Sylvia's Journal

I spent the entire afternoon at the US government complex to listen to various officials, military and non-military, in the company of chiefs of party or other representatives of all the USAID projects in Afghanistan. I think there were at least 50 of us if not more, the majority men of a certain age.

I had arrived early and was whisked to ‘the red tent’ on the USAID side of the complex going faster through security than ever before. The driver was even allowed to enter the road that bisects the complex (embassy one side, USAID the other) and which is usually reserved for military and official vehicles.

The inside of the tent was smelly; the thing had come from a military store room and had clearly not been used for a while. I preferred to wait outside on a sunny deck that, with some imagination, could have been in a ski resort in Switzerland if you squinted hard and only looked at the tops of the snow-clad mountains.

But as soon as you lowered your gaze you were back in a place that was all about defense: sand bags, hooches (living containers full of bunk beds and one tiny window), barbed wire, uniformed men with guns and high blast walls.

The deck belongs to the local pub called The Duck & Cover. The pub sign shows a duck with a soldier’s helmet standing on a pile of sand bags with snow covered mountains in the back. The establishment dates back to the year 1387 (=Afghan calendar, last year) it says in old English typeface. On the door is a sticker that says ‘last pub for 240 km.’ I presume you can get beer and watch sport games but I didn’t have any money on me and only helped myself to the free tea and cookies (flown in from the US).

I felt very out of place and experienced an enormous disconnect in this US enclave in the middle of Afghanistan. I did not really want to be there. But then the presentations started and things got better.

I learned about the district development focus for the next couple of years (note ‘couple’ which I take to mean ‘2’) and how the military is planning to play a supporting role (‘you guys are doing the work, we are there to support you!’). The presentation about the district development strategy raised as many questions as it answered, mostly because of the disconnect (another one) between the new decentralized US government approach and the heavily centralized way of operating in the Afghan government.

The most interesting presentation was from a colonel who presented a face of the US army that I have never seen: culturally sensitive, intent on fixing errors made in the last 7 years, creating a core of AF/PAK hands with language skills and frequent immersion in both Afghan society and the world and work of the NGOs.

These military men would not be in uniform or carry personal armor. The colonel answered his own question (wouldn’t that be dangerous?) with the words, ‘not any more dangerous than combat.’

Although I don’t think that we won’t be taking in military anytime soon, other organizations will and that is a good thing. Having military in the various regional commands (and central command) who speak the language and understand something about both the culture and the work that the NGOs are doing can only be good.

We also learned how fraudulent behavior of nationals and internationals alike is aggressively pursued and can be the end of your career, here and anywhere else. When a staff member who handles contracts in a USAID project owns a castle in one of the provinces, the USAID police will surely take a closer look.

Not reporting fraud, by an organization, is also bad for business (debarment). These agressive strategies are clearly in response to concerns raised in the US and the probing eyes of Congress as the total bill of US taxpayer money spent here (excluding the military) runs in the billions.