This morning… I wake to my cell phone beeping. The battery was dieing. Half asleep now, the phone beeped again. This time it’s a text message from one of my coworkers, “No movements today.” That tells me there’s a security threat and we’re staying at home for the day. I fall back asleep.
It’s Friday, the High Holy Day and my day off. Ninety minutes later I was woken up by my roommate entering the room, “You missed all the excitement,” he tells me. Come to find out there was a VBIED at Camp Phoenix, the one US installation we typically visit to drop mail off or run to the PX for anything we need to buy. The news drained me, a car bomb at Phoenix when just five days ago I went through that same check point to send a hard drive back to the states. A group of brothas where working the gate, about 4 or 5 that day. I can’t say I knew them but it was very sobering.
I went to brunch. Since the news my mood has been a dark blue. I sat by myself. I’ve gotten sick of sitting with my coworkers. Nothing against them, I’ve just begun to be more reclusive. I finished eating and even though he saw my plate was empty a friend of a friend sat down. No mind, I was planning on getting a cup of coffee anyway. He’s a Kiwi. I asked him if he heard anything about the “Vbid.” He said all the details weren’t yet clear to him but he heard the attack occurred just before 8am, about 8 or 10 casualties and the Army cleared the wreck out pretty quick. He made it sound like a routine car accident on the Mass Pike. I mentioned the Army’s security detail, the soldiers at the checkpoint. He didn’t think the car exploded at the checkpoint, probably still on the main road and the only casualties were Afghan civilians. I know a lot of cars drive down the road off the driveway to the checkpoint. People on foot, motorcycles, and bicycles are always an obstacle when making the turn in.
A car bomb went off at another military installation that he said you could still see where the bomb went off because the trees nearby had all the leaves blown of. He made the comparison with a car bomb in Iraq, “if that was in Iraq those trees wouldn’t be there anymore.” Car bombs kill in the range of 50-100 people in Iraq, here they’re in the range of 10-20. In both cases usually local nationals better known as civilians.
Kiwi had just gotten back from shopping at the markets in town and was enjoying his extra helpings of sausage and Canadian style bacon. The threat certainly didn’t deter him from doing a little Friday morning shopping. I think he’s a good guy all in all. He once aptly called an asshole for the asshole he was, so I respect Kiwi’s thoughts.
Yesterday there was a controversial leaked statement from the US ambassador Karl Eikenberry stating he did not recommend sending more US troops here until Hamid Karzai started fixing corruption within his government, which dove tailed into what I heard earlier that morning that Karzai had announced he had a list of 100 people he was ready to fire. That tells me they’re on the same page the list of 100 seems only token. Real reform is going to need a lot more than 100 people taking early vacations. Kiwi said it’s common knowledge that one of Karzai’s brothers is a known drug dealer in the heroin trade. Another of his brothers owns a major bank in Afghanistan and when the government auctioned off the cement factories a few years ago, hours before the auction was conducted it was required that any buyers needed to pay in cash. Of course Karzai’s brother was the only buyer that showed up with cash and he now controls the cement industry here.
