Desert Rains

Afghanistan's parched earth is so thirsty that it has forgotten how to drink. Rather than the rains being soaked up, they roll off the land and the runoff quickly becomes flood waters in the flat lands of the southern desert. These waters follow the nation's southwestern slope into a large basin in the southwest corner of the land locked nation. Here, heavens rejected gift of life pools in this corner pocket, shortly before the heavens steal it back away, leaving a vast and barren salt crescent that straddles the border of Iran and Afghanistan and stretches over a hundred miles end to end.

Kandahar Airfield sits on a similar flood plain, and although the airstrip may have once sat on a small island of high ground, the base has now expanded beyond those seasonal shores. In the rainy season, residents quickly learn where they stand - or swim - as those minor changes in elevations make all the difference in whether your office and desert home are dry, or half sunk off the southern shores of the airfield.

Most residents who have been around for a year can speak of at least one heavy rain that turned intersections into river crossings. Or how the deep ditches along the road quickly swallowed up the untrained newbie, who drifted too far off the shoulder as he was wading into work in the muddy waters.

When I first experienced these floods in 2010, I thought surely this is rare event, since such a large section of the base was flooded, but more seasoned residents swore it happened every year, and that my experience was mild. This was highlighted when I began receiving e-mails titled 'Operation Noah' every time the forecast called for rain, warning me to put electronics up on tables to avoid losses as offices flood. I missed this years big flood but I was greeted with the tales of water three feet deep on some roads, and water stained walls on ground floor housing units, now condemned due to water damage.

Another interesting aftermath to flooding are the potholes. During flooding they are the lurking menace that keeps traffic traveling at a crawl as motorist tentatively navigate once familiar dirt roads that are now littered with new hazards under the murky waters that threaten to swallow a tire or submerge an engine block.

After the waters subside, the roads new topography hardens into bone rattling washboards that quickly snap axles of overworked rentals. The weeks after a flood the streets take on the look of a ghetto as abandoned vehicles begin the litter the curbs with one hub on a cinder block, or a tire curled up under the vehicle, because a driver was too slow to realize the rough ride wasn't just the road conditions.

Having experienced one flood and heard stories of so many others, my next obvious question is, why did we expand further out into the lowlands? I can only assume that the persistence of the dry season lulls people into believing the last year's floods were a fluke, and there is no way this desert is going to give way to lake side property again. Inevitably it does. Lessons are learned. Then the replacement unit arrives in country and the cycle repeats.

The new guys suffer through the summer heat and convince themselves the stories of flooding must have been exaggerated. After all, we haven't seen a cloud in the sky since we hit the ground. Construction represents progress, so we need to expand the base further south. Ten years of lessons learned, and still today the construction cranes of progress dot the southern horizon and new foundations litter the landscape. Maybe next year will be different.

More likely the drumbeat of 'development' will drive the expansion forward until we are forced to stop building and hand the whole thing over the an Afghan force who will watch the flood waters of international aid recede and the oasis of development fall into ruin. We have not learned our lessons, but I think the Afghans have seen this storm pass before and have learned all the wrong lessons. I can only hope they will weather the storm far better this time, and the aid that has seemed to roll of the back of most of the nation and pooled in the pockets of new political powers will be invested in more worthy development.

However, much like the desert rain, the foreign aid is beginning to evaporate from this parched land back into the western banks from wince it came. The newly minted upper class fear their riches will not bear fruit in their land. Instead, remembering the long dry spells and chaos that have racked this development desert, they would rather water investment properties in Dubai, instead of gambling on growth at home. Already, the money markets of Kabul are rich with the speculations of financial crashes to come. As coalition forces plan their withdrawal, the familiar dry years of old loom on the horizon.

Snow Day in Afghanistan

Afghanistan has a history of conflict, from Alexander the Great, to Genghis Khan, to the last four decades beginning with the Russians, to civil/tribal war, and the Taliban and Al Qaeda. The history of violence is tied to the geography, with the country straddling the crossroads of trade routes and conquest. Even the terrain seems violent. The jagged Hindu Kush Mountains mountains climb out of expansive dunes on the edge of the southern desert. The mountains stone is young, rough and sharp edged, like the countries population. Their violent rise, not yet softened by weather, erosion and time.

PHOTO: Alexander's castle on a hill above the town of Qalat, Zabul Province.

The weather is just as extreme, assaulting you with triple digit temperatures, on cloudless, dry days in the summer months, followed by some bitter cold winter nights. Plus, a constant wind that is channeled by the mountains so consistently that even an aerial view of the dunes looks like the gods themselves are blowing the land to the east, up against the mountains like an ocean of earthen waves crashing against a jagged shore. In the summer, the wind feels like a gust of heat from an open oven, providing no relief from the high temperatures. While in the winter, the cold wind cuts through your clothes, saps your skin of moisture, and chills you to the bone.

One might think that snowstorms would be one more assault on the senses here, but I have found the opposite to be true. The storms we have had this year, have settled in softly, with the winds giving way to calm, allowing the flakes slow, silent fall to bring on an almost therapeutic calm. The fresh layer of white, softening the harsh, sharp angles of the landscape and covering the barren brown landscape and cityscape of brown mud walls and buildings. It also dampens the harsh light of the typical cloudless days, and low clouds soften and conceal the sharp peaks of the surrounding mountains.

In the south, the snow is rare, which makes it a treat for the locals with limited resources and entertainment. The rarity is highlighted when you see kids running around in the snow wearing nothing on their feet except for flimsy sandals. It raises spirits both for novelty of seeing snow in the desert lowlands, but also in hopes that it is falling harder, and piling up deeper in the mountains, to sustain the Spring run off that will support the crops as they struggle against the parching heat of summer.

For me, it has brought on the feeling of being snowed in, like I should hibernate with a blanket and a book, in a cozy room with a window... if I could find a room with a window. The soldiers spirits have been lifted as well, and I have seen an assortment of gun strapped snowball fights, snowmen in camouflage caps, and even igloos being built before the melt ensues. A tactical pause, brought on by the limited mobility on icy roads and passes and reduced air support as well. Though the laundry list of tasks at hand can often seem daunting, and tomorrow may be filled with mud and mayhem, the snow seems to absolve everyone of responsibility for a moment. Enjoying the day, like a child that just heard school has been cancelled on account of snow.

Neo-Colonial Warfare... have we got soft?

Sitting on a pleather-bound sofa, reading, as a theological discussion unfolds in the next room, and rocket attack warning sirens blare over the base intercom, the surreal situation unravels into a discussion of acceptable ways to die in a war zone. With many of the guys in the crowd waiting to fly home at the end of their tour, the first unacceptable mode of mortality is determined to be in a rocket attack, on your last day in country, while walking to the donut shop, which one only finds on a built-up base like Kandahar. We laugh, the sirens give way to the all clear, and then he excuses himself to head out for coffee and donuts.

And so it is in neo-colonial warfare, where support bases blossom into a desert oasis, with boardwalks and coffee shops. Where you can sit down with your coffee, a bagel, and a book and soak up some early morning sun, while French and British accents fill the air with discussions of going home, or just arriving, but little about the war outside these walls. And who can blame them with all the comforts of home within these confines, and all those without wanting in, or just wanting us out, so they can figure things out on their own. Instead, the great nations of the colonial days of yore are trying their hand at a new version of the old game. Living in the country, but not within the means of the country. Shipping in as many comforts of home as we can for our morale, and then wondering why no one seems to be rushing to get out.

My experiences in combat zones have seemed a bit like 'warfare lite,' when I compare them to the books and films about the conflicts of American history. It is possible that the comforts of war may not make it into the history books and movies, but I find it more likely that today's wars are not quite comparable. Vietnam may have had some comforts for the top brass in Saigon, and the same may have been true for the commandeered headquarters on the European front in WWI and II. But, when I think about the soldiers in combat, in foxholes, relishing an occasional shower and change of clothes, I think we have really gotten soft. Now hardship is limiting your daily shower to 2-5 minutes, having to do your own laundry -- or having to wait more than a day for laundry service to return it -- and limited Internet access.

Back then, the Infantry marched into war, now we drive. Statistics can be twisted, but a startling statistic comparing our fuel consumption per soldier, then and now, calculates a rate of 1 gallon per day per soldier in WWII and 15 gallons per day per soldier in today's conflicts. I assume that accounts for all the aircraft and vehicles' gas consumption, but I'm not sure if it also counts all the generators burning fuel to power the operation bases. Plus, the large bases have a whole fleet of civilian SUV's, or in military terms NTV's (Non-tactical Vehicles), to drive around the base, to and from the office, shopping center, or dining facility. When and if fuel supplies are limited, I might just have to walk, or catch a bus, because they even have bus routes on big bases. War would be hell, if I had to walk the three blocks to pick up a dozen donuts for the office.

Back then soldiers suffered frostbite and trench foot living in the foxholes. Now, we spend $20 billion a year on air conditioning and live in 'housing units.' Twenty billion for the AC, and who knows how much we spent on all of the housing units. One might argue that living in a Shipping container turned into a house is still a hardship, but they've actually become 'Industrial Chic' and people are paying good money to live in them in major urban areas around the globe. Seriously, google it. I actually just moved into one of these housing units -- after 'roughing it' in a tent for months -- and as everyone moved in, the crowded halls, the bunks, and wall lockers, meeting new roommates or neighbors, it actually felt like a college dorm on the first day of school.

Six months into my first deployment in 2004, I took my mid-tour leave, and met an older gentlemen dining alone at a local restaurant. We invited him to join us, and in the course of the dinner conversation I learned he was a WWII vet from the Pacific campaign. Since I was on leave, he told me about his 'mid-tour' leave. He headed home, three years after departing for the front! It took him about three months to get back to the states, riding on supply ships and warships back across the great expanse of the Pacific Ocean. I had covered about the same distance to get home on leave; however it took me less than a week. And, I had complained about having to wait two days in Kuwait to catch a commercial flight. Yep, I think we have gotten soft. Speaking of which, I think they still have some soft serve ice cream left in the dining facility. I better go get some now, or else I'll have to wait four hours until they open for dinner.

The Flight

My day started at three in the morning, only four short hours after the last had ended. I was catching a flight from Bagram to Kandahar aboard Gumby, the call sign of a contract twin prop, puddle jumping Cessna. The call sign is appropriate, as my flight was delayed two days due to 'maintenance.' The aircraft is the same type of plane I would fly, if I was catching a commercial flight from Denver to Wyoming.

However, over here, I don't have to deal with the hassles terrorism has brought to airline travel back home, even though I'm surrounded by the dangers of a combat zone. Instead, passengers with guns are expected, and luggage and passengers are not scanned. In addition, passenger are bused out to the aircraft and then become the part of the aircrew, helping load the baggage, and prep the aircraft for take off. This mornings flight was no different. Before loading the crew asked us to help push a trailer packing a generator over to wing in order to jump start the bird. A real confidence builder, especially after a two day delay for 'maintenance.' I quote maintenance, because, on occasion, pilots and crew will call a maintenance day to get a break from the grind of constantly flying the same routes... and in the Air Force maintenance problems reportedly crop up more frequently at the nicer lay-over locations; Spain, Germany, Greece.

Anyway, I was one of only two passengers for the trip and other than being employed as part of the ground crew the pilots treat us like frequent flyers. The safety briefing was treated even more like a formality than any stateside flight and was just short of, "The safety card is in your seat pocket. Any questions?"

My fellow passenger had actually flown with the crew before, so it was more like catching up with old friends. He informed me that the pilot was solid, which was good to know since the bird might be questionable with the recent maintenance delays. However, I was curious how he was able to assess this on a single flight. He must have read my mind, and he expanded on the statement stating that on the last flight the pilot took the plane into a steep banking dive on the approach to land. I'm not sure if this meant he was a good pilot, or the threat level was up, but either way it could make the flight a little more fun.

Once I had my co-passenger talking he didn't slow down. We briefly talked about what each of us did over in Afghanistan, and since I worked on computers he went into a story about his neighbor who also worked in IT, but had also joined the Hell's Angels. Immediately, I pictured a skinny, young kid with bottle cap glasses struggling to keep his hog upright, but apparently the guy actually looked the part, was tattooed, six foot something and over 300 pounds. I guess in reality he would have a harder time fitting into his IT department, which happened to be in the Department of Defense. Or it was, until Uncle Sam got word of his membership in the Hell's Angels and terminated his clearance. Apparently, the FBI was not real comfortable with the idea of a government employee with a top secret security clearance mingling with criminals in a biker gang. Surprisingly, this was a shock to the guy, and he was furious when he lost his clearance and job. However the drama didn't end there, and to add insult to injury, since he had been traveling with work or his bike gang, his wife moved in with another guy. As my single serving friend told me, 'He may have looked the part for the Hell's Angels, but he was huggin pillows on my couch and crying like a baby when the wife walked out.'

Guess it goes to show that you can't judge a book by it's cover. He ended up taking his wife back, and getting another IT job in New York; so he abandoned the neighborhood, and his $230,000 house for the big city where the IT crowd can roll with the Hell's Angels on the weekend, as long as the network doesn't crash while they're raising cain. I can just imagine the guy in a smoky, biker bar room brawl, about to break a pool quo over some guys head. Suddenly he stops, snags a blackberry off his belt, and takes a call from Betty in admin, who is about to break her coffee mug over a computer because the printer won't work. Instantly, he's transformed from killer to counselor, talking Betty down from the ledge with with some user friendly IT speak. The bar goes quiet, and when he finishes the call the rowdy crowd has calmed down, and lined up with their own laundry list of computer crises.

His next story was about the rest of his neighborhood, which was somewhere between Army Wives and Desperate House Wives. The neighborhood is full of military families, and is a secluded loop drive. In addition, the patriarchs are often deployed at the same time, so when they are away the women bond, and when they are home the place turns into a rowdy block party. When the parties break up the revelers often drive home on four wheelers or golf carts, and have been known to drift into the ditch along the road on their short drive down the block. One night, he found one of his friend passed out in the ditch, in a turned over golf cart, and carried him home; only to find that his wife had locked him out for partying too long. The only logical thing to do at that point was set him up on a inflatable mattress on the porch and let him sleep it off, 'til the wife came out in the morning for the paper, and he could roll inside.

The tales continued through the rest of the flight, and reminded me of the thing I liked most about the military: the sense of community and often even family, amongst the ranks. As a contractor I sometimes feel more like an outsider, or observer, looking in on the community that I left. It is mix of nostalgia and loss, but I'm glad I had privilege to experience it, and hope the Soldiers still in the service walk away with similar fond memories.

Random Ramblings from Afghanistan

So, I have fallen off the blog wagon, mostly because I was trying to keep to my chronological collection of travel tales. But alas, if I keep 'post'-poning until I'm inspired to pen my visit to Hong Kong, I may never get out of China. So here we are two years later. I've finished traveling Asia and New Zealand. Spent a winter ski bumming in Breck, a year in Afghanistan, and a few stops across the globe in between. Now I'm back in Afghanistan for another year of the ground hog days of deployment. To fill those days, I thought I should get back to the blogging, and to make it a whole lot more fitting to the title of Random Ramblings, I'll be jumping all over the place in both geography and topics of the posts . So without further ado, I find myself in Afghanistan debating our presence here and China's role as an extension (and a nice way to derail my traveling train of thought, which was sitting idle in Hong Kong)...

I guess I would say that our efforts in Afghanistan are another example of American Exceptionalism, historians refer to it as a place where empires go to die, and yet we Americans feel we will do it different, better, and this time Afghanistan will be a place Empires go to create and build new empires, or at least democracies. I'd like to believe it, but I think Afghanistan, and the Afghan people are going to have to sort that all out on their own, after we leave... whether we made a difference in the outcome of that pending storm, will not be known until the dust settles.

In the grand scheme, I suspect China will end up the big winner in the region and globally, when it is all said and done. In that light, it is not Afghanistan that is using us, rather China is indirectly pitting us against ourselves in an economic battle that we are largely ignoring. They are providing us with the capital to fight our wars, since we don't want to use taxes to raise the capital at home, and they then reap the benefits in Afghanistan, establishing mineral and mining rights using the security we are establishing in the country....

There have been some conspiracy theories that China is even funding al Qaeda. Although, I would support the argument that China has intentions and is taking actions to knock us off the top rung of the global ladder. Al Qaeda is primarily an organization created and largely funded by Osama bin Laden. Although it received money from many other sources, I doubt China is one of them. China has always been very leery of religion and religious groups because religion unites people, and therefore can threaten the state in the eyes of the Chinese regime. An example of China's efforts against religious organization in China can be seen in their treatment of the Buddhist's in Tibet, and the attempts of China to make the Buddhism of the region an extension of the state by emplacing religious leadership selected by the government. In addition, China has created computer malware/viruses, which was used to track the Dalai Lama and other religious/government entities outside of China in their continued attempts to control it's role in the state. With all that said, I don't think it would support al Qaeda because al Qaeda has a Pan Islamic platform, which would in turn also threaten China, and China has seen some Islamic 'terrorism'/revolts recently, which it has struck down with typical vigor.

Additionally, if China wanted to support al Qaeda, they would most likely have had to channel that support through other groups, as al Qaeda would not be very keen on accepting funding/guidance from an infidel state. Though it is possible, and would be a bit ironic that they were stealing US techniques, circa Charlie Wilson and the war in Afghanistan against the Russians, I don't see it as plausible.

However, as I said, I do believe China is taking advantage of the situation for it's benefit. It is using it's capital to fund our war... buying our securities, which puts us in a position of indebtedness that China uses as a playing card in politics. Also, as we spend our blood and treasure establishing security in Afghanistan, and China takes advantage of the security we are providing to establish mining and mineral rights in Afghanistan. Being very attune to the power of propaganda, they also have done some humanitarian work in Afghanistan, which further builds their position and influence in the country and region going forward.

Afghanistan is just one front in the economic war China is waging with the US. Keeping their currency under valued, stealing intellectual property through malware and other efforts, and allowing US companies to build factories and bring work and more technology to their country are a few more. Despite all of this going on extensively for the last two plus decades, the US largely ignores this second 'war front' and our actions both political and corporate are short sighted and often support China's efforts in the name of these short sided efforts/goals. For instance, we could pay for the war by raising taxes or selling war bonds, and allow US citizens to reap benifit of the interest on the bonds, rather than China, but instead we prefer to 'support the troops' in spirit, rather than cash. As Warren Buffet says, the thing that seperates a commitment from a conversation is writing a check. And the politicians know the quickest way to lose the support for the conflicts is to ask for greater commitment from the public pocket book...

I warned you my ramblings would have wider themes than my typical tourist observations and banter, but I doubt they will all end up this heavy... Hopefully they'll at least be a little more frequent.