But (there’s always a “but” in such testy cases), when I juxtapose this one twisted symbolic gesture against the disregard—and I would argue contempt—being shown by so-called “moderate” practitioners of Islam who insist on building their mosque almost on top of the ashes of 9/11 victims against the wishes of so many Americans, I can understand the frustration that creates a Jones and his ilk. And the fact is, as Mayor Bloomberg offered up, if there is freedom of speech for the fanatical Muslim goose, it must also be for the crackpot Christian gander.

Still, as a matter of common decency I hope this guy tables forever his plans—and there are no copycats. And as a practical matter, I agree with General Petraeus in that the last thing our men and women in the field need is another faux propaganda storm putting them in greater harm’s way… although I do believe that fear of retaliation should not be a reason to quell free speech but rather to fight harder for it. (Easy for me to say as I am not humping a pack in Kandahar I freely admit!)

However, something did occur to me this weekend. Jones is going about this all wrong. If he really wants to burn the Islamic holy book, I know a way that he could do it while at the same time have every left wing pundit and mainstream news outlet not decry his act but rather defend and even celebrate it. He should burn it on the steps of the Museum Of Modern Art up here in New York. And instead of calling it a protest, or a statement, he should just call his Quran torching “art.” In the interest of consistency, artistic integrity and fairness, maybe he can even do it in the building, right on the same spot where in 1989 the infamous “Piss Christ” photo was proudly exhibited. You remember that? The piece of “art” that showed a crucifix submerged in urine? As artist Andres Serrano explained his artistic vision in an open letter to the National Endowment for the Arts:

The photograph, and the title itself, are ambiguously provocative but certainly not blasphemous. Over the years, I have addressed religion regularly in my art. My Catholic upbringing informs this work which helps me to redefine and personalize my relationship with God. My use of such bodily fluids as blood and urine in this context is parallel to Catholicism’s obsession with “the body and blood of Christ.” It is precisely in the exploration and juxtaposition of the symbols from which Christianity draws it strength.

That seemed just fine and dandy to the free speech warriors and beret crowd back in the day. In fact, Serrano’s inspired piece won the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art’s “Awards in the Visual Arts” competition which was partially funded by that same NEA—your tax dollars at work. So then I submit Jones should just take Serrano’s explanation, re-arrange a few words, and present his action to the creative world this way:

The act of immolation itself is ambiguously provocative but certainly not blasphemous. Over the years, I have addressed religion regularly in my sermons. My religious upbringing informs this act which helps me to redefine and personalize my relationship with Allah. My use of such symbolic tools as gasoline and match in this context is parallel to Islam’s obsession with pyrotechnics and flaming destruction. It is precisely in the exploration and juxtaposition of the symbols from which Islam draws it strength.

There see? All better now. Sounds like we have ourselves next year’s NEA art contest winner too! At least Jones will have transformed himself from a provocateur into an “artist.” Someone all far lefties can gravitate towards. (Hey and as a bonus, maybe Larry David can pee on it to extinguish the flames like he did a picture of Jesus on an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm. What a hoot!)

Of course, if MOMA declines the new exhibit, Jones could try the Brooklyn Museum which in 1999 exhibited Chris Olifi’s “artwork” that featured the Virgin Mary splattered in elephant dung. Back then the New York Times rushed to the defense of the display:

To be sure, many citizens of conscience find parts of the Brooklyn exhibition repugnant, and it is understandable that many Roman Catholics would find Chris Ofili’s image of the Virgin Mary offensive.” But, it continued, “A museum is obliged to challenge the public as well as to placate it, or else the museum becomes a chamber of attractive ghosts, an institution completely disconnected from art in our time.

As an artist myself I grudgingly see the Times’ point here. So then it would appear, given this take on what constitutes “art,” that what we have in the Quran burning is but the latest chapter in the long, chaotic, glorious march of artistic freedom in defiance of out-moded conventions, intellectually stifling religious dogma, and societal mores. Oh my! What’s a committed lefty to do? One can almost hear the whining robotic cries of “Error…Error…Error….Does not compute!” from the First Amendment crowd who until now so craftily hid behind the cover of the Constitution so they could insult the faithful while calling their crass provocations “art” with a straight face.

But, why the confusion? Gee, I thought these were the guys who love to wax poetic about the joys of free speech, piously affirming to each other over their third latte: “We may not agree with what he says, but will defend to the death his right to say it!” So clearly then, by donning a black turtle-neck and moving the Quran burning venue from the parking lot of an obscure Florida church to the center of the modern art world, the Reverend Jones can count on some powerful liberal allies to shield him from the inevitable “fatwa” which the courageous Ofili and Serrano need never fear from Christians who have long ago learned to take sucker punches to their faith from the intelligentsia in stride.

Don’t hold your breath. These guys only have the mettle to push their “craft” in the faces of those who will not slit their throats. It all depends on whose profit is being gored, and, more to the point, the propensity for violence of those offended. Christians, by the very nature of following Christ’s admonition to embrace thine enemy will always be easy prey for assault and insult… be it in the name of Muhammad or modern “art.”

I reject Jones because he is showing the very contempt for another religion that repels me when I see it heaped upon my own in the name of self-promotion and the loosest possible definitions of “free speech” or “art.” The liberals will reject him too, but for a much baser reason… their double-standard is rooted in staying out of harm’s way. Period. The rest is just self-righteous smoke. It certainly prompts one to ask in this latest episode, who are the real cowards in this whole ludicrous non-event?

Kandahar City, Afghanistan

Slowly, surely, the city is being strangled.  Signaling the depth of our commitment, security forces are thinner in Kandahar than the Himalayan air.  During the days and evenings, there were the sounds of occasional bombs—some caused by suicide attackers, and others by firefights.  The windows in my room had been blown out recently and now were replaced.  We came here to kill our enemies, but today we want to make a country from scratch.

A world away from Afghanistan, over in Holland, was approaching the 65th anniversary of the allied liberation from Nazi occupation, and I had been invited to attend by James “Maggie” Megellas.  Maggie, who had fought his way through Holland and is today remembered there as a hero, is said to be the most decorated officer in the history of the 82nd Airborne Division.  Now 92, Maggie has recently spent about two months tooling around the battlefields of Afghanistan, and though it would be an honor to finally meet him, there was the matter of extracting myself from Kandahar City and getting through about forty minutes of dangerous territory to the military base at Kandahar Airfield.

And so a friend and I donned local garb and loaded into the car.

Criminals and Taliban were on the lookout for westerners to kidnap, and unknown to us an intelligence report had just been issued that men in a stolen Toyota Corolla were on the prowl in Kandahar City.

The camera was mostly kept down but occasionally I lifted for quick shots.  Kandahar City, like other main Afghan cities, belies the fact that most Afghans will never have one minute of electricity, nor will they ever see a westerner.

Afghan police love to jet around at high speeds in their trucks, often with powerful machine guns mounted on back.

Shortly after this photo was taken, my friend, who had been a South African cop for 16 years, spotted two men in a white Toyota Corolla who had locked onto us.  They drove swiftly by for a look-see, then hit a Y intersection ahead on the right.  They tried to get back in, but traffic slowed them by about ten seconds.  I was watching over my shoulder when they dangerously bolted back into the traffic a couple hundred meters behind us.  The camera was on the floorboard.  I had picked up a pistol and rested it on my right thigh.  My friend rolled down his window and I rolled down mine.  They were moving in.  In less than a minute, someone probably would die.  The car was speeding closer when per chance a green Afghan police pickup rocketed by the pursuers.  The green police truck was mounted with a machine gun, and a long belt of ammo was dangling, while a policeman kept his hands on the gun.  I hid the pistol.  The pursuers slowed.  We continued at about 40mph as the police swooshed by.  The police pulled off the road a few hundred meters ahead of us and the white car fell back more, until it passed the police and began to speed up, but that was it.  The pursuers were caught behind too many trucks and fell away.  I put down the pistol and picked up the camera.

None of the paved roads in Afghanistan were built by Afghan vision with Afghan resources.  If not for the many foreign invaders, this land would be road-and runway-free.

An American convoy of MRAPs approached from the front and a soldier in the lead vehicle shot a pen-flare, causing everyone to pull off the road.  The convoys are more menacing from the outside and in fact I kept the camera down and this is exactly why Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is concerned about adding too many troops.  Can’t argue with his reasoning; convoys and troops truly are menacing despite that U.S. and British soldiers are very disciplined.  It must look far worse to Afghans.  Most Afghans never talk with foreign soldiers and those who do normally only see us in passing.  In fact, most soldiers never leave base.  Our forces at KAF (Kandahar Airfield) have a base so large that this commercial jet is about to land there after flying dangerously over this unsecured road.

After arriving at Kandahar Airfield, the Dutch Air Force took me, and long after midnight we boarded a Canadian C-130 and flew to Dubai.

From Dubai, the Dutch soldiers got onto a chartered flight to Eindhoven, Netherlands.

Over the Arabian Gulf, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, skirting Iraq.

Finally into Holland, we landed at the Dutch Air Force Base at Eindhoven, where families and others were waiting for Dutch soldiers.  Someone shoved a rose and a gift into my hand and I smiled, protesting that I am only a writer, and tried unsuccessfully to return the rose and the gift.

There was a short taxi ride to the hotel.

And right there in the lobby was a throng of World War II veterans whose first trips to Europe had been either under parachute into combat, or by gliders into combat.  (As would be revealed over the next five days.)  So I sat down with Guadelupe Flores because he was sitting alone while people crowded around other vets.  His grandson Matt came over.  I hadn’t even fully checked in yet.  Guadelupe said he was from Texas originally but now lived in Ohio, and he’d just arrived.  “Did you parachute in this time?” I asked.  Guadelupe only chuckled, “Not this time,” and chuckled some more.  Please have a look at Guadelupe’s left eye.  This is the last picture before he got the black eye, which is a funny story.  (Guadelupe was on the Army boxing team, he would later say.)

Maggie Megellas was there along with a large group of American university students who had broken off with small groups of veterans.  A man said that General Petraeus’ staff was here and General Petraeus was coming to stay at the same hotel.

Finally I got to the room and there was an email from Afghanistan:

I’ve heard we had to be on the lookout for a group of kidnappers, targeting expats in Kandahar. Apparently they are using a stolen white Toyota Corolla station wagon and a red Toyota Surf. Wonder if we “met” them yesterday?

Actually there had been two suspected vehicles that seemed like they might be working together, but I didn’t mention the second vehicle.  Every day in the war is a close call.

The Market Garden remembrance was to begin in the morning.

THIS IS PART ONE OF A SEVEN PART EXPOSÉ.  READ THE REST OF THE STORY HERE.

1 2 3 4  5 6 7

******

The most rudimentary example is, of course, the pistol in the desk drawer: revealed in Act I, and then in Act II, the gun is used to kill someone.

For an intensive workshop in cinematic setups and payoffs you should screen the Back to the Future series, where setup and payoff are elevated to an entirely new level.

It’s kind of fascinating, watching Obama construct the setup for his Afghanistan policy. He follows a familiar dramatic structure:

1. Anguished self-reflection, all quite public in order to display nobility of character.

2. Striking out at supporting players—Generals Petraeus and McChrystal—for their disloyal behavior.

3. Floating ideas through the court jester, Joe Biden, regarding an alternate—i.e. losing—policy in Afghanistan. The fool is allowed to speak the truth in order to maintain plausible deniability, but actually designed to prepare the great unwashed for a series of radical policy shifts.

It’s all very Will Shakespeare.

But of course this is all a set-up for Obama to do nothing for as long as possible, which is, by the way, doing quite a bit. Inaction on the part of America and her allies benefits the Muslim terrorists by giving them time to recruit, raise funds, regroup, train, and conquer more real estate.

Obama’s next move will be to deploy a few extra troops to Afghanistan, just enough to claim that he’s in the fight, but not enough to shatter his liberal base.

However,  as the body count rises and the tactical and strategic situation in Afghanistan deteriorates, Obama will, in slow motion, bring the troops home, thereby surrendering to radical Islam. And, according to the Democrats, rescuing us from a Vietnam like quagmire.

The blowback will be massive.

1. The Islamists will—rightly—declare victory over the Crusader infidels.

2. Radical Islam will point to a failure of Western resolve in the face of imperial Islam. The propaganda value of this claim cannot be overstated.

3. The Taliban will swallow the entire country and a reign of Islamic terror will spread like the Black Plague.

4. Rapidly, Afghanistan will devolve into a terrorist and drug cartel state, sending out death squads to Europe, North Africa and America.

5. Emboldened, the Taliban will set their sights on neighboring Pakistan, a failed nuclear state ripe for picking. India will be compelled to act or face a nuclear Taliban—dirty suitcase bombs will proliferate—and their non-state Islamist allies, including Iranian proxies. Hamas and Hizbullah.

6. America’s allies will view Obama’s America as an unreliable ally and draw away from America’s orbit.

7. Obama’s fetish for sitting down, in community organizer mode, and yapping away with totalitarian regimes signals massive naivete and weakness. Hence, the Taliban, Iran, North Korea, and Venezuela will stomp all over this administration like a rug. The number one rule of geo-politics is: weakness invites aggression.

Ladies and gentlemen, fasten your seat belts, it’s going to be a bumpy ride.

Copyright © Robert J. Avrech

By Michael Yon
25 September 2009

The surprise discontinuation of my embedment from the British Army left my schedule in a train wreck.  Until that decisive moment, I am told, that my embed with the British Army had lasted longer than anyone else’s; other than Ross Kemp’s.  I’ve also been told that I’ve spent more time with the British Army in Iraq than any correspondent.  So it’s fair to say, we have good history together.

In the last 12 months, I’ve embedded with the British Army in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, then over to the jungles of Brunei to attend a man-tracking school, and again back in Afghanistan.  During that time, I’ve also been with U.S. forces in Iraq, the Philippines, and Afghanistan.  I’ve accompanied the Lithuanians in Afghanistan and also been downrange for months without any troops or official assignment.

This dispatch, and many others, should have been about soldiers at war. But it’s not.  This dispatch is being written in downtown Kandahar City and I have not seen a soldier in days.  The Taliban is slowing winning this city.  There have been many bombings and shootings since I arrived in disguise.

In 2006, Iraq was melting down and I had just written twelve dispatches that clearly stated we were losing in Afghanistan.  Those dispatches caused a public uproar and the consequences were such that U.S. military refused to let me back into Iraq.  Because of the U.S. military censorship in Iraq, I published a dispatch in the Weekly Standard titled, Censoring Iraq.  General Petraeus emailed to me immediately, and if not for his intervention, there would have been Censoring Iraq II, III, IV, V….  Ultimately, dozens of dispatches about soldiers have been forever lost.

I returned to Iraq in 2006, and in 2007, I reported that the war had turned around and progress was clear.  In 2008, I wrote that we had won the Iraq war.  And although recent bombings have grabbed headlines, overall violence continues to decrease.

This brings us to Afghanistan, 2009.

My latest embed with British 2 Rifles, which began in July, was extended on at least two occasions.  The British Ministry of Defence (MoD) had recently agreed that I would spend roughly one more month with 2 Rifles.  My scheduled embeds with the United States Air Force and Marines were specifically arranged around the British schedule, and I was enjoying reporting on the excellent British troops.

However, on August 24th, with no warning, unseen faces of MoD discontinued my embed from 2 Rifles.  The message that I was no longer embedded was emailed to me by Media Ops, just as I returned from an interesting firefight in the Green Zone.  Luckily, none of our guys got hit, but I think the British soldiers may have killed some Taliban.

I do not know the reason for the embed termination.  My best guess is that it relates to my sustained criticism that the British government is not properly resourcing its soldiers.

Before going further, it is essential to underscore the importance of the “Media Ops” in the war. When Media Ops fails to help correspondents report from the front, the public misses necessary information to make informed decisions about the war. Many soldiers in the British Media Ops are true professionals who strive constantly to improve at their tasks and work very well with correspondents.  Their professionalism and understanding of the larger mission—ultimate victory—provide an invaluable service to the war effort.

But there are a few who should not be in uniform and it takes only one roach leg to spoil a perfect soup.

For example—without giving names so as not to tar and feather someone for his entire life when he still has a chance to change his behavior—the British Major running Media Ops at Camp Bastion has been particularly problematic.  Even before my embed started with 2 Rifles, his words raised red flags among the correspondents about his priorities.

I had a specific incident with this British Media Ops Major.

The Major and I were driving in Camp Bastion around midday when it was very hot.  A British soldier ran by wearing a rucksack. He was drenched in sweat under the blazing, dusty desert.  I smiled because it’s great to see so many soldiers who work and train hard. Yet the Major cut fun at the soldier, saying he was dumb to be running in that heat.  I nearly growled at the Major, but instead asked if he ever goes into combat.  The answer was no. And, in fact, the Major does not leave the safety of Camp Bastion.

That a military officer would share a foul word about a combat soldier who was prepping for battle was offensive.  Especially an officer who lives in an air-conditioned tent with a refrigerator stocked with chilled soft drinks.  Just outside his tent are nice hot and cold showers.  Five minutes away is a little Pizza Hut trailer, a coffee shop, stores, and a cookhouse.

This very Major had earned a foul reputation among his own kind for spending too much time on his Facebook page. I personally saw him being gratuitously rude to correspondents.  Some correspondents—all were British—complained to me that when they wanted to interview senior British officers, they were told by this Major to submit written questions.  The Major said they would receive videotaped answers that they could edit as if they were talking with the interviewee.  (Presumably, senior British officers are avoiding the tough questions, such as, “So, when do you plan to send enough helicopters?”)

When I asked a different Media Ops officer about meeting with a senior British General in Afghanistan, I was told that submitting a CV (curriculum vitae) would be helpful, to which I laughed.  A CV?  How about this:

Name: Michael Yon
Profession: Writer
Experience: Years
Notes: I will be in and affecting your battle space for years to come. (By the way, you are losing the war.  Hiding from correspondents does not change that fact.)

This war is moving fast and there is no time for games.  If a general does not want to tell his story, someone will tell it for him.  He will have failed by losing another winnable media battle.

On a sidebar, before this article was published I was invited to the Netherlands by the esteemed James “Maggie” Megallas to attend an incredible Dutch remembrance for our World War II veterans.

For those who don’t know him, James Megellas is a retired U.S. Army officer who commanded Company “H” of the 3rd Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment (PIR), 82nd Airborne Division during World War II.  Maggie is the most-decorated officer in the history of the 82nd Airborne Division, having received a Distinguished Service Cross, a Silver Star, and been nominated for the Medal of Honor.  Maggie at 92 and is an extraordinary man.  He can give an eloquent speech for an hour without a single written note.

He has spent a couple months in Afghanistan—in the worst places.  He’s a true leader and a wise man, known to General McChrystal and General Petraeus. General Petraeus told me last week that CENTCOM had okayed Maggie’s trip to Afghanistan.  Maggie is an American treasure.  Last week in the Netherlands, “Maggie” was spending time General Petraeus and with European royalty, including Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands.  General Petraeus and World War II veterans stayed several days at the same hotel Maggie and I were in.

In Holland, folks were lining up to honor and pay tribute to our World War II veterans and General Petraeus.  I didn’t want to distract General Petraeus with any questions while he was so busy.  But on about the third day, there was a tap on my shoulder and I was told that General Petraeus had some time if I wanted to talk.

I asked the good General some tough questions on Afghanistan—the kind that would end discussions with timid people—yet, like normal, he fielded those questions with the candor that I so respect in him and have come to expect. The same has happened to me with the Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, and other top military leaders.  Gates and Petraeus will field challenging, difficult questions and will take what you throw at them.  Yet the British Media Ops in Afghanistan wants correspondents to submit written questions so they can provide tidy answers.  That’s a sad joke and there are many correspondents, including me, who are not laughing.

More on the trip to Netherlands will be forthcoming, but now back to Afghanistan:

At Camp Bastion there are two tents at Media Ops. One tent is for the Media Ops staff and the other is for the itinerant correspondents.  When ever the Internet died in the correspondents’ tent, the Major in question let the journalists use the Internet in the staff tent.  That was helpful and appreciated.  But he locked the door at night (the tent has a door) and kept it that way until the morning so that no correspondent would wake him with keyboard tapping.  Not helpful on transmitting information.

At a glance, that seems trivial stuff, really. But it’s not trivial when you know that these are the same Media Ops people—who do not leave their base or go on missions—who are spooling out “the message” to the media.  They are clueless about the state of the war in Afghanistan.  For instance, many of the Media Ops officers will insist that we have enough helicopters in Afghanistan. Those officers are either completely oblivious to the actuality of the situation or lying.

General Petraeus told me straight up that we don’t have enough and that we doubled our helicopters in the last four months and are in the process of fielding “two more fistfuls.”  (He did not give specific numbers.)  Those BS-filled officers who deny the obvious are, in fact, symptomatic to why we are losing the war.

When I deliver good news, out rolls the red carpet.  Bad news, and it’s time to fight again.  Only now it’s not Censoring Iraq, it’s Censoring Helmand.  And it’s not the U.S. doing it this time, but the British government.  The British people are demanding truth and they deserve accountability.  They aren’t getting it from Camp Bastion.

Some of the Media Ops guys in Afghanistan are good at something such as threatening future access if a correspondent shows “attitude” about being poorly treated.  My answer is go to hell. They can take their access and. . . .   I work for the soldiers, for the readers, and for the people in general.  If Media Ops chooses to be an obstacle, that is their choice.

After being summarily disembedded it took days—due to the helicopter shortage—to catch a helicopter from the Green Zone and head over to the posh Media Ops tent.  There I found the same Major still up to his old attitude with some of the correspondents.

Meanwhile, because of the abrupt embed, my scheduling problems were unfolding.  The U.S. Marines, of whom I have never seen treat anyone like the British Major treats correspondents, wanted to take me.  But the earliest I could embed with them was on 16 September.  This fell at the same time I needed to punch out and head to Eindhoven in The Netherlands for the World War II remembrance ceremonies which I had been invited to long ago.  The Royal Netherlands Air Force (RNAF) had made arrangements to fly me from Afghanistan to Eindhoven.  Disembedded or not, it should have been a simple matter for me to have a few days, even out of pure courtesy, where I could settle some business with the U. S. Air Force and U.S. Marines.  But the boss of Media Ops in Afghanistan, Lt Col Nick Richardson in Lashkar Gah, through the Major at Bastion, demanded that I leave the Regional Command South (RC-South) which is under British control.

I said in essence, hold on, partner, are you saying that you are knowingly interfering with my ability to arrange an embed with the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Marines?  Especially after you abruptly released me as correspondent?  Because if that’s what Media Ops was saying, then we were going to have a Texas-sized fight.

The boss of Media Ops in Afghanistan Lt. Col. Richardson has tweaked other peoples’ BS sensors on the helicopter issue, including Daniel Bennett at the Frontline Club.  Richardson is doing more damage to the war effort than the Taliban media machine.  By perpetrating falsehoods that undermine our combat capacity, Richardson has helped the enemy.

Some of the smokescreens are less important but they are demonstrative of the pattern: On 20 August a, CH-47 helicopter was shot down by a Taliban RPG during a British Special Forces mission.  Richardson reported that the aircraft landed due to an engine fire.  Some hours later, while I was on a mission nearby, the Taliban were singing over the radios about shooting it down.  I heard the rumble when the helicopter was destroyed by airstrikes.  The Taliban knew they hit the helicopter.  So who is Richardson lying to?  Not the enemy…unless the enemy is the British public.

Stephen Grey and others have noted the censorship:

“Despite the risk of being blacklisted and refused access to report from the frontline, journalists are speaking out about what they say is the government’s attempt to control the news. It is “lamentable”, says one Fleet Street foreign editor; the Times correspondent Anthony Loyd describes it as “outrageous”; Christina Lamb of the Sunday Times calls it “indefensible”; it is “redolent of Comical Ali”, says the Sun’s defence editor, Tom Newton Dunn.

“Almost all journalists travelling with British forces are ordered to email their copy to the military’s press officers in Helmand before publication. Many fear that negative coverage could mean trips back to the frontline are cancelled or delayed.”

The Media Ops boys are treating this like a game.

Eventually I had a meeting at the same table with a U.S. Air Force officer, a U.S. Marine officer, and the British Major from Media Ops in an attempt to work out a solution that would get me with the Air Force or Marines.  The Major was docile in the presence of the two other officers.  The Marine and Air Force officers said that they were willing and happy to help.  Despite their goodwill, the scheduling train wreck had other moving issues stacking up, and the British Media Ops weren’t done with playing games.

In addition to the disembed, the British Media Ops were insisting that I leave RC-South at once. Let’s be clear – this was Afghanistan, not London where I can easily hail a cab or jump on The Tube.  By their demands, the Media Ops folks were ignoring the obvious truth that it takes time, planning, and much coordination to move anyone, soldiers or correspondents, around Afghanistan.

Also, Media Ops knew that I was waiting for two important packages to arrive at Camp Bastion – packages that took a great amount of time and expense to send for.  When I brought this up, the Major said he had checked into the packages and that because there was no FedEx in Camp Bastion, my packages must be in Kabul.

This was a flat out lie.  When soldiers hear something that is patently false, they call it “bullshit.” I looked at the Major and said, “Bullshit,” to which he stomped out. He later said I had cursed him, which, if by calling him on his lie he implied that I was cursing him, then so be it; he was right.  It was bullshit because there is a FedEx and a DHL in Camp Bastion.  Something you would think (and hope) a Media Ops guy would know about his own camp.

The Major said again that Lt. Col. Nick Richardson demanded that I leave RC-South, and that Media Ops would forward my satellite and night vision gear that was in transit.  Before the Major had stomped out, I said that I was not leaving Camp Bastion until those packages were in my hands.  I told him to call Lt. Col. Nick Richardson at Lashkar Gah—a nearby base—and say that if Richardson wants me gone, he’d need to call the Royal Military Police (RMP).  The satellite gear is crucial to the operation and the night vision gear is expensive.  I was not going to leave without the gear unless under arrest.  I had heard the Major arrogantly tell a correspondent how a soldier had punched another correspondent and “knocked him on his ass.”  Bullying apparently had been working for him; he was still doing it.

“Go ahead,” I said, “Call the RMPs right now.  Have them come down and flex cuff me and put me on an airplane out of here.”  I waited for the RMP’s to arrive and arrest me.  At least they would be professionals.

There is the maxim that a customer can judge the cleanliness of a restaurant’s kitchen by the restroom.  After much experience in Iraq and Afghanistan, I have discovered another: Soldiers always treat correspondents they way they treat the local people.  When soldiers treat correspondents badly, they treat local people even worse and are creating enemies.  Those troops who brag about how they mistreat or detest correspondents are abusing and resentful of the local population, and they cannot win this sort of war.  The people will kill them and the media will bash them and they will blame the people and the media.  When a soldier alienates sympathetic correspondents, he has no real chance against mortal enemies such as the Taliban and al Qaeda, and they will defeat him.  Yet there is subtlety: for “the people,” in the case of Media Ops, is you.

The Major doesn’t deal with Afghans.  Afghans are not his target and it is not correspondents who are being denied access.  YOU are being denied access. YOU are resented and deceived, and people like Minister of Defence, Bob Ainsworth, wish to separate realities from readers.

The reader is my boss, and my job is to observe, analyze where possible, and report back.  When Media Ops or others try to deceive my boss, I fight for my boss.  That’s my job and duty.

I told some U.S. Marine officers about issues with Media Ops. The Marines wanted to take me but there was a pesky twelve-day wait before I could start with them, and as mentioned I needed to get to The Netherlands.  Luckily, the Marines and Air Force helped me get the packages.

The problem with embedding with the U.S. Air Force, as with the U.S. Marines, was timing.  The U.S. Air Force rescue folks, the Pedros, were going home to America and were being replaced but there was a window of opportunity before that happened.  The bottom line: Air Force Pedros took me on three missions, but it could have been a lot more.

Meanwhile, the British Media Ops, who backed down from the arrest, made a Plan B.  The Major said I must leave the media tent because fourteen journalists were coming and needed space.  There were six bunks and two cots, meaning all fourteen spots would be filled.  I asked the Major who the journalists were and when they were coming.  The Major answered that he didn’t exactly know who was coming or when, but they were (or might be) coming, and they needed space.  The Major was easier to read than a five year-old, and too sad a specimen to be angry with.  I had been sleeping outside for weeks and would readily continue, but instead contacted the Pedro guys who let me stay with them.  Ironically, our Pedro teams happened to be staying with British 2 Rifles at Camp Bastion—and so 2 Rifles welcomed me back.

This was all bizarre.  Although the British Media Ops kicked me out, I was now staying in a tent with the U.S. Air Force who were also staying with British soldiers, so I was right back at home.

Word had somehow spread that I told Media Ops to have me arrested.  I had not mentioned the confrontation.  Word must have gotten out from Media Ops themselves and some journalists soon realized that a fight was on.  The correspondents I was talking with did not like Media Ops—not one bit—and support poured in.

An email came from a fellow correspondent with these words:

“During all of this time I was aware that your own predicament was also strained with the Pic [Media Ops]. Rumour reached me in […] that you had told the pic team in Bastion that if they wanted you out then they’d have to get the RMPs to arrest you, and that they were forced to back down!  (I don’t know if the story was true or not but it was a huge morale boost to all who heard it in [...].)”

The British soldiers from 2 Rifles were angry with Media Ops for ending the reporting and their families are forever deprived of the dispatches that would have been written.  Media Ops said they needed the space, but nobody replaced me in combat, and nobody is likely to.  Media Ops lied again.

Meanwhile, British citizens began demanding answers from their government.

A question was asked and Minister of Defence Bob Ainsworth made public his reply:

Ann Winterton (Congleton, Conservative)

To ask the Secretary of State for Defense for what reasons the journalist Michael Yon is no longer embedded with British armed forces in Afghanistan.

Hansard source (Citation: HC Deb, 14 September 2009, c2121W)

Bob Ainsworth (Secretary of State, Ministry of Defence; Coventry North East, Labour)

Opportunities to embed with Task Force Helmand are in high demand from across the media—national, regional, print, broadcast, specialist and new media. It is not possible to meet all requests and slots must be time-limited to ensure that the opportunities are shared as widely as possible. A normal embed for a national news organisation will last on average around two to three weeks, including time for travel.

Michael Yon had been embedded with British forces on a number of occasions before his recent visit—twice in Iraq in 2007, and once in Afghanistan in 2008. His latest embed had been scheduled to last for two weeks but it was extended to take account of delays to his arrival.

In all, his stay was extended twice and he was embedded for five weeks—much longer than is normally the case, and longer than had been agreed with him before he went. He was facilitated by British forces in a number of locations and given a high level of access both to the operations and to our personnel. At the end of this five-week period Task Force Helmand ended his embed as they were no longer able to support it given their other commitments, including other media visits.

That’s hogwash, Mr. Ainsworth. Pure hogwash!

The fact that the British Minister of Defence (MoD) would go on record with hogwash is again symptomatic of a much larger problem.  Mr. Ainsworth is lying to the British public about the helicopter issue in Afghanistan.  Mr. Ainsworth tells the British public that British soldiers have enough helicopters.  British troops are suffering—even dying—for those lies.  Mr. Ainsworth is, in effect, murdering British soldiers by not resourcing them.

If the British MoD is demanding that I be complicit in their lies to gain access to their soldiers, I decline.  I strongly believe that the embed was cancelled due to my criticism of the helicopter shortage.  Yet helicopters are just the most obvious issue that needs to be raised and addressed.

This story rings true:

From The Sunday Times
August 30, 2009

Bob Ainsworth in ‘cover-up’ over soldier’s death

Bob Ainsworth, the defense secretary, has been accused of a cover-up over the death of the first British soldier to be killed in action in the Nato operation in the Helmand province of Afghanistan, by smearing his commanding officer.

The story continues:

“This will prove Bob Ainsworth was trying to cover up the real reason for James’s death. He was trying to shift blame away from the lack of equipment for which the MoD was responsible and negligent,” Philippson said.

Bob Ainsworth is covered in British blood and painfully deceptive.  Henceforth, he will always be known as “Bullshit Bob” to me.

My relationship with the British military is not diminished and I would go into combat with their soldiers anytime.  My respect for British soldiers is immense and undying.  But I’m ready to throw down with Media Ops if they even glance in my direction.  I refuse to work with the crew at Camp Bastion.

It’s hard to forget the Major’s cutting insults at the soldier who was training in the heat as a commendable young man.  Any combat troop, whether they are pilots, PJs, sailors, special operations, or my favorite—the infantry—should never be the subject of jokes or derision from any military leader of any rank.  The infantry soldiers are out there living like animals, taking bullets and getting blown up and, all while the Major sits back in his comfortable tent, playing on Facebook and watching The Simpsons. Those combat troops, British and American, are my family. That Major and his ilk should not cut fun of them.

Bottom line for the bad apples: Nobody is asking for access.  This is not a game.  Stay out of the way.

[Note: Word arrived that the Media Ops crew has been replaced during a normal rotation.]

The war is intensifying month by month while support for this mission plummets. Your help is crucial to my staying in the war. 2010 will almost certainly prove to be the bloodiest even as coverage dries up. More troops are coming in. The fighting for those who are here is already as tough as any seen in Iraq. Do you trust the Government to tell the truth? Please donate today.

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

–

Liberal contempt towards those who take an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States has deep roots in the hard left that Boxer epitomizes.  Look at how Boxer manipulates concern for the casualties of war to ram home her political attack against former President Bush in this email from 2007: 

U.S. troops stayed in Vietnam, in the middle of a civil war, for more than ten long and painful years. More than 50,000 of our young people died, countless wounded mentally and physically. Suicides and homelessness still follow too many of our Vietnam veterans. How many more would have died if George W. Bush had been President in the 1970’s? How many more of our troops and innocent Iraqis will die if we don’t finally end this war? 

One wonders how many of the suicides Boxer mentions were due to the hostile reception the left gave our returning veterans… 

Today the left “loves the soldier” but “hates the war” – this is a cop-out.  You cannot separate the soldier from his mission.  Perhaps that’s why Boxer’s ideological allies “honor” our heroic fallen who return in caskets by using them as political symbols to attack the very thing our heroes were fighting for: our liberty and our safety.  Evidence of the left’s scorn for the military is manifold: the widespread effort to ban ROTC from campuses and in San Francisco’s perennial effort to eject any military presence in their city (the City by the Bay approved a “College, Not Combat” measure in 2005 telling military recruiters to stay out of the city’s high schools). 

Why are liberals uncomfortable with the military?  Why do some liberals apparently despise our military?  Is it because the armed services remind them that not every international dispute can be solved with soothing words uttered by a diplomat?  Is it because they view military expenditures as taking money away from greater health and welfare spending?  Do the heroes who serve show them that the world is not perfect and can never be made so by trillions of dollars of new government handouts? 

Boxer dressing down of a U.S. Army general in public unfolded during a hearing on the Army Corps of Engineers’ work in New Orleans.  When General Walsh, recently returned from Iraq, addressed California’s junior senator as “Ma’am” – a perfectly acceptable sign of military respect to both a U.S. Senator or a senior female officer, Boxer immediately responded, “I had a… You know… do me a favor, could you say ‘Senator’ instead of ‘Ma’am’ – it’s just a thing, I worked so hard to get that title so I’d appreciate it, yes thank you.” 

According to the U.S. Army’s own guide to protocol, Members of the U.S. Senate should be verbally addressed as “Sir,” “Ma’am” or “Senator.”  So, General Walsh was simply following longstanding tradition.  

When addressing senior officers, with the exception of generals whom most junior officers and enlisted personnel usually call “General” more than “Sir” the most respectful form of address is “Sir” or “Ma’am.”  Ironically, use of the actual rank in address  is oftentimes used in situations when the senior officer has not yet earned respect from an enlisted person, as in “Yes, Lieutenant!” as opposed to “Yes, Ma’am!” 

Of course, this wasn’t Barbara Boxer’s first confrontation with the U.S. military – not by a long shot.  Boxer cut her political teeth on the anti-Vietnam war protests back in the day and never really changed her outlook on the uniformed defenders of the Constitution of the United States.  Who can forget her confrontation with American hero Gen. David Petraeus back in 2007?   Boxer called Gen. Petraeus a liar and then wrote a blog for the Huffington Post on September 14, 2007 which she headlined, “General Petraeus, Take Off the Rose-Colored Glasses.”  Seen through the lens of time Boxer’s blog rant can almost be laughable were its implications not so injurious to our national security in calling for an immediate end (read: “defeat”) to the war in Iraq.

Perhaps it’s time for the Barbara Boxer to have a new title: “Ex-Senator.” 

Mr. DeVore (R.-Irvine) represents about 500,000 people in Orange County California. He retired as a lieutenant colonel after 24-years of service in the Army National Guard and is a candidate for U.S. Senate in 2010 against Barbara Boxer.

Left-wingers side with the so-called Palestinians and insist that their country was stolen from them by the Jews, but when you ask them just exactly where the country was located, what their flag looked like and who their president was, they huff and they puff and they denounce you as a tool of the Jewish lobby.

Liberals argue for the sanctity of the 1st Amendment as if they had personally invented free speech, but they’re the same people who’d like to use the Fairness Doctrine to turn off the microphones of conservative talk show hosts.  Furthermore, they are so terrified of hearing or letting other people hear the words of those who disagree with them that they boo their opponents into silence on those rare occasions when conservatives are invited to speak on college campuses.

When George W. Bush and the GOP were in control from 2000-2006, the Democrats complained, generally without cause, that they didn’t have enough influence, that the Republicans didn’t reach out to them, even though John McCain, to name one, spent so much time reaching out that Cindy McCain began to worry that she’d lost her husband to Russ Feingold or Ted Kennedy.  These days, those same Democrats are so eager to disenfranchise Republicans that they’re ready to do anything up to and including sending the entire stimulus package to Minnesota if only they’ll make Al Franken a senator.

Speaking of senators, what’s the idea of Republicans Martinez, Bunning, Hutchinson and Brownback, announcing that this is their last term?  If I could suck it up and vote for McCain last November, the least these four can do is sign on for another six years.  It’s not as if being a U.S. Senator calls for any heavy lifting.  Heck, if Robert Byrd can do it, Sam Brownback certainly can.  This is simply no time for Republicans to go AWOL.

I admit that I’ve been delighted to see Nancy Pelosi catching some heat for lying about not knowing that water boarding was taking place.  Initially, I think she claimed she was confused by the term, believing it meant that the prisoners at Gitmo were learning to surf.  But things didn’t get a lot better when it came out that she had only bothered attending one of about 70 congressional meetings where the subject was discussed.  I suppose she was busy getting Botox injections.  But that doesn’t mean I want to see the Democrats replace her.  I mean, it’s not as if they’d give the job to Eric Cantor or John Boehner.  I’m sure they’d simply replace the incompetent Speaker of the House with someone like Barney Frank, the embarrassing lisper of the House.

Left-wingers are always wringing their hands over separation of church and state.  What we should all be arguing for is separation of communication and state.  What right does the federal government have supporting NPR, PBS and the NEA?  Frankly, I’d be opposed to the feds spending taxpayer dollars to fund public radio, public TV and the arts, even if they weren’t all run by left-wingers.  I’m sure liberals think I’m lying, but I’m not.  Nowhere in the Constitution is the government given the authority to meddle in these matters, and once it does, it opens itself up to charges of censorship or collusion.  Is there anyone who believes that NPR or PBS will ever question anything President Obama says or does?  Of course not.  Liberals in the media claim they speak truth to power, which sounds good, but would sound a lot better if they ever spoke truth when their own darlings were the ones in power.

It’s bad enough when NBC goes into the tank for the president, but NBC is not subsidized by the American taxpayer.  If the liberals want to disseminate left-wing propaganda, I say let them do it the old-fashioned way.  Let Howard Dean and the entire DNC crawl to George Soros and ask him to pay for it.

Finally, whenever someone gripes about the pay raises, perks, health care and pensions, that politicians provide for themselves, we’re told how much more money these “public servants” could make in the private sector, and I have to laugh.  These egotistical dunderheads would have to be running major corporations — assuming there will be any of those left by the time Obama gets done — to have the kind of fiefdoms that come with being in Congress.  Can you seriously imagine Barbara Boxer, Arlen Specter or John Murtha, running a store, let alone a major corporation?  For that matter, can you even imagine Barbara Boxer, Arlen Specter or John Murtha, being hired to sweep out a store?

burtprelutsky@aol.com

Note: Part 1 of this 4 part interview can be found here.

J.R. Head:  Tell me about the time frame of the film.  ”Brothers at War” was shot in 2005?

“Brothers at War” Director, Jake Rademacher:  Isaac departs in 2004, I join him in August 2005, and events in Iraq and on the Home front go through 2006.

JRH:  So, that’s pre-“Surge”.  But one of the things I noticed from the film was the advancement that the Iraqi Army was making.  I was encouraged by the individual efforts of people like [Marine] Staff Sergeant Allier and others to–

JR:  Correct. “Brothers at War” rolls back the clock to a time in the war when the future of Iraq wasn’t necessarily determined and, in fact, a number of people in America thought it was a lost cause.  In “Brothers at War” the audience gets a glimpse into where things were going, and insight into what led to the tremendous turnaround in Iraq.  They get to drop in with the Iraqi Army and see them in action.  The unit that I embedded with was the first Iraqi battalion to get it’s own “battle space” in all of Iraq.  They were actually in charge of that space, working with United States Marines who were military advisors.  The audience gets to walk alongside SSgt Allier as he mentors a company sometimes very humorously, sometimes in life threatening moments.  They were in charge of that space in Jazirah.  Jazirah is in the middle of the Sunni Triangle, just north of the Euphrates, between Ramadi and Fallujah.  The Iraqi battalion’s mission was to take this safe haven away from the insurgents, many of whom were coming in from other countries and using this area as a staging ground for operations in Ramadi, and Fallujah.  Almost all the insurgents that we ran into had Syrian passports.  Many used tactics that gave evidence of serious military training. 

JRH:  So, the mentorship that the Marines–

JR:  The mentorship, the standing up of the Iraqi army was a key component to winning the war.  What the Surge did was… General Petraeus multiplied that strategy.  What’s exciting about what he did was Petraeus had the audacity to ask for 20,000 more soldiers at, politically speaking, the worst time he could have done it.  He had the perseverance and the strength of character to take the slings and arrows that came with asking for them.  What he did with them was also just mind-boggling at the time.  He took what we see working in the film and he multiplied it across Iraq!  He said, “That’s working, so let’s do that all over the place.  Let’s take our platoons and Iraqi platoons and put them together and give them this battle space.  And we’ll put these other guys together and give them this space over here.  We’ll make them live together, work together and patrol together.”  And that’s really what the Surge was.  It wasn’t just 20,000 guys getting thrown into the mix.  He multiplied their impact by pairing them up with Iraqi soldiers.  Look at SSgt Allier teaching the Shia soldiers to interact with the Sunni citizens.  They’re afraid to do it, at first, but then they do it–they get to know them.  The Sunnis start to realize the Shia aren’t there to kill them and vice versa and they start to develop a relationship.  And that relationship, on a much larger scale, is what led to the Surge working.  These elements working together.  The other thing you see, early in the film, that was pre-Surge and very effective was the recon that my brother’s guys were doing.  What they were trying to do was shut down the inflow of–

JRH:  –Foreign fighters–

JR:  And foreign ammunition!  Explosives and detonating devices.  They were helping to shut down the flow of that into the country.  All along the Syrian border, like in Haditha… Haditha was the worst smuggling area in the country.  So, stuff would come in through Haditha and then go along what is called a “rat line” to Ramadi, then to Fallujah and to Baghdad.  Or to Ramadi and then up to Mosul.  You get to see what was effective in limiting the flow of foreign fighters, basically attacking them as they came in and eliminating that pipeline.  You get to see the Iraqis getting on their feet for the first time.  Sometimes stumbling, other times doing well and you see the Marines giving them encouragement and helping them through very real obstacles.  Literally, guys getting their leg torn up or their face messed up and going back out on patrol the next day.  They’re pointing out, you know, “Here’s what you did.  This was good but here’s what you can do better.”  I mean, war is not just like a light switch to be flipped on and off.   It’s a very long process.  Learning to do anything well takes a long time.  It takes even longer to get 130 guys to act together as a unit in combat.  Basically, I think there was a lot of success under General Casey’s command that went unreported and it was these successes that allowed General Patraeus to come in and generate the amazing successes that he did.

JRH:  Some called it the “beat cop” strategy–

JR:  The “beat cop” strategy!  In a warzone!  Which, if you step back and think about it, is scary as hell.  There was resistance from all sides.  People said it was crazy to drop our guys into the most dangerous neighborhoods and have them live there.  “We’re not gonna give ‘em a base.  They’re gonna make their own base with an Iraqi Army platoon.” (snorts) These guys are wondering, “Are they infiltrated with terrorists?  Can we trust them?”  Crazy.  Bold and crazy.  But it was exactly the right move.

————

In Part 3 of this 4 part interview, Jake Rademacher talks about some of the recognizable names that rallied behind “Brothers at War,” the festival circuit and more.  Stay tuned.

Semper fidelis,

J.R. Head

“Brothers at War” is currently playing in Los Angeles at Santa Monica’s AMC Broadway 4.  It is also currently playing in Springfield, IL, White Plains, NY and Knoxville, TN.