Battlefield Tourist

If there's one place in Kabul that I can actually find some sort of relief, it's the roof.
People go up there once in a while to fix the satellite dish or do the know rare live shot. I go up there to watch the world go by and plot my next move or think about my wife or McDonald's....
I come up here at least four times a day when I'm in Kabul. All I can do is wait sometimes. To get to the roof, you have to climb an eight foot bamboo ladder to the top of the garage. A the back of the garage is fixed re-bar embedded in the chimney. That's up another six feet to a secondary roof. On this roof is a much longer ladder, maybe about 12 feet long. It's also straight out of Gilligan's Island and must be climbed more horizontally than your typical ladder. Up another nine feet.
From up here you can see almost 360 degree mountains. Like Roanoke, but these mountains are brown. The smog and dust is so apparent here as well. You can see it in Roanoke, but here it is thick and brown and lays very low. It has the feel of a growing nation, but at times the smell here is stifling.
So I sit on one of the chimney vents and try to figure out what to do. I have some Kabul stories I can work. I have the triweekly coalition press conference. I also need to get the hell out of here and back into the field. This new division seems to be prided on doing a better job than the last command. So far, they have the record for me waiting. But even more so, I'm wondering again what I'll be doing next month.
I really like doing what I'm doing. To be sure, I have a great job. I get paid to go on patrol with the military. I get to have all the military fun without having to deal with most of the military crap. Not to mention the fact that when I feel like going home, I just pack up and get the next plane out. That's gotta make my military friends cringe at times.
Unfortunately, there are some things that need to be addressed and I'm worried they won't be. My time in Kabul this past week has been an eye opener from a few perspectives. So I can only hope things work out.
I may also have an opportunity at the local news radio station from which I just came. That and an opportunity at a station in Washington D.C. have had my head spinning again. Personally I hope IHA and I can meet in the middle so I can at least come back until the middle of November or so.
It's getting exciting as the elections approach. The battlefield has been heating up, but the government efforts keep pushing forward. There is a real sense that the elections will happen in September. What remains a question is what will happen. The parameters of this conflict are not only many, but far ranging as well. This leaves a huge number of "what if" scenarios possible over the next 2-6 months. This one question is a can of worms: How will warlords accept and participate in the elections? One thing is for sure, since my betting is so atrocious, I'm betting there will be trouble soon for the coalition in places currently stable. Hopefully, like usual, my prediction is wrong and everything will be great? We'll see.
Like in other situations where the coalition is attempting to show the world that the Afghans are beginning to realize their own country, the role of the coalition is once again a support role in terms of the elections. The U.S. doesn't want to be seen as influencing the elections, so U.S. soldiers will be staged in areas near election points in case of an emergency. However it's the Afghan National Army and various Afghan Militias that are going to run security inside of the towns where voting is taking place.
As of this week, 3 million Afghans have registered to vote. Just over 1,000,000 of those registered are women. This is good news for the country as a whole. In their first free elections, Afghanistan will have a significant amount of women voting, something the United States can't even remotely come to claim and something no one predicted would happen.
Afghanistan is a marathon, not a sprint. What we have here is a country that, for the most part, is thankful for the support. There is some signs that people are growing impatient, but for the most part the people just keep plugging away at carving out an existence.
Everywhere in Kabul, people are opening businesses and trying to get a handle on lives everyone thought were lost. Outside the cities, life hasn't changed much. Many places need the most simple of things like wells and food. Remarkably, these people too seem to be patient as well.
That doesn't mean that everything is honky dory. Many people in the north, west, and south bitterly complain that the national government has forgotten them. They say that they have given peace nearly three years to work for them and they still receive nothing. This in my opinion is why these regions are pumping out the drugs like crazy. This year is set to be a record harvest and is expected to grow exponentially. Since every warlord and governor has their fingers in the pie, that's where they're going to stay until the federal government can come up with something that is just as lucrative. I have a feeling the next war in this country will be a drug war that has the potential to turn into civil war. An end result of which could finally turn the populace against the coalition.

Well, in some late news: I'm stuck in Kabul until next Monday. Only then can I get a lift to Khowst and FOB Salerno. That should move me into my vacation.