10 November 2008

The Iraq war is over.  Barring the unforeseen, the darkest days are behind, though we are still losing soldiers to low-level fighting with enemies that are true “dead-enders.â€Â  Last month we lost seven Americans in combat in Iraq.  Peace, however, is not upon us.  Another thirty or so Iraqis died today in suicide attacks.  Nobody suffers more at the hands of Islamic terrorists than other Muslims.

A new President will soon begin to make critical decisions about Iraq and Afghanistan, the economic crisis at home, and countless other matters.  While the Iraq war began, then boiled and finally cooled before President-elect Obama will be sworn into office on January 20th, 2009, the Afghanistan-Pakistan spectacle is just getting started.  He was always a fierce opponent of our involvement in Iraq.  And, as with so many Democrats in the Senate, he argued frequently, during the campaign, that we should have been focused on Afghanistan all along, because it is the real incubator of the international terrorist threat.  Timing being everything, our new President will get his wish.  Afghanistan now moves to center stage.  The conflicts in Afghanistan and between Afghanistan and Pakistan have the simmering potential to overshadow anything we’ve seen in Iraq.  Here are a few things I hope he understands:
 
Our enemies are winning.  The enemies know it.  We know it.  Who are they?  The Taliban, with its deep local roots is enemy number one.  Al Qaeda is hanging around to make trouble.  Some Paks, who don't want to see a thriving Pushtun state on their border, are our enemies.  They fund and shelter the Taliban even though we rely on them to help us defeat it.  Nothing is straightforward in this part of the world.  We have other enemies in Afghanistan who hate the Taliban.

Most of our allies are not very helpful. With the exception of the British, Canadians, Dutch and a few others such as the Aussies, we are not fighting this with an “A-team†of international allies. With a few exceptions, our allies on the ground are comprised of several dozens of countries that mostly refuse to fight.  The bulk of NATO amounts to little more than a “Taliban†Piñata.  The North Atlantic Treaty Organization is proving nearly worthless and provides no credible threat to Armed Opposition Groups (AOGs) in Afghanistan.  Most of the NATO member countries seem to break out in a cold sweat at the mere mention of “Taliban.â€Â  They piled in when the war looked easy, and largely humanitarian.  But now that it’s getting harder and more dangerous, they would like to pile out.

Success or failure in Afghanistan depends on the handful of countries that step up -- and a multi-pronged, combat/political/nation-building strategy. The Brits field excellent soldiers but are short of enabling equipment, such as helicopters, armor and UAVs, that could greatly enhance their combat effectiveness.  Nevertheless, an outstanding British-led operation to deliver a 200-ton hydroelectric turbine to Kajaki dam could eventually deliver electricity to 1.8 million people.  This dam, with its potential to bring light, heat and the ability to begin industrializing, is a true and serious victory for the good guys.  So, let me stipulate that it's still a real fight. While the AOGs are making progress on some fronts, success is no more assured for them than for us. Mostly they destroy things that their countrymen want -- including peace, and prospect of increased prosperity.  They cut off lips and noses and douse women with gasoline and burn them alive.  Just recently, a group of enemies apparently tried to bait us into killing a wedding party.  If we are going to get groups to the negotiating table, we must pose a credible threat against enemies, and credible promise to the rest.  What we don’t want is the current situation, where it’s actually the AOGs that are forcing us to the table, largely due to NATO's general apathy and unwillingness to fight.

To ensure that we have influence on the outcome, we need more soldiers in Afghanistan, and fast.  They need to be U.S. forces, British, Canadian, Aussie; we cannot depend on NATO in general and they don’t know how to fight anyway.  Unless President-elect Obama knows some kind of magic spell, he will not be able to persuade most NATO countries to do the right thing.  Springtime 2009 will likely bring very heavy fighting in Afghanistan.  We will not have credible negotiating positions while we remain outgunned by a bunch of old rifles and dinged up RPGs.

While security in Iraq continues to improve, Afghanistan is drowning in a frothing quicksand.  While most of the 2008 fighting season is over, we can be assured that the Afghan national sport – guerrilla warfare – will become the 2009 Taliban Olympics by April.  They know this is a marathon.

Whatever else, Mr. President-elect, this is no time to go wobbly. It is important to note that some top British and U.S. commanders believe that we can make a “success†out of Afghanistan.  We’ve learned a few things over the past seven years.  We’ve truly got a “dream-team†of military commanders with great in-theater experience, to advise and guide the next phase. They saved Iraq. Use them well, Sir.

President-elect Obama says he is serious about Afghanistan.  (Just don’t fumble Iraq, please.)  As he must be learning in intelligence briefings, it's going to be tough stuff.  It will be like solving a human Rubik’s Cube during a firefight while the media screams every time you make a wrong move – or what is perceived as a wrong move, and there is a clock ticking and at some unknown point the cube self-destructs.

Maybe his recent training in the combat of a two-year election cycle will have toughened him up for the international challenges ahead.

Today I am in Kuwait, heading back into Iraq for an end-of-year round-up.  Then it’s back to the war in Afghanistan for one heck of a fight.  Please stay tuned.  Your soldiers are locked in a deadly struggle tonight.

02 November 2008

Many esteemed and influential people have been privately debating the question: “Is it Possible to Win the U.S. Presidency by Fraud and Deception?â€Â  We already know the answer, don’t we?

I think back to another time in my life, a school election in which advertisement and audacity were crucial.  I’ve written about this election, and my close friend Richard White, in my first book, Danger Close:

After all these years, Richard and I remain very close friends, and we still laugh about Bill Gurley and a long list of other escapades that we pulled off, often through sheer audacity.

Robert Fulghum once wrote: “All I really need to know I learned in Kindergartenâ€

In that light, William A. Gurley taught me in high school everything I need to know about a Presidential election.  The lessons of advertisement and repetition were the most obvious.  But the most crucial lesson was in the virtue of audacity.

Danger Close

 

Published: 26 October 2008 

In a war where information can be more powerful than massed forces, the cellphone is a weapon.  Insurgents the world over use cellphones to transmit messages, record photos and videos, and sometimes just to chat.  They can record video of an attack, and transmit that video within a minute.  U.S. and other technologically adept forces use machines to target cell phones.

This is no secret.  Not to the enemy, at least.

I am especially careful not to compromise operational security (OPSEC).  There are many photographs and potential dispatches that will never be published here because I do not want to risk jeopardizing our effort.  The military forces with which I embed have clear guidelines to protect OPSEC.  But war correspondents can learn just as much, or even more, while unembedded, and those times are not covered by guidelines.  Still, I am just as cautious while unilateral.  Often OPSEC is compromised, not because journalists knowingly publish sensitive information, but because they don’t know what the enemy might learn from the news they share with their audience. Others just don’t care, or publicize sensitive information for one-upmanship or profit.

We are at war – and I want us to win.  An important aspect of this war is the information campaign, on both sides.  Citizens of the countries fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq have the right to know what their soldiers and governments are doing.  Our soldiers wear our flag.  They represent us and they use our resources.  We have a right to know what our soldiers are doing.  We also have a right to know how our civilian leadership is spending the blood of our family, friends and compatriots who wear the uniform.  At the same time, our soldiers can be endangered by the release of certain information that the enemy can use to their advantage.  I’m not talking about propaganda, but hard facts – like how much damage a specific IED can do to a Humvee, or the description of tactical maneuvers.  Regarding cellphones, some readers are rightly concerned that I have given away secrets that might endanger our soldiers and their allies.  Yet some well-intentioned readers are not tracking the ground situation as closely as I am.  When reporting specific information, it is carefully considered and I often run it by informed sources to make sure the information will not compromise OPSEC.   And when someone gives me a good reason (avoiding embarrassment is not a good reason) not to divulge certain information, I keep a lid on it.  Sometimes to my own detriment.  On several occasions I have been “scooped†by other journalists who published information that I withheld.  They did not exercise the same constraints, either because of journalistic competitiveness, or an understanding with the source who provided the information.  I was the first correspondent to see the famous letter where Ayman al-Zawahiri told Abu Musab al-Zarqawi to stop the videotaped beheadings because they were a propaganda debacle.  Since I was told it would compromise intelligence operations, I did not mention the letter in my dispatches until it was published elsewhere.  This was a major loss for me.

Sometimes the military itself spills the beans, whether through carelessness, incompetence, or one tentacle of the bureaucratic octopus not knowing what the other is articulating.  The criticality of OPSEC and the desire to publish news often are in conflict, but in the end, OPSEC wins with me.  Many, including myself, have family and close friends in harm’s way.  However, please be aware, that if we accidentally bomb a village, and I am a witness, I will report it.  Like the time I reported seeing our forces accidentally shoot an innocent taxi driver in Mosul.

In a recent dispatch (The Road to Hell ) I mentioned that people can be targeted through their cell phones.   One reader complained publicly, and others privately, that I was giving away secrets.  The enemy is aware that cell phones can get them killed.  They’ve known this for years.   We know they know.  And they know we know.   That’s why we see stories like this:

I’m more interested to know what might be planned for those 10 days.   An offensive?  A Taliban convention?   Osama Bin Laden coming up for air?

The article goes on:

We’ve been at war in Afghanistan since 2001, and the enemy has figured out some things over that time.  Tracking cell phones is no more difficult than tracking strobe lights.  Anything that radiates can be tracked.  Osama bin Laden, for instance, realized that having any electronics around him could be a death sentence.  He reportedly used an intentional deception plan using his own phone, by sending it off with a decoy while he escaped in another direction.   CBS reported:

The Columbia Journalism Review reports that President Bush confirms the tactics:

So  the enemy has known about cell phones since 1998.  Yet this begs the question: If we were listening to OBL at that time, we could have saved ourselves a great deal of blood and fortune if we had killed him then.  Why didn’t we?

Now it’s 2008.  The enemy knows the risks of cell phones, but the potential benefits are also great.   Sometimes they get careless; other times we get lucky.  When operations get too hot, some enemies in Afghanistan try to shut down the network.  While they take advantage of modern technology, primitive chaos works for them as well.  In Iraq, when the tide started turning against al Qaeda, AQI destroyed cell towers because people were calling in tips.  It’s easy for AOG (Armed Opposition Groups) in Afghanistan to threaten or coerce the communications companies.

Afghans continue to learn English, and now they have cell phones galore.  I met a Bedouin out in Iraq just near the Iranian border down in Maysan Province, who charged his cell phone on his motorbike.  In some ways, we might be centuries apart, but when it comes to the global neural network of communications, the camel herders and shepherds are connected, too.  Many of the AOG in Afghanistan don’t even need cell phones.  They use walkie-talkies.  Walkie-talkies, or PTTs (Push To Talks) make more sense for combat, though, of course, the enemy knows we listen and track PTTs because they talk back at us sometimes.  They even sing to each other at night.  The AOG have established repeater stations where they can communicate long distances using PTTs.  One intercept of PTT communications revealed an enemy deep inside Afghanistan who was talking with someone in Pakistan in real time – both of them apparently were Taliban.  The man in Afghanistan wanted to know when Ramadan started.  The man in Pakistan told him, and the man in Afghanistan asked how he knew.  The man in Pakistan said that he had been told by a friend in America.  The guy in America could have been calling from a Starbucks.

Nearly everything – and everyone – is connected.

Modern communications are so useful to insurgent networks that sometimes governments curtail them.  During the war in Nepal, PTTs were outlawed, and the cell phones were shut down at times, not by the Maoists, but by the government.  After people get used to cell phones, the phones become “essential.â€Â  So whoever cuts off the cell phones, be it insurgents or the government, alienates people.  This happened in Nepal.  If the AOG starts whacking down those communications towers, which they can do at whim, they will lose support of many people.  And certainly there is little doubt that some of those hundreds of millions of dollars being invested into Afghanistan cell systems must be going to AOG leaders.  Twisted, isn’t it?

The photo above has a communications tower in the background.   I Skyped one of the phone numbers on the board and it worked.  So if any reader needs some metal work done near Kandahar, give them a call.  Cell phones are a boon for developing countries.  The infrastructure required to wire landline phones is incredibly costly and time-consuming.  But cell systems can be installed quickly, and suddenly everyone can talk to just about anyone on the globe.  The owner of AH. L.T.D could call the National Public Radio hotline and end up being another “Joe the Plumber.â€

People used to talk about six degrees of separation from any single human on the planet to another.  Today, when nearly everybody all over the globe uses cell phones, there’s only one degree of separation – if that person has your number.  And if they don’t, there still are ways to find you.

Published: 22 October 2008

Traveling along the roads of Afghanistan (when there are roads) provides a different perspective on life back home.  Folks in the U.S. are worried about the economy, and while I can understand that many are struggling, it’s easy to forget how much we still have.  In Afghanistan, and other countries all over the world, there are many people who literally beg for their next meals.

Americans worry about who will become our next president.  Despite what their opponents say, if Barack Obama is elected, he’s not going to turn the U.S. into a socialist state (at least I don’t think he will) and John McCain is not going to invade Iran (at least I don’t think he will).  Even though a great deal of noise is made about ideological differences between Democrats and Republicans, it’s remarkable how much both sides agree about certain vital issues, and how stable our nation’s fundamental policies are.  No matter who is elected, America will remain true to its basic values of freedom, democracy, private enterprise and public service.  The change of government will occur in an orderly fashion, no bloodshed, revolutions or coups.  Think about it: When this campaign is finished, either an African American man will be president or a woman will be vice president.  The candidacy of Barack Obama has demonstrated how American society as a whole is NOT racist.  For all the scars we have inflicted on ourselves (slavery and racism being one of the worst), our democratic society is self-healing, even if that process can be painful and slow.

We might take a moment to remind ourselves that we do not live in a land of tribal law or a place where intergenerational feuds are part of the social fabric.  Look at Afghanistan. Widows abandoned and shunned.  Orphans everywhere. People missing limbs from the millions of mines still dotting the landscape.  Millions.  Tribes and warring ethnic factions and police so corrupt they make the Mafia look like do-gooders.  Taliban.  HIG. Al Qaeda.  And a lot more suicide bombers than Senators.  (Trust me on that one.)

The people of Afghanistan are extremely friendly and welcoming.  But let’s face it. They live in a world of constant struggle. Their country was already primitive, and their existence difficult enough before they became a place of conquest, civil war, and now a clash of civilizations (or, to put it more accurately, a clash between dozens of civilized countries and violent anarchy).

The woman above was begging beside the highway.  And she was not the only one.  I was a passenger driving through Taliban country in a pickup truck when I took her photo.  Car bombs detonate on that road all the time. Americans and others die there. And this woman, covered as most women in Afghanistan whom I see are, probably a widow, was begging just beside a police checkpoint, which, sooner or later, likely will get attacked. She might get blown to pieces by a car bomb. She apparently has no money, probably no family, nowhere else to go, and no other way to live. Still, she endures.

The world economy is having its problems, but it’s going to come back sooner or later. Meanwhile, those of us in America, and throughout the west, should count our blessings.  We have our families. We have governments which, for all their flaws, at least are reasonably functional, or in many cases, highly functional. We have hope. Or at least we have reason to hope.

 

 

Road from Kabul to Jalalabad
20 October 2008

Afghanistan is like time traveling.  Vast expanses of rugged landscape, mostly unadorned by man-made structures, all framed by stories of savagery and conquest, create a picture of forever.  A sense that human and geologic changes occur at nearly the same pace.  Many of the people remain arguably “pre-historic†in the sense that illiterate people do not chronicle their knowledge and experience into writing or durable art.  Moving around the countryside, a man could half expect to see a Tyrannosaurus Rex come stomping over a ridge.

My friend Tim Lynch, a retired infantry officer who has lived four years in Afghanistan, had mentioned there are caves near Jalalabad, and when the sun sinks, bats take flight by the thousands.  That sounded fun to watch; I did some caving (amateurs call it “spelunkingâ€) in North Carolina and Tennessee, and was always amazed at the swarms of bats down in the bowels of earth.  In Florida, I would sometimes venture onto the campus of the University of Florida, just as the squawking flocks of white ibis were settling into their rookery on Lake Alice.  The night shift would come out and tens of thousands of bats would take flight right over my head, then over the lake, while the alligators began their evening hunt.

Wildlife watching is to war correspondence what a body massage is to a hundred lashes with a bullwhip.  I was ready for a bat-adventure.

A greater adventure than the travesty of war would be to travel along with linguists, historians and archeologists into far reaches and hidden crannies here.

We drove out of Jalalabad through a few small villages.  A Predator UAV flew overhead.  This Predator was actually lower than it appears in the photo, but a wide-angle lens happened to be on the camera when the warbird prowled over.  The three flapping birds at the top are very close.  The Predator carries Hellfire missiles and the pilot is back in the United States, studying the landscape through the eye in the plane that relays video to anywhere in the world that the military chooses, and often to several places at once.  I used to watch those feeds hour after hour in Iraq, as the modes switched from black-and-white, to color, to infrared, at the flick of a switch.  Sometimes I would watch people die through that eye, and then hear the nearby rumble of the detonation.  Unfortunately, in the type of warfare we face in Afghanistan, high tech is just a tiny fraction of what we need to succeed.  But the Predators are useful and important tools, and we need a lot more of them here.  When the plane detects terrorist activity, the pilot is able to order precision attacks before the enemy combatants know that they have been observed.  SWOOSH… the Hellfire’s eye is locked onto the laser reflection, and follows the stream of photons to the end.  BAM!  White and black pieces of man and earth blossom onto the live feed.

I’d rather be bird watching.

The area around Jalalabad, in Nangarhar Province, is a temperate, well-watered and fertile plain.  Before the war the area was famous for producing the bitter oranges that mark traditional Afghan cuisine.  Poppies are now the crop du jour for Afghanistan, although much of the opium production has been curtailed in Nangarhar.

The bat caves were near “Little Barabad,†a village on the outskirts of Jalalabad.  When we parked in Little Barabad, villagers came out to greet Tim, who knew the names of some of the kids and elders.  The village head-man treated Tim like an old friend.  Kuchi people are nomadic and semi-nomadic herdsmen, ever in search of pasture for their animals.  I’ve seen their camel caravans in numerous provinces, but there were no camels around Little Barabad.  Tim says these are “reformed Kuchis†who have settled down.  Ken Kraushaar, an American I got to speak with for many hours on many occasions, says he has been visiting Little Barabad for over a year.  Ken comes out here paying from his own pocket and rolls around without security.  Lots of people come to Afghanistan on big budgets and heavy security, yet they hardly leave their guarded compounds.  Ken goes out alone.  Ken said that the 80 families of Little Barabad actually call their village Sak, and that the elders’ names are Ghani and Koko.  He also said that perhaps another 100-120 families are expected to arrive due to a refugee crisis.

Some American organizations are working hard to build the locals a bridge, which could help get the kids to school.  On numerous occasions I saw Ken Kraushaar don a shawal kameez and head out to do prep-work on the footbridge, construction of which has not yet begun.  Ken said that the organizations involved include Rotary Sister Cities Foundation, Engineers Without Borders, and Footbridges.org.

In all the crazy places I travel, I’ve seen first-hand on countless occasions how these footbridges, schools and clinics built by foreigners, improve people’s lives.  Next thing you know, foreign teachers are parachuting in, and the kids go to new schools, where they learn English or other important languages such as British, Canadian or Australian.  Okay, French or German…  In any case, their worlds start to open into a brighter future.  I think of Nepal.  It’s working there.  Heck, I think of places in America where it’s working (although we could still use some more help).  It’s amazing how much the world is improved by volunteer teachers, doctors and nurses, engineers and just regular folks, who decide to do something worthwhile.  A wise and experienced man put it best when he called them: “A thousand points of light.â€

While the war has brought many westerners to Afghanistan to help rebuild the country, the fact is that many are happy to help the Afghans.  For all their fierceness, many Afghans are a charming, engaging and likeable people.

Bat hunting is much more fun than all those bombs and bullets.

These relatively shallow caves were part of hundreds of small monasteries, inhabited by monks and pilgrims, in the area between our location and Bamiyan Province where the famous, huge, carved Buddhas stood for 1500 years until the Taliban blew them up in 2001. It is possible that these caves and others like them were used by local inhabitants to hide in when Genghis Khan's armies marched across the plains, pillaging and destroying everything in their path. In some caves it is reported that you can still see traces of frescoes.  Centuries of war and plunder have left them empty.

We scrambled up to the old British fort where, in a different war, things had gone very badly for the British. (In the First Afghan Campaign, an entire British regiment was wiped out not far from here).  There wasn't much left of the fort.  Tim had told me a story about his first visit to Little Barabad/Sak and the caves.  "The old men in the village told me the caves were built by the British when they built the old fort.  When I first came, they would ask "Have you come to see your grandfathers' fort?"  I explained to them that at the time the British were here we were fighting them too.  That's not precisely true of course.  We had finished our revolution 20 years before the Brits entered Afghanistan. But telling the old men that brought instant delight -- shared enemies does that -- and I was pressed for details.  When I told the Brits burned down our capitol they smiled even more saying it is a good thing to burn down the capitol and kill the King every now and then.â€

I wonder if these boys go to school.  Most Afghans are still illiterate.  The last 30 years of war wiped out whatever progress the country might have been making toward more widespread education.  Even without reading and other academic skills we take for granted, they do keep crushing more advanced armies.  There remains something to be said for character and fierce determination.  After all, this kid was sitting on a British fort that his ancestors had destroyed.  The acclaimed author Tom Ricks, whose dad was a university professor here when Tom was a kid, wrote this: “Louis Dupree mentions in his massive book on Afghanistan that many illiterate Afghans have memorized hundreds of poems, stories, lists of proverbs, and other cultural icons.  Arguably, some of these guys who can't read are better ‘read’ than most westerners.â€

Still, it's time for these people to have a government that can provide schools.  Lacking the ability to read, write and calculate in the 21st Century will have an even greater cost than it has had heretofore.  Maybe one day these kids will read about themselves here, either in translation or in English.

The Afghans say that the “Russians†were better fighters than the Americans, which is strange.  They killed 30,000 Soviets and sent them packing.  They will likely never kick us out unless we grow weary of the feral side of their nature, and decide to go home.  But some of the other NATO members are ready to say goodbye.  If we grow weary or distracted by something else, it is the Afghans who will suffer most.

These boys might be old men before this current war is over.  Their fathers were born during an earlier phase of it. It is hard to imagine how the nicer parts of their culture can survive a multi-generational war, and how the country can advance when its resources go to basic self-defense.  Yet here they are, seemingly ready for change.  The British tell me it will take 10 years to “win†the war.  Some Americans say 25.  Both seem like gross underestimates.  Perhaps the fighting will end.  But it will take a century for Afghanistan to become modern.  Today, Afghanistan is spiraling into the abyss.  To us, progress is a given.  To others, it is an elusive dream, if they dream at all.  Here, the march of time can go forward or backwards.

The sun was setting, so it was time to go.  We traipsed back down to the village.

The village head-man and some others came out again.  He and Tim exchanged warm greetings while the kids crowded around as though the circus had come to their village.  Then we drove away.

 

13 October 2008

The Wilds, Afghanistan

Since leaving the British embed, I’ve gone unilateral.  I flew back and forth between Kandahar and Lashkar Gah, drove around and talked with people down south, then flew up to Kabul.  In Kabul, I met Tim Lynch and Shem Klimiuk (a retired USMC and ex-Aussie paratrooper, respectively), and we drove in an unarmored truck east to Jalalabad.  The canyon-filled drive would be dangerous even if there was no war, but there is a war – a rapidly growing one — and Tim pointed out burnt spots on the road where ambushes had occurred.  I was unarmed, and counting on the military experience of my two guides as well as their combined seven years experience in Afghanistan.  In the weeks that I would spend with Tim and Shem, we drove more than a thousand miles up and down Afghan roads without the slightest drama, except that Tim scares me with his driving.  If you are rich and want the adventure of a lifetime, contact Tim Lynch.   You might die.  But if you live, you’ll come back with a new perspective on Afghanistan.

On our first trip, we drove from Kabul to Jalalabad.  The road passes through a village called Sarobi.  Sarobi has become known as the place where ten French soldiers were killed on 18 August, 2008, although they were not actually killed in Sarobi, but near Sper Kundy.  The French soldiers were on a reconnaissance patrol in the Uzbin Valley, about 40 kilometers east of Kabul.  At approximately 15:00 local time, they were spread out over a steep slope and started taking fire from the ridges above.  The gunfire was fierce and accurate.  After 90 minutes, the French vehicles ran out of ammunition, and they abandoned a counterattack.  They fought for four hours without reinforcements, which were slow to come because the French troops lost radio contact and could not call in air support or reinforcements.  According to a secret after action report that I have read and was quoted extensively and accurately in the Canadian Globe and Mail newspaper, the loss of radio contact was probably due to the fact that they only had one working radio.  Soldiers from the Afghan National Army (ANA) had accompanied the French patrol, but they were apparently worse than ineffective, “lounging on the battlefield†until they finally dispersed, leaving their weapons and equipment, according to the report.

Reinforcements eventually arrived, but the fighting continued into the next morning.  The French dead were not recovered until mid-day.  By then, some had been stripped of their weapons, equipment and uniforms.

Not reported:  The body of an interpreter who had worked with the French was left on the field.

The Sarobi ambush was the worst single day toll for the French military in a quarter century.  Most of the troops were from the Eighth Paratrooper Regiment, which had been nearly wiped out in the siege of Dien Bien Phu, Vietnam in 1954.  Shortly after the ambush, polls showed a majority of French people favoring an immediate withdrawal from Afghanistan, but President Nicolas Sarkozy reaffirmed his government’s commitment to the war effort.  On September 4, Paris Match published photos of “Taliban†fighters wearing uniforms and holding weapons taken from the French soldiers.  The photos whipped up bitter controversy over whether the photographs were newsworthy or just propaganda for the enemy.  I remember seeing photos of the day when my high school friend, Scott Helvenston, was murdered in Fallujah.  One of those photos received a Pulitzer Prize.  There was also great controversy in the United States when our government tried to squash photos of flag-draped coffins returning from the Iraq.  Yet when I was in Iraq, one day we lost four good soldiers and an interpreter, and I published photos of their flag-draped coffins.  In fact, the American commander of the excellent battalion, LTC Eric Welsh, requested that I do it. He wanted to honor his men.  After publishing those photos, I received no threats from the U.S. military, individual soldiers, or our government.  So the problem was not the content of the photos – in this case, flag-draped coffins – but whether the subject was treated with proper respect.

As we drove along the road between Kabul and Jalalabad, Tim stopped the truck near Sarobi, where we could see the village in the valley below.  Tim said that Sarobi is “HIG†country, and that it was actually HIG who killed the French.  Not the Taliban.  HIG, or Hizb-I Islami Gulbuddin, was founded by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a warlord who hates the U.S.  HIG is a terrorist group and a faction of Hizb-I Islami, all with ties to al Qaeda and Bin Laden.  Hekmatyar offered homestead to Bin Laden more than ten years ago.  Collectively, we call these groups (and others) “Taliban,†but that blanket term is not completely accurate.  The Afghanistan/Pakistan insurgency is a complex, distributed and hydra-headed network of different people fighting for different reasons.  Sometimes they work together, sometimes they don’t.  If they “succeed†in kicking us out of Afghanistan, they will probably end up fighting each other.  Some of the people we call Taliban are al Qaeda-affiliated terrorists.  Others are local insurgents fighting for revenge, self-respect, or because they’re simple, ornery mountain folk who have traded in their spears and torches for AKs and RPGs.  Iraq is a few decades behind the west; Afghanistan is practically on a different planet.

As we looked down on Sarobi, Tim pointed to the area in the hills where the French had met their end.  He said that when we drive through Sarobi, the “Taliban†will be easy to spot: they are the ones wearing tennis shoes.

Tom Ricks of the Washington Post later wrote me:

Three journalists were traveling to Kabul when gunmen stopped their vehicle.  The journalists were taken out and killed.  The driver and the interpreter were allowed to live, so they could describe the ordeal to the world press – which they did.

But that’s not all.  Stories of pure wildness emanate from Sarobi.

Like this one from The Independent:

Must be some interesting restaurateurs in London.  The story continued:

Good grief.

When we drove down through Sarobi, we saw perhaps a half dozen men wearing tennis shoes, but there were no human dogs in evidence.  We made it through the town with no dramas, passed a lot of places where vehicles had been ambushed, and finally arrived in Jalalabad.

I heard there was a great U.S. battalion near Jalalabad, and I tried to embed with them, but they were full at the moment.  The battalion commander and his folks at 6-4 Cav have a fine reputation, and if there is one thing I’ve learned about US and British commanders, when they know they have a great bunch of soldiers, they like to show them off and brag about the unit.  It’s like grandparents rambling on about their families.  When I popped up on his radar screen, the battalion commander said come on and get over here.  But the controllers of the media switches, who were very helpful and responsive, didn’t have any spots at the moment.  There were also time consuming issues involving getting a badge to embed.  So I stayed unilateral.  The only question was: where to go next?

Tim Lynch had an idea.  Why don’t we try to talk with villagers from Sper Kundy, the village near Sarobi where the French were killed?

It took several days to set up, but a few phone calls and some planning later, we were on our way.  While it was too time consuming to get with our guys, I didn’t need a badge to listen to the enemy.  But it wasn’t just a question of logistics.  I wanted to talk to the enemy, because that’s the best way to understand them.  When we spoke with enemies in Iraq, oftentimes we found we had greater common interests than we ever expected.   (And there were people who thought that talking to the Sunni insurgents who eventually became the Awakening was a bad idea.)  Eventually, we stopped fighting and joined forces, and beat the rat droppings out of al Qaeda.

Meeting with the Enemy

On 26 September we headed back to Sarobi.

Tim was driving while Shem was the front passenger.  I sat in the back with “Z,†our interpreter.  All of us dressed in local garb, and put our sunglasses in the glove compartment.  Tim and Shem wore clothing over their body armor.  We were heading to meet with three men.  Our first contact was in Sarobi.  We were to first meet with him, then he would facilitate a meeting with two men from Sper Kundy.   We drove into Sarobi and picked up the initial contact named “Abraham,†whose English was not so good.  Then we drove out of Sarobi in the direction of Sper Kundy, where we met the other two men.

Now we had seven men in the crowded truck.  When the two from Sper Kundy noticed Tim and Shem’s rifles, I saw alarm on their faces.  There was some rapid talk between Abraham and Z.  The two men from Sper Kundy thought that we were soldiers and they had been tricked, but Abraham pointed to my camera and notepad and eventually the men settled down.

We set off toward Sper Kundy.  As we crossed the bridge over the river, the men got nervous because of the police.  They covered their faces with their scarves.  We crossed the bridge with no problem, but the area we were heading into was truly bad guy country.  The Uzbin Valley.  Where NATO forces only go in large numbers, and with armored vehicles and aircraft for high cover.  We were running behind because Z had shown up late, and there was no road directly to Sper Kundy, meaning we would have to walk in.  With the delay, there was no way we were going to make it out before nightfall.  Also, something didn’t feel right, so I called “no joy†and we decided not to head to Sper Kundy.  Instead we would hold the meeting somewhere else.

We kept going, until finally the men thought the best place to sit down and talk was on a hilltop.  I did not like that idea, but choices were limited.  As we stepped out of the truck, I mentioned to Tim that this was a great way to get hit with a Predator strike, which he had already thought of - he and Shem left their rifles in the car, so they wouldn’t be mistaken for armed enemy.  We also took off our body armor so that NATO aircraft, which surely must be prowling because of all the missions going on in the area, would not spot seven men, fat with body armor and weapons, just near where the French were killed.  We were not around any villages and so we were an absolutely perfect target.  Everyone had cell phones.

We met at an old fighting position. I was truly worried that we would be hit with a Hellfire missile or JDAM bomb.  I’d seen plenty of these situations play out.  Often the people on the ground have no idea they are targeted, then they die.  I knew our guys, or the Brits, would not fire on unarmed people, unless one of those telephones belonged to an important enemy.  But what if jets or helicopters from some other country, like France, spotted us?  I had no idea how they might behave.

And so the meeting began.  The man on the left said his name is Mohamood Farooq, and the man on the right identified himself as Abdul Samad.  Both of them were from Sper Kundy.  Mohamood said he was “Taliban,†while Abdul claimed he was not.  In fact, Abdul said he hated the Taliban.  Mohamood Farooq is also the name of a Taliban commander whose family had recently been killed in an airstrike that was targeting Farooq but missed.  Apparently this was a different Farooq because I asked about his family and he said his family was fine.

It was Ramadan and there was white on Abdul’s lower lip that looked like salt from dehydration.  Z, the interpreter, said he was so thirsty he could drink a lake.  Mohamood and Abdul were respectful and direct.  I did not sense that these men would try to harm us.  I sensed they only wanted to tell their side of the story.

Abdul said that the villagers had liked the French and the Americans before the fighting, but now they hated them.  Abdul called himself the Malik of Sper Kundy, meaning the head man.  Mohamood and Abdul both said they were teachers.  Abdul taught math and English.  Abdul said he was from the Sahak tribe, and both men were Pashtun (the largest ethnic and linguistic group in Afghanistan).  Abdul pointed out that there were no Taliban in Sper Kundy, which contradicted Mohamood who teaches in the same school and claimed on sidebar to Z to be Taliban.  Abdul said there was Taliban in neighboring villages, though.  Abdul said that about 350 families live in Sper Kundy for a total of about 1,200 people, which seemed like a small population for so many families.

I asked them to describe the fighting with the French.

Abdul said that three American Humvees came the first day, along with ANA (Afghan National Army) and French soldiers.  He said that the French were out away from Sper Kundy when 35-40 Taliban attacked.  Abdul called them “Taliban.â€Â  He said the Taliban commander was Mula Hazart, whose nickname is Mujahid.  They said that about half the Taliban were Pakistanis.  I asked to meet with the Taliban commander.  They said he had been shot in the shoulder and went to Pakistan.

Abdul, who can speak a little English, said that at first they liked the French and Americans because they were friendly and helpful.  But he said that local people now see people who wear a uniform “all have one same face.  ANA and NATO are all in one hand.â€Â  He said the French were killed about three kilometers from the village, and though he said he did not see the killing with his own eyes, Abdul was told that some were captured and then killed.  Mohamood said that the Taliban were trying to capture some of the wounded French, but they kept fighting so the Taliban killed them.

They told me that the body of the interpreter for the French had been left by the French troops.  The interpreter’s family wanted the body returned so they and others collected the body, took it to Kabul and gave it to the French.  (American military sources later confirmed to me that Afghans brought the body of the French interpreter, an Afghan, to French forces.)

Abdul said that after about the first 24 hours of fighting, there was no water and the local kids were crying.  He also said that after the French had been attacked, they drove their vehicles into Sper Kundy and parked between the houses for protection.  Abdul clearly thought this was cowardly, hiding behind the families, and he said the French damaged walls and houses when the Taliban continued the attack.  As the Malik, he came out to complain.  Abdul said that a French soldier hit him in the back three times with his fist.  I told him that he should have gone to the American commander if he had a problem, but Abdul said that my words were not like reality.  (Actually, I know American and British soldiers.  If they see kids crying they get upset, but if they see an angry man during a fight, there could be another reaction.  I don’t know how the French soldiers are.  I have had more contact with the Taliban than with French soldiers.)

They said four civilians were killed by one of the airstrikes -- three men between ages of 40-45 (most Afghans apparently do not know their own ages), and one 11-year-old boy.  They said another civilian was wounded, and villagers took him to a hospital in Laghman.

Abdul told me that during the fighting, about 200 animals had been killed, including 27 cows.  The rest were sheep and goats.  Abdul also claimed to be able to tell the difference between American, French and ANA vehicles, and that the French had fired four Milan rockets during the fighting.  He actually called them Milan rockets.  He said three rockets hit the hills, but another rocket badly damaged a house or building in Sper Kundy, and he said the school also was hit during the fighting.  He claimed that nobody – not the U.S. nor France nor Afghanistan - paid for any damages.  I asked Abdul to estimate the complete damages and he put it at about $20,000.  I said there was nothing I could do about that, but I knew the right people to contact with the complaint.  (And I did later pass the word to the right people.)

Abdul said that on 18 September at about 11 p.m., the French, U.S. and ANA attacked another village in the Uzbin valley.  He said they landed in about 10 helicopters.  Abdul said that villagers ran from the helicopters because they were afraid.  He said, seeing them run, soldiers shot and killed four and captured six.  I had seen a report saying four had been killed and another four captured, so there was a discrepancy on how many were captured.  Abdul said he did not know where the captured men were taken and they have since disappeared.  He said the soldiers were on the ground for about 4 hours and flew away at 3 a.m.  He also said that the men who had been taken prisoner were not Taliban, but four were businessmen from Khost buying fruits, and that the other two men were from Uzbin village (which is in Uzbin Valley).  Mohamood said the villagers had noted the direction the helicopters flew off in, but didn’t know of any bases in that direction.

Abdul and Mohamood said they were not present during the 18 September attack, and they might have wrong information.  But I was able to check many parts of their stories, and most details were corroborated by solid sources.  After checking with knowledgeable U.S. and other sources, I believe Mohamood and Abdul were telling the truth as they knew it.

Our meeting was originally planned for 25 September, but just before Tim, Shem and I took off, we got word about a big mission that was unfolding near Sper Kundy.  I wanted to go, but Tim said that it would be a bad idea. When a retired USMC infantry officer with four years of Afghanistan experience tells me to cool my heels, these heels are cooling.  I took the day off.  And so the meeting took place on 26 September.  I asked Abdul about the prior day’s mission.  He said that about 40-45 vehicles came.  Most of them were French, but there were also ANA and Americans.  He said the villagers became afraid, but the soldiers said they were not coming to fight, and so the villagers relaxed.  Abdul didn’t know why they came.

I was getting concerned that the longer we stayed on that hilltop, the more we invited an airstrike or an attack by the Taliban.  Even if just for a couple hours, I felt what it might feel like to be a villager, caught between two fierce lions.  I know which lion I want to win, but that did not ease my feelings that we might get hit by our own airstrike.  I can only try to imagine how the villagers must feel.  Imagine that fierce, unpredictable power from the air.  Airstrikes are impressive affairs.  Much more impressive in person than on television.  Although I know our folks are extremely cautious, we’ve earned a reputation for killing lots of Afghans by accident.

The Taliban are a force that people might not like, but they can learn to understand and even live with them.  We saw in Iraq that many people wanted to have a predictable despot in charge, while others were willing to take the risks of democracy.  Those who wanted the dictator would accept that he was cruel, and angry, but they could learn to live by his rules.  So, hatred of the Taliban doesn’t translate into love for us.  The Afghan people might not have liked living under the Taliban, but they also know that one day we’re going home.  And the Taliban are home.

The seven of us loaded back into the truck and started back toward Sarobi.  When we came to a good view of Sarobi, the men from Sper Kundy wanted to take a picture, which I found curious.  Why would a man who has lived here all his life suddenly want a photo of Sarobi?  Maybe he had a new camera.  Had it belonged to a French soldier?

The date and time in his view finder was 2008/09/26 at 06:27AM.  The date and time programmed into my own camera was 2008/09/26 at 10:24AM.  My cameras are set to GMT.  It appears that someone had taken the time to program the date and time on this camera.  But this is not Afghan time.  France is one hour ahead of GMT. Some parts of French-speaking Canada are four hours behind GMT.  But none of the ten French soldiers came from Canada.

We dropped off Mohamood and Abdul, and headed to Sarobi to drop off Abraham.  There we saw a French patrol coming from the direction of Kabul, and turn right up an unpaved road.  The French did not point their weapons at people, and the soldiers seemed to try to be non-menacing.  But I’ve noticed something with the huge amounts of military convoys I’ve seen; when you are embedded with the convoy, you don’t feel menacing, because, at least with the Brits and U.S. when I go with them, I know they take great effort not to hurt innocent people.  But up on that hilltop, sweating out the possibility of an airstrike, and now watching the French convoy in Sarobi, it’s easy to see why we wear out our presence.  We don’t want to be a pain to normal people, but we are.

After dropping off the Afghans, we headed back from Sarobi to Jalalabad.  At 1530, Shem spotted a man above the road to the left with what he thought was an RPG, and he thought someone was about to get attacked.  We made it back to Jalalabad and the only drama was Tim’s driving, which was a lot scarier than the idea of an airstrike.  Sometimes I closed my eyes.  (There was a report that on 04 October, there was an illegal checkpoint on that road where the bad guys apparently were looking for pro-government people.)

We made it back to Jalalabad, and later that day, I was given 32 photos and videos from another source.  These images were of the Taliban who I believe killed the French.  During some of these videos some men were carrying the French weapons and wearing French uniforms.  All of the photos were shot with a Fujifilm Finepix F480 camera.  I was given the photos on a thumbdrive.  I do not know the model of the camera that made the videos, but apparently it’s the same F480 camera that made the still photos.  All the still photo and video files have the prefix “Padsfsf.â€Â  Fujifilm advised this is not a prefix that their cameras use.

The following photographs came from the thumb drive.

Shortly after meeting with Abdul and Mohamood, I read in the press that Gulbuddin Hekmatyar had released a video claiming responsibility for the Sarobi ambush.  Gulbuddin said that he lost ten men in the fighting.   Meanwhile, the Taliban were also claiming credit for the ambush.  Some “170 heavily armed rebels†had attacked the soldiers, who killed “between 40 and 70 enemy fighters,†according to French officers quoted by Agence France Presse.  That same news report also had this interesting item:

Tim had said explicitly that this was HIG country, not “Taliban.â€Â  The reports make it appear that he is correct.  And so, perhaps, when Abdul claimed he was not Taliban, and, in fact, hated the Taliban, he might have been telling the truth.  (I got the feeling that he was.)  Maybe Abdul was with HIG.

When I was up on that hill with Abdul and Mohamood, they never mentioned religion.  They did not seem like terrorists to me.  They came across as men with their own lives who wanted to be left alone.  Yet I was unhappy with the thought that I might be in the presence of men who had something to do with the deaths of French soldiers.  I originally obtained the 32 photos and videos on 26 September.  At first, I refused to publish them or even show them to anyone.   Then, after much thought and consultations, I decided to publish them, hoping I could do so with respect for the fallen soldiers.  There is a great sadness in my heart about this war.  A relative handful of terrorists can provoke more than three dozen countries to come to Afghanistan.  The fire they started could consume the democracy of Pakistan.  The French came to Afghanistan as our NATO allies – if they surrender, will the alliance hold?

Two days after our meeting, the French were attacked again nearby.  This time nine of them were wounded.  The next day, down near Kandahar, another four French soldiers were wounded, along with two Canadians.

On October 9, the Agence France Presse reported:

This is exactly what the Taliban want, to split off our allies and create a sense of desperation among those willing to stay.  The Canadians are also getting hit hard.  And the Brits as well.  By picking off our allies, and undermining the domestic support crucial to supporting the war effort, our enemies in Afghanistan and Pakistan are trying to isolate the U.S. so that they can eventually force us to leave.

Is this war winnable?  I don’t know, but my gut instinct is that Afghanistan/Pakistan will devolve into something worse than Iraq ever was.

Afghanistan is considered “The Good War†only by people who don’t realize (or refuse to acknowledge) how difficult the situation is.  The road to hell is paved with good intentions. And that seems to be the road we’re on in Afghanistan.

But for the moment, let’s forget geopolitics, and remember the soldiers who gave their lives not just for their country, or Afghanistan, but also for us.

Americans love to visit the beaches of Normandy and pay tribute to their countrymen who died for France.  Well, here are the names of the ten French soldiers who were lost in combat on 18 August 2008, in a battle for Uzbin Valley.  They, too, deserve our gratitude and respect.

Damien Buil

Kevin Chassaing

Sébastien Devez

Damien Gaillet

Nicolas Grégoire

Julien Le Pahun

Rodolphe Penon

Anthony Rivière

Alexis Taani

Melan Baouma

 

These soldiers were deployed in the name of peace.  May they rest in peace.

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