—–

Alvi has a running under-commentary about the on-going ubiquitous Iraq war, which was strangely (and refreshingly) undefined and unfocused. Certainly a critical view of America’s actions underscored the shots of bombed out hotels, of guard checks, and most of all, of the stories told by the band members. “Firas” (who knows if these were real names, given security issues) the bass player, spoke the best English and thus became the central character; “Tony,” the lead guitarist, though hyped as a spectacular talent, was barely average by western standards. “Marwan,” the drummer, and “Faisal,” the second vocalist that Alvi talked to (the first having fled to Syria) offered occasional pity comments. According to Marwan, “if you can teach every prisoner to play drums . . . you’re gonna have good citizens. . . .” (Here in the United States, I think we have tried that by having them do laundry or make license plates. Not sure if that’s worked yet.)

Band members addressed the extreme difficulty they had in even practicing in a city in which every block had either a check point or was controlled by one militia or another. Then there was the electric power issue: during the one concert Alvi filmed (in front of perhaps 20 people, all males), the electricity went out after a few songs. Alvi himself quickly experienced the impossibility of carrying normal western-style interviews in war-torn Baghdad. His crew paid $1400 U.S. dollars a day for two drivers, two shooters, a translator, an armored SUV and a second vehicle, which he thought was a steal under the circumstances. Most of the filming came from hand-held cameras; much of it from the windows of the SUV or in isolated apartments or alleys. Even getting from one block to the next in 2006—before the surge—was difficult, and Alvi found that talking to ordinary Iraqis at that time was impossible. They trusted no one, and the western reporters hid in the hotels, sending Iraqi camera crews out to get footage and report back, whereupon the brave journalists would do voice-overs as if they were there.

The most amazing aspect of “Heavy Metal in Baghdad” is that, however representative or unrepresentative Acrassicauda was, they were hardly a jihadist anti-western band. Under Saddam, merely “head-banging” could land you in jail! Acrassicauda sported “Metallica” and “Slipknot” t-shirts; learned their music from American and British metal bands (whom they loved); listened to bootleg American tapes; and flat-out admitted, “we’re not a politic [sic] band. . . . we stay out of politics . . . .” Firas noted “I don’t give a f –k about the news. . . . I’m trying my best to get out of the country [to where] I can have peace.” When Alvi first contacted the group, Saddam Hussein was still in power, and the band members recalled that they were only allowed to play a concert if they wrote a special song to Saddam, which they did. It had “shit lyrics” they agreed: “Following our leader Saddam Hussein, we’ll make them fall, drive them insane.” Come to think of it, the lyrics in Van Hagar weren’t all that terrific, either. By the way, the band’s name, Acrassicauda, is Latin for “black scorpion.”

Indeed, the absence of a jihadist or even Islamic tone to anything was stunning. Instead of praying before playing (as many Christian bands do), Acrassicauda gave a rousing football-type cheer: “Acrassicauda—let’s go!” Firas observes “I’m Sunni, my wife is Shiite,” and suspected “someone else” was causing the violence in Iraq,” though he didn’t name the U.S. “I got nothing against religion,” he said, “I’m a Muslim but I’m not that straight.” During the entire movie, there was not a single Allahu Ackbar or discussion of jihad, paradise, the Great Satan, or holy war. Firas also observed that “people” came into Iraq from “Turkey, Iran, everywhere,” by which he meant al-Qaeda terrorists.

In the end, Alvi’s would-be story of an Iraqi heavy metal band ends up like that of most American rock bands. Unable to practice or play (or, in the U.S., pay the bills), Acrassicauda goes to Damascus where they eventually break up. Perhaps one lesson of “Heavy Metal in Baghdad” is that without the USO, it’s damned tough to have “normal” entertainment in war zones, regardless of the style of music being offered. But Alvi perhaps could have gone much deeper with the more important theme of how these Muslims looked so much like American Christian youth who had fallen away from the church for secular pursuits. And still more important, there is an unexplored question of whose culture is more powerful—the fundamentalist Islam of the mullahs or the freedom, in whatever its lyrics and musical form, embodied in the West.

Heavy Metal in Baghdad (2008), Produced by Eddie Moretti and Suroosh Alvi, directed by Eddie Moretti and Suroosh Alvi, VBS/Vice Films (148 minutes).

Brace yourself, because Buried is the feel-good movie of Fall 2010!  It’s full of action, laughs, romance and important lessons in why America was awful for freeing 37 million or so Iraqis from a genocidal dictator who liked to feed them into meat grinders.  Hey, if your idea of fun is watching a guy in a little box for 91 minutes, brother, your ship has come in!

—–

If you’re anyone else, I’m guessing the only way you would ever pick this movie to wreck your Friday night is if the alternative was Pauly Shore’s big-budget romantic comedy comeback with Katherine Heigl or some pinko documentary on global warming where Michael Moore has a full-frontal nude scene.  And even then it would be a close call.

I guess Ryan Reynolds, who stars as the world’s hunkiest truck driver, did this low budget, American-Spanish-Australian indie because he wanted a role where he could somehow stretch himself in new directions. The dude is a movie star, he looks like a Greek god and he’s married to Scarlet Johansson. What’s the “new direction” that leads to his life being better?  If I were Ryan Reynolds, I’d be all about keeping a death-grip on the status quo – “Yeah, that’s a nice Oscar, dude, but look what I’ve got waiting for me at home dressed as a naughty cheerleader. . . have fun polishing your statue,  loser!”

The plot is simple – Reynolds is a contractor in Iraq whose convoy got ambushed.  They put him in a coffin somewhere and he wakes up with a cell phone and spends the next hour and a half calling people trying to get out.  Simple.  And about as much fun as a Lawrence Olivier root canal.

The script by Chris Sparling is well-written from a technical standpoint.  Substantively, it leaves something to be desired – like the merest hint of originality.  The gimmick of never leaving the coffin – all we hear from other characters are voices – is like the film school equivalent of an SNL sketch stretched into a feature – mildly amusing for about five minutes, but after about thirty you’re wondering if you can slit your wrists with the Slurpee lid.

All the clichés are there.  Ryan calls the contractor company and they are no help.  He calls the FBI and they are no help.  He calls the State Department and they are no help.  The military is no help either.  There’s a lot of not helping in this script.  A lot. 

And the terrorist calls and speaks in a hilarious pidgin English that makes him sound like a New York cabbie trying to explain particle physics to a terrier.  These exchanges are supposed to show us that the – well, don’t call him a terrorist! – okay, the Arab guy, is human too.  Those evil Americans – 9/11 wasn’t the not-terrorist’s fault, yet the Americans came and destroyed everything!  Oh, and apparently we Americans killed four of his kids.  So he has no choice but to murder Americans and bury them alive – all the characters seem to agree on that point.  See, the not-terrorists are the victims – much like the audience.

And, of course, there’s the babe in the woods cliché too.  Reynolds only took the job because he needed the money but had no idea what he was getting into.  Yeah, it’s true that those innocent truck drivers the evil corporations recruit land in Baghdad and are shocked – shocked! – to find out that the reason they are getting paid so well is bad people want to shoot them.  Also, the company lied to him because, well, it’s a corporation and in Hollywood corporations always lie to people.  And the company is evil too.  Because all corporations are evil in Hollywood – and here it’s not just normal evil but full-tilt Snidely Whiplash you’re-kidding-me ridiculously evil.

And the script refers to the Bradley infantry fighting vehicle as a “tank.”  Don’t get me started.

So, we have another Iraq movie where the American protagonist is the helpless victim of, well, they don’t say so explicitly but I’m betting it’s Bush.  Hell, all the other clichés are there.  And from the script, this movie seems to rank on the entertainment scale somewhere between a UTI and, well, being buried alive.

“Buried” goes into limited release this Friday, wide release October 8th.

16 July 2009
Ghor Province, Afghanistan

On a per capita basis, Afghanistan is becoming more dangerous for British and American troops than Iraq ever was. For those who fought in places like Anbar, Basra, Baghdad, Diyala and Nineveh, that’s saying a whole lot. On a per capita basis, there are strong indications that Afghanistan will prove more deadly than Iraq during 2006-2007. One can only imagine how many days and nights Secretary Robert Gates and his advisors must have agonized over troop levels here. On the one hand, we have a fraction of the troops we need, but on the other, increasing troop levels increases hostility toward us. Secretary Gates has made it clear to me that his biggest concern is that we will lose the goodwill of the people and they will turn against us. This happens to be my own biggest concern. The agony is in knowing we need more medicine and the medicine can be highly toxic here. Many people have complained that the new restrictions on air strikes will hurt us, but from my boots, General McChrystal (the new boss here) has fulfilled the intent of his boss, and that the decision, though tough, was wise; if we lose the widespread assent of the Afghan people, it’s all over but for the bleeding.

Today our chances are not good, but there remains a real chance to succeed. Those chances improve dramatically when we take a no-kidding inventory of the situation and refine our goals to align with reality.

While war ravages neighboring narco-provinces, sluggish progress is being made in others. Here in Ghor Province, the Japanese, Lithuanians, and a host of other nations have teamed up in this remote area of Afghanistan.

Please click the image above for a larger view.

So one morning the Lithuanians loaded up a patrol and headed out West, in the direction of Herat, and took along four Japanese who are involved in the oversight of spending $2 billion of Japanese money in Afghanistan. Both the Japanese and the Lithuanians exude a sense of purpose; everybody seems to wish they were elsewhere but the mission is important.

We started from the Chaghcharan Provincial “Re”construction Team (PRT); the first step in revealing truth with no mercy about Afghanistan is to call things what they are. There is not a single “Reconstruction” team in Afghanistan. The place was never constructed. Just why the faulty name “reconstruction” was picked is unclear, though it would be fair to guess that political expedience is the culprit. Peoples of developed nations might be more likely to “re” build something they are made to believe they destroyed. The governments can call these PRTs, but henceforth this writer will call them Provincial Construction Teams, or PCTs.

So we loaded up the trucks and headed out West from the PCT. Some readers might recall the last dispatch, wherein we accidentally found Lizard Hole (Karbasha) Village up in the mountains while searching for Kuchi nomads. Today we were heading to Sangow Bar Village. The satellite imagery shows no paved roads because the closest, the “ring road,” is about 175 miles away if you are flying, and much farther if you are on a camel or driving. And so it might seem that we are in the middle of nowhere because by most developed standards we are. If visitors from other galaxies land in this largely Stone-Age place, they can expect to be greeted by small-arms fire and RPGs. Though various star-watching peoples are known to have lived here for many thousands of years (including Buddhists, Jews, and invaders of all sorts), there were not a lot of road builders.

Provincial 'Reconstruction' Teams (PRTs) will henceforth be called Provincial Construction Teams or PCTs, on this website. (Please click the image above for a larger view.)

It’s worth a moment of silent reflection to look at the image above and ponder this: though the area appears extremely desolate and remote, there is hardly a fold or wrinkle in the land where you can walk or drive that you will not run across someone. There are areas where few people venture, such as the “Desert of Death” down south, but it seems that as a rule Afghans diffuse into the available volume as if they have a partial pressure. Independence is a key personality trait; if they had a meter of road for every meter of wall they build, the major communities likely all would be connected. Out in the boonies, just when you think you are at the end of the world and nobody could possibly be there, you find a shepherd, or some bearded guy cutting grass with a daas (a long crescent-shaped knife) for his livestock. The people pick over this arid land like ants. Afghan life in the hinterlands is like an eternal camping trip. By their calendar, the year is 1387, but it seems like it could be thousands of years earlier. Young American soldiers who served in Iraq learned about our own country. Often, soldiers would say things like, “Why can’t the Iraqis just get along? They keep themselves down, dragging fights around forever. They fight over stupidness!” Nobody had to fill in the blanks. The reflection was healthy for us.

Along the dusty road to Sangow Bar Village, we passed by shepherds whose livestock shaves the land of nearly every nibble of green.

We rolled into the village of Sangow Bar and were greeted with quiet acceptance. Ghor Province is touted as being poppy-free, and indeed it’s nothing like the rolling hills of Urozgan, the fields of Kandahar, or the mega-producers in Helmand, where I’ve seen miles of poppy growing along the roads and just near bases. This tiny patch, about the size of a walk-in closet, was for personal use.

The sluice gate near the center of the image controls water to the generator downhill.

The village of Sangow Bar was dark. It had no electricity until 2006 when Lithuanians invested about $40,000 to build this micro-hydro generator with the idea of watching the village to see if true improvement was made. Today, Sangow Bar has plenty of electricity and the people have lights and satellite television, yet despite that opportunity, nobody seems to watch Oprah. The old saying, “You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make it watch Oprah,” is an unfortunate reality in many parts of Afghanistan.

Sangow Bar: Little Red Hen incarnate. (Please click the image above for a larger view.)

Today, Sangow Bar has surplus electricity, so a Japanese asked why the power lines did not cross the river to the dwellings on the other side. The village headman said the people on the other side of the Hari River had refused to help build the micro-hydro, so today they get no juice. The Lithuanians have determined that the project was a success, and the project appeared to be a success to the Japanese and to me.

With this success in mind, the Lithuanians together with Iceland decided to build thirty more hydro-generation stations. Now, if we look at this in context of the broader picture, thirty, three hundred, or even three thousand might seem like an irrelevant number. But it’s not.

During my eight trips to Nepal, and my training with Ghurkas in Borneo who had served in Afghanistan, the Ghurkas have educated me in “Gobar Gas,” and they wonder why Afghans do not use Gobar Gas. Gobar Gas is a simple, cheap, and very ecologically friendly way to collect methane from human and animal waste, and that methane is then used for heating, lighting, and cooking. The system improves sanitation, and the by-products make great fertilizer. And so one Ghurka soldier who had served in Afghanistan insisted that I learn the five virtues of Gobar Gas, and that I be able to name them offhand.

Gobar Gas systems cost only a couple hundred bucks each, and any villager can operate and repair the system. Today I see Gobar Gas all over Nepal, but the older Ghurka soldiers will say that when they were kids, Gobar Gas was practically nonexistent in Nepal. But some far-thinking Westerners came in and installed some systems here and there, and the Nepalese people saw the incredible value, then ran with it. If you go trekking into the villages in Nepal, you might ask villagers to see their Gobar Gas system, and before you know it you’ll have the grand tour because they are quite proud of these excellent little contraptions. And it started with seeds.

And so the Lithuanians and their thirty generators will likely spark more than a few light bulbs. We and our allies cannot construct Afghanistan, but we certainly can nudge this caravan in a better direction.

Americans implored the Japanese to get more serious about Afghanistan, but it was the Lithuanians who actually petitioned the Japanese to come out here to Ghor Province. The match is working well; the Lithuanians provide support, such as security and some investment, but when it comes to capital, the Japanese have the big guns.

Hisako Ishizaki is a First Secretary from the Japanese Embassy. She has worked, studied and traveled around the world, including in Mindanao in the Philippines, where I just left. While Hisako stayed involved in the discussions about the hydro-plant, she wasted no time in sitting down and teaching this child to write a few characters.

The feet tell the story.

Pencil from Japan.

Ambassador in UN Affairs, Shigeyuki Hiroki, is the key man when it comes to the investment of the $2 billion Japan has so far pledged. Mr. Hiroki told me that $1.8 billion is already invested, and that the final $200 million is not the end of the road here for Japan. Ambassador Hiroki told me that Japan would be involved for 10, 20 or 30 years. Mr. Hiroki has been one of the most realistic officials I’ve spoken with from any country, though the Lithuanian Commander of the Provincial Construction Team, Colonel Alvydas Siuparis, also is under no illusions. Nor are Secretary Gates or General Petraeus under any illusions and they speak frankly. It would seem that our greatest asset today is the small but strong and growing nucleus of people who understand the magnitude of the problems, but still believe in the endeavor.

That said, the Japanese time frame is more realistic than I hear coming from most American, British, or other officials.

Hisako prepares to cross the sluice, followed by Counselor Hiroyuki Orikasa and First Secretary Jiro Kanzawa, while the Lithuanians, whose names I am not permitted to publish (photos are permitted), stay vigilant. Luckily, the only danger here seems to be the sluice.

The Japanese who have landed out here have enormous collective global experience. Hisako, for instance, speaks Dari fluently after having lived in Iran. She studied in Costa Rica, the Philippines, and has traveled extensively from Tajikistan to the United States. This is true of the entire Japanese team, including Chihiro Imai who has worked and traveled extensively in the most bizarre corners of Africa and South America, visiting about twenty-five countries. Hisako and Chihiro have both been to India, and both women laughed when I said that I go to war to take a vacation from India.

Unfortunately, the deteriorating security situation is causing the Japanese to dramatically cut their staff in Afghanistan. It would seem that U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates agrees that Japan is cutting back right when we need them most, though he has publicly praised the Japanese commitment and urged them to stay involved. It is important that the Japanese stay heavily involved and not decrease but redouble their efforts.

Window through time: Purples, greens, and reds seemed popular with the girls.

A wrestler is born.

Echoes of Alexander.

No food shortage in Sangow Bar.

A weathered sign for Afghanaid in the background. Water wells are popping up all over the place. The Lithuanians say about sixteen NGOs work in Chaghcharan and have made their own significant contributions.

Little girl who followed the Japanese and Lithuanians.

Unfortunately, these kids had already been taught the benefits of begging and this analogy extends directly to their parents. In Afghanistan, like Iraq, when we invest resources into installing a diesel generator for a neighborhood, the people will complain that we don’t supply the fuel. When the Indians paid for local broadcasting equipment in Chaghcharan, the station manager complained that the Indians didn’t make a new office, and there is often a tone that we need something or “give us or we will misbehave.”

“Trick or Treat” was a common theme in Iraq and is so here, too. Many children in Chaghcharan beg, but unlike the kids in this village of Sangow Bar, kids in Chaghcharan often throw stones at the vehicles if the soldiers refuse to play Santa Claus. Many of the Lithuanian vehicles have spider-webbed windows and windshields.

There was a time when some Iraqis began to revel in the attention, and they seemed to lose context that one day the war would end—for us anyway—and that attention would evaporate. One sees the same in Afghanistan. Prosperous nations are trying to psychoanalyze Afghan behavior, and some Afghans revel in this newfound influence, but what many apparently do not understand is that this storm is apt to end as quickly as it began. For this very reason, many Iraqis are filled with nervous anxiety that the Americans are packing out. Influence at local levels in Iraq had diminished precipitously by 2008, and it’s only a matter of time until local mayors and governors in Iraq have no open line to American upper echelons. Business will be conducted at national level. Gone are the days when the mayors of small cities like Tal Afar could get the attention of Generals and even the President of the United States. The world is big, and there are tens of thousands of “Tal Afars” out there. The curtain opened and now it’s closed in most of Iraq.

Interestingly, Iraqi contractors are following the money and popping up in Afghanistan.

Other Afghans are more circumspect, seeing themselves in larger context, realizing that aid can be a fickle blessing and is not an obligation, and that we all know we owe nothing to Afghanistan. We are not paying off a debt and there are other ways for us to protect our self-interests. Many NATO partners, and other partners with big pockets, are here for larger political considerations that have little to do with Afghanistan per se.

Dr. Yaqubi, Director of Ghor Provincial Hospital, has a clearer perspective of the situation, and in fact returned earlier this year from a conference in India. Dr. Yaqubi said his hospital goes six months out of every year with no running water, and when he does have water, it’s unfiltered and unpurified. The cleaning men fetch water from the Hari River during six months of the year, but in the summer they have a reservoir, and get water from the nearby girls’ school, whose own director is upset that the hospital uses their water. (A bright spot in Chaghcharan is that the locals want girls to go to school, and many children are learning English.) During the wet times, the hospital floods, causing the septic system to overflow.

The hospital has ten General Practitioners, three specialists, an anesthetist nurse, two X-Ray machines—one of which works—and an ultrasound machine. They have no female doctors and the male doctors are not allowed to deliver babies other than by Cesarean. During delivery, women are on their own with the midwives, and the male doctors are not permitted to treat “female problems.”

Dr. Yaqubi said he did eight Cesareans in last three months with no complications, and that during the last 90 surgeries had only two deaths, and that complications usually occur because people wait too long to seek treatment. The average post-op stay is four days.

No NGOs offer assistance at the hospital, according to Dr. Yaqubi. There is room for 85 patients, and the Lithuanians donated two tents, adding twelve more beds, but those tents are used for storage. I sat on one of the beds and tried to imagine being a patient here. There is no exaggeration in saying that Americans probably had better medical care during the time of our Civil War. The dusty hospital with its buzzing flies is a living museum of unplanned misery, and I heard the cries of babies wafting through nearby open windows. Bedraggled women sat with pitiful-looking children, waiting on steps into the hospital. Dr. Yaqubi said that if there were two shipping containers for storage, the tents would offer a dozen more beds.

Dr. Yaqubi wants to show people that health care is not free, but he says that the parliament in Kabul thinks it should free to all. The Afghan government can’t even drill a well for this provincial hospital, and all their machines and supplies were probably donated, yet they want “free” healthcare. The beggars of Kabul who refuse to drill a well for the Ghor Provincial Hospital want free health care for all!

I told Dr. Yaqubi that the same argument is raging in America, and I asked the Lithuanian doctor sitting beside me if this is an issue in Lithuania. She confirmed that it is. Dr. Yaqubi said that if treatment is completely free, the hospital would be overwhelmed. With about 750,000 people in Ghor Province, they’ve got 85 dirty beds here, and two smaller clinics elsewhere. Free health care? How about steady electricity to run the X-ray machine?

During winter, most patients cannot journey to the hospital no matter what the case. If a baby is burned during a cooking accident, there is no chance to make it to the cold hospital. If people become too sick they just die and are buried in the icy ground next to the village. Five years ago, Dr. Yaqubi recounted spending five months in the remote district of his birth, administering aid to the people stranded by the snows. He conducted more than 150 surgeries, including ten Cesareans, saying that was the first time the locals ever saw such a thing. Usually the women just die if there are any complications, and he said nine women died that winter. “The woman thinks she is going to die, so she does,” he said.

According to their calendar, the year is 1387, and New Year’s Day this year was 21 March. During the year 1386, the main hospital raised the equivalent of $8,447 in fees from patients, according to Dr. Yaqubi.

Every village has a Mullah. The less primitive Mullahs realize that modern medicine—more or less—can actually work, while other Mullahs, through ignorance or power-wielding, claim monopoly on healing rights, and forbid or discourage people from seeing doctors.

Let’s grab a napkin and do some coffee table math. According to the CIA World Factbook estimate, the population of Afghanistan, as of July 2009, is 33,609,937. Just how the CIA arrives at such a precise number but can’t find in Iraq the WMD that certainly existed at one time, must leave the math-whizzes rolling on the floor. For the sake of humoring the CIA, let’s round to the more napkin-friendly number of 34 million. The CIA World “Guessbook” opines that about 24% of the people are urbanized. This leaves 76% in the sticks. Sticks and mountains. And deserts. So that’s about 26 million people in the boonies. Afghanistan is geographically slightly smaller than Texas, the people are 99% Muslim, and the place is home to some of the most forbidding mountains in the world. Deep Appalachia has nothing on Afghanistan.

There is no estimate for the average size of Afghan villages in the CIA Guessbook. My big guess from seeing villages in various provinces and many districts is the average community probably consists of less than a hundred people. Former USMC officer Tim Lynch has lived here more than four years, and estimates the average village might have sixty people. For the sake of coffee table math, let’s say the villages in micro-communities are home to some 26 million, and have about 100 people each. That would leave 260,000 villages, plus the 8 million people who live in cities and towns.

Those 260,000 villages are spread out in some of the wildest country you can dream of. Now imagine putting one schoolroom and one teacher in every village to teach all kids through all ages. According to the Guessbook, about 28% of the people are “literate”; that’s about 43% of the men and 13% of the women. The hand that rocks the cradle can’t read, and the fact is that the Guessbook has no idea how many people can read because in all the years of war, most villages are never visited.

And so, it’s not a far stretch to say this is a girl without a future as we know it.

It’s too late for most kids who are already born. Outside the cities and towns, most will never learn to read.

The world behaves cruelly and precipitously. If this girl gets sick during the winter, likely she will be out of luck. The hospital is too far.

The girls in many villages wear the same color lipstick, which they slather on with abandon.

Lithuanian and Japanese officials visit a park under construction in Chaghcharan.

When Shigeyuki Hiroki, Japanese Ambassador in UN Affairs, walks through villages inspecting projects, it’s doubtful that anyone around understands the gravity of his recommendations on how to spend that $2 billion. Unfortunately, due to the increasing violence, the Japanese are thinning their staff in Afghanistan. The Afghans must realize that they are facing competition for Japanese assistance. Other places, such as Cambodia, are not dangerous for Japanese aid workers.

Lithuania and the U.S. teamed up to build a training center in Chaghcharan, which a local authority then tried to take as his residence.

These children likely will learn to read because they live in Chaghcharan. In fact, I think this girl was in a nearby school I visited. The Lithuanians, Croatians, Ukrainians and others have been helping with schools and supplies. Many of the kids in Chaghcharan are learning to speak English.

The Lithuanian-run Provincial Construction Team (PCT) at Chaghcharan.

There are still legacy mines near the airstrip next to the PCT, and just few days ago a mine was found and detonated just a meter off of the main road into the camp. Wounds from legacy mines here are relatively uncommon, though. Dr. Yaqubi said that only about one person per month steps on one.

Despite the remoteness of Ghor, the Lithuanian, Croatian and Ukrainian soldiers seem to take pride and joy in their work. The journey is long, but progress in this little patch of Afghanistan is obvious.

PS: The war is heating up and all signs indicate it will continue to worsen. The Afghan war has become more dangerous, on a per capita basis, than the Iraq war ever was. The unit I will soon be with took five KIA last week and many others wounded. July will almost certainly be the most deadly month so far in the entire Afghan war. The press makes it sound like the British must be shaken, but I know those soldiers. They will be striking back. Needless to say, our people will do the same as needed. Nobody over here is shaking in his or her boots. We don’t have enough troops, or Afghan forces, but our folks are ready for more action and will do what needs to be done.Please support this mission by making a recurring contribution. I need to stay focused on the war, not the funding. Recurring contributions are a great help in planning and budgeting.

Thank you and stay tuned…

Michael

That farmer was my great-great-Grandfather. The bible he carried off to war now resides at my parent’s house, and I have had occasion to carefully turn its pages, looking for clues to what drove him. Other than his name and a few notes on the inside cover, he left the answer to posterity. I imagine, though, the answer wouldn’t be much different than some of the other Iowa farmers I’ve known who’ve answered the call. Farmers like my great-great-uncle Billy Stebner, who as an old man used to thrill my brother and me with his tales of pursuing Pancho Villa into Mexico with General Black Jack Pershing.

Farmers like my maternal Grandpa John Cullen, who followed Pershing on his next assignment in Europe, and saw the horrors of trench warfare at the Marne. Or his son John, a Marine who fought amid the carnage of Okinawa. Every week he wrote a letter to his five kid sisters, including my 6 year old mom, telling them everything would be okay.

Farmers like Donnie Burge, a cornfield hot rodder who enlisted with the 5th Army in ‘55 and spent the next two years getting his arms covered in tattoos and staring across the 38th parallel at a scowling line of North Koreans. Luckily the ceasefire held, and he returned to take over the family farm. And sire yours truly.

Farmers like my brother-in-law Ron, who spent 3 tours in Vietnam as a Huey pilot. Just like my Uncle John he wrote reassuring letters home to his 6 year old kid sister, who grew up and married me. After the war he spent another 10 years as a helicopter school instructor at Ft. Rucker, and returned home to the dairy country of Northeast Iowa. Three of his own farm kids have answered the call; most recently my niece Devin, who spent 2004-5 in Baghdad driving a 3-ton truck with the 389th Iowa Combat Engineering Battalion. Farmers like her husband Rick, currently serving with the 389th in Iraq on his 2nd tour, away from their baby daughter.

Every single one of them fill me with awe and amazement, and a humbled sense of gratitude for having the great cosmic fortune to be born in a country capable of producing farmers (or non-farmers) like that. Where do they come from, this long line of common men and women of uncommon valor, who risk everything only to shrug it off with a simple “I just did my duty”?

I’m afraid I’ll never quite comprehend it, but an awestruck thanks to every last one of you.

First, the one of the main points of this fact-based opinion piece. And I know I’m going to catch hell from the Streisand and Brolin crowd on this one! Ronald Reagan was a hero to gays, and Obama has not been to date. I know, I know. The Evil Ronald Reagan, who practically invented AIDS? Reagan, the Adolf Eichmann of the Gay World? Not true. Not by a country mile!

In fact, Ronald Reagan was a better friend to gays and lesbians in his age than Barack Obama has been to gays in his. But don’t even go by what I say. I’m a right wing extremist, and very biased to what I believe. I admit it. Who isn’t these days? The press? LOL! But here are some irrefutable facts on The One and The Gipper I thought I’d throw out there. A gay buffet for thought, if you will. With swimming pools. And movie stars.

You may not know this, but like former presidential candidate Barack Obama, then-candidate Ronald Reagan faced a polarizing gay-related California ballot referendum of his own in 1978. It was called the Briggs Initiative, better known as Prop 6, and would have banned all gays and lesbians from teaching in California schools.

This, in an America not nearly as tolerant of homosexuals or gay issues back then as now. Just ask ‘em. I remember. I read the far left Boston Phoenix. It was free, why not? And I knew fag haters. Too many, actually. But I digress. Back to 1978 California, presidential candidate Ronald Reagan, gays and the Briggs Initiative, better known as Prop 6.

As Prop 6 appeared to be gaining steam as the vote neared, with State Senator John Briggs stoking fears of gay teachers in the classroom with the full backing of California’s right wing, gays and lesbians were terrified that Prop 6 might actually become law. In their darkest hour, they turned to a most unlikely hero and savior: former California governor and conservative Republican Ronald Reagan, then gearing up for his 1980 presidential run.

After hearing the group’s concerns, candidate Reagan not only agreed with them, but became the bill’s most public detractor, even penning a scathing op-ed against it in the now-defunct Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, in which he said the following:

“Whatever else it is, homosexuality is not a contagious disease like the measles. Prevailing scientific opinion is that an individual’s sexuality is determined at a very early age and that a child’s teachers do not really influence this.”

Ronnie also stated that the same laws regarding the safety of schoolchildren applied to ALL teachers in the state. How’s THAT for progressive thinking from a conservative Republican, in an America not eight years removed from the Stonewall Riots? With former two-time Governor Reagan’s stern and vocal opposition, Prop 6 lost by a million votes. And John Briggs lost his race for governor in the primaries.

In taking the bold stand he did, candidate Reagan completely alienated the right wing in California, which blamed him for both the Prop 6 defeat and John Briggs’ primary loss. It was an act of political courage on Reagan’s part that might not only have cost him electoral vote-rich California, but the Presidency itself.

As it turned out, Ronald Reagan took California by a handy seventeen points in his 1980 landslide pummeling of Jimmy Carter, sending the President back to his peanut farm in Georgia (if only he had stayed there). And you can bet a lot of grateful gays and lesbians remembered Ronnie’s championing their cause, and pulled the lever for The Gipper. But despite all that, Ronald Reagan was a conservative of his time. Tolerance did not mean acceptance.

Again, from the Independent Gay Forum:

Reagan: “My criticism is that [the gay movement] isn’t just asking for civil rights; it’s asking for recognition and acceptance of an alternative lifestyle which I do not believe society can condone, nor can I.”

Aside from his tolerant personal attitude, Reagan’s actual record on civil liberties for gays was surprisingly good. Cannon reports that Reagan was “repelled by the aggressive public crusades against homosexual life styles which became a staple of right wing politics in the late 1970s.

Though liberals may harangue Ronald Reagan as I’ve indicated, the fact remains. When gays and lesbians desperately needed him as they faced REAL institutionalized homophobia, Ronald Reagan was there for them, and in a major way that turned the tide completely in their favor. In fact, the openly gay Log Cabin Republicans were spawned from this huge political victory.

Now let us move on to candidate Barack Obama and his wishy-washy stand on Prop 8, the gay California ballot referendum of his time:

“I’ve stated my opposition to this. I think [Prop 8 is] unnecessary. I believe marriage is between a man and a woman. I am not in favor of gay marriage. But when you start playing around with constitutions, just to prohibit somebody who cares about another person, it just seems to me that’s not what America’s about. Usually, our constitutions expand liberties, they don’t contract them.”

The main point that seemed to escape candidate Obama at this time was that they WERE playing around with the California Constitution. I believe candidate Obama missed an opportunity here to take a bold stand on gay issues like Reagan did, and speak out against Prop 8 from the liberal Democrat POV. He was, and is, a very charming and charismatic candidate and President. No denying that. He could have used that charisma and charm to sway many minds over, and with a very simple statement that could have swung the Prop 8 vote the 3 points it needed to pass.

Example:

“Though I myself oppose gay marriage, I cannot let this Constitutional ban go unchallenged. Amendments that restrict rights instead of expanding them are un-American. Therefore, I oppose the passage of Proposition 8, and I hope you will, too. I will further state that I only support this measure as civil procedure.

“Churches and individuals that are morally opposed to gay marriage should not be compelled under legal threat or duress to participate. That is their right under freedom of religion. I would no more want gays invading the rights of churches, than I would want churches invading the rights of gays.”

But, no. What we got was candidate Obama wetting his finger and sticking it in the air. Just like Bill Clinton with his poll-driven morality, trying to have it both ways. Not much Hope For Change there with regard to Democratic presidents, it would seem. Even in office, the Obama Administration has been wishy-washy on pushing gay issues like Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. But I don’t really care about that. Obama and gay advocates can hammer out DADT, among many other issues.

But even as a straight man, I am VERY concerned about the officially-sanctioned extermination of LGBTs in Iraq on our dime, what I now call the Gay Holocaust in Iraq. What else do you call a specifically targeted pogrom, with the express goal of exterminating a segment of the population? If this were merely a death squad issue, that would be matter for the Iraqi government.

Unfortunately, the Iraqi government is neck-deep in the gay butchery themselves. Interior Ministry police hunt down gays in Baghdad, raid parties, hunt them online by using fake foreign IP addresses (as Iran does),  then tortures and exterminates them in the worst possible ways. Just as Iraqi Spiritual Leader Ali al-Sistani declared they should be, in his 2006 fatwa of death against Iraqi LGBTs. Though removed from his website after controversy, the fatwa is still in full effect.

Allow me at this point to question the spirituality of a religious leader favoring any pogrom, or stating that ANYONE should die in the ‘worst possible ways’.

Here is one former Mahdi Army member who now makes a career of being a gay death squad ’surgeon,’ cutting out the cancer of homosexuality the Americans brought with them to Iraq. His words, not mine. Also, one particularly subhuman technique of killing gays, now quite popular with Iraq’s most pious Shiite extremists, is to super-glue a gay man’s anus shut, pump him full of a diarrhea-inducing compound, and have a few laughs as the victim suffers unbelievable agony before dying. The Iraqi tribes also now have carte blanche to exterminate any Iraqi LGBTs they find.

Unfortunately, this Gay Holocaust of Iraqi LGBTs, which has already claimed nearly 500 innocent lives in the most gruesome of ways since the 2003 invasion, and is now ramping up in violence and horror by the day, enjoys wide public support in Islamic Iraq. Just take a look at this recent report, also from Common Ills:

This morning AFP is reporting that signs are going up around the Sadr City neighborhood of Baghdad threatening to kill a list of people alleged to be gay. The posters are put out by the Brigades of the Righteous and AFP translates the posters as stating, “We will punish you, perverts” and “We will get you, puppies” has been scrawled on some posters — “puppies” being slang for gay males in Iraq. The Australian carries the AFP report here. These posters are going up around Sadr City. Where is the United Nations condemnation? Where is the White House, where is the US State Dept?

Very good questions, to which you may not like the answers. I know I don’t. Here’s State’s response to this worsening gay horrorshow in Iraq, again from the Common Ills blog:

Noel Clay, a State Department spokesperson, said U.S. officials “condemn the persecution of LGBTs in Iraq,” but he couldn’t confirm whether the violence they’re facing in Iraq is because of their sexual orientation. Clay noted that while homosexuality is against the law in Iraq, the death penalty is not the punishment for homosexual acts.

Now I don’t know who Noel Clay is, but I do now know that Inspector Clouseau is Einstein by comparison. I’m finding too much evidence. I don’t even have to look! How dangerously stupid is Noel Clay, to be in that lofty position as State and be so ignorant of the facts? Is he just stupid? Or worse, is it willful ignorance?

To be fair, this gay horrorshow started on President Bush’s watch. He should have done far more to nip it in the bud in 2006 after Sistani’s fatwa. In my mind, that will remain a black mark on his record. He should have put a stop to it, instead of letting it fester to the point it is today. All that said, this issue is now fully the Obama Administration’s and Congress’ problem lock, stock and barrel.

So where is President Obama? Secretary Clinton? Madame SOS said she would stand with ALL the Iraqi people! Where is she on this issue, so near and dear to gay hearts? Nothing on State’s main or Iraq pages. Even Queerty, a major gay blog, is slamming Hillary on this issue. How bad is that? Where is our Gay Rights Hero President on our American tax dollars subsidizing a Gay Holocaust?

What are we fighting for there? Freedom? What are we defending Iraq from? Islamist extremism? Starting to look like a lost war to me! And I supported President Bush every step of the way on this war, even when he was getting hammered for it by everyone! I believed the Iraqi people deserved a shot. For the first time in six years, I’m not so sure anymore.

I look at it this way. Either the Iraqi government and people can put a stop to this Auschwitz-like Gay Holocaust in Iraq, or I say withdraw and let Al Qaeda in Iraq take over. Certainly wouldn’t make life any worse for Iraqi LGBTs. And they can ALL share in the terror they enjoy so much! Hell, I’d even be willing to help and support Al Qaeda do just that! But only this once. You know. Like a Christmas armistice. Wouldn’t be the first time we helped Al Qaeda fight terror.

A brilliant strategy on fighting the war on state-sponsored Islamist terror too, if you think about it. Not only would Iran lose its considerable Iraqi Shiite power base, a supreme Sunni Al Qaeda in Iraq would be a mortal foe, and would no doubt be plotting 9/11s for Tehran and elsewhere in the Islamic Republic. As a bonus, Iraq Shiite extremists like the ’surgeon’ and all his gay-butchering Islamist Nazi pals would be the first to be hunted down and exterminated by a supreme Al Qaeda in Iraq. They could ALL enjoy some open-air surgery and super-glue enemas!

How Joker-like blackly comic great would THAT be?

Considering Iran has now seemed to have successfully exported their own Gay Holocaust to Iraq, how Joker-like great would all that be, too! I say let a Sunni extremist Iraq and Shiite extremist Iran turn each others’ nations into bombed-out wastelands of terror. And without the loss of one American life or dime. It’s one idea, anyway. Another hor d’ouevre for thought. And it couldn’t happen to nicer guys. Unless, of course, the Iraqi people decide to refrain from their most-popular anti-gay pogrom and join the civilized. Otherwise, I see no point in defending them any longer.

It sure would be nice to see others speaking out against this taxpayer-funded gay horrorshow in Iraq. Like our Gay Hero President, for example. Knowing Ronnie as I do, I’m sure he wouldn’t stand for this kind of abomination in any nation being rebuilt with American taxpayer dollars, or protected by American soldiers.

Congress, State and The White House really need to hear about this LGBT horrorshow in Iraq, loudly and repeatedly. Short of war, there’s nothing we can do about Iran’s Himmler-like extermination of gays. War works for me, though. But Iraq is ours. We broke it, we fix it. And you could not have much more severe of a breakage in Iraq than a Gay Holocaust. This is 100% Obama’s and the current government’s problem now. Those gay anal super-glueings started on their watch.

Time to stop it. Like right now.

Also, since Hollywood pretty much propelled Obama into office, why don’t you get on the horn to the gay and human rights chumps at AMPAS? See if they can give their best bud and Gay Rights Hero Obamamessiah a shoutout. Then again, considering AMPAS’ and Hollywood’s own deafening silence on Roxana Saberi and Iran’s Gay Holocaust, maybe we’d better wait until the next Oscars for them to champion “gay rights for everyone” again, like Penn and Black so tearfully pleaded for.

That stuff looks SO good on TV, doesn’t it? Just like President Obama and his so-called championing of gay rights, which appears to be totally MIA on EVERY gay rights issue. Hell, I’m a Reagan Republican, and I have a better record on this issue than all of them combined! I don’t care that they’re gay! They’re innocent human beings, and they’re being horribly tortured and brutally exterminated! Do you have to be Jewish to be totally repulsed by Auschwitz?

Based on Reagan’s record, I believe The Gipper would have put a stop to that shite and ordered American troops to hunt down the death squads, as American GIs once hunted down the SS ‘werewolves’ in postwar Berlin. I also believe he would have pummeled al-Maliki’s Shiite government over the issue as well. Which only makes the silence by the Obama Administration and Congress on this issue more profoundly deafening. O Gay Rights Hero President, where ARE you?

Oh  and if any of you ObamaBots believe anything I’ve said here is fantastic or untrue, look it up yourselves. I’m tired of spending hours researching and linking stuff I already know inside out. Plenty out there on all this gay horrorshow stuff, in both Iran and Iraq. Too much, actually. The Internet’s glutted with it! You just have to look. And not the other way, as even the Invisible Press seems content to. Look at how few in the MSM are reporting on this abomination. Gay blogs, mostly, along with the BBC and some S.F. TV affiliates.

The rest I leave to you. And our Gay Hero President and Congressional gay rights champs. Ya, As if. Too busy saying Israel needs a tougher line. Um, excuse me?

Goddamn, I miss Ronald Reagan. He stood up even for those he totally disagreed with. This bunch won’t even stand up for those they profess to champion! I guess that part I must leave to you, Dear Readers. Won’t you speak up for those who can’t, to those who should be and aren’t?

Do it for Ronnie! This is the ULTIMATE in taxpayer issues!

And somebody wake up Perez Hilton. Bigger problem here than Miss California, methinks. See if she can’t get the Prop 8 crowd as rabid on the horrific slaughter of Iraqi and Iranian gays as they are with the Mormon Church and us! I’ve sent him a dozen emails on this stuff. Crickets! My Gay Hero.

And just to show I’m not partisan or picking on Perez here (which is just too easy to do), the Log Cabin Republicans linked above need a shoutout, too. I’ve been cc’ing them on all my Perez Hilton emails. None too pleased with their response, either. Time to step it up. Hell, they’re the gays here! Why do I and only a handful of REAL gay advocates have to be the ones screaming to the skies about all this gay horrorshow stuff?

Hmm. Interesting question, indeed.