Up before the alarm

There is nothing like being awaken by a suicide bombing. The explosion satiates the air and makes windows tremble. A sour taste of fear in my mouth; briefly, I wonder why I left DC for Kabul. Then everything returns to normal. I stay in bed, listening to the usual morning sounds: the hammering of nearby construction sites, cats fighting, a child crying in a neighboring compound. I get out of bed when I hear the sirens. But it is still too soon for anybody to know anything, so I wash up last night’s dishes while the coffee is brewing.

Kabulis and their picnics

Picnics are definitely the number one weekend activity among Kabulis. On Fridays, traffic out of the city gets really bad, and you have to leave early to get a good spot. The word "picnic" for me used to conjure up images of wicker baskets, red-and-white checkered blankets, sandwiches and lemonade. But in Afghanistan, picnics involve carpets, sitting cushions, and real food on real plates. A while ago, one of our drivers invited us for a picnic at his family's home on the Shomali plains outside of Kabul. Here are some pictures.

Good morning?

On my way to work this morning, I saw a military convoy including at least two tanks approach in the opposite direction. Because of the threat of suicide attacks, there were no cars immediately ahead of or behind it, and my coworkers laughed at that, because it’s such a congested road. Me? As the tanks rolled by the car window, I braced myself, put my head at my knees like you should at a plane crash, and prayed to the god I am quickly starting to believe in.

Seconds later, when I looked up, everything had gone back to normal. There was a man with half a naked cow on the back of his motorcycle, a little girl wearing a light blue towel as a burka (funny how kids everywhere imitate grown-ups), and people carrying water in colorful receptacles. The road was congested again, with buses spewing black smoke and cars honking.

Nonetheless, not battered by 25 years of war, my heart raced all the way to the office.

Getting worse

Something is happening. Afghanistan is under attack. Things are escalating rapidly. A massive bomb killed twenty people in Kabul on Friday, and there have been numerous rocket attacks. Yesterday a suicide bomber killed one of the provincial governors, and today at his funeral six people were killed when a suicide bomber blew himself up among the mourners. There's a full war going on in the South. A war that the Taliban is winning.

I wonder how many times we can ask ourselves what the heck we are doing here before we actually do something about it. Without a doubt, this is the most afraid I have ever been; at times I honesty feel trapped in the lion's den. But what should we do? Give up on Afghanistan? Leave our Afghan friends to suffer and die in the hands of medieval psychopaths? Or should we wait it out until it gets better?

I think the worst part of it is the hopelessness and the depression. There is very little hope to be found anywhere around here, except perhaps in the creative minds of military speech writers that have never left the US military base. They keep saying that they are killing dozens of Taliban, that they are winning. Yet the situation gets worse every day.

I spend most of my waking hours pondering what could be done to save this failing country. At this point, all my strategies involve 100,000 troops, playing hardball with Pakistan, and--most importantly--a lot of real development and emergency aid so as to prevent the starvation and disillusionment that drive people into the hands of the Taliban. We must show them that democracy, peace, and progress will make their lives worth living.

Today is September 11. Five years ago, I could not tell you the first thing about Afghanistan; I was busy getting used to living in the United States. It's amazing how quickly life changes. For the sake of the wonderful Afghan people, and for the whole of the world, let us hope that five years from now this Islamist fundamentalist terrorist trend will have been broken.

Me on Islam and Liberty

The book review essay that is the main reason for my blogging being so sporadic lately has just been published by Democratiya, an online review of books. My contribution looks at the book Islam and Liberty: The Historical Misunderstanding by Tunisian scholar Mohamed Charfi. You can read it at www.democratiya.com/review.asp?reviews_id=39.