"A géppuskás azonnal elkezd ordítani" - Afganisztán-blog

Az Origon bloggolok. Csináltak egy jo kis oldalt.

And I'm writing a reporter's notebook here in English. There is also going to be a photo feature towards the weekend on this website, the World Politics Review.

Burqa losing favour as Afghan women opt for chador

Here is a nice little story by Reuters about the retreat of the burqa in Afghanistan.

Kabul night

Light-years away from the dust and poverty of Kabul, behind blast doors and after numerous security checks, there are a few bars, clubs, and restaurants, at least one of them even with its own swimming pool, where Kabul's international crowd, its UN and NGO types party. No Afghans are allowed here, apart from the staff and the guards, which smacks of the worst colonial attitudes, although technically the reason is that alcohol is illegal here and only the places that serve the internationals can sell them.

Its an odd mix at these parties: thick-necked policemen from Spain, boyish analysts from Canada, tough-looking mercenaries from Eastern Europe, and UN personnel from all over the world (there was even a former European Parliament press officer). Most of them are men, but there are a few women, too, shaking the hip at distinctly mediocre salsa music at the Wednesday night regular, getting wobbly on Heineken and what I think was Johnny Walker. It's a heady mix of James Bond and Graham Greene, only sweatier and a lot less glamourous because it's real.

Then at 11 o'clock the curfew comes in and the boys stream out. Many of them don body armour, complete with the ceramic plates, and helmet, and get into big four-by-fours waiting for them outside the gates to take them back to their fortified compounds (some of the organisations are absolutely paranoid about security). Some, or even perhaps many, to their credit, do get out into Kabul and the country, but most of them, at least those based in the capital, do seem to be somewhat isolated and shut off from the country they have supposedly come to help. (Still, the swimming pool's nice. And there is a good French resto, too.)

Have Afghans had enough of us?

Two local journalists and an Afghan parliamentarian have now told me that they think most Afghans are fed up with the Coalition troops. They said it's difficult to explain to villagers that NATO is here to help them after they have just bombed their houses - which I suppose makes a certain sense. Karokhel Danish, Editor of Pajhwok Afghan News Service and Rosanah Wardak, MP for Wardak province, said they thought the foreign troops should just focus on securing the border with Pakistan to cut the enemy's supply routes - Pakistan's tribal areas are the Taleban's hinterland - and that the interior of the country should be secured by Afghan forces. But it isn't clear whether the corrupt and weak Afghan forces are up to the job. Still, it does look like that there is more and more antipathy towards NATO's presence here, what with the mounting civilian casulties, the cultural insensitivities - Western forces kicking down doors and all that - plus the conspiracy theories about how the West is here to occupy Afghanistan and to steal its natural resources. What to do? This is, after all, an Afghan problem in the end. And we can't be here forever.

Update: Here is a story in the New York Times about the lack of Afghan forces in Helmand to support the US Marines who have just gone in to clear out the Taleban.

Kabul pictures

Young Afghans giving up?

A totally unrepresentative survey, based on discussions with a few people in Kabul, suggests that a lot of Afghans are so pissed off with the insecurity, the lack of jobs and basic services, and the incompetence and corruption of the government that they have simply given up and are trying to leave. Only this afternoon a bloke I'd never met asked me at the bakery, without much ado, if I could get him a visa to the US - or at least a job as my handyman. One taxi driver asked the same thing.

Now I see that the New York Times has picked up on this, too. So I wasn't so far off the mark.

Running Out of Options, Afghans Pay for an Exit

This said, Kabul, if not much else, seems all right. There is still a lot of construction work going on. Security seems to have improved on 2007 and 2008, if only because there are police and army everywhere. Some people even manage to prosper: at the same bakery, I also spoke with a guy who had tried to flee before, was caught in Hungary, spent some time at the Debrecen refugee camp, was released, travelled on to the UK (!) where they eventually deported him back to Afghanistan. He said he didn't want to go again because life was so good in Kabul. And with this he nodded and walked away self-confidently in his ostentatiously good-looking clothes.

Afghanistan embed 1.

I'm currently in Kabul, Afghanistan, waiting to be deployed with a US Army unit southwest of the capital for three weeks. I will mainly be writing about the new counter-insurgency strategy - the surge, the controversial training and arming of local militias, the clearing and holding of Taleban-held areas, and the attempt to strengthen government control through protecting the population from the insurgents and through focussing more on services and development. I don't know how often I'll be able to post stories here but I'll be blogging for worldpoliticsreview.org, a foreign-affairs website. I'll be linking all those stories here as well. And hopefully there'll be pictures, too.

If, that is, I manage to recover my bag with all my gear which is still stuck in Dubai. A real nightmare.