One of the regular duties I have is to attend the twice-weekly shuras, shown in the picture above. One is the executive shura, and consists of the Afghan government leadership coming together to discuss security. The other is for all of the maliks (chiefs) and other local leaders to come in and complain about one thing or another. The larger shuras rotate on a weekly basis between security and economic development, but they tend to revolve around the same thing: they want something from us.
Most meetings follow much of the same format. Every Afghan that speaks opens by thanking Allah, and asks the permission of every leader there to begin, and wishes everyone well, and expresses their thankfulness that all made it through the week safely. So when you have even just three or four people who are speaking, and who need to be translated, it quickly makes the meeting drag on. Then begin the issues. We have made a great deal of progress in Maiwand, all things considered, as attacks in the town and along Highway 1 have decreased very sharply. Some of the topics mentioned have a great deal of interest for us, yet others drag on interminably. For example, at the shura this past Monday, we discussed the emplacement of new checkpoints. No problem. But then, even though everyone agreed that new checkpoints would be a good thing, they proceeded to argue over whether the checkpoint should be in front of or behind the village, whatever that means. It was so bad that our interpreter stopped translating, and instead would occasionally turn back and shake his head at me, just to show how bad it quickly became. After too long of a time, I even lost the ability to daydream my way through the meeting, and was forced to call the match: I was down for the count. I left, and maybe fifteen or twenty minutes later the meeting finally ended after three and a half hours. It was brutal.
The people's shuras can be even worse. I'm simply fortunate that I haven't been to a shura during the summer yet. The people here do not wash, and they definitely have a noticeable odor if you get too close. I won't go into too much detail for fear of boring you as much as the meetings bored me, but suffice it to say that most of the issues brought up revolve around money, and whatever we offer is not enough. (The young Afghan man in the turban at the center of the above photo is a real dirtbag) That being said, I have learned a great deal from attending, including the need to take local norms into account during operations. It is not a good thing to handcuff the household elders in front of their families, and having them along when you search their houses shows them that you want to respect their property. Another key point that I have learned which would have been harder otherwise is how to work with the interpreters to make sentences simple, direct, and plain enough to ensure understanding and easy translation. The more you speak without allowing for translation equals the more your words get garbled.
Some of these people really make me angry, and as I sit in the meetings its all I can do to hold my tongue. One elder asked if we could just forgive an insurgent, because he was a good guy, and we only found a few IEDs in his possession, plus additional material. All of us Americans just looked at him, unsure of an appropriate response. The scumbag mentioned above had his car destroyed and although we offered him the maximum amount allowed by law, it still wasn't good enough. He then had the audacity to accuse us of not listening, when we had spent the past fifteen minutes patiently hearing him out. I hope he doesn't get a dime...because people like him deserve nothing when there are good men and women here who actually deserve our help.
I think I'm going to go ahead and end this entry here. I could probably keep going, but it is now nearly 0130, and I should start to think about bed. I do have a lot more to discuss, so expect another entry tomorrow.
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