Afghanistan My Last Tour

MSG Abdullah's Miracle Gro garden

Earlier in the day I went to ANA land to plan for some future projects.  MSG Abdullah will be extremely happy after the security fence is erected.  Right now, much of the area is open and vehicles drive freely to the warehouse.  Despite having a guard on duty, I think MSG Abdullah wants to protect his Miracle Gro Garden.  Since he was at a meeting, I used this opportunity to tour his garden some more.  Yesterday, I took pictures from the exterior boundary.    Today I walked up and down the rows of corn to see what else he was growing.  I found some gigantic squash and more tomato plants.  Next to the corn was a plastic tarp with something red laying on it.  Initially I thought these were red peppers and they were drying in the sun.

Tomato slices drying in the sun

interpreter Omid explained that in the winter time they cannot purchase fresh tomatoes.  Instead, they dry out these tomato slices and consume them during the cold season.

Omid and I discussed some other projects too.  I am planning on surprising the ANA colonel by installing curtains and ceiling fans in the library.  But the biggest surprise will be the amount of books we purchase to fill their bookshelves.  We are going to purchase 200 books of various categories to include history, science, math, and military books.  In addition, I plan to surprise the ANA with more English books.

Miracle Gro roses

Lastly, we plan on putting some concrete chairs or benches outside.

Some other projects in the works are an overhang to protect the ANA vehicles and some repairs to the dilapidated flooring inside the ANA dining facility freezers.  My team also submitted some other projects requesting special project money.  So by using fuzzy math, I spent half of the project money for the month in one day.  I just wish there was an easier method to obtain these special project funds.

AF TSgt looking through M-240 barrel

Afghanistan has to be one of the dustiest countries I have traveled through or lived in during my career.  The dust is like a fine talcum powder and it coats everything with a fine mist.  Our weapons are no exception and we have to keep them in operating condition and free of dust, should they actually have to be utilized.  My team spent the afternoon cleaning the Mark-19, .50 cal and M-240 machine guns.  I also used this opportunity to dust off and lubricate my M-4 rifle too.

That spring should fit in there somewhere ...?

The Afghan Presidential elections are still in limbo.  The incumbent Karzai received 54% of the votes which exceeds the 50% threshold for reelection.  However, due to fraud and ballot stuffing allegations, the United Nations Electoral monitoring body in a rare move has directed partial recounts at 2500 polling sites.  This is approximately 10% of all the polling stations in the country.  Ballots from 83 polling sites have been invalidated.  Last count, over 150,000 ballots were tossed out.  The recount may cause Karzai’s winning percentage to fall below 50% resulting in a runoff between him and Dr. Abdullah Abdullah in October. Here’s the real kicker.  Abdullah has alleged state-engineered fraud to include Karzai’s Independent Election Commission (ECC) chairman.  On Sunday, the ECC vowed to enforce stricter safeguards which would exclude fraudulent ballots.  Based on an anonymous source, when the commission determined this action would cause Karzai to drop below 50% of the required votes, they changed their mind and said they did not have the legal authority to implement this.  As such, the UN backed commission (the ultimate arbiter of the elections) directed the recounts.

Although one could argue there was bound to be fraud irregularities, nobody could have imagined the scale being reported.  To date, over 2, 700 allegations have been reported and the Election Complaints Commission has deemed over 700 of these as serious enough to affect the final outcome.  Allegations have surfaced about children helping to mark the voting cards.  At some places, 10 ballots were submitted for every qualified voter in the town.  One incident that made the US headlines was the Shorbak District with a population of almost 24,000.  In a last minute decision, the tribal elders decided to vote for Abdullah.  When they went to the polling site, it was closed and guarded by armed men loyal to Karzai.  When the votes were tallied, 23,900 votes were cast for Karzai even though not one single person cast a ballot.  Now the district governor has been threatened and he is unable to return home.  I find this rather disheartening because the coalition forces deterred the Taliban from interrupting the election and several soldiers died in the process.  We provided a relatively secure environment for the citizens to cast their vote and now the elections have been marred by fraud, corruption, influence, and irregularities.

Justice taking a nap

Well that’s about it for today.  I think I will take a cue from Justice and take a nap.

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: | Afghan elections, Afghan National Army, Afghanistan, Deployment, ETT, M-240, Miracle Gro, photography, U.S. Air Force, war