The Dogs Are Eating Them Now: Our War in Afghanistan Read Online Free PDF Page B

wineglass. “Not sadness,” he said. “Anger.” Many people around the table, all of them with years of experience in Afghanistan, nodded their heads. It wasn’t only the war hawks who called for a large-scale invasion of the south and other areas beyond Kabul; many big-hearted humanitarians had pushed for intervention. But whose dreams were we chasing in southern Afghanistan? Ordinary people in the country did not care about projects such as safeguarding their “audio-visual heritage,” and most importantly, Afghans outside of the capital were not clamouring for “the benefits of international security assistance.” The road to Kandahar was paved with the best intentions, but the foreigners had no idea what Afghans wanted. That disconnect was about to have horrendous consequences for the south.

    Afghan security contractor injured in a suicide bombing

CHAPTER 2
THE SURGE APRIL 2006
    Kandahar felt menacing when I returned in spring. Police checkpoints appeared on the streets I had wandered so casually on my previous visit, and military vehicles chugged past with soldiers yelling at people to keep their distance. Thousands of troops from NATO countries were arriving to reinforce the Americans, and the whole city vibrated with their energy. I was sleeping in a tent at Camp Nathan Smith in Kandahar, in quarters then located right beside a helicopter pad, and my earplugs did nothing against the sound of rotors that was more like a body massage than something audible. The caffeine was keeping me awake, too. I had started what would become my standard routine in Kandahar, visiting local businessmen, elders and other notables, and the ritual was usually the same: take off your sandals, sit down on the floor and drink something caffeinated. I got suspicious looks when I asked for sweet milk tea, which I enjoyed in northern Pakistan; it turned out that people in Kandahar prefer green tea, and they also felt certain that Pakistani agents were lurking around, stirring up trouble—so I stopped asking for milky tea. Usually I didn’t need to ask for anything, because they assumed a foreigner would drink Pepsi. Either way, it was a steady chemical buzz. There was also an adrenaline buzz, from my first real taste of war. It would later seem normal to hear explosions inthe city, but the first time it happened I slammed my laptop shut and rushed out of my tent. Brown smoke was rising in the hot air, several storeys high. This was still such a novelty for the foreign troops that a Canadian soldier was standing on the roof of a concrete bunker nearby, shading his eyes and peering over the barricades for a better view, and I scrambled up to join him. We couldn’t see much, so I jumped down, called my driver and rushed toward the column of smoke. Only two minutes’ drive from the base, the blast had left a giant hole in a mud wall and mangled a police car. Nobody survived. Firemen had just finished soaking the wreck, and it steamed in the harsh light of early afternoon. I would see a long parade of similar scenes in the years that followed, but at the time the drama of the bombing provoked a gush of words in my diary about the sense of urgency that comes with working so close to danger:
    Everybody is risking their lives, and everybody believes they’re saving Afghanistan—and, frankly, saving the world from the kind of Afghanistan that has proven to be so dangerous in the past. At the moment, it’s unclear whether they’re winning the war. But the stakes are high, the battle is on, and the whole camp seems to vibrate with an energy like the thudding rotors of a helicopter. There’s no time for sleep
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    Those were heady days for the NATO surge. The Canadians went first, sending twenty-three hundred soldiers to Kandahar, while Britain was preparing thirty-three hundred troops for neighbouring Helmand province. NATO had not yet assumed formal responsibility for southern Afghanistan, so the planeloads of troops fell under the