From Kevin Miller - October 21, 2008

Hello Again,

I am sure many of you are wondering when I will get around to talking about what our actual mission is here in Afghanistan. Well, you need wait no longer. For those who were not wondering and could care less, well, you’ll have to bear with me.

I have a lot of individual stories that I will try to sprinkle in and that’s what I’ll start with. A couple days ago, MSG White, LTC Passet, and I went to the PHQ as usual. The colonel went to the daily staff meeting while MSG White and I went to the security office to discuss some planning we had been working with them on. We only had one interpreter with us because the other took the day off. The security department staff are very welcoming so served us chai and cake. They often serve this cake which is made at a local bakery and is quite good.

When the staff meeting was over, we went to meet with the Construction Officer on developing a list of projects needing to be done at the PHQ compound (most of the department heads attend the staff meeting so we can’t meet with them until it’s over). We sat down in the construction office and were quickly served chai, crackers, and cookies. Without being aware of it, the Construction Officer had ordered some food. Before that came, he had sent someone to get fresh bread from the “bakery” at the PHQ (more about that to follow). A short while later, one of his men came in with a small, cooked chicken, a bunch of what looked like hamburgers but turned out to be spiced lamb and beef, more bread, French fries, and garnishes. He also had several cans of Pepsi. Look for a picture of this spread when I send a link to the PHQ photo album.

Now most Afghans don’t use utensils to eat. Instead, you either pick up the food directly or you combine it in such a way as to make it easier to eat. We used the bread to break off some of the burgers and garnishes and then eat them. All the food was excellent and the French fries tasted pretty American. For this meal, the construction officer likely paid out of his own pocket. We definitely ate well and didn’t bother going to lunch that day.

As it turned out, when we were done at that meeting and left the Construction Office, the Logistics Officer saw us and tried to get us to join him for lunch. We were able to decline because we did have something else we needed to go do, but LTC Passet did have lunch with him and it went well into the afternoon. Then, today when I was back at the Security Office, a plate of sautéed meat was brought in along with some fresh bread. The meat was good and turned out to be beef heart.

Afghans are extremely gracious hosts – in case you hadn’t figured that out from this example. The poorest Afghans are known to serve all their best food for an unexpected visitor and guest even if it means not having food for their family for several days to follow. Fortunately, most of the police with whom we’re working are better off than average so we don’t have to worry too much about that. However, we try to give them gifts of some of their favorite snacks – especially pistachios, other nuts, and chocolate candies – whenever we have the chance. You will see in the next photo album I share a number of pictures of chai, snacks, and full meals that have been served to us.

So you may be wondering what we are doing to deserve such great treatment from our hosts. I have already mentioned that we are working with the Afghan National Police (ANP). To help provide more background on the ANP itself, I have attached a document prepared by Combined Security Transition Command – Afghanistan (CSTC-A or “C-Sticka” as we usually refer to it). CSTC-A is one of the higher headquarters under which we fall. I’ll wait while you go read through that…

…That was exciting reading, wasn’t it? You can’t fool me, I know most of you didn’t bother. That’s okay, I didn’t wait either – and I can still tell you about our work and the police with whom we work. First about the police: The police with whom our small team works make up the headquarters for all of Nangarhar Province. You can think of Nangarhar as a state with 22 districts (sort of like counties). The PHQ (Provincial Headquarters) has a Chief of Police with a complete staff who are responsible for their areas within all of the districts. Each district has a Chief of Police, a staff, and patrolmen. The number in each district varies with the size and population of the district.

Our Chief of Police – BG (Brigadier General) Ghafar – has an exceptional reputation throughout the ANP and U.S. military. He is considered to be very strongly against corruption which many believe is rampant throughout all aspects of government in Afghanistan. I can’t say whether or not that’s true, but BG Ghafar does preach against corruption and acts harshly when he finds anyone who is corrupt. Now, I had a discussion with one of the DynCorp guys and we agreed that part of the problem is how a given person defines corruption. The fact is, what we would consider corruption in the U.S. under almost any circumstances has simply been a part of Afghanistan culture for centuries. So expecting them to adopt our standards overnight is asking an awful lot.

Which leads, in large part, to what we are doing as a Police Mentor Team (PMT). We really have two responsibilities. One is to help teach the PHQ staff some of the skills that will allow them to carry out their duties effectively. The second is to help the PHQ staff understand the importance of certain values by which we as U.S. military live and that are critical to our success as an organization. This second responsibility is much more challenging as well as one that can’t simply be taught or directed. Rather, we have to constantly demonstrate these values ourselves as well as find “teachable moments” through which we can show why they are important.

As to the first responsibility – teaching specific skills – it presents its own challenges. You need to first understand that Afghanistan really operated as numerous independent “states” for most of its history. While there have been central governments often in their past, few really ruled the entire country. Tribes and warlords were the ruling bodies and they commonly fought each other – except when there was a common enemy such as the Mongols, British, Russians, or Taliban; in those cases they would band together to defeat the “invaders.”

Consequently, the military and police – as well as any other “government” organizations – never had to worry about truly being part of a larger headquarters to which they needed to answer or from whom they would receive support. So there was really no form of accountability. This, of course, also made corruption in many forms much easier and, while culturally it was generally accepted, it led to regular abuse of power especially against certain groups based on ethnicity or other factors. Given this history, it can be hard to get the Afghans to understand things such as record keeping, accountability systems, and concepts such as projecting supply needs and placing orders before running out.

Fortunately, the Afghans do have a history of adopting things from other cultures and countries when they see their value. So they have actually moved pretty quickly in learning and using some of these systems. Of course, there is also some reluctance to adopt accountability systems because they make corruption much more difficult to do. So sometimes we have to determine whether failure to put a system in place is due to lack of training, lack of ability, or someone being corrupt.

Which leads back to trying to “teach” values. Given the fact that there is corruption in our own country, we certainly can’t expect Afghanistan to eliminate it entirely. What we can do is try to get the Afghan people, especially those in any sort of position of power or influence, to see why corruption and dishonesty work against the long-term success of their government and country and, as such, will be harmful to their future generations. It will probably take a couple generations before the value system really changes, but we can make a start of it.

Here are a couple examples of what we are doing. I mentioned the Construction Office previously. They are really like a building and grounds department and are responsible for all the facilities at the PHQ including new construction. We have been helping them set priorities for various projects needing to be done at the PHQ. For security reasons, I don’t want to mention current or proposed projects, but some past projects include repairs to the jail, installing ceiling fans in several of the buildings, repairs to the roof of the Passport Office, and repainting the front of the PHQ main building (you’ll see this in the PHQ photo album).

We have also been working with the Logistics Officer to more effectively use the ordering system for getting supplies from the Ministry of the Interior (MOI). MOI has oversight of all ANP so provides and/or coordinates their supply, equipment, training, finance, personnel, and other needs. There have been problems in the past with requests being submitted and never acted on. The system is improving, but there are departments at the PHQ who don’t use it right locally so work needs to be done.

I just realized how long I’ve been rambling here. Much more than I planned to write, but when I get on a roll I just keep going. I think I have another photo album ready to go, but I need to put a bit of a narrative together on it so it makes more sense. I’ll get this posted and try to have the narrative (I’ll try to keep it much shorter than this) ready in a day or so. I guess I’m making up for lost time.

All my best to everyone!

Kevin
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