- Reaction score
- 35
- Points
- 560
Although our efforts are a bit more focused "outside the bubble than most, the garrison mentality of most ISAF troops is well explained here, as well as some possible solutions (long post, follow the link):
http://outsidethewire.com/blog/afghanistan/outside-the-bubble.html
http://outsidethewire.com/blog/afghanistan/outside-the-bubble.html
Outside The Bubble
Written by JD Johannes
Wednesday, 02 September 2009
(The companion photo essay and videoclips to this story can be found here .)
I could hear Kabul, the cacophony of car horns, traffic cops yelling through bull horns, screeches, engines.
But I could not see Kabul. I could not feel Kabul.
I was sitting in the courtyard of the Serena Hotel under a pine tree. The padded outdoor chair was comfortable. The view of the rose bushes and manicured lawn was delightful.
Inside, the hotel was truly five-star quality. Quite possibly one of the finest hotels I have ever been in and the best I have ever stayed the night in.
The food was safe for even the most delicate westerners. The linens were clean. The thick terry cloth robe and slippers were perfect.
I was in a bubble. A bubble many westerners find themselves in. They live in compounds or FOBs or fine hotels. They move about the city behind tinted bullet proof glass.
They are floating above Kabul, not in Kabul. I was at the Serena to bring a little Kabul and Afghanistan into the bubble and film some of the goings on inside the bubble.
The preferred vehicle to float above Kabul in is the armored Land Cruiser .
The parking lots of the major hotels--Serena, Safi, Intercontinental--are filled with them and former British Paratroopers, SAS, US Rangers and Special Forces who ride shotgun in them.
US Soldiers can spend a lot of time in the bubble--in MRAPS. In Iraq, it took a deliberate effort from some officers to get their troops out of the bubble and out on their feet where they could gather intel, interact with the people and actually provide security to the population.
Lt. Colonel Scott Cunningham of the 1-221 Cav. made an astute point to me a few weeks ago about the bubble.
He said, if you cannot provide security to the population from behind two-inches of ballistic glass. If you are not going to get out of the MRAP, you might as well not leave the FOB. If you are not going to leave the FOB, you might as well not even be in Afghanistan.
The same applies to many people in bubble. Since they never interact with Kabul, since they live inside compounds or fortress like hotels and move about behind plates of steel and glass--is their presence in Kabul really necessary?
Those in the bubble, do not always choose it—it is forced upon them by the terms of a contract, grant or insurance policy. This was case for the person who brought me in on the mission of bringing a little Afghanistan and Kabul inside the bubble.
My friend TB set me up with the gig, working with an elections monitoring group to shoot video.
TB used to be a writer for a weekly news magazine and would run around Iraq old school--in Haji Mohammed's beat up Caprice Classic or General Maza's old Range Rover. He would sit in on meetings of insurgents, run around with infantry units in Tikrit and live the life fantastic.
He was called by his initials TB, because working with him could be just as dangerous as the disease—he would do things like drive from Baghdad to Tikrit in a Toyota Corolla.
Now TB is a Non-Governmental Organization fobbit, holed up in a five-star hotel summarizing reports from people who ostensibly are in the field, but are still in bubbles.
To make it worse, his wife works for the same NGO and they have a room together at the five-star hotel.
If it was up to TB, he would not be in the bubble.
When I first hit Afghanistan a few weeks ago my plan had been to embed with coalition forces in the eastern provinces around Nangarhar.
Upon learning TB was in Afghanistan, I stopped in at the Intercontinental Hotel, where the group he was working for rented an entire floor and set up shop.
Over lunch he told me what he was doing and asked if I would be able to shoot some video and do some consulting for the NGO.
After a week with the soldiers in the Alinshang and Alingar river valleys of Laghamn province, I got an email from TB telling me to get to Jalalabad--specifically to a guest house called the Taj.
The security situation in Afghanistan is such that the funding organizations and insurance companies put the staff of TB's employer in a bubble. The upper level delegation of retired politicians, ambassadors and foreign ministers was in an even tighter bubble of thick, blast-proof Lexan.
The delegates were never going to get out of the bubble to see the real Afghanistan and the real Kabul. There were not going to be able to even cross deck into the bubbles of the long term NGO staff in Jalalabad or Herat, for in-person assessments.
So TB arranged for me to be hired to bring Afghanistan, the staff in outlying provinces and Kabul to them in a video presentation.
But mostly he hired me because I would bring them the real Kabul beyond the bubble. Kabul as seen when standing on your own two feet and from taxi cab, interviews with random Afghans without having a team of personal protection officers with guns hovering around.
I was also tasked with filming the work of the upper level delegation for training and educational purposes.
And there I found myself surrounded by names I first became acquainted with in youth. A network news reporter turned diplomat. A former presidential candidate. The rest of the delegation would be recognizable to Canadians and Irish.
They were all accomplished, intelligent and insightful people. And some of them had no idea how to put on body armor. They were required to wear SAPI plates when in the vehicles and were absolutely befuddled by them.
"Your body armor looks different than ours," a woman who works with the organization said.
"Because I own it."
The idea of owning your own body armor seemed foreign to her. This was her second time in Afghanistan, but everything is pre-prepped for her by the security/logistics company.
People in the bubble are met in the airport terminal by security, handed body armor and hustled into an armored Land Cruiser.
I was now in that kind of bubble.
The delegation rode from the Serena Hotel in a convoy of shiny and clean armored Land Cruisers to another guarded compound.
Once inside the destination compound, the bodyguards opened the doors and let them out. They struggled out of the armor and into the large villa where they were given a brief by the staff that worked in Afghanistan, in compound, nearly full time.
After the briefings they finally got to meet some real Afghans.
A group of candidates for Provincial Council was brought in for a one-hour round-table Q&A. The questions came from the westerners, the answers from the Afghans.
They ranged from security while campaigning, to how nearly everyone could be an independent, to what the PC members could do to thwart the Taliban.
The Q&A was cut off at the appointed time so the delegation could go to another part of the villa to have lunch with some Afghan election bureaucrats.
An hour and fifteen minutes later they were struggling with the body armor again, back in armored SUVs and rolling to the five star hotel.
That trip to the organization's Afghanistan compound was the delegation’s only trip out of the hotel to meet Afghans. If the delegates had their way, they would have spent more time out and around, but the dictates of the insurance company mandated the bubble, which made my work much more relevant.
