My vertical sleeping bag.

But also, Wikileaks.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates says WikiLeaks is “morally” guilty for putting lives in danger – by exposing Afghan contacts, our intelligence methods, and screwing with our allies.

Last week, I suggested that Julian Assange did this to harm America – since the a-holes who want to kill us benefit most from his actions.

Also, it made him really famous. Good for you, Julie. Maybe you can finally afford conditioner.

And this leads me to pose this question: What if, back in 1943, an organization leaked the names of the members of the French Resistance? They would be seen as evil – and the good guys would take care of them.

So I gotta wonder – why is Assange allowed to wander? Where’s the call for action on this, from the “hate the war/love the troops” left, now that the troops and cooperating friendlies in Afghanistan have been revealed?

I hear crickets. Crickets in patchouli.

But here’s the biggest joke.

Adrian Lamo, the hacker who tipped off the feds to WikiLeaks suspect Bradley Manning, claims that two men told Lamo that they helped Manning.

When asked by CNN about this allegation, WikiLeaks said: “As a matter of policy, we do not discuss any matters to do with allegations relating to the identity of sources.”

So -transparency is totally important – until it exposes you. In the end, the only identities important enough to protect, in Wikileak’s opinion, are their own. As for lives truly at risk – our troops – no biggie.

And if you disagree with me, you’re a racist homophobe who never read Chomsky.

Tonight, we’ve got

Jill Dobson!

Oderus Urangus!

Radio Talk show host David Webb!

and comedian Bob Dibuono

Photo: Jacobson/AP

Helmand, Afghanistan – The West is losing this war. This has been obvious for more than three years. Less obvious is that in 2009, we are down to the wire. Gen. Stanley McChrystal and others will soon recommend to President Obama the latest treatment for a dying patient.

Meanwhile, allies and Americans are asking themselves why we are here. Some are saying that Al Qaeda is still here or is waiting in the wings to return to its home. Yet Afghanistan was never Al Qaeda’s permanent home to begin with. Al Qaeda was just renting a little space here, just as it was renting space in places like Germany and Florida.

We must face reality: Our reasons for continuing are not the reasons we came for. We are fighting a different war now than the one that began in 2001. Today’s war is about social re-engineering. Given the horrible history of Afghanistan, and the fact that we already are here, the cause is worthy and worthwhile.

The decisions facing us are perilous and immense. On the one hand, we desperately need more troops, while on the other increasing troop levels introduces a host of costs and potential traps.

Yet it seems certain the war will be lost if we do not significantly increase troops. While our enemies grow stronger, years will pass before Afghan forces can replace us. Enemies are gaining ground while we lose the goodwill of the people through disillusionment. In the mostly peaceful Ghor Province, for instance, development is scant and there are no Afghan soldiers.

I just spent more than a month with British combat forces in Helmand. Instead of concentrating on training and operating with Afghan forces, the British are involved in a daily struggle for tiny pieces of real estate.

Last December, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates told me in a private discussion while flying back to the U.S. from Afghanistan, Bahrain and Iraq, that his greatest concern is that we will lose the goodwill of the Afghan people. Gates is correct and my confidence in his judgment is high. Gates knows that our stock is still okay here, but clearly it is losing value.

The strongest indicator of progress will come in the form of cooperation from the people. In Iraq, especially in about mid-2007, I witnessed a tidal shift in cooperation from the civilians and largely from that was able to report that the surge was working, long before the statistics would support what might have appeared to be a wild claim.

During 2006 in Afghanistan, I witnessed areas where the population was alienated from Kabul and Western forces. Again, long before the statistics would support what appeared to be wild claims, I published 12 reports saying we were losing here. Analysts cannot feel the pulse through statistics; in this sort of war, statistics lag behind the realities. An observer must be on the ground to sense the pulse.

Pundits who are saying we should pull out of Afghanistan today, to my knowledge, are not here.

Having just spent another month with British forces in Helmand, today I am on my own in the same province. During the last month, our great allies the British lost dozens of soldiers who were killed or wounded. Cooperation from locals is almost nonexistent in many places. Interaction between civilians and British soldiers was nearly zero. The British treat the civilians very well, but being polite and respectful is not enough.

Without significant reinforcements, the British likely will be defeated in Helmand within a couple of years. My respect for British soldiers is immense. I have been in combat with them many times in Iraq and Afghanistan, including during the last couple of weeks and would go into battle with them today. Yet it must be said that the average British soldier has practically no understanding of counterinsurgency.

The enemies here cannot defeat the United States, but they can dissolve the coalition. Some allies are ready to tap out, while others are learning that counterinsurgency is difficult. The Germans, for instance, are losing in their battle space. To avoid watching the coalition melt away, we must show progress before the end of 2010.

Today, the war is still worth fighting, yet the goal to reengineer one of the most backward, violent places on Earth, will require a century before a reasonable person can call Afghanistan “a developing nation.” The war will not take that long – but the effort will.

There are no short-term solutions to fix this place. We are planting acorns. Oak trees grow slowly.

Reader support is greatly valued and crucial to the continuation of this mission. Today I am unembedded in Helmand Province. Please cover my back while I cover the war.

17 August 2009
Sangin, Afghanistan

The roads are so littered with enemy bombs that nearly all transport and resupply to this base occurs by helicopter. The pilots roar through the darkness, swoop into small bases nestled in the saddle of enemy territory, and quickly rumble off into the night.

A witness must spend only a short time in the darkness to know we are at war. Flares arc into the night, or mortar illumination rounds drift and swing under parachutes, orange and eerily in the distance, casting long, flickering but sharply defined shadows. The worst that can happen is that you will be caught in an open field, covered by nothing and concealed only by darkness, when the illumination suddenly bathes you in light. Best is to stay low and freeze and prepare to fire, or in the case of a writer, to stay low and freeze and prepare to watch the firing.

Explosions from unknown causes rumble through the cool nights while above drifts the Milky Way, punctuated by more shooting stars than one can remember. The Afghanistan nights will grant a wish to wish upon a shooting star. And while waiting for the next meteor, the eyes are likely to catch tracer bullets.

A CH-47 helicopter whirls in with a “sling load” of resupplies from Camp Bastion to FOB Jackson in Sangin.

The pilot comes in fast, to the dark landing zone, lighted only by “Cyalumes,” which Americans call “Chemlights.” The sensitive camera and finely engineered glass make the dark landing zone appear far lighter. The apparent brightness of the small Cyalumes provides reference.

A show begins as the helicopter descends under its halo.

The charged helicopter descends into its own dust storm.

Gently releasing the sling load.

The pilot hovers away from the load, pivots and begins to land.

The dust storm ripples and flaps over the medical tents.

Heat causes the engines to glow orange.

Dust begins to clear even before landing. The helicopter, under its own halo, casts a moon shadow.

The halo often disappears when the helicopter ramp touches the ground. Again, the conditions are quite dark, but the excellent camera gear has tiger vision.

The British medical staff treats many wounded Afghans who often show up at the gate. In the photo above, Dr. Rhiannon Dart (right) observes as an Afghan patient is medically evacuated to the trauma center at Camp Bastion. The medics and Dr. Dart are especially respected for the risks they equally share here. The medical staff walks into combat just like the other soldiers—frequently side by side in close combat. Numerous times per week, their battlefield work, often under intense pressure in hot and filthy conditions, is the deciding factor on whether soldiers or civilians survive or die. I asked Dr. Dart if Afghan men have any reservations when being treated by a woman. She answered that when men are seriously wounded—which is about the only time she sees Afghans as patients—they don’t care if she is a man or a woman. During a mission last week, I saw an Afghan soldier walk by with a bandage on his hand. Dr. Dart stopped the soldier, asking him to remove the bandage. Contrary to harboring reservations, the soldier appeared relieved that she wanted—actually sort of politely demanded—to examine his injury.

The ramp lifts in preparation for takeoff and the halo begins to rematerialize before the helicopter lifts into the darkness and disappears. Soldiers call the medevac flights to Camp Bastion, “Nightingales” or “Nightingale flights.” Shortly after sunrise on the morning of 13 August, an element from this unit was ambushed nearby, killing three and wounding two others. Despite the immediate danger, the helicopter came straight onto the battlefield. After the initial ambush, and another successful ambush during the evacuation, the British soldiers did not return to base but continued with the mission. Later that evening they were twice ambushed again, sustaining more fatalities as two interpreters were killed. Soldiers asked me to go on that mission but I was busy assembling this dispatch. One of the killed soldiers, shortly before the mission, had looked over my shoulder as I selected the photos. Captain Mark Hale was killed while aiding a wounded soldier. Mark had particularly liked the next three images:

Night after night, helicopters keep coming. Last month a civilian resupply helicopter had tried to land at this exact spot but was shot down on final approach. Two children on the ground and all persons aboard were killed. The helicopter crews earn much respect.

Sometimes the halos appear like distant galaxies.

In motion, the halos spark, glitter and veritably crackle, but in still photos the halos appear more like intricate orbital bands.

Perhaps like the rings of Saturn.

The halos usually disappear as the rotors change pitch, dust diminishes and the ramp touches the ground. On some nights, on this very same landing zone, no halos form.

Note: By request of the British Army, a handful of these photos were slightly altered to obscure base security measures. The alterations are limited to minimal parts of several photos.

On another night, the helicopters return. The camera is jostled, accidentally creating a double image.

Note: Most photos, such as this one, are unaltered other than normal ‘black room’ processing.

They keep coming.

What is this halo phenomenon called? None of the American or British helicopter pilots seemed to have a name for the effect. They provide only descriptions and circumscriptions. I asked many people, and finally reached out to Command Sergeant Major Jeff Mellinger (one of my “break glass only if” sources whom I ask when other means have failed). Jeff asked pilots, and came back with an excellent description from one pilot:

“Basically it is a result of static electricity created by friction as materials of dissimilar material strike against each other. In this case titanium/nickel blades moving through the air and dust. It occurs on the ground as well, but you don’t usually see it as much unless the aircraft is landing or taking off. The most common time is when fuel is being pumped. When large tankers are being fueled they must be grounded to prevent static electricity from discharging and creating explosions.”

But still no name. How can the helicopter halos, so majestic and indeed dangerous at times, be devoid of a fitting name?

A phenomenon in need of a name. Mark Hale had liked this image and the next.

I spent two weeks searching for a fitting handle but all attempts came to naught.

The halos are different every night. Some nights they are intense, other nights dim, but often there are no halos.

There are explosions and fighting every day and night.

Under the moon.

This time exposure shows where the pilot briefly hovered before dropping in.

Our casualties in this war reached an all-time peak in July 2009 and the heaviest fighting was here in Helmand Province. On 10 July, elsewhere in Helmand, some of America’s finest soldiers were hunting down Taliban.

Members of the U.S. 3rd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment closed space with the enemy, apparently killing at least ten. Corporal Benjamin Kopp was shot and evacuated to Germany, then back to the United States, where he died just over a week later on 18 July. Benjamin was 21 years old and at the very tip of the spear. If not for such men, we would be at the mercy of every demon.

Benjamin Kopp and his comrades were delivering the latest bad news to the sort of people who harbored the terrorists who attack innocent people around the world every day, and who attacked us at home on 9/11. Ranger Kopp was a veteran with three combat tours. He knew the risks, yet continued to fight.

Benjamin was laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates quietly attended the funeral, as did my good friend, Colonel Erik Kurilla, the new commander of Ranger Regiment, where Kopp served until America lost one of its finest Sons.

Yet the effect of Corporal Kopp did not end on the battlefields of Afghanistan; he only regrouped and continued to serve. Corporal Kopp had volunteered as an organ donor and his heart was transplanted. Two days after most people would have died, Benjamin Kopp’s heart was transplanted into Judy Meikle. According to the Washington Post, Meikle said, “How can you have a better heart?” said a grateful Judy Meikle, 57, of Winnetka, Ill., who is still recovering from the surgery. “I have the heart of a 21-year-old Army Ranger war hero beating in me.”

Other organs were also donated for other recipients.

Benjamin Kopp’s case is reminiscent of so many others whose names are and faces will forever remain unfamiliar to most of us. The Angels Among Us are nearly always invisible to our eyes until it’s too late to say “thank you,” and “farewell.”

On August 11, I attended a small ceremony for a British soldier from this base in Helmand who was killed in combat the day after Benjamin passed. His name was Joseph Etchells. I was told how Joseph died in a bomb ambush, and that his last request was to be cremated, loaded into a firework, and launched over the park where he used to play as a kid. When Joseph’s last request was explained, I burst out laughing and the British soldier who told me also was laughing. The absurd humor of Joseph’s request was familiar, and it was as though Joseph were standing there with us, laughing away.

Joseph Etchells from 3 Plt, 2 Battalion Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, was attached to 1 Plt, 2 Rifles

Lieutenant Alan Williamson was “Joey’s” platoon commander here in Sangin. LT Williams said that the other soldiers called him “Etch,” or Joey, and that Etch was born in 1987. He joined the army at age 16, though he could not deploy for combat until he was 18. Etch did a tour in Northern Ireland and three tours in Afghanistan, including 2006 in Now Zad where he endured 107 days of straight combat wherein they fought literally every day. In 2007 Etch deployed to Kabul and then performed “Public Duty” by guarding the Queen outside the palaces.

Lt Williams said that Etch was a, “Young and very keen Section Commander. Most Section Commanders like to be a few men back so they can command without being in immediate danger, but “Etch” refused to be that far back, and was always right behind the [“point man.] He was an outstanding runner. He left his fiancé behind. He would have been a very young sergeant. He was an outstanding, outstanding soldier.”

Joseph Etchells and Benjamin Kopp were both Corporals in different armies. Both had served three combat tours. Ben was 21, Etch was 22, and they both fought their last battles in Helmand Province. The names of these British and American warriors are listed consecutively in a roster chronicling our sacrifices in Afghanistan.

Last month there had been a large service here for Etch, but I witnessed a much smaller service where those closer to him came together to pay final respects. This service in Sangin occurred on the same day that a final ceremony was being held back in the United Kingdom. About twenty soldiers attended. The event was quiet and respectful and I wanted to be back in the United Kingdom to salute the rocket launch as it carried away the payload of Joey’s ashes, and exploded over the park. Here in Sangin, the bugler played and his buddies tossed their cap feathers into the Helmand River. The red and white feathers drifted away in the same waters where Etch used to swim after missions, down into the desert. Here they call it the “Dashti Margo,” the Desert of Death.

And so a fitting name had arrived to describe the halo glow we sometimes see in Helmand Province: Kopp-Etchells Effect, for two veteran warriors who died here in Helmand, Ben on the 18th, Joe on the 19th of July in the year 2009. It’s not hard to imagine the two Corporals have already linked up and regrouped, and in sense they have. Knowing combat soldiers, it’s easy to imagine them laughing away at the idea.

The Kopp-Etchells eponym can be seen as a cynosure for the many who have gone before the Corporals, and those who will follow. I had talked to Captain Mark Hale nearly every day for two weeks. Mark liked the name. And then Mark himself was lost on Thursday along with Daniel Wild as they were aiding a wounded Matthew Hatton. I heard very good things about Daniel Wild. They say he was a good and tough soldier. I’d seen Matthew Hatton on the battlefield and felt more confident by his presence. Hatton was a well-respected man. As for Mark Hale, I only knew him for two weeks. Mark will be missed by many people, myself included.

The war goes on and all the fallen soldiers know what we must do. We must keep moving. There will be time in the future to pay proper respects, and to reflect upon their honor. Now is not that time.

While waiting for a helicopter to land, there was activity on the perimeter, and then an unseen hand fired a flare so that we could see who was out there.

The following men and women sacrificed their lives in Afghanistan since the time that Benjamin Kopp and Joseph Etchells passed on. I am told that more names will soon be added to the list:

http://icasualties.org/OEF/Afghanistan.aspx

*Note: some photos were slightly altered to obscure base defenses.

I cannot operate in the war without your support. If support does not substantially increase, I will be forced to abandon war reporting in September. There has seldom been much interest in the Afghanistan war. True interest has been starkly reflected in the support for this mission. Each journey into Afghanistan, since 2006, has bled out resources from my operations. Reporting from Afghanistan is not sustainable at this rate.

Nevertheless, I continue to crack on: Please consider signing up for free Twitter updates at Michael_Yon (not Michael Yon without the underscore), for the most timely snippets possible.

You can help support this mission through paypal, all major credit cards, or e-check.

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

Today, I’ll talk truth to Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, potential justice of the Supreme Court Sonia Sotomayor, Pope Benedict XVI and President Barack Obama.  That’s a more powerful lineup than the 1927 New York Yankees, if I do say so myself.

I have almost begun to feel sorry for Nancy Pelosi.  After all, when you get past the facelifts and the Botox injections, the designer suits and the large private jet, you have an aging grandmother who, in a perfect world, would be home playing with the grandkids and letting the wrinkles show.  Instead, she’s constantly on TV, telling lies and looking like a small animal staring at oncoming headlights.  I think that instead of babbling about what she didn’t know and when she didn’t know it, she should claim the Twinkie defense just like that other two-bit San Francisco politician, Dan White.  In case you don’t recall, when he went on trial for killing Harvey Milk and Mayor George Moscone, White’s lawyers, in making their case for diminished capacity, claimed he had been suffering from depression, and that his depression had been made more severe by a junk food diet that included a lot of Twinkies.  I can see Rep. Pelosi taking that defense out of moth balls, dusting it off and blaming all of her recent insanity on cheap confections.  Heck, forget the pastries; she’d only need to mention having to sit through meetings with the likes of Harry Reid, Rahm Emanuel or Arlen Specter, and even I would lessen her sentence.

Secretary Gates insists that Guantanamo has to be shut down because its very name is a source of embarrassment for America throughout the world.  Well, I happen to think the world is an embarrassment and is therefore in no position to judge us.  But the solution in any case is not to shut down Gitmo, especially when it will cost $80 million to do so and when nobody has the slightest idea where to move the terrorists, but to simply change the name of the facility.  We could call it any number of things, ranging from Paradise to Fantasy Island.  Or we could take our lead from the pop singer, Prince, and simply change it to the Prison Formerly Known as Guantanamo.

I don’t know Sonia Sotomayor personally and, so, I don’t dislike her any more than I do any of the other liberal judges on Barack Obama’s short list of Supreme Court nominees.  The difference is that I saw a video of Judge Sotomayor addressing what I assume was a group of law students.  After telling them that the courts are where policy is made, she gave a little laugh and acknowledged that she probably shouldn’t have said that when she knew she was being taped.  But she did say it, and in doing so, she spoke for every left-wing judge in America.  The fact that she also believes that her experience as a Latina will cause her to rule differently from other people isn’t a cause for celebration.  It’s the Constitution that matters, not whether her parents were Puerto Rican, Chinese or Hungarian.  Here in California, judges have over-ruled the vote of the people on capital punishment, illegal immigrants and, before this May 26th, same-sex marriage.  In Washington, the Supremes expanded eminent domain in a way that would have impressed even the likes of Stalin, Hitler and Castro, and decided that when the Founding Fathers included “the pursuit of Happiness” in the Declaration of Independence, what they had in mind were millions and millions of abortions.

The bone I have to pick with the Pope involves his cockeyed sense of priorities.  Recently, I read a gruesome account of Catholic schools in Ireland.  Even Charles Dickens could not have dreamed up such a nightmare.  Apparently, for decades, the priests and nuns running these schools based their teaching philosophy on the precepts laid down by the Nazis who ran the concentration camps.  With disgusting regularity, they beat and sexually molested the children, and suffered no consequences.  At least not here on earth.

Now, I have nothing against the Catholic Church and, unlike some Jews, I don’t condemn it for ancient sins.  However, a while back, when Pope John II was visiting America, he decided to use his influence to save the life of a person who had killed three people and was about to be executed in Missouri.  Being the Pope, he got Governor Carnahan to commute Darrell Mease’s sentence to life without parole.  At the time, I found myself thinking that if the Pope was going to go to bat for a cold-blooded killer, the taxpayers in Missouri shouldn’t be left holding the bag; instead, Pope John should have taken him back to the Vatican and let the Church put him up for the next 40 or 50 years.

Now we have Pope Benedict XVI traveling to the Middle East, spewing out his predictable platitudes, while managing to suggest a moral equivalency between Israel and those dedicated to Israel’s destruction.  As usual, his words fell on deaf ears.  But, then, why should Jews or Muslims really care what he has to say, especially when he refuses to speak out in the one area where his authority is unquestioned?  After all, a couple of thousand years ago, Jesus said, “Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God.”  Jesus used “suffer” in the sense of “permit” or “allow,” but in modern times, far too many priests have perverted it to mean actual suffering.  It shouldn’t be asking too much of the Pope that he excoriate and ex-communicate those priests here in America and in Ireland who have brutalized countless Catholic children for their own base pleasure and amusement. 

As for President Obama, I would like to see him quit chastising George Bush while at the same time carrying forth his policies.  Understand, I approve of those policies, which have helped safeguard America for nearly eight years.  But, saying one thing while doing another may fool some of the people some of the time, and fool Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann all of the time, but it doesn’t make Obama look superior to the ex-president; it merely makes him look petty and deceitful.

Furthermore, I would suggest that Barack Obama quit telling us that everything he says and does garners us great respect in the world community.  The majority of that community is made up of lunatics and gangsters, and most Americans don’t want to gain the love and admiration of North Korea, Russia, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Venezuela, Syria, Iran, China, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Turkey, Yemen or Indonesia.  It would be nice, though, if they were at least a little bit afraid of us.

If I had the president’s ear, I would beg him not to be a sucker, and not to think for a second that international villains will succumb to his much-publicized charm.  They will applaud his speeches and return his smiles, and they’ll happily stab him in the back.  I would try to make him realize that the world’s political leaders are just like Chicago’s, except that some of them have nuclear bombs at their disposal.

It’s easy, I would tell the president, to mouth all the usual cliches and be lauded by the various hand puppets and hand maidens at MSNBC and the New York Times, but being politically correct is, unfortunately, not the same thing as being correct politically.