Afghanistan 2015: The View From Kabul - Joseph V. Micallef

Kabul Afghanistan, November 5, 2015:  At first glance this is like any other third world city: noisy, dirty, chaotic. The traffic is a moving amalgam of cars, people and pack animals, a high-speed game of bumper cars where anything goes as long as you honk first. It makes rush hour traffic in most modern cities seem a veritable oasis of calm and serenity. Power outages are the norm. Flashlights always at the ready since you never know when you might be plunged into darkness.

Kabul has no underground sewer system. Waste drains in the open, concrete lined ditches alongside the roads. It only rains about 12 inches here, mostly in the winter. In the summer and fall the drainage ditches get clogged up with ... well you can imagine what they get clogged up with. Workers dig out the crud and leave it along side the roads. In the heat of summer it turns to dust.

The standing joke at ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) headquarters is that newbies are advised to do away with lip balm and lip-gloss as the dust in the air will stick to it and that 15% of the dust is made up of animal and human fecal matter. No one knows if that is true, but in Kabul it has become an urban legend that foreigners swear by -- whatever you do the newbies are told: don't lick your lips.

Technically the ISAF mission ended in December 2014 and was replaced by the Resolute Support Mission (RSM). Their function remains the same however. Both Afghans and NATO military personnel still refer to the military support mission as ISAF and I have continued to use the designation as well.

But this is also a city on the front line of a war that it has now endured for almost four decades. In the outlying areas there is little evidence of this save for the ubiquitous presence of razor wire on top of the stonewalls that surround many houses. Police cars are 4 by 4s with 35mm machine guns mounted on the flat bed. The accompanying policemen carry AK-47s, M-16s or M-4s. Not exactly your typical suburban police patrol.

In the city core, however, the legacy of almost forty years of unrelenting conflict is unmistakable. Government buildings and embassies are veritable fortresses. Blast proof doors of four-inch thick steel guard the entrances surrounded by 20-foot, 18-inch thick, concrete barricades. The 20-foot concrete barricades are nicknamed "Texas" size while the five foot ones are called "Jersey" size.

Machine gun nests sit behind outposts of sandbags and concrete guarding the entrances. Everywhere, the ubiquitous razor wire adorns the tops of walls and barricades. If you were looking to start a business in Kabul, manufacturing and distributing razor wire would be a very good place to start.

Roads within the downtown core are blocked off with checkpoints and barricades. Referred to as the "Ring of Steel", the enhanced security was supposed to protect key government ministries and foreign embassies. Armed soldiers and police are everywhere. Automatic weapons and heavy caliber weapons the norm. There is no mistaking that this is a place where the prospect of death and violence are both familiar and expected. This is a city that feels and acts like it is on the front line of war. 

Those with capital look to move it to Dubai and from there, elsewhere. Significant portions of the refugees streaming into Europe are Afghans looking to escape the uncertainty of Afghanistan. Germany, who has ended up with many of them, is planning to send them all back home to Afghanistan. The city is littered with half finished or empty buildings, especially in the suburbs. Rents are dropping, noticeably so for the better properties which were being used by foreigners. There is a steady stream of NGOs pulling up stakes or cutting back their staff.

The reality is that politically the Taliban is a spent force. In the countryside it may be a welcome alternative to corrupt, brutal warlords that terrorize the inhabitants of the villages they control. They have lots of money at their disposal, money that can pay for bribes, money that can buy influence and support. When they need them, men with guns are easy to find. This is Afghanistan after all. Two hundred thousand dollars will get you 700 to 1,000 fighters for two to four weeks. As a bonus they bring their own guns. Ammunition is extra.

Afghanistan is a work in progress. The present level of military deployment can keep the Taliban under control and sufficiently contain them from the cities until they fall into irrelevance. The problems of governance, however, must ultimately be resolved by the Afghan people themselves; the prospect of a stable, free Afghanistan and a new generation of Afghans committed to keeping it that way, may in time, resolve those issues or at the very least reduce them to a manageable level. Make no mistake, however, if we are truly committed to finishing the job we started in Afghanistan we will need to maintain this level of military deployment for the next 15 to 20 years.

It is a new morning in Kabul. It rained last night clearing the dust and grime from the air. For the first time, I can look out across the valley and see the magnificent vista of the Hindu Kush; the tops now covered in the white of freshly fallen snow. It is a new day in Afghanistan too, one of what can be many new days, but only if America stays the course and tells the Afghan people unequivocally that they are here for the long-term. - Read More at the Afghanistan 2015:

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