be known in a timely fashion, if at all, by more or less isolated cadres. Moreover, the organization has many, perhaps not always wanted, part-time “volunteers,” many of whom are opportunists who aim at revenge, money, or both. A Washington Post reporter earlier this month wrote about what must be a fairly typical minor strongman, who has 40 “soldiers” and rules only about four square miles, whom he described as “an illiterate, hashish-producing former warlord who directs a semiofficial police force...he is also a key partner of U.S. forces.” All this makes danger unpredictable and more or less ever-present.

The payoffs to groups like these are huge. An American congressional investigation entitled “Warlord, Inc., Extortion and Corruption Along the U.S. Supply Chain in Afghanistan,” published in June this year, showed that the U.S. military is paying “tens of millions of dollars to warlords, corrupt public officials and [indirectly] the Taliban to ensure safe passage of its supply convoys throughout the country.” Dexter Filkins of the New York Times bluntly described “an illiterate former highway patrol commander [who] has grown stronger than the government of Oruzgan Province, not only supplanting its role in providing security but usurping its other functions, his rivals say, like appointing public employees and doling out government largess. His fighters run missions with American Special Forces officers, and when Afghan officials have confronted him he has either rebuffed them or had them removed.” Filkins pointed out that his company charges $1,200 for each NATO cargo truck to which it gives safe passage and so makes about $2.5 million a month. How does he get away with it? Filkins wrote: “His militia has been adopted by American Special Forces officers to gather intelligence and fight insurgents.”

Afghanistan today, somewhat like medieval Italy, is a land of warlords. The big ones are just the more impressive of hundreds if not thousands of small bosses, some with only a dozen “guns,” who operate in a single neighborhood or along a short stretch of road. Moving among them, canny outsiders, like the members of the resident press corps, feel relatively safe because they know who is who and where not to go. But most people try not to test their luck. Even restaurants are fenced in with huge concrete walls and steel gates and pay protection money.

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About the Author

William R. Polk is a former member of the U.S. State Department's Policy Planning Council, where he was responsible for the Middle East. He is most recently the author of Violent Politics: A History of Insurgency, Terrorism, and Guerilla War, from the American Revolution to Iraq (HarperCollins 2007) and Understanding Iran: Everything You Need to Know, from Persia to the Islamic Republic, from Cyrus to Ahmadinejad (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009).

Letter to the Editor View all comments (42) | Leave a comment

Stuart Koehl| 11.8.10 @ 7:07AM

I can't help but think Polk asked questions in a manner that led him to get precisely the answers he expected. It's a habit that State Department veterans find hard to shake.

S.L. Toddard| 11.8.10 @ 7:22AM

Every country and every people has a stake in the Afghan resistance, for the freedom fighters of Afghanistan are defending principles of independence and freedom that form the basis of global security and stability.

victor| 11.8.10 @ 1:44PM

Who are you, and what have you done with Toddard?

Occam's Tool| 11.8.10 @ 5:34PM

Welcome back, girl mutilator Toddard, you misogynistic toad! Please go and fight with those you love.

Alan Brooks| 11.9.10 @ 12:19AM

It's as with Workers World Party, they called Pol Pot a "freedom fighter" even though all of Cambodia was a concentration camp under him.

Look at the WWP gay-stalinoid website
-- Gore Vidal meets Yezhov.

S.L. Toddard| 11.9.10 @ 7:00AM

Oh - I'm sorry, fellows. I forgot to credit that quote:

"Every country and every people has a stake in the Afghan resistance, for the freedom fighters of Afghanistan are defending principles of independence and freedom that form the basis of global security and stability."

- President Ronald Reagan, March 10, 1982

Alan Brooks| 11.29.10 @ 6:50PM

"I forgot to credit that quote"

He... forgot....he couldn't remember to include the credit, it merely... slipped his mind. d
BTW, don't worry, Toddard, you may get your wish; the odds are 50- 50 Israel will be destroyed. Youi can sleep better knowing so.

Ken (Old Texican)| 11.8.10 @ 7:43AM

Mr. Polk
...Truly doesn't like our Special forces does he?

I say burn the poppy fields, put a geostationary sattelite overhead, and shoot the crap out of terrorist training camps. These people will always hate us, but they should fear us as well.

Did you folks notice the implied "thou-shalts" in this article...?

c. j. acworth| 11.8.10 @ 8:13AM

I agree, except the part about burning the poppy fields, which will be a waste of time since they will simply be re-sown when we leave. The only reason to go into Afganistan in the first place was to get Bin Laden, which we failed to do, or at least send a very clear message that if we are attacked we will take swift revenge on those who house the attackers. When the Taliban was ousted we should have left. I hate to say it, because it means that the people of Afganistan will remain stuck in the Dark Ages of fundamentalist Islam, but as long as we can disperse and suppress Bin Laden's type we've achieved our security goals. They may have great melons over there, but they ain't worth the blood and treasure.

1FreeMan| 11.8.10 @ 12:09PM

Leave the poppy fields alone and, instead, focus on the opium AFTER the farmer has been paid for his crop. Make it so expensive for the taliban to buy and ship the opium that the farmers product is not purchased or the drug dealers run out of money to pay the farmer. Destroy the drugs after they have been paid for and the farmer will still eat but the real criminals will not profit from it. THAT is how you can make real change.

Sheila| 11.8.10 @ 2:34PM

Good comment. I second your motions.

Sheila| 11.8.10 @ 2:35PM

The "good comment" etc. was for Ken (Old Texican) - see, we do agree on something!

Occam's Tool| 11.8.10 @ 5:35PM

Surely, Ken, you are much more benign than I am. I would make them listen to Toddard and Tim* spew on for hours in an endless loop. But, unlike you, I am no gentleman.

Margie| 11.8.10 @ 11:25PM

LOL.
My husband just suggested Obama's Greatest Hits as a second choice.
They'd be pulling out their hair after 15 mins. begging to drive you to Osama Bin Laden.
Finally his speeches will serve a useful purpose.

Tim*| 11.9.10 @ 1:47AM

That's because you're a RINO-CINO Neocon Pussy.

You Ain't Gonna Do Nothin' About nothin' Trash Talkin' Agenda Cupcake.

Ken (Old Texican)| 11.9.10 @ 9:35AM

Ocam's Tool
That is the best poison I could name for the poppy fields!
I quote you:
""Surely, Ken, you are much more benign than I am. I would make them listen to Toddard and Tim* spew on for hours in an endless loop. But, unlike you, I am no gentleman.""

L. Ross| 11.8.10 @ 9:16AM

Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef's account of being "humiliated, tortured, almost starved, sat upon, spat upon, urinated on, cursed, almost always deprived of a chance to pray, had his Qur’an sullied, and was deprived of sleep for days on end " was accepted as a cold hard fact, without a shred of skepticism. Here is a word to the wise. Prisoners lie. Enemies of America lie. Muslims lie. It's called taqiyya. Look it up and don't be a patsy.

Tim*| 11.8.10 @ 3:00PM

He was Pledgin' at The Delta House

Mistral| 11.8.10 @ 9:18AM

This is yet another immoral American military foree of late into foreign lands. The amount of American taxpayers money being squandered is akin to the disgraceful waste on Iraq. Some sare certainly making planty of capital out of it, as usual. The war cry "democracy" is a front for shameless profit-mongering at a global level.
The solution is mass protest forcing the US and the UN to get out of places where all they appear to be doing is propping up yet more corruption; alienating powerless local people and storing up immense difficulties for themselves later. Let Afghanis & Iraqis sort themselves out. I am sure they can do it better than we can.
As for the suggested barbarism of the Taliban, I cannot think of anything more barabarous than allowing qualified doctors and nurses to slaughter millions of babies in women's wombs as they do , legally, in western countries every year. This is a monstrous act that anything the Taliban is supposed to be guilty of doing pales in significance. Western hypocrisy is boundless yet again.

1FreeMan| 11.8.10 @ 12:21PM

Mistral,
You lie. I have walked the streets of Kabul recently. Barbarism is everywhere. Death, disease and massive corruption BY MUSLIMS committed against MUSLIMS is everywhere. They can't sort out who owns which goat much less the best way to stop the murderous surge of the taliban. They need and want help despite idiots like you. Suggested barbarism?? Are you kidding me? In the women's clinic in Kabul, Malalai women's clinic, over 20 babies die every day. That is over 7,000 dead babies a year in that clinic alone. I SAW IT WITH MY OWN EYES! Those new born babies die from a lack of medical care and many other preventable reasons. barbaric! On top of that, in Afghanistan children die every day from measles, mumps and are cripled by polio. Yes, polio! THAT is BARBARISM, sir. Rape, murder, greed, open and unchecked abuse of women, many of whom are just children themselves, is common. It is a disease and it fills every corner of that country. Innocent people are crying for help and we have answered that call because we are compassionate humans! If the west were to pull out of Afghanistan the death toll would be monsterous, the drugs would flood the world and the taliban would be on your door step within a year blasting your children into a blood-puddle. Get a clue, idiot, you are speaking to a world audience and your ignorance will be pointed out immediately.

Ken (Old Texican)| 11.8.10 @ 1:05PM

1FREEMAN,

You snatched the words right out of my mouth. Well said!

Margie| 11.8.10 @ 1:11PM

Awesome 1FreeMan, thank you for those words.
True conservatives are with you 100%.

RAMIII| 11.8.10 @ 6:26PM

You have nailed it 1FreeMan!

Don't you "love" the way Mistral points out supposed Western Hypocrisy while neglecting the real hyprocisy of the Muslim culture in that country. They obviously do NOT value human life -- WE DO! Our military is doing a great service under duress.

The one thing that is clear to me from this article is that we need to be careful to whom we are listening! And the author might be able to get all these various opinions, but one still has to take a stand somewhere and he doesn't seem to have the ability to do so without impuning our military.

Why not focus on the Obama Administration's lack of a clear objective for the military effort? This is the more pressing matter, and it creates danger, like the driver on the highway who is indecisive, put everyone's life at risk in that circumstance.

1FreeMan| 11.8.10 @ 9:26PM

"Why not focus on the Obama Administration's lack of a clear objective for the military effort?"

RAMIII, you did it for me. Thank you. Ken, Margie, thank you too. We expose the darkness one candle at a time. Call the liars out into the daylight and soon they are powerless. Innocent people suffer and die every day... I just think we are no longer willing to sit by and let it happen unopposed. Nice to have support.

Ken (Old Texican)| 11.8.10 @ 10:19AM

Ladies and gentlemen,
In the final analysis, Jihadists cannot “terrorize” Americans.
That is precisely what I know to be the case.

Remember the number of Americans that ran TOWARD the twin towers to see if they could help? Remember the cross section of Americans that charged unarmed to the cockpit of the airliner to try to wrest control?
(…Once they knew that the alternative was that the airliner would be crashed into our capitol.)
Do you all remember the Toby Keith Song that swept the nation?

No, Americans don’t get “terrorized”! We get fighting mad!

Where the law allows, (and sometimes doesn’t), how many more Americans now carry a rifle or shotgun in their cars and trucks…just in case they come upon a Jihadist crew doing the “terrorizing” thing during our day to day business?
OK, Point made!
…..And, the fact is slowly soaking in on the minds of the Jihadist leaders.

So, as they continue to wage “asymmetric warfare” against we the “Great Satan”, they only have two remaining strategies available to them.
One of course is the “creeping Jihad” or “silent Jihad” growing cancers all over our country through pushing “Sharia Law”…and the so-called “hate-speech” proposals to hide behind.
Two,
the Jihadists will turn more and more to “infrastructure attacks”.

Given we ARE a free and open society, they are beginning to understand that we are vulnerable on that front.
When I speak of “infrastructure” above, I am using the term in the broadest sense. The “infrastructure” could be our cyber-communications networks, key bridges or tunnels, and of course as I posit in my new novel…our energy and electric grids….
With all of the “indirect” deaths and destruction caused thereby.
So once again, I unabashedly invite each of you to chapter one of the book at
www.texassaidno.com
With the spineless leadership we now have, (to be forgiving), the future possibilities I posit could be a serious aid to you and your loved ones “getting through”.
Best regards
Ken

Reagan Loyalist| 11.8.10 @ 11:14AM

Since any opinions we have are driven solely by the information we glean from government and news sources, I cautiously conclude that, as George Will has repeatedly opined, this venture is failed and has no merit. A surge in Afghanistan is not the same as the one Iraq. Further, we appear to be doing more harm than good, and the price in American blood and treasure is (here I go) immoral. The Afghan War is a hopeless imperialist venture and we need to shut it down as expediently as possible – but soon.

Melvin| 11.8.10 @ 11:36AM

Before we tell Afghanistan to address it's corrupt government, we must address our own corrupt government first.

RAMIII| 11.8.10 @ 6:32PM

You ACTUALLY equate the two?! What is wrong with you? Can you make no distinctions?

In Afghanistan they may kill you if they disagree with you. Here in the USA we just had a REAL election without puppets and puppetmasters. I hate to say this but your comment is absolutely assinine, ridiculous and idiotic.

But you do have the freedom to this opinion, which is a God given right and our government happens to recognize!

Mike Cole| 11.9.10 @ 12:09AM

We did, we sent dozens of dcmocrats packing. Too bad obama wan't up for re-election or we would have gotten him also.

Intelligent Design| 11.8.10 @ 12:12PM

How about taking the 100,000 or so American troops out of Afghanistan, and put about 20,000 of them along our border with Mexico. Then bomb Iran's nuclear sites and military forces. Continue bombing Taliban and terrorists wherever they have bases of operation. Make sure terrorists don't get control over Pakistan's nuclear weapons.

Ken (Old Texican)| 11.8.10 @ 1:02PM

Smart design,

Please don't forget our three tousand miles border with Canada.

They are being swarmed with Muslims who hate the US.

Dave Williams| 11.8.10 @ 1:00PM

What a hellhole....I believe we have a few thousand surplus nuclear weapons, and I can't think of a better place to detonate 'em...

Martin Owens| 11.8.10 @ 1:54PM

Mr. Polk makes a structured and reasoned argument for the USA to simply pull up stakes and leave the Afghans to whatever twisted fate they will conjure for themselves.

But, like Mr. Koehl, I suspect he went out there with his mind made up, and simply assembled interviews and vignettes to support the predetermined position ( he kind of tipped his own hand when so obviously ate out of the Russian ambassador's).

And in the end, it doesn't matter. If we leave Afghanistan without something that can be reasonably identified as a win, the Taliban will absolutely declare a victory, and that will in turn embolden and reinforce Al Qaeda and all the farm team Jihadis that support them.

Truth is, the day we invaded Iraq, we passed the point of no return. However difficult it may become, we not only have to beat the bastards on their own ground, but be clearly seen as having done so. The alternative is to turn our own cities into Baghdad to Beirut- or perhaps one day, Kabul.

Ken (Old Texican)| 11.8.10 @ 2:28PM

Martin,
There it is.....
Well spoken.

Intelligent Design| 11.8.10 @ 3:44PM

While we have been over there in Afghanistan, I suspect a few hundred trained terrorists have walked across the Mexican border into the United States.

Mistral| 11.8.10 @ 6:47PM

Indeed, my argment too. Let the mahomatens sort out their own problems at their own expense. Why should we taxpayers foot the bill.
As for preaching wesern morality such as democracy - this is a front for profiteering and is hypocritical
Where the Taliban isconcerned, they are no worse than abortionists. They are all involved in the immoral taking of life hiding behind fabricated unnatural laws.

Heywood| 11.8.10 @ 7:22PM

The original goal was to oust al Quaeda from there so that they couldn't train and organize another 9/11-type attack--and perhaps kill or capture OBL. Why are we still there? al-Quaeda is working out of Yemen and Somolia.

Nelson H.| 11.14.10 @ 10:08PM

Why are we still there? Because shifting our operations to Somolia [sic] might cost a lot of samolians?

Mistral| 11.8.10 @ 10:36PM

The US presence in Afghanistan & Iraq is a total waste of public money. Mahomaten radicals operate almost anywhere they want now & they are only too pleased thay have hundreds of thousands of US troops tied up in problematic & impossible situations while they organise as they please. The manner of operating now by Americans is absolutely naive: terror cells exist in Africa, S.America and even in the US itself. Europe is full of them. It is a complete scandal that so much taxpayers money is still being misused to finance corrupt regimes like Karzai and elsewhere and to the profit of bloated security companies as well as local warlords in Afghanistan.
If you want to stop terrorism better to stop the inflow of mahomatens to live in western countries sponging off our welfare systems because sooner or later this is going to blow up in our faces & has begun to do so already. We live according to diametrically opposed perspectives - they will always live apart culturally in any case because they demand shariya law for themselves and have strict rules concerning what to them is haram and halal. This will always set them apart andf they will always see us as non-believing infidels. You will never change that at all.
The best policy is to get out of their countries and let them do what they want to each other. We will get no thanks for it - only more terrorist attacks. Further, it is about time we dealt firmly and definitively with the menace in our own backyards. Our governments are too lenient and liberal by far. This is where the money should go.

chris haynes| 11.9.10 @ 1:45PM

Barbarism?
You dont need to go to Kabul. Try New York.

Innocent children. 200 murdered every day. A 9-11 every two weeks. Police refuse to lift a finger.

A child mortality rate much greater than Bangladesh. 50 times greater than Saudi Arabia.

Barbarians for leaders. Guilliani, Bloomberg, Pataki, Clintons. You guys who want to bomb barbarian Afghanistan. What should we do with the USA? Nuke it?

Mistral| 11.10.10 @ 10:04AM

Well said Chris.

It is absolutely incomprehensible how successive governments can spend billions of much domestically needed dollars on wasteful warrior campaigns that fatten ever-corrupt foreign leaders and their cronies; kill and maim thousnads of its own troops and is greeted with the vilest international condemnation when even one indigenous foreigner is killed by an American soldier. This is more than just sinister it is damnably immoral & downright stupid when Americans at home could do with some financial help.

Nelson H.| 11.14.10 @ 10:18PM

The strongest case you can make, at least in this forum, is to simply ask "how is conducting open-ended punitive campaigns halfway around the world in any sense conservative?" Consider Reagan's response after the Lebanon barracks bombing. Did he more deeply engage us militarily in that nation and pursue regime change there and in Syria? No. We may prevail there in the short run but I don't see how we can change the essential nature of that nation.