The ties that bind

Arriving at the office the other morning, I was surprised to find one of my local national co-workers had beat me in.  This was unusual, to say the least; it was solidly two hours before he normally comes in, even without the on-going troubles at the ECP.  When asked about the early arrival, he sighed and blamed his father, who apparently needed to borrow his car for the day and had dropped him off early.  Fair enough, I nodded, and didn’t give the matter much more thought until the topic came up again in conversation (apparently; ‘twas in Dari) when everyone else arrived at the normal time.  They were as taken aback as I had been, given that Nadeem lives just outside of Bagram and has the longest commute.  When he explained, it set off a bevy of commiserative grousing. 

Now, I’m no stranger to disagreements with parents – my mother and I had wars when I told her I was taking a job in Afghanistan, for example – but their shared persecution complexes seemed a bit much.  So I teased them about turning their parents into millstones.  No, kushtimada, they chided me, you don’t understand.  Parents are, for all intents and purposes, directly below God on order of devotion and much more demanding in their whims.  Family ties have long been the basis of this tribal society, but my urbanized friends chafe at the traditional model.  In the hinterlands (Kabulis, I’ve found, are remarkably classist), supporting your parents makes sense; the family jointly tend the livestock or farm or keep a small shop.  But in the bright lights of the big city, standards of filial obligation rise shockingly.

The guys warmed to their subject, bandying examples back and forth.  Abdul, for instance, purchased a brand new car for his father, even as he continues to take the bus.  In Nadeem’s case, the car is ‘his’ only in that he maintains it.  Most often he serves as his father’s chauffer.  The long-suffering Nadeem was even made to drop out of the military academy because he was the only literate, readily employable family member (the rest of his siblings are girls – quell horreur! – and therefore cannot take a job, regardless of ability).  Farid, a recent addition to the office, had put off the transfer from the oft-shelled Salerno to Kabul as long as he reasonably could, because now that he is here, his parents are fixated on finding him a suitable wife.  Another linguist only ever turned to employment with the Coalition because he was forced to leave the faculty of law to get married at the tender age of 19.  It is no secret, of course, that many Afghan children are obliged to be married at even younger ages for the financial benefit of their families.  Appallingly, inexcusably younger ages. 

Parental entitlement does one cease when one gets hitched.  If anything, it actually seems to worsen.  The newly-wed Ajmal lamented that he is still expected to kiss his parents before his bride, lest they throw the couple out of the house.  It was pointed out to me that majority of linguists, though married, name their fathers as the insurance beneficiary, not their wives.  Where a father is not available, Afghanistan being a country of widows and orphans, linguists generally select the next viable male relative, such as a brother or cousin.  It is presumed that these responsible men will care for any womenfolk left behind.  My attention was caught by one linguist who listed his mother as his beneficiary.  In was distinctive in that he knew her given name only as Mother.  I was somewhat delighted by the child-like nature of it, though I suspect that the insurance vendor would be less-so.

The consequences for insufficient deference are severe.  One might not only lose a home, as Ajmal worried, but his entire external support system.  Extended family is where ones turn for help in hard times, and suitably vexed parents will not hesitate to defame errant offspring to the entire tribe.  Honor thy father and mother, or they will see you ostracized.

The tremendous pressure to provide for one’s family (which can be taken to mean the entire extended tribe) explains, to a great extent, why corruption here is so endemic.  It’s reciprocal system that, when locally applied, can create and strengthens community bonds.  Essentially, if I give you a ‘gift’ to help expedite the processing of my son’s Tazkira, you’ll give my cousin a break on the bride price so his son can marry your daughter.  However, as both my colleagues and this intriguing article by Lawrence Rosen suggest, the social cohesion created by such expectations of ‘gifts’ breaks down when expanded to an urban setting.  They become de-personalized and exponentially more exorbitant.  No longer reciprocal, the gift system morphed into straight bribes.  Moreover, I rather imagine that the billions of external money suddenly dumped on the economy didn’t help.  It was only a matter of time before mutually supportive nepotism devolved into sheer kleptocracy with corruption rampant according to anyone’s definition.

Beginning of the End

I recently stated my formal intent to not renew my contract with Corporate, which feels oddly like a break-up.  In the past week, I’ve been pressed to reconsider on five separate occasions.  Various and sundry individuals have asked how certain I am, if I might like to try another position within theater, if maybe I would like to take some time at the program office in the States, perhaps if they made me a mixed tape?  Even with the inducements, I can’t wait to get back.  Eventually, of course, I plan to find a job not war-profiteering, but in the short-term, I plan nothing more engrossing than sitting in the sun (hopefully evening out my appalling farmer’s tan) and eating real cheese.  The most immediate implication of my decision is that my attention span is roughly equivalent to that of a gnat, or specialist after five Monsters.  This must be the big kid version of senioritis.

Even so, I am attempting to spend my last few months taking stock of my time in Afghanistan, appreciating what has been a totally unique phase in my life.  I wouldn’t exactly go so far as to call it nostalgia.  More an awareness of something the like of which I might never again experience.  My somewhat vexing introspective kick co-incided with the advent of my last few road-trips, what I’m blithely thinking of as my farewell tour.

Outside Sharana

 The first of my last stops began with a trans-state passage from Sharana to Herat.  Generally the site visits were unremarkable, though a cracked runway did strand me at KAIA for several days (not that I was terribly fussed; ISAF DFACs are so much better).  I did enjoy my first ever opportunity to ride in MRAP.  While mildly exciting in its own way, the experience was rather forcibly heightened by the addition of my IBA, the bulky demotions of which make one quite literally sit on the edge of your seat.  I was amused to note the jaunty little red and yellow sign just inside the gate at Herat, reminding us that seat belts are required past the wire.  In the realm of unexpected safety phenomenon, it also transpired that my Aussie flight crew was the most persnickety of any I’ve been with, proving to out Stiffly Stifferson ever the Germans (Kevlar and IBA required at all times, and vomit bags pre-emptively distributed).  I so didn’t call that.

I probably should have heeded all of the precautions as an omen to steel myself, as I spent much of these last trips (and I expect this to be doubly true on the final one), been yelled by military POCs, mostly regarding issues of payment.  Remember the slow implosion of Kabul Bank?  POCs do not seem understand how this impacts the prompt payment of their linguists, and have been demanding that Corporate simply start cash payouts.  No corruption potential there, no sir.  ‘Tis the joy of being quality assurance – site managers like to pretend I have some institutional power and throw me at the problem children.  I have no power, of course, but I don’t mind taking the abuse for a few days.  They need a break.

Of course, in no small part due to my new-found apathy, I’ve been answering their ire with a fair bit of my own.  I know that we all have spring fever, but what, I have to wonder, is with the spate of scandal?  I rather desperately wanted to inform a chief warrant officer that, contrary to what he might have been told, his linguist is not getting paid 200k plus to be his personal concubine.  Shocking, I know.  This gentleman actually deposited his linguist at a FOB when he went on leave, instructing two E5s from his battalion that she was to be treated as ‘a princess’ in the interim.  Sweet glorious goodness.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone reassigned so quickly (it was especially delicious when she told us that she couldn’t be transferred, as she had left gear in the chief’s locked room.  What, he didn’t give you a key?).

In the meantime, though, I’ve managed to find my own Quijotic fixation.  This particular windmill, as so many of them have been in the past year, is centered on base mentality and local national linguists.  Phoenix, I’m sad to say, is not alone in their absurd re-inventions of security procedures.  Incoming commands the country over are making increasingly untenable demands of their Afghan work force.  Once upon a time, back in those innocent days of 2010, LNs were only ever really required to have TB tests.  Now it’s polio shots, blood draws, Hepatitis tests, stool samples…incidentally, I’m not making any of this up.  At one site, the screening cell is so zealous that, after requesting linguists for themselves, they gave the linguists back – it was too tricky to follow their own procedures to get them badged.  

Another delightful tidbit?  Units are refusing to pay for these bi-annual tests, and are instead pressuring their linguists to pay out of pocket.  At some sites, linguists are paying upwards of 400 USD to be able to keep working.  That’s half their monthly salary.  Mind you, these are the same POCs that deride me for not ensuring the linguists are paid on time.  Even better?  Most camps have approved local medical vendors (who in at least one case charged 20 USD for a polio shot that is free ‘in the economy’, or off-base environment), maintaining that the work of just any Khalid MD is not acceptable.  Of course, when the badging cell applies that standard so stringently that they won’t accept the test conducted by an SF surgeon, one begins to suspect that something is rotten in the state of Paktika.  I am ignorant of the details, but do know that the arrangement between one base command and their on-base Afghan MD was being examined for any ‘improprieties’.  I wonder if he had a vaccination for kickbacks in his bag of tricks.

At Camp Stone

 That said, there are other sites that might want to consider upping their badging standards a wee bit.  I also had the dubious honor of ‘escorting’ a local linguist whose unit suspected him of pace-counting in patrols and making really rather lovely scale sketches of the base.  As the POC wrung his hands about how to prevent this from happening again (sleepers, to my mind, are inevitable.  I’m just pleased that they were lucid enough to notice), a CI team eventually swept in and very gently led the linguist away.  I’d never imagined a ‘black-bagging’ to be quite so cordial.   

But soon, these concerns will be behind me.  Tragically still real, but I’ll be searching for other windmills.  It’s not as though the world lacks ample reason to face-palm.  After all, even as I’m breaking up with my current company, I’m bracing myself to go on blind dates with a host of new ones.

You may have heard

The last few days have been pretty good; mostly filled with working on reports, getting set for my next field trip, learning a spiffy new salsa dip.  Overall, there’s not much to report.  Oh, there was this one thing next door…that’s right - Usama bin Laden is dead.  Just in case you, too, happen to have been living on a highly secure compound with no phone or internet for the past five years, he was killed during a targeted assassination conducted by the Navy Seals and CIA in a garrison town in Pakistan and then buried at sea.  Many more salacious details to be forthcoming, I have no doubt.  Or, if you prefer your realities slightly alternate, ‘twas a joint US/Pakistani venture with several high-yield bombs. Your call, I suppose.

I’m not going to delve too deeply into the legalities of targeted assassination, the justifiability of raucously celebrating someone’s violent death, or whether or not this vindicates abhorrent ‘enhanced interrogation’ techniques (for my money, general illegal, it was certainly cathartic, and NO).  Overwhelmingly, though, I think the reaction was one of quiet and somewhat bitter triumph; for me, at least, and sense of accomplishment or closure is strongly tempered by the memory of the pain of 9/11 and ten subsequent years of war.

I heard the news while the DFAC, at about 0630, and well before my coffee had yet had a chance to kick in.  It all seemed a bit surreal, but the constant barrage of news in the subsequent hours helped it to take on a tangible texture.  I began to grab hold of it, process the breadth of my emotions, and determine what it meant for me.  The general consensus was that it didn’t mean a whole lot.  After all, it’s not like they’re going to start air-lifting us home.  Life continues on as ever.

It was, however, a stunning emotional victory for many; the sort of morale-booster that has been much needed here (and based on the impromptu block party at the White House…everywhere).  The infantry was particularly triumphant; America, fuck yeah was a common refrain heard throughout the day and at seemingly random intervals.  It’s been playing as an affirmation of the mission, the danger and suffering and lost friends, as well as a vindication of the general bad-assness of the armed services.  I have been generally amused that the Army is for once happy to claim the Seals – usually they bitch about the other branches, and particularly about Special Forces, strutting around in their beards and civies.  These days, however, they are all brothers in arms. 

But if the infantry was keyed up, it was nothing compared to the Afghans.  They were positively giddy.  For my colleagues, little love is lost for the Taliban and their most infamous backer.  While lacking the national boogey-man statue assigned to him in the States, bin Laden was still very much a figure of odium, a major contributing force in the shredding of the Afghan state.  They did take the news as proof, though, that Pakistan is the root of all evil (here I should note that most of them were refugees in Pakistan during the Taliban years).  Their criticism of the ISI and conclusions drawn from bin Laden’s proximity to a military academy were much more damning than anything offered by the most hawkish Americans with whom I spoke.  This sentiment is elegantly seconded in a striking post by Salman Rushdie (you should read it – it’s Salman Rushdie!).  

Possibly my favourite reaction, though, came from the young man who wandered from office to office, congratulating every American he found on our tenacity (ten years?  Wow!).  He tempered his enthusiasm with the fervent hope that it wasn’t a double.  I think they’re pretty confident about this one, I assured him.  Yes, he answered, but they might have faked the DNA, or even made another.  Here I cut back in.  Wait - you think they cloned Usama bin Laden?  Sadly, yes, he confirmed.  I am afraid he will reappear in several months, popping from around a corner and saying (here he broadened his own accent) “hello!  I am over here!”

I think that the local nationals would have been even more overtly jubilant, if they hadn’t passed most of the morning in a state of acute anxiety.  The incoming base command, in their zeal to address perceived laxities or make their mark or what have you, has totally revamped the ECP in possibly the most idiotic and wantonly dangerous way imaginable.   They have stripped all the local nationals working on base of their badges, and require them to undergo full biometric screening EVERY DAY to ensure their identity and confirm their innocence of criminal ties.  Reportedly, this insanity is related to the recent tragedies at KAIA and Jalalabad.  It offers no solution, though, to the problem of properly badged individuals who either prove to be sleepers or go postal.  Instead, it leaves upwards of 200 local nationals milling about in front of a Coalition military establishment for hours on end, waiting to come in to work.  They might as well hang up a flashing neon “Soft Target” sign on the gate.  In the four days (FOUR DAYS!) since this policy has been in place, two known Taliban affiliates have been caught canvassing the base and a grenade tossed at the crowd.  My co-workers come in, delayed by hours, and quite literally vibrating with stress.  Even the ANA dropped by, suggesting to the command that this new policy is not the best idea, especially given the current climate (a fabulous trifecta of the start of the insurgent spring offensive, the Kandahar jailbreak, and, right, that bin Laden thing).  When the ANA is telling you that your policy is inept, you have serious problems.

A case study in sovereignty as organized robbery

About two months ago, there was an attempted bank heist in Jalalabad, startling for both its brazenness and its violence.  I use the term heist loosely, as robbery did not appear to be perpetrators’ primary motive.  The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, which was apparently intended to target ANA and ANP personnel (the ‘puppet regime’s military’) as they collected their pay checks.  Unfortunately, payday marks an excellent time to pursue vulnerable government employees; they are all paid through Kabul Bank, an institution that cannot readily be accused of convenience.  Its generally obscure locations, terrible hours, and interminable queues make more akin to the DMV than a Wells Fargo. 

During the brash attack, gunmen dressed as ANP opened fire inside the bank an on the street and three suicide bombers successfully detonated.  All told, after an hours-long standoff with Afghan and Coalition forces, all the attackers were killed, as were 18 civilians.  Another 70-some were wounded.  The casualties were predominately civilians (the tellers made especially easy targets), but did include some service members and apparently the deputy police chief and local head of criminal investigations.  Much of the incident was caught on video.  It’s pretty graphic, not the least because of how nonchalant the violence is, so view with care. 

But the Jalalabad raid has nothing on the pillaging going on in Kabul.  I remember doubts about Kabul Bank’s stability first appeared on my radar at the tail end of Ramadan last fall.  In preparation for Eid celebrations, it seemed that everyone with a bank account was trying to draw money (only about seven per cent of Afghans have savings).  The powers that be at the Bank, Afghanistan’s largest private bank, began to realize that they might not have enough to cover the demand.  The reasons for this shortfall were a little fuzzy at the time, but resulted in something of a financial panic and a run on Kabul Bank.  Things were tense and withdrawals rationed.    

For a time, it seemed that Kabul Bank, or KabulbanK as its emblem would have it, had regained its footing.  The past few months, however, have seen some really breathtaking disclosures regarding the extent of graft precipitating the institution’s slow implosion.  It’s a terrifically sordid tale, comprising political buy-offs, corruption, collusion with the enemy, laundering of drug money, and palatial residences in Dubai for the shareholders and chief administrators, including President’s Karzai’s brother (not the drug trafficker.  This is another brother). 

Dexter Filkins gave the whole thing an excellent treatment in The New Yorker a few months ago that is very much worth reading in its entirety.  One of the article’s choice gems, however, includes the account of how two self-identified Kabul Bank employees handed Hamid Karzai’s (now former) finance minister and campaign treasurer (don’t even get me started on the conflict of interests inherent is that dual title) a briefcase with two hundred thousand dollars in cash for the President’s re-election.  It turns out that this was just one small illustration of the fraternization between the Bank and the Administration.  American investigators allege that Kabul Bank more or less funded Karzai’s 2010 candidacy to the tune of 7-14 million USD, in addition to shelling out bribes to members of Parliament for key legislative votes.  Overall, an estimated 900 million USD (that’s dollars!  US dollars!) are ‘missing’ from the Bank, having been doled out to influential politicians, businessmen, insurgents, and the Bank’s own executives.  This is a staggering amount in any context, but even more so in a country whose GDP is only about 12 billion USD annually.  In exchange for the providing the slush fund, Kabul Bank enjoyed an almost total lack of external regulation and the exclusive right to process government payrolls.  In a neat little twist, the deputy attorney general who was spear-heading the local crusade against corruption, Fazel Ahmed Faqiryar, was fired and is now himself under investigation for libel.

So what’s going to happen to these hugely corrupt power players, in the face of extensive evidence of their fraud?  Nothing.  These are trusted advisors to and ministers of the government, our partners in the COIN fight.  So the US is guaranteed to grin and bear it as these bureaucratic vampires continue bleed us of our resources and credibility.  The institutionalize nature of the corruption here reminds me of nothing so much as Mexico under the PRI.  I lucidly recall the guest lecture of a professor from UNAM explaining how, if a police officer wanted to send his son to college, he had no choice but to demand bribes of those committing petty traffic violations: it was the only way he would be able to afford the school fees, which were themselves somewhat augmented in order to entice better instructors and pad the administrators’ income.  This was the same story that barged to the forefront of my mind when my colleague was bribing the nurses for extra blood during his wife’s delivery.  Did they need the money to pay school fees or for the next time the ANP stopped them on some trumped up charge, looking for their own piece of the ‘informal’ economy? Who knows.  The corruption here is so endemic that every level of society, no matter how critical the service, becomes rife for a shake-down.  There is no government in Afghanistan – just a series of protection rackets or varying levels of subtlety and efficiency.    

And why am I brining the Kabul Bank debacle up now, months after the public discovery of the lost funds?  Well, it has finally started to hit home for our linguists.  Just like the Afghan security forces, our linguists were paid exclusively from Kabul Bank.  This was a logical decision at one time, Kabul Bank being the largest and most accessible in Afghanistan.  Given the very real concern about the Bank’s stability, Corporate has lately been withholding money over the last month, and linguists have been screaming.  Now the Powers That Be have determined that we’ll use a different, seemingly more durable (we don’t care so much about corruption, and have very little faith that the central bank’s receivership plan will work) vendor.  Of course, part of that stability comes from the small size; the bank de jour only has about three branches in the entire country.  Now everyone has to come up to Kabul to get a new bank card so they can get paid.  How do you think the war fighters on the Pakistan border are responding to that request?  Exactly.  These poor guys are going to have back-pay for months.

If it’s The Town in Jalalabad and Inside Man in Kabul, it’s Shawshank in Kandahar…  I particularly like how the Taliban refer to it as a political prison.  The spin is outstanding.  Now everyone is even more on edge than normal, especially as the breakout occurred immediately in advance of Mujahideen Victory Day, celebrating the fall of the Communist government in 1992 and general overthrow of oppressive external powers.  It’s tomorrow, natch.  Should be good times.

If you're interested

America Abroad Media is running a fairly spiffy programme this coming Friday, 29 April.  It’s a town hall-style event hosted with Radio Killid Afghanistan and will connect audiences in DC and Kabul to discuss the future of women’s rights in Afghanistan.  It’s a timely topic, especially considering the backlash over the Greg Mortenson debacle and the Karzai administration’s penchant of trading women’s rights for political profit (most spectacularly with the 2009 law that effectively legalized marital rape). 

If you’re in DC and able to attend, the town hall is free (but requires an RSVP).  More information can be found here.

Changing of the guard

Apparently, a goal has been set for the Libyan morass: regime change.  President Obama coauthored a piece with British Prime Minister David Cameron and French President Nicolas Sarkozy declaring that the NATO campaign would not cease until Col. Muammar Gaddafi was removed from power.  Of course, the means of how to attain this end remain a bit fuzzy.  Obama has reaffirmed that US ground troops are not on the table, even as he acknowledges that the situation as reached stalemate and NATO reports that it is running out of bombs.  So as Gaddafi’s forces are reportedly employing cluster munitions and GRAD rockets against civilians, the Allies must decide with how much bite to back up their bark.  Will French and/or British troops assist with the ground campaign?  Possibly, I think, but only targeted Special Forces and only if the US resumes lead on the air strikes.  Should be an interesting few days to say the least.

Leaving aside the question of our schizo foreign policy at the moment (if what NATO is concerned with are gross human rights violations, why not intervene in Syria, where President al-Assad's security forces have apparently been illegally detaining and torturing protesters and have killed hundreds?  And then there’s Yemen, home of the live-round happy riot police.  Or we could even become proactively involved in Cote d’Ivoire, and ensure that Ouattara’s forces don’t engage in any reprisal killings.  But I digress…), let’s focus instead on that other morass in which we’re attempting to abdicate responsibility, complete with its own crazy leaders and their wacky antics.

Afghanistan’s sanguine President Karzai declared a few weeks ago that Afghan security forces will shortly be taking full responsibility for the security of seven key areas, predominately independent of Coalition assistance.  President Karzai framed the conferral of responsibility as necessary element of taking Afghan security into Afghan hands.  ISAF forces are to be relegated to supply and training positions, leaving all kinetic action to the ANA and ANP.  The designated sites included the relatively quiet provinces of Kabul, Panjshir, and Bamiyan, as well as the cities of Herat in the west, Mazar-e-Sharif to the north, and the eastern town of Mehterlam.  In addition to these six ‘peaceful’ areas, Karzai also slated the capital of Helmand, Lashkar Gah, to be handed over.  One face-saving challenged mixed in with the fluff, one assumed.  Of course, that was before the hateful Koran-burning and Mazar-e-Sharif’s subsequent explosion of mob violence, resulting in the deaths of several UN staffers.  In quick succession followed several deadly riots in Kandahar and our own storming of the gate at Phoenix.  Bon chance, ANA!  For the record, NATO agreed the decision is a positive and critical first step toward withdrawal. 

Informally, however, troops (and, for the record, me) view the handoff as little more than lip service, especially in the case of Helmand.  First and foremost, there is a very real concern regarding preparedness, especially among the mentor teams.  Case in point: in the aftermath of the attack on Phoenix, one of the aspiring suicide bombers was shot before he was able to detonate.  Rather than wait for EOD team, as they’d been trained, the responding ANA simply cut his vest from his body and stripped him bare in the street.  The American QRF was less than pleased at the breach in protocol, especially as mishandling of the vest might have resulted in casualties.  Meanwhile, the shooters who had been laying down cover fire for the bombers simply ditched their weapons (they have a commendable working knowledge of the Coalition rules of engagement) and calmly fled the scene on bicycles, blending into Kabul traffic. 

Beyond competency, however, is the question of complicity.  A friend of mine went on a recovery mission, acting on intel regarding tens of thousands of dollars worth of stolen US military equipment stashed in Kabul.  Because of the sensitivity of the mission, they opted not to invite their ANP counterparts; it transpired that the pilfered equipment was being housed directly across the street from one of the PD’s sub-stations.  The PD Chief has been avoiding the American mentor teams since the raid.  As he related the story, my friend sighed that the Chief was pissed, ‘cause his hoard had been reclaimed.  And now the two units were meant to go on these ‘mentoring’ missions within the month.  Were they simply supposed to ignore the PD’s role as, at a minimum, accessory to the theft by tacit agreement?  The Americans accepted that this might be the case, if only the Chief would ever again look them in the face again and have his guys bother to bring their ammo.  NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen seemed to conquer.  Even as he welcomed increased Afghan engagement, he offered the tepid endorsement that every step of Afghanistan’s journey would ‘be determined by conditions on the ground.’

For their part, my co-workers express cautious optimism at the ANA’s new authority, though tempered by the ever-present Afghan pragmatism.  With an acute awareness that the Coalition is ever closer to throwing up its hands and leaving, they view having even mildly operations security forces to be of critical importance.   And there can be little doubt that the ANA/ANP have exponentially improved in professionalism and efficacy.  Indeed, the UN reported that the proportion of civilians killed by Afghan and NATO forces fell dramatically, accounting for 16 per cent of total war-related civilians casualties (still too many, of course).

Of course, context is everything, and better does not translate to good.  The police and army remain yokes by myriad shortcomings, including widespread illiteracy, drug abuse, corruption, a dearth of leaders and equipment, and a damagingly high rate of attrition.  Moreover, two recent (and tragically successful) SIEDs have lead NATO officials to express trepidation that, as local security forces grow, they are becoming increasingly vulnerable to infiltration and manipulation.  Apprehension regarding the abilities of the ANA and ANP to credibly protect the civilian population is not without good cause.  More than 2,700 civilians were killed last year, an increase of 15 per cent over 2009. Further, 2010 saw the deaths of more than 800 Afghan army soldiers and 1,200 Afghan police, in addition to the 711 coalition troops who were killed. 

That said, at least one of my co-workers, the European-educated son of an Afghani general, is very much looking forward to the transition.  He recalled with longing the days of Massoud and the Northern Alliance, noting that they were real fighters.  Before 9/11, he ruminated, hundreds of ‘Talibs’ were killed by the day.  Now, with the US?  He shook his head.  None of them die.