Click here to see the running photo gallery

But any comparisons to Venice or Switzerland end when you fly into Srinigar Airport which is essentially a military base only recently opened up for civilian air-traffic. From the moment you arrive in Kashmir the ubiquitous Indian security apparatus reminds you that this contested land has recently been the scene of bloody Islamic terrorism and full-scale war between Muslim Pakistan and Hindu India. I actually found a greater military presence in Kashmir than Kabul, which speaks volumes to the level of insecurity in this war-torn province. For this reason tourism is making only a tentative start here despite the countryside’s unparalleled beauty.

But we were coming from Afghanistan after all and for us Kashmir was a comparatively stable place. Determined to ignore the ubiquitous Indian military presence we rewarded ourselves for our ‘hard time’ bouncing across the Afghan provinces in dirt-filled jeeps by allowing ourselves to be ‘gondoliered’ around Srinigar’s placid lakes by local boatmen. We also took time out from my research on Indian counter-insurgency tactics to hike far into the snow-capped Himalaya Mountains. I must say the images of tree-covered mountain valleys filled with horses and the occasional Buddhist ruin, Muslim mosque, or Hindu shrine will stay with me forever.

After a few days in the cool mountain air we then flew down to sweltering 110 degrees Delhi and made my long-dreamed off pilgrimage to the greatest edifice built by Babur’s Moghul descendents, the magnificent Taj Mahal. We arrived in a field across the river from the Taj Mahal at sunset and spent over an hour watching local cameleers and herdsmen lead their flocks past us as the setting sun turned the Taj Mahal’s white marble red. As the sun finally set on the hot, hazy horizon we woke as if from a trance and returned down the swarming streets of Agra avoiding the occasional sacred cow to our small hotel.

Having completed my promise to myself to visit the Taj Mahal it was finally time to think of returning to the US via the neighboring Hindu region of Jaipur after a six week journey from the Caucasus Mountains to the Hindu Kush to the Himalayas. Exhausted from endless days clattering around the stunning countryside of Azerbaijan, Afghanistan and now hundreds of miles across the plains of Indian Rajahstan, I must say I felt ready to return. It was time to replace the world that I had come to define by such acronyms as RPG (Rocket Propelled Grenade), AK-47 (Automatic Kalashnikov), VBIED (Vehicle-Borne Improvised Explosive Device) and ISAF (International Security and Assistance Forces) with a new world defined more mundane acronyms such as ATM, SUV, CNN and most importantly, AC.

Closing my eyes and blacking out the never-ending sound of Indian horn-blowing I imagine I am already back home in Boston, as if this whole world I have been living in never existed. Remembering the small things in life I miss the most, from toilet paper to Dunkin Donuts coffee, I realize that perhaps the greatest reward for traveling to places like Afghanistan is not the thrill of meeting foreigners and coming to see them in three dimensional terms as fellow humans or even the excitement of exploring alien landscapes, but gaining new found appreciation for the place you are from.

And for all the joy I have had in meeting with ex-Soviet Azerbaijanis, Kuchi nomads, Hazara highlanders, Westernizing Kabulis, Persian Heratis, Kashmiri boatmen, and even one Indian snake-charmer, for me half the fun of encountering such interesting people lies in sharing the experience with those back home. For if even a few Americans come to define the Muslim lands I have seen on this trip as worthy of interest instead of reflexive distrust and fear, then my long journey will have been worth it.

Brian Williams,

Agra, India.

Click here to see the running photo gallery

    I have experienced something of the Pasthun-Taliban’s struggle to
regain power. Yesterday I made my way down to an embattled outpost
located deep in the Pasthun tribal territories on the Pakistani
border in a place called Gardez. As I arrived in this high risk zone
I drove past a base where soldiers were cleaning up the remains of a
suicide bombing the night before. My host at the base explained that
his position regularly gets shelled by Taliban operating in the area.
    And such terrorism is not limited to the unstable Pashtun provinces.
A suicide bombing close enough to our compound shook the walls and
reminded everyone there that the Taliban consider Kabul to be their
number three terrorist target. I was also witness to a Taliban urban
shooting which resulted in three policemen being shot on the street
below my balcony. This sort of terrorism drives home the fact that
Kabul is amere thirty miles from fighting between the Taliban and Coalition troops.
       It is my need to understand the source of this increasingly
dangerous Taliban insurgency that has driven me down through the a
dangerous pass to the Pashtuns’ main border town in the tribal
areas facing Pakistan, Jalalabad. The journey to Jalalabad is one
that is replete with history.
          As we left the plain of Kabul we entered a narrow gorge flanked
by dagger-like peaks. It was in the depths of this seemingly
endless pass (it took my driver 3 hours to wind his way through it) that an invading
British army was annihilated by Afghan-Pasthun tribesmen in 1842. Only
one survivor escaped the slaughter of the 16,000 man British army and
made it to the British garrison at Jalalabad.
   Happily I experience no such Pashtun-tribal attacks on this road and,
on the contrary, decided that it was not Taliban suicide bombers that
scared me but Afghan suicide drivers.
       Having gained a grey hair or two coming through the mountains down
to Jalalabad, I noticed groups of Pashtun Kuchi nomads on the side
of the road. These colorful tribesmen are one of the world’s last great nomadic
peoples. They roam the countryside with their camels, sheep, and goats
living in tents. I decided to stop into one of their encampments to say hi
and they curiously asked where I was from. When I told them America I was
amazed to hear that they’d never heard of it. Finally one elderly Kuchi
chieftain nodded wisely and said ‘Ingliz’(English) to which I nodded in
affirmative (although my Welsh family will disown me if they find out I
admitted to being an Englishman!). Hearing the name of the famous Ingliz,
several children mimicked shooting and pointed to the pass letting me know
that the memory of Britain’s greatest defeat still resonates with the
isolated Kuchi Pashtuns.
     But as I stared up at the snow capped mountains of Tora Bora in the
distance, I realized that not all Pashtuns were as concerned about 19th
century defeats. After  wandering Jalalabad’s bustling markets I made way
out to the countryside in search of the site of a more recent defeat, Bin
Laden’s destroyed compound at Darunta. It was in Darunta that Al Qaeda
experimented with weapons of mass destruction and plotted the 9/11 attack
on the USA.
     But as I asked local Pasthun villagers where the bombed out ruins of
Bin Laden’s infamous camp were they became visibly angry. As a
gathering crowd grew increasingly hostile, my driver sped away.
Fortunately some local children were eager to assist me and took me
out of the village to a ruined compound that had been thoroughly looted since it was destroyed by
US bombs in October 2001. There was little remaining at this site to
indicate that one of the decisive acts in modern history had been planned
here. And considering the attitude of the local Pashtuns, this was perhaps
just as well for it might have been converted into a shrine.
    While I have gained increased respect for the Afghans on this
month-long journey, I remind myself that things can turn dangerous in
this land in a moment. Its now time to head out into the provinces
where I will have no access to email and I will keep this rule in
mind. My next blog will come from India inshallah (‘God willing’ as
the Afghans say before setting out any dangerous enterprise). If all
goes well I will then make a long-dreamed of pilgrimage to the Taj Mahal, the greatest architectural
legacy of Babur’s heirs and send out my final blog from there. For an
article on the disturbing weapons of mass destruction experiments carried
out at Darunta see:
http://archives.cnn.com/2002/US/08/19/terror.tape.chemical/
Also see my article on suicide bombings: “Cheney Attack Reveals Taliban
Suicide Bomber Targeting Patterns” Terrorism Monitor, Feb. 2007.

Click here to see the running photo gallery

       For most Afghans the US military is defined as both a distant source of
comfort and an intimidating foreign presence. On a previous trip I came
down out of the Hindu Kush with a truck-load filled with Uzbeks
and had an experience that best defines this dichotomy. When my
Uzbek-filled SUV made its way through Charikar, a town near Bagram Air
Base, we encountered a snarled American convoy. As the convoy attempted to
turn around in a small area, US soldiers in armored humvees waved their
guns at the surging crowds of Afghans trying in vain to prevent them from
swarming past the convoy.
       Seeing the legitimate fear on the soldiers’ faces at their inability to
control the typical Afghan chaos my heart went out to my countrymen
serving in this strange land. But at the same time I felt the discomfort
of my Uzbek hosts who loved the Americans for freeing them from the
Taliban but feared these cursing foreign soldiers waving guns.
    As we drove to Bagram Air Base yesterday I decided I would try to
analyze these roots for these two competing perceptions of the US
military presence by local Afghans. The conversation I had with my Afghan hosts as
we approached the base is a good starting point. As we drove near the base
we began to see Chinooks and Apache attack helicopters flying overhead and
one of my Afghan friends nodded approvingly. “Look at the helicopters
Ibrahim (Afghans have a hard time with my name Brian and invariably call
me by this equivalent) they have probably been fighting the Taliban over
in the east south of Jalalabad. Let’s hope they were victorious.”
    But as we approached the outer gate of Bagram (the one where a suicide
bomber recently blew himself up during Vice President Cheney’s visit), we
noticed helmeted US troops with scarves and sunglasses covering their
faces eyeing us down the barrels of their guns from behind
sand-bagged check-posts. My driver nervously turned to me and suggested
“Perhaps we should just drop you off here Ibrahim. I think this place is
American property, Afghans are not allowed on.”
     I assured him that it was ok to continue and walked out to show my US
passport and invitation letter to the guards manning this dangerously
exposed position. Keeping their weapons trained on us they motioned for us
to follow one of their vehicles and we entered a zone that was an alien
world for my Afghan driver and guard. Opening the hood of our truck and
passing mirrors beneath it to search for bombs, the US soldiers asked us
if we had any weapons. My guard revealed his pistol and license and was
told to take it off the base.
    My driver joined him and I continued alone into the massive base down
its main street known as Disney Avenue. The irony of this name for a
main street in a base that was actually built by the Soviets during their
occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s was not lost on me. As I made my
way to my destination I noticed that every man and woman (and there were
many of the latter) was armed with a assault rifle, by regulations no one
could go unarmed. Considering the walls of defenses and checkpoints
surrounding this bubble of American power this S.O.P. (standard operating
procedure) seemed a little extreme to me.
  Meeting my hosts in a large hanger built by the Soviets I was treated
to a surreal hamburger and fries and met with men and women that define
the best of the US military. They were to a man (and woman) incredibly
bright, eager to learn about the situation in the provinces, and
professional. But I realized that most of these analysts had spent
little time off base and did not know Afghan food, customs, language,
living conditions, tribal distinctions, and day to day difficulties.
This disconnect was glaringly manifested when I later left the base.
   My driver, an African American woman (armed with the usual accoutrement
of an M-16) explained to me that she had never been off base before. She
was genuinely curious about Afghanistan and was excited to be driving
me out into the ‘Red Zone.’ To do so she and another guard who, like
many on the base was from a southern state, had to put on S.O.P. helmet
and flack jacket. All this just to take me to the outer entrance of the
base.
   As I said goodbye to my American hosts I felt grateful for them for
making the free Afghanistan I had come to know in the ‘Red Zone’
possible, but sad that they could not enjoy the fruits of their hard
work and sacrifices the way I could.

Today is Friday, the Muslim holy day so the country takes the day off
much as Sunday is the day of rest in the West. Like many Kabulis I decided
to get together with friends and spend the day in one of the city’s rare
verdant spots, the Babur Gardens. My decision was based both on the need
for a rest from punishing off-road traveling in the provinces and a
desire to see the tomb of one of history’s giants, Emperor Babur
the Tiger. While many Americans might not know his name, Babur’s status in
Central and South Asia surpasses even that of such conquerors as Alexander
the Great and Genghis Khan.
       In brief Babur was a freebooting Turko-Mongol warlord who fought the
nomadic Uzbeks for control of what is now called Uzbekistan (a clear
indicator as to who eventually won the battle for this
region). Defeated in the northern plains he moved to Kabul and used it as 
launching pad for conquering the Indian sub-continent.
      The splendor of Babur’s Indian Mongols (known in “Hindustan” as Moguls)
soon became a byword for imperial extravagance and the word mogul
subsequently came to mean a wealthy magnate in English, as in a movie
mogul. Among other imperial edifices, Babur’s Mogul descendents built what
has to be the world’s most beautiful testimony to love, the magnificent
Taj Mahal.
     I arrived at Babur's tomb-garden and found it surrounded by a massive wall
within which were trees and gardens filled with picnicking Kabulis. While
officially closed to visitors, a kind old care-taker opened the door to 
allow me to visit the grave of a man who forged anempire with his sword and
 ruled millions.
      But one would never know that Babur was a Mogul emperor by his grave.  
For all of the images of palaces and wealth associated with the name of his 
Mogul descendents, I was touched by his grave’s beautiful simplicity. Made up 
of a tasteful marble head-piece and raised tomb, the conqueror
of India rests in a simple grave in Kabul far removed from the Indian land
and wealth his descendents are synonymous with.
       Gazing out across Kabul from the vantage point of his tomb, I could see
why he might have eschewed an imperial tomb like the Taj Mahal in favor of
a grave site that reminded him of his youthful origins as an adventurous
freebooter. But as I stared across the park towards Kabul I soon ceased my
pondering of dead emperors as I noticed a crowd of Afghans excitedly
gathering to watch some sort of spectacle.
        While the gloom-and-doom US State Department travel advisory for
Afghanistan warns Americans not to go near crowds (or to do
anything based on natural curiosity), I rushed down the hill to see what
was going on. Much to my delight I discovered some 200-300 Afghan men
watching an ancient sport known as morgh jangi (rooster fighting). Banned by 
the Taliban’s ludicrously named ‘Department for the Promotion of Virtue and 
Punishment of Vice’, morgh jangi has returned to Afghanistan after many years 
of absence.
       I joined some Afghans on the edge of the edge of the crowd and they
explained to me what I was seeing. In one corner a young Afghan wearing a
shalwar kameez (pajama robe) and baseball cap gave last minute ‘coaching’
to a gigantic gamecock that was known to be unbeatable. In the other
corner an old Afghan with a beard and turban blew water from his mouth
into the face of a feathered contender who many of the more adventurous were
betting on.
     And the betting on the 'gladiators' was serious business. One elderly 
Afghan in front of me bet the equivalent of $2,500 on the challenger. The 
crowd’s passion rose to a fever pitch when the defender, whose name was Shah 
something or other, attacked first and used his sharpened talons and claws to 
crush his young upstart opponent. But then, against all odds, the young 
contender fought back and pecked a huge chunk of flesh out his opponent’s
 ‘shoulder’(or whatever you call the top of an Afghan gamecock’s wing). 
Seemingly stunned by the ferocity of his opponent’s counter-attack, the
 champion backed down after several more attacks and suddenly staggered from
the ring. Mercifully this fight had not been to the death.
     As the crowd roared in delight my Afghan friend explained that the
challenger had won. Those who’d bet safe would now have to explain to
their wives how they’d lost their money on a ‘sure thing.’ When I asked my
new found friend what the challenger’s name was he good naturedly smiled
to me and said, “You can call him Rocky!”

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		http://blogs.southcoasttoday.com/afghanistan/2007/04/23/an-afghan-norwegian-scandal-meeting-the-book-seller-of-kabul/
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		Mon, 23 Apr 2007 11:59:08 +0000
				
		http://scmg.blogs.djlmgdigital.com/afghanistan/2007/04/23/an-afghan-norwegian-scandal-meeting-the-book-seller-of-kabul/

					
										

      There is no one more famous in Kabul than ‘Sultan Khan’ the central character in Asne Seierstad’s international best-seller entitled The Book Seller of Kabul. After befriending Khan at his small book store in 2002, Seierstad, a Norwegian writer, asked him if she could live with his family to write an insider’s account of Afghan life. Having protected his precious books from being burnt by the dreaded religious police during the Taliban period, the English-speaking Khan was honored to welcome a Westerner into his home. In the finest tradition of Afghan melmastiia-the honor duty to protect a guest at all cost, Khan gave Seierstad unprecedented access to closed Afghan domestic life.

Click here to see the running photo gallery 

What emerged, however, was a scathing critique of traditional Afghan life by a European author whose perspective is inescapably shaped by laudable notions of women’s roles in society. While Americans have long resented Europeans’ views of their own ‘backward’ customs (Scandinavians I have met have scoffed at American women’s ‘prudishness’ in not going topless on the beach like ‘liberated-enlightened’ European women), Afghans of all walks of life positively cringed at Seiserstad’s take on their customs and values. 

All of this brings up an issue of honesty and the ethics involved in writing about voiceless peoples in poor third world countries. I have myself lived in Afghan households and, while finding points of criticism, I felt it would dishonor and betray my host’s hospitality were I to sensationalize their daily lives for the benefit of a Western audience. 
Seiserstad had no such qualms and revealed the most salacious of details of Khan’s household’s inner workings. She revealed where he hid his money, what the women looked like when bathing, re-told personal arguments in excruciating detail, and most importantly, exposed Khan’s often misogynistic views on women. 
For this reason I was curious to see what Mr. Khan thought about the ‘unblinking’ analysis of his world by his honored guest. I did not initially introduce myself when I entered his book store in part because I was afraid to broach the subject, but also because I was amazed by the selection of books available on Afghanistan. I even discovered the ultimate treasure, several issues of Jehad (jihad) Magazine done in the 1980s by Arab volunteer fighters that would later form Al Qaeda! 
Seeing my obvious delight, ‘Sultan Khan’ came over and told me the story of how he collected them and hid them from both the Soviets and the Taliban book burners. He blushed with joy when I told him that not even Harvard University had such a collection. As we talked ‘Sultan Khan,’ whose real name is Shah Muhammad, invited me to have tea with him and his sons. His sons both spoke fluent English, one was a reporter for Reuters. 
As I sipped tea with the man known to millions of readers as the Bookseller of Kabul he discussed his love of books, education, and appreciation of the West’s role in liberating his country from the Orwellian Taliban thought police. With contagious enthusiasm he also introduced me to his dream of making books available to poor Afghans. To fulfill this dream he had saved up his money over the years to buy a bus which he converted into a mobile library/book store. His dream was known as the Books and Rivers Bus after a famous Sufi mystical Islam saying that ‘books are like rivers, when you dive into one you never know if you will find a pearl.’ He now spent his spare time traveling to the most backward provinces selling books at a financial loss to poor students and villagers. 
As I became acquainted with the real Shah Muhammad, I found it increasingly difficult to reconcile the educated man who warmly greeted women into his store with the ‘Sultan Khan’ in Seiserstad’s novel. In particular his sons’ obvious educational level and deep affection for their father seemed to contradict the tyrannical image of Shah Muhammad painted by Seiserstad. I finally broached the subject with Shah M. as he is known to his customers and he paused for a long time before responding.With obvious pain he said, “Miss Seiserstad came to Afghanistan with a frame of my country already in her mind. When I invited her into my home, my picture filled that frame. When I read the book it was the most humiliating moment of my life. I never trusted the Taliban so I knew what to expect from them. But Miss Seiserstad, I trusted her…”
The exposure of the intimate details of his life in the pages of a book, the very thing he’d spent his life protecting, was something he simply could not understand. But when I asked him if I, a total stranger, could join him on his next tour he did not hesitate. “It would be an honor to have someone who loves reading join us!”  (If you are interested in communicating with Shah M/Sultan Khan he can be reached at: shahm.booksco@usa.net )

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		http://blogs.southcoasttoday.com/afghanistan/2007/04/18/the-cult-of-massoud-the-lion-of-panjsher/
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		Wed, 18 Apr 2007 17:33:04 +0000
				
		http://scmg.blogs.djlmgdigital.com/afghanistan/2007/04/18/the-cult-of-massoud-the-lion-of-panjsher/

					
										From the second you arrive in Afghanistan you begin to sense the ubiquitous presence of Afghanistan’s most famous son, Massoud ‘the Lion of Panjsher’ (see for example the giant bill-board featuring his face that welcomes travelers to Kabul International Airport in my first day’s blog). Today one finds Massoud’s picture everywhere in Afghanistan. I have found it on calendars, photographs taped to car windows, on billboards throughout the countryside, on the walls of various Afghan generals I’ve met, and kabob stands throughout Kabul. It would be no exaggeration to say that there is something of a cult of personality surrounding the charismatic Afghan leader who is usually described as a ‘Milli Kahraman’, a National Hero.


Click here to see the running photo gallery

          But for all his fame here in Afghanistan, many Americans remain unaware of his importance. I first sensed this on September 10th 2001 when I received a sad call from an Afghan colleague of mine living in Tajikistan. Barely able to contain his grief he informed me that the ‘Lion’ was dead. He had just been killed by two Al Qaeda suicide bombers.
My head spun as I received the news and I kept asking him over and over again if he was sure. I simply could not accept the fact that Massoud, the most famous of all the anti-Soviet Afghan freedom fighters (known as mujahideen) and main Northern Alliance opponent of the Taliban, had been killed. My sadness was not forced for I must confess that Massoud’s activities as a guerilla leader in the 1980s provided me with much of the inspiration I needed to begin my life long study of Islam (I was not the only one. ‘Massoud’ even starred alongside Sylvester Stallone in the Afghanistan-based cinematic ‘masterpiece’, Rambo III, and he was lionized by such Cold Warriors as President Reagan).
When I heard the terrible news of his death on September 10th  I remember being very frustrated at my inability to share my shock with my American friends. My inability to reach them stemmed from the simple fact that Afghanistan and her travails were of the utmost irrelevancy to most Americans on the evening of 9/11. I remember trying in vain to share horror stories of Taliban atrocities I’d collected from Afghan refugees on the Uzbekistan-Afghan border in 1998.  But few were interested in Afghanistan prior to 9/11.
So I kept my shock to myself on September 10th. But the following morning as I watched the second plane hit the World Trade Center on CNN, I remembered a fateful prediction Massoud had made just a few months before. During a conference in France, Massoud had personally pleaded with the newly elected US president, George Bush, to help him in his struggle against a twin terrorist threat known as the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
When the Iraq-China-focused Bush administration ignored his warnings he returned to the small portion of Afghanistan where his anti-Taliban forces desperately held out to fight a desperate battle. Afghanistan, the country that had lost 1.5 million people fighting the USSR had once again been abandoned by the West.
With his death it appeared as if the Taliban would finally destroy the Northern Alliance and conquer the last free portions of Afghanistan. When news of Massoud’s death reached the Taliban front lines they attacked with unprecedented ferocity and Massoud’s front appeared close to collapse.
Then came the unimaginable news from distant America. The Taliban’s ‘guests’, the Arab Al Qaeda, had attacked the USA and brought down her greatest buildings. The rest is history.
Within months US special forces allied to Dostum and Massoud’s troops had brought down the Taliban and freed millions of Afghans from the most repressive regime in Eurasia. Sadly Massoud, who’d fought against both the Soviet invaders and the Taliban puritans, did not live to see the Northern Alliance’s final victory and the Kabul of today.  
Today many Afghans, especially those from Massoud’s own ethnic group the Tajiks, consider him and the 3,000 Americans who died on two days later, to be shahids, martyrs. Like the Lion, they died so that others might live free of the Taliban. For had their been no Massoud and no 9/11 the Taliban would have conquered the north long ago and the slumbering American giant would have never awoken.
 On my last trip I made a pilgrimage to Massoud’s tomb which is located high in the majestic Hindu Kush Mountains in his beloved Panjsher Valley. There I found a guest book for visitors in his simple mountain shrine. Among the Arabic script testimonials I found one in English written by an American. It read simply “Thank you Massoud for trying to warn us. Sorry we didn’t listen sooner.”
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		http://blogs.southcoasttoday.com/afghanistan/2007/04/17/the-secret-life-of-foreigners-in-kabul/
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		Tue, 17 Apr 2007 13:30:12 +0000
				
		http://scmg.blogs.djlmgdigital.com/afghanistan/2007/04/17/the-secret-life-of-foreigners-in-kabul/

					
										               In my previous trips I have tended to use Kabul as a springboard for launching myself into the less-stable provinces to do research. For this reason I am not as familiar with Afghanistan’s relatively safe capital. But I will nonetheless attempt to bring its various facets to life for you as I encounter them. Today, for example, I will describe that strange breed of foreigners who leave their safe homes behind to live and work in Kabul.


Click here to see the running photo gallery

             It is from the Afghan capital that the world is directing the re-construction of this country and for this reason it is has a considerable foreign presence. While the only foreigners I saw in the northern deserts and mountains in the past were the occasional heavily-armed ISAF (International Security and Assistance Force) patrol, here one finds UN representatives, war correspondents, NGO aid workers, diplomats, and foreigners tied to a wide variety of international groups all involved in the re-construction of Eurasia’s most shattered country.
                Last night I met with some French members of the UN who were assisting me in gaining access to captured Taliban prisoners. In the process I was introduced to the foreign expat life that I had missed during my previous ‘roughing it’ expeditions. 
The expatriot stories rarely get told but are nonetheless fascinating. 
Foreigners involved in helping the Afghans recover from over twenty five years of war live in a place that is both alien and, on occasion, dangerous (foreign workers have been kidnapped, blown up by suicide bombers, be-headed, and gunned down by the Taliban). The stress of working in such an environment, often for stints that last years, takes its toll on even the strongest. Many have been shaken by incidents that have left them traumatized.   
 One woman whom I flew out with a few years ago had to leave the country after someone through a live hand grenade into her van’s half open window. Luckily the grenade landed on the lap of a fast thinking co-worker who reflexively tossed it back out through half open window seconds before it exploded covering her in shards of class. 
To survive in such a world the foreigners in Kabul have created safe havens that attempt to bring them much of the amenities of home and provide momentary reprieve from the troubles they encounter
One such place is the Mustafa Hotel.
The Mustafa Hotel was opened up within days of the Taliban’s fall by a colorful Afghan exile who had been living in New Jersey since the Soviet invasion of the 1980s. As the ultimate ‘fixer,’ and only person in Kabul driving a Camero (seriously) with a Jersey accent, Wais Faisi quickly became a legend. Known as the ‘Fonz of Kabul’ after he was described in a novel entitled the Sewing Circles of Herat, Faisi ran the first functioning bar in post-Taliban Afghanistan. He could also solve any problem you brought to him. 
When I came to him in 2003 he asked me what he could do for me. While initially taken back by his Soprano’s accent and appearance, I began to negotiate the price for one gun-man and a driver to take me over the Hindu Kush Mountains to meet a notorious warlord named Dostum (who actually turned out to be an incredible host). 
“Are you with CIA?” was his first response to which Ipromptly replied, “Nope, UMASSD.” 
“Never heard of ‘em before” was his reply. “Whatever outfit your with it will cost you two thousand dollars take it or leave it. But either way, your coming to my barbecue Friday night, you have ***** to go try hanging with Dostum.” 
While I never attend one of Faisi’s legendary roof top barbecues due to the fact that I found some local Uzbek tribal militiamen to take me to Dostum, I had the chance to meet many interesting characters in his bar. These ranged from Dynacorp contract soldiers (never call them mercenaries) to war correspondents who’d returned from ‘embeds’ with US troops fighting the Taliban in the south.
Recalling Faisi’s well known skills as a ‘fixer’, I decided to pop into the Mustafa Hotel to look him up again soon after we arrived on this trip. But my host broke the bad news to me. Faisi had been killed last year in mysterious circumstances. My hosts (who chose to remain unnamed for security reasons) claim it was by the Taliban T-totallers as punishment for his creation of a ‘den of iniquity.’ Another source claimed it was because the Mustafa Hotel had actually been a ‘spy den’, which wouldn’t surprise me.
                Regardless of what sort of ‘den’ his hotel actually was, Faisi’s fate served as a cautionary tale. In the Taliban period one could be killed for drinking alcohol. Even today many traditional Afghans frown on drinking and the mixing of un-married men and women in restaurants. The Taliban terrorists/fighters routinely rail against the recent import of ‘alcohol, drugs, prostitutes, and sex’ into Islamic Afghanistan. And at least one Taliban suicide bomber targeted an internet café with foreigners in it.
                For this reason the few bar/restaurants that are available for homesick foreigners to ‘come down’ from the hard realities of Afghan daily life tend to be rather low key, if not down right hidden. 
Take for instance the French venue my hosts took me to last night (I will keep its name hidden out of respect to those who run the restaurant despite the risks. I will simply refer to it as L’Restaurant). “L’Restaurant” is located on a dark, unpaved, pot hole-filled back alley in a rather non-descript Kabul neighborhood. You only indicator that you have arrived at “L’Restaurant” is the presence of machine-gun totting guards who suddenly materialize out of the gloom to inspect your car. 
Assured that we were foreigners not Taliban suicide bombers, we were waved through to a sand-bagged entrance to a faceless walled compound. While it initially felt like we were entering a bunker, when we walked out of the entrance/check point we found ourselves in a beautiful garden with a swimming pool, tables with candles on them, and (I kid you not) a fully functioning French restaurant complete with two bars and cuisine I could not pronounce. 
As my hosts ordered a bottle of wine every unwound from the days events (one had been calculating war deaths in the various provinces that week) and for a few minutes we forgot we were in Kabul, Afghanistan. My hosts were an eclectic crowd and were wonderful. A French-Canadian who had married a Kirghiz woman and spoke fluent Dari, a Pakistani-English woman who specialized in counter-terrorism etc. As our food arrived I relished the chance to eat something besides rice pilaf, soup and flat naan bread (all of which I actually love, just not every day) and immersed myself in the momentary bon vivre. 
It was not until a UH 60 Black Hawk military helicopter ‘whumph whumphed’ over us in the star-filled night and shook us out of our reverie that we were reminded we were not in Paris. As if shaken from a trance everyone decided soon thereafter to return to their various homes and compounds to prepare for another day in the outer world known as Afghanistan.
 
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		http://blogs.southcoasttoday.com/afghanistan/2007/04/13/day-3-a-taliban-be-heading-and-the-kabulis%e2%80%99-reaction/
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		Fri, 13 Apr 2007 16:50:18 +0000
				
		http://scmg.blogs.djlmgdigital.com/afghanistan/2007/04/13/day-3-a-taliban-be-heading-and-the-kabulis%e2%80%99-reaction/

					
										

        Today we decided to explore central Kabul and our journey began on a hill top in the center of the city topped by a shell-blasted concrete mausoleum belonging to the former king of Afghanistan. As we arrived on the hill top plateau a group of Afghan soccer players came over to say hi and welcome us to their country.       
Click here to see the running photo gallery
         They were thrilled when I offered to take their photograph and show it to Americans back home and I found this to invariably be the case as I strolled through the city below. While the burqa-less girls were often shy when I took their picture, everyone from bread-sellers to wandering Sufi fortune tellers and bicyclists seemed to have an almost child-like delight in having a foreigner take their photograph. Many said ‘hello welcome’ to me and this English catch phrase seemed to be widespread in the city.
            But as I made my way to the town center I encountered a sad sight that reminded me that this was still a country threatened by those who were less than welcoming to outsiders. On a small hill top I noticed a gathering of Afghans dressed in Western clothing and found a group of local journalists commemorating the death of one of their own. In the middle of the crowd I found pictures of an Afghan free-lance journalist and translator who had recently been be-headed by the Taliban.
 The journalist’s name was Ajmal Naqshbandi and his name is not as widely known as that of his former compatriot, an Italian correspondent named Daniele Mastrogiacomo. Mastrogiacomo made headlines around the planet last month when he was kidnapped in the south by the Taliban. He was eventually released in exchange for the return of five Taliban commanders held captive by the Karzai government. Mastrogiacomo’s five-to-one release came about as a result of Italian pressure designed to keep Italian troops in Afghanistan’s NATO contingent. 
But Afghanistan’s Karzai government refused to release further Taliban prisoners in order to obtain Naqshbandi’s release fearing that it would set a bad precedent and set off a cycle of kidnappings. As a result Naqshbandi was brutally executed. The Afghans whom I talked to resented the implication that a foreigner’s life was worth more than that of an Afghan. They also bemoaned the fact that the news of Naqshbandi’s be-heading had not been as widely reported as the story of Mastrogiacomo’s release. 
While I was reflexively inclined to argue against the Afghan journalists’ belief that the life of a Westerner was worth more than that of an Afghan, in my heart I knew better. A burnt-out war correspondent whom I met in Kosovo back in 2001 once told me a racist ‘mathematical equation’ that appalled me at the time, but helped explain the lack of Western journalists at Naqshbandi’s memorial.  
The journalist’s bitter ‘equation’ for American reporting priorities went something like this: One dead American is equal to two dead Englishman, who are equal to five French, who are in turn is equal to ten Arabs and so forth until you finally reach China.
 “Americans aren’t interested in the tragedies of the world,” my cynical war correspondent informed me after having one too many whiskeys in a Kosovar bar. “They are less interested in hearing about the ten thousand dead Bangladeshis than they are about who Britney Spears is dating in any given week!.”
While this might be the unavoidable truth I hated it then and I hate it now. For this reason alone I wanted to share the name of Ajmal Naqshbandi whose friend I photographed as she signed a condolence book at the site of his memorial. We later saw her wandering the streets of Kabul with tears still in her eyes and my heart went out to her. Having appreciated the hospitality Afghans gave me every time I visited their country, I felt as if I owed it to her and her people to share her friend’s tragic story with my countrymen…even if he was, in one war correspondent’s crass terms, unworthy of a higher ranking in the ‘mathematical equation.’
 
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		http://blogs.southcoasttoday.com/afghanistan/2007/04/12/day-2-suicide-bombers-traffic-jams-and-poverty-kabul-in-three-dimensions/
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		Thu, 12 Apr 2007 17:07:26 +0000
				
		http://scmg.blogs.djlmgdigital.com/afghanistan/2007/04/12/day-2-suicide-bombers-traffic-jams-and-poverty-kabul-in-three-dimensions/

					
										




          The first sight that greets you when you de-plane in Kabul International Airport is the large military transport aircraft from various NATO countries involved in the struggle against the Taliban. Their looming presence serves to remind you that you are entering a country that is in throes of a war with an enemy that many in America prematurely wrote off as ‘dead-enders’ back in 2002. 

Click here to see the running photo gallery

         But most travelers are not immediately concerned with such larger issues. Your initial ‘war’ involves navigating the chaos of Kabul airport. When we arrived at Kabul airport the terminal lacked electricity, foreign women from various NGOs (Non-Governmental Agencies) scrambled to put on their modest head-scarves, and Afghan customs officials sought in vain to channel in-coming passengers through a series of ad hoc customs checkpoints. 
Having made our way through this controlled chaos relatively unscathed, I walked out into the warm 80 degree sunlight to find that our hosts had not arrived. A friendly Afghan porter promptly offered his cell phone and contacted our ride. Our driver apologetically explained that he had been delayed by traffic jams in Kabul. 
            This fact in and of itself was important for Kabul was not always packed with the hordes of exhaust-spewing cars that fill it today. Under the Taliban the population of Kabul was considerably smaller, the local economy was in tatters, and many luxury products, such as televisions, radios, videos, cell-phones, and Western clothing (and even Western ‘infidel’ haircuts!) were both unaffordable and forbidden. But things had changed since the city was liberated in December of 2001.
            As we made our way through the city in our Japanese SUV, I even sensed tremendous transformations in Kabul since my last visit here in the summer of 2005. Several modern steel and glass buildings had gone up down town, every street corner seemed to have a ‘Roshan’ cell phone shop, and many young men were wearing trendy Western fashions (some even sported fashionable goatees) that would have gotten them beaten with iron cables during the Taliban period. 
            And, most importantly, among the ghost-like forms of women clad in blue burqas (head to toe veils) I saw hordes of young women out and about wearing only head scarves. Amazingly, many of these women were wearing makeup and fashionable clothing. Many were frankly stunning. 
This had certainly not been the case two years earlier and was of course cause for arrest, and potentially, execution during the Taliban times. But here these young Afghan beauties were confidently navigating the crowds of turbaned men and burqa-clad women as if they were on the fashion runways of Milan or Paris! From my perspective the multitude of new cars, liberated young men and women, Western-style billboards and increased population in Kabul were cause for optimism.
            But despite such outward signs of progress, I could not help but notice that much of Kabul operated much as it had in the Taliban period, seemingly unaffected by the sweeping changes that had transformed Afghanistan’s comparatively moderate, urbane capital. The hordes of barefoot street urchins hawking items on the streets, beggars without stretched hands, and simple folk desperately trying to eke out an existence reminded us that this was the poorest country in the world outside of sub-Saharan Africa. 
            And as we made our way through the throngs of Kabulis, our driver constantly pointed out something else that indicated that the outward signs of progress did not mean that the day of the Taliban were gone forever. Along our route he had the disconcerting habit of slowing down to show us places where suicide bombings had taken place in the last year. Here a gapping hole blown into the road, there a building pock-marked by shrapnel. Each spot spoke of a tragedy that had been inflicted on innocent bystanders and every blast-mark sent us a clear message. The grim Taliban masters who’d transformed this vibrant capital into a religious prison camp were down, but they were far from out. 
For all the outward signs of progress and security, there was little the pro-American Karzai government could do to keep fanatical Taliban suicide bombers from infiltrating the city and wreaking havoc. Ironically, since our last visit, Operation Iraqi Freedom had spawned a virulent form of suicide bombing in Iraq that appeared to have inspired the fanatical Taliban guerillas. What had begun as a trickle of bombings during our last visit had become a full-fledged campaign and by 2006 Afghanistan’s fragile progress appeared to have been jeopardized by events in distant Iraq. 
Reflecting on the hatred that would drive someone to walk into this city that was fighting so hard to rebuild itself and transform his own body into so many pieces of bone-shrapnel, I was grateful to arrive safely at our compound in a Kabul suburb. It was now time to begin our exploration of Afghanistan’s capital.
But as we eagerly set out to do so I must confess that both Feyza and myself felt the shadow of lurking suicide bombers hanging over us…
 
Tomorrow: A Taliban Be-Heading and the Kabulis’ Reaction.
 
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