A Banner Day?

Sometimes I feel very hopeful about Afghanistan. Sometimes I am a bit worried.

One of the latter moments came about this afternoon, as our security rep came by to brief the staff on how they can work in Afghanistan—and stay alive.

The places that we are working are generally small safe havens, surrounded by vast openness—and the Taliban. It is well known that there are roads that no one can travel without being stopped and checked by the Taliban. This is especially galling, as the US built a giant (and incredibly expensive) ring road connecting Afghan cities, and it is now being used by Taliban to govern traffic, extract payments, and kill westerners or the Afghans that work for western NGOs. In effect, we built a toll road for the Taliban. Nice.

The time has come to start implementing our program. Unfortunately, our Afghan staff, on which our efforts are dependent, is pretty scared about traveling around the country. Mostly, we will avoid that Taliban Toll Road by flying—but even that causes problems, for it is feared that ‘spotters’ placed outside the airport will note their appearance, and track them down. Here are the highlights of what we are considering:
++Bend over and hide or cover your head when leaving the airport.
++Assume that you will be stopped and questioned by the Taliban.
++Don’t carry any cards or anything else that identifies you with our organization.
++Develop a cover story, saying who you work for (not us), and why you are in the province.
++Remove all western names from your cell phone—the Taliban will call the number, and if someone answers not speaking Dari/Pashtun, you are in trouble.
++Let your beard grow.
++Don’t wash your hair—the Taliban believe that the smell of newly-washed hair is a sign of likely western influence/decadence.

Now, I appreciate cops are paranoid, and our security guys are cops on steroids. Hell, Charlie Sellars (my Police Chief in Montgomery) told me that I was crazy for having the PD give away candy bars on Halloween (children would be run over), that I was crazy for allowing walkathons in the City (people would break their ankle in street cracks), and that I was crazy for putting festival banners over the street (the banner would fall on a school bus windshield, the blinded driver would run over a fire hydrant, knock over a light pole, and careen into the elementary school, killing hundreds of small children through a hideous combination of being run over, drowning, and electrocution). You have to hand it to Charlie—he could do worst-case better than anyone I ever saw—except for the security guys out here.

The biggest worry may be that many believe that the local folks would sell their mother out for a $1.15. Our guys are concerned about being outted by the people we are trying to help, as there apparently kidnapping for ransom is a growth industry. Well, I guess economic development has to start somewhere.

What worries me is that I am the boss, and that makes me responsible for them. But unlike dealing with Charlie, I really don’t have any independent knowledge on which to base a judgment. So all I can do is listen to our security experts, do what they advise, and put everyone in charge of their own safety—if you don’t feel safe, tell us, and we will fix it. But the irony is that too much security—too many guns, an armored car, guards hanging out everywhere—actually makes us less safe, not more. It is a helluva balancing act.

For myself and other expat staff, I am pretty comfortable—it is going to be real hard for us to get hurt. But for the local folks, who have signed up with us, who are committed to the work, and who trust us, the thought that they might be in danger just because they work with us worries me a lot, as there is only so much we can do to protect them.

I don’t think the banner is going to fall, but I can sure understand that some see the wind blowing real hard and the ropes fraying.