"Pashtunwali is dead!" Hajji Baraun announced in to the assembled Shura in the village of Zambar.  Pashtunwali being the ancient tribal code of honor and conduct of the Afghan people.  When I heard the english translation from the interpreter, my brain finally caught up with my what eyes had been seeing or, more accurately, not seeing.

For the past three weeks I walked through the villages, mountains and fields of Sabari district in Khowst province with Team Viper, the Bravo Company of the 1-26 Infantry based in the Sabari District of Khowst Province.  I spent most of time with 2nd Platoon which seems to walk everywhere on missions ranging from the routine 6-8 kilometer security patrols to a two-day hike through the mountains to a village no US forces had ever been to.  I had seen a lot of Sabari up close and on foot, but it took the mission to Zambar listening to Hajji Baraun speak to handful of Afghan government officials for me to understand the Sabari and why the Afghan surge has not been as effective as the Iraq troop surge of 2007.

The Mission to Zambar was a part of Operation Maiwan IV, a multi-stage operation by Task Force Duke, 3rd Brigade, 1st Infantry Division--The Big Red One--to push units out beyond their normal patrol zones to disrupt enemy activity.  Second platoon drove in armored MATVs to Zambar and then would do an 11 kilometer patrol in the heat of the day.  The drive was the worst part.

"Hey, JD, they're gonna do a controlled det in five," Sergeant Josh Haigood said, looking back at me.  It was about 11 in the morning and we had been crammed up in MATVs and other armored vehicles since 3 A.M.

The route clearance platoon, Aces, which specializes in finding and detonating IEDs had already found a 25 pound bomb buried in the road.  This one was estimated to be 35 pounds.  The greater Zambar Chamber of Commerce and Visitors Bureau sure knows how to make coalition forces feel welcome.

I took the opportunity to film the controlled det as chance to unfold myself from the cramped back seat and stretch my legs.  After a couple hours in an MATV and most armored vehicles the pain of sitting in the most uncomfortable seat ever devised by military industrial complex subsides into a throbbing numbness.  Occasionally soldiers legs are so numb they fall four feet to the ground while trying to climb out the vehicles.  The Soldiers and Sergeants of 2nd Platoon would rather walk.

Below are some snap shots of Afghanistan I took from a Blackhawk helicopter to help you get a feel for the terrain and few other slice of Afghan life shots thrown in.  The op-tempo here is pretty high especially given the land and distances involved.  Most platoons walk everywhere so there is a lot of up and down.  The average patrol covers 10 kilometers and lasts 6-8 hours.

Note the size of the compounds


 The closer you are to a river, the land is irrigated.  The chief crop is wheat, but there is also corn and barley.


 These plots are not being cultivated this year

 The fields are small and most work is done by hand.  There is not enough scale for the farmers to move much beyond subsistence.  Many farmers are sharcroppers or in a cycle of debt to the "land owners."  Who owns the land is a source of conflict throughout Afghanistan.

 




Smaller rivers still have enough water for small plots up against the foothills.




 These are just the foothills, not the real mountains.


The Khowst/Gardez Highway, the main artery of commerce in Khowst province follows the wadi through the mountains.


An example of terraced fields.  It is common for one side of a wadi (river/stream) to be used for fields, the other for housing.






Kholbesat Bazaar.  There are actual shops and stores in the main strip, but the seasonal fresh foods are sold in these stalls rented by the day.  These stalls are down in the river bed.  No one knows why.


The 125cc knock-off of a 1970s Honda.  Probably the most common form of transportation in AFG.  I've seen whole families on one.


Threshing wheat.  The Massey Ferguson is the most common tractor in AFG.  The owner of this thresher travels from village to village.  The Afghan version of a custom harvester.


The tea is always served.


 JD with an Afghan Army radio operator.  The officers, Afghan and US were talking with a group of village elders.


Heading back to the outpost across a freshly harvested wheat field.

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A couple days ago one of the Machine Gunners I had been out on patrol with earlier in the day asked me how much I could bench.
 
The little gym at COP Reilly is sparse, but effective enough, especially when you consider that the guys are burning up a lot of energy on patrols and standing post. I haven't benched heavy since my surgery in January but thought I could get 295 at least once .  I got it a few more times than that.
 
The young guys, as they always do, attributed it up to Old Man Strength which is a real a phenomenon.
 
It may seem odd for infantrymen to workout while fighting a war, but it is a smart idea.  If all the acitivity you do is patrol and stand post, your body will adapt to that and your body will not have the extra reservoir of strength and conditioning for the fast moving gunfight or multi-day operation.
 
I'm in transit now to the next job, 60 days with Task Force Duke in the Eastern mountains around Khowst Province, so there will be lots of odd and informative articles and notes well into the Summer.

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The Marines and Brits stationed here barely shrug at the news about Bin Laden.  His lividity is of little matter to the situation in Helmund province, Afghanistan.
 
Are they happy about the news?  Sure.  Satisfied justice was finally served?  Yes.
 
But his death changes nothing here and will change very little, if anything on the ground throughout Afghanistan.
 
Al Qaida has long since become an organization with no need for a leader--even a symbolic one.  In the canal country of the Helmund river, the opium poppies provide more revenue to fuel the Taliban and Al Qaida than Bin Laden's long since spent millions and fund raising.  Opium sloshes billions of dollars around Afghanistan, Pakistan and  the Emirates.
 
The Marines and Brits know this, which is why the news, while welcome and gratifying, is not celebrated with cheers.
 
In my own opinion, killing bin Laden does little more than provide a specious pre-text for a premature withdrawal of NATO/US forces from Afghanistan.  I remember clearly when Zarqawi was killed in Iraq.  The insurgency kept going for 3 more years.  It is not a man we are fighting, it is an idea.

The upper floor of the house converted to an office in Kabul's district three, near the Afghan parliament, was loud, smokey and noteable for those in attendance.

To my left was a member of Afghanistan's Parliment.  Sitting next to him was a former General of the KhAD, Afghanistan's intelligence service during the Soviet era.  To my right were two retired Colonels.  One a retired Spetznas/GRU officer of the Soviet/Russian, the other retired from the Lithuanian Army.

I was the only one not speaking Russian.

The travel writer Paul Theroux recently exhorted readers of the Sunday New York Times to ignore "the know-it-all, stay-at-home finger wagger [who] says of many a distant place, 'Don't go there.'" 
Theroux says his trips to "these maligned countries are the most fulfilling."

Rugged, adventure travel in the nominally dangerous country he says can be life changing, the value of the enrichment only understood after the fact.  [Or in the telling of the stories to impress people at dinner parties.]

Theroux also writes, "I wouldn’t go to present-day Somalia or Afghanistan."

I'm living in a boutique hotel above a Cafe and ranging around the city and outlying areas on foot or in a Toyota Four-Runner the way a tourist on a budget would.

There has been much chatter leading up to the President's speech tonight about Iraq.

Many people are noting what was said by certain politicians and other noteables in 2007 regarding the Surge and comparing it to their current opinions.

My favorite quote from 2007 went something like this:

"When historians write about the Iraq war they will write about the invasion, the Battle of Fallujah and OUR VICTORY in the Surge."

Those words were written on a piece of poster board in the tactical operations center of the 1-28 Infantry 'The Black Lions' in the West Rashid district of Baghdad.  I saw them in May of 2007.

My second favorite is this rant by Glenn Greenwald.  [Scroll down to (2) where he starts talking about me.  He's responding to this post. ]

I witnessed the Surge in person.  I was the first reporter to see the Anbar Awakening spread past Ramadi down the Euphrates river valley.  I spent a month in Baghdad with an infantry battalion building safe neighborhoods and capturing Jaish al Mahdi leaders.

The Surge was not something I watched on TV.  I saw it with my own eyes and through my own camera lens.

During those months I encoutered two suicide truck bombs, dodged machine gun fire, should have been killed by enemy mortar fire and got shot at a few more times.  I honestly do not know how I lived.  I caught an intestinal virus from the sewage in Baghdad and met an Iraqi man whose stand against Al Qaida was equal parts "High Noon" and "Walking Tall."  I lived down in the dirt with Soldiers who volunteered to fight what had become a very unpopular war, Soldiers who were being told they had failed.

When I made it back to the US it was like I had entered an alternate universe where the facts on the ground were denied vehemently by those who had staked a position in favor of failure.

Joining the fray, I penned articles and editorials like this one showing how despite losing on the ground in Iraq, the insurgents were winning inside the Beltway and in major media.

I was back in Baghdad in 2008 and the changes were undeniable.

Those months in Iraq are something I will always carry with me and I will never forget who wanted to win and who said we had already lost.

I also know that the American people are not stupid, they will remember as well.