"As the Taliban's forces have been depleted, they have become nastier, Afghan officials say...There have been sinister disappearances and night-time killings that indicate a greater ruthlessness among the Taliban."
--Carlotta Gall, International Herald Tribune, May 20, 2008
This wasn't what I was hoping to read on the 7-plus hour flight from Brussels to Kabul, Afghanistan. But there it was, under the headline "Seesaw Afghan War Strains Ties Among Allies." I knew I was going into a war zone, an unavoidable fact when the seat next to you on the C-17 cargo plane holds your special-issue body armor (trademark: Point Blank) and kevlar helmet. Still, I don't need to be reminded of it even before I did the Jumble.
That's the bad news.
The good news: we didn't have to don the armor until a half-hour or so before landing in Kabul, and we don't have to wear it while we're in a secure military facility--which will be most of the two or so days we'll be here--only when we're in transit around the city. And the IHT also reported that "large parts of the north and center of the country are peaceful." We'll be mostly in the center, so we should be okay. Besides, there are a bunch of members of the Council of Foreign Relations on this trip. How dangerous can it be if NATO thinks it's OK to bring a bunch of emeritus professorial types along?
We'll be fine. I just keep telling myself that. After all, the military was calling this "Operation Halo Effect." Gotta keep the aura good.
We -- Bicycling Magazine European correspondent James Startt, Bicycling's deputy test director Mike Cushionbury and BikeTown Africa project manager Brad Schroeder and I -- are in Kabul to build 50 Specialized Globe bikes and donate them to an Afghan orphanage, the Afghan Olympic Federation and the Afghan Cycling Federation. It's an extension of Bicycling's BikeTown and BikeTown Africa projects. As soon as we land, we'll assemble the 50 bikes donated by bike manufacturer Specialized, a task that should take about 15 minutes per bike, with the help of volunteer soldiers and Afghans who will be responsible for maintaining them once we're gone. We'll also leave behind Park Tools donated by Mike's Bikes and it's Sister Shops program so that the locals we train can start repair stalls and continue to look after the Globes.
The flight itself was kind of bizarre. We sat in a bank of seats set in the middle of the cavernous, and incredibly loud, hold of a C-17 cargo plane. The Foreign Relations guys sat up front, with American General John Craddock, the commander of NATO, who has the most excellent title of Supreme Allied Commander of Europe. In the middle are various military types escorting the Foreign Relations guys, then us and our escorts, and Jon Scott from Fox News, who's along with us. Along the sides were a welter of electronics that spit out faxes and flight data. There were no windows, except on the two back doors used by paratroopers.
At the back, near the two tons of bikes and gear and other stuff NATO flew over for us, stood three guys with side arms and rifles, looking very tired and very bad-ass. They, we were needlessly informed, are a security detail. There were a couple of other people along for the ride who I assumed were spooks because of how clean-cut they are.
We, however, were mistaken for a USO-touring rock band by the C-17's flight crew because of how unclean-cut we are. In this environment, all it takes is a couple of days' stubble, a black T-shirt and a pair of Adidas to make you look like a bohemian.
They kept us well-fed and topped off with soda and water, better to fight off the dehydration we're sure to deal with in the 92-degree heat of Kabul. For $30 a head, we had breakfast and lunch, and lots of snacks.
Kabul, 7 pm
So we're here. It's hotter than hell, and really dry, even after sunset.
Every westerner I see has a gun--except me. There are guns everywhere. Side arms mounted on the breast plates of body armor, side arms strapped to thighs, side arms worn on lower backs. Rifles in the chow hall, but no chambered rounds, please, as the sign at the entrance admonishes. Machine guns jutting from helicopters. Big huge machine guns at the airport, and pointing out from the entrance to the International Security Assistance Force compound, where we're staying, and where I write this from a dorm room. There's no doubt it's a war zone, and as we're conveyed the 15 minutes or so from the airport, the drivers of the Land Cruisers in our convoys swerved erratically, making us a harder target to hit.
Bully for you, boys.
Not nearly as many burkas as I thought they'd be, but not so many women on the street, either. Kind of hard to tell after just one trip through town, though.
Oh, and don't take any photos of the American Embassy.
The bikes will be here soon from the airport. We'll set up our work stations tonight, and start building bikes bright and early tomorrow. The local fixer for Fox told us that the two yellow buildings on the ISAF compound used to be the Taliban's HQ when they ran Afghanistan.
Tomorrow, we'll build bikes in the shadows of those buildings. Six years ago, I would have wanted to blow those buildings up with my own hands. Now, they'll shelter us from the sun as we work. So something good will come of it. I like that.