An old slur lingers in the Pashto language: “Engriz bachai (“son of English”).” The insult -- directed toward a crafty or duplicitous person -- dates back to the 19th century. A century after the Anglo-Russian contest for supremacy in Central Asia ended, mistrust of foreign intentions persists.
In late July, a demonstration outside Bagram Air Base, the massive U.S. garrison about an hour's drive north of Kabul, turned violent. An Associated Press photographer captured images of Afghans throwing stones at a passing U.S. convoy; as the SUVs sped into the base, the crowd rushed a gate guarded by Afghan troops, who reportedly dispersed protesters with sticks and shots in the air.The riot was sparked by the detention of six villagers by U.S. forces during operations in the Parwan province, home to the air base. According to Combined Forces Command - Afghanistan, the men were arrested in possession of a rocket-propelled grenade, a rocket launcher, a Kalashnikov assault rifle, and a variety of bomb-making materials. More than 1,000 people turned out to protest the villagers' detention.
What went awry at Bagram? In recent months, violence has escalated in some parts of Afghanistan, but most of the fighting has been confined to the southern and eastern provinces that border Pakistan. The Parwan province, by contrast, had been relatively peaceful since the collapse of Taliban rule in late 2001. When I visited the region last fall, plumes of smoke were visible on the Shomali plain: Brickmakers were firing up their kilns to meet demand for construction materials as families returned to rebuild their homes. Bagram had become a bustling logistics hub for the military.
Much has changed for the better since I first visited Bagram in March 2002, when the base was still little more than a tent city. Operation Anaconda, a set-piece battle in the Shahikot valley, was winding to an inconclusive close, and soldiers were occupied with construction work on the base.
Army Major Kevin Johnson, who initially headed up the engineering section, said at the time that the Army had hired hundreds of people from the surrounding province to pick up debris around the airfield, the scene of serious fighting in late 2001. The Army paid skilled workers the handsome rate of $1.70 an hour; unskilled laborers received 70 cents an hour.
“We lined 200 locals up with one GI, and they walked down the runway just picking up with those little brush brooms that they tie together,” Johnson said. “We cleaned the airfield that way.”
The task force then set about repairing bullet- and shrapnel-scarred buildings around the airfield, part of a deal struck in return for use of the base. Lieutenant Colonel Scott Donahue, who headed the construction force, explained a “two-for-one” agreement the Army struck with the local authorities: For every building U.S. forces occupied, they would repair that building, plus one more.
But even with this ongoing work, a team from Halliburton subsidiary KBR had also arrived to scout the place. However, both Donahue and Johnson suggested that the Army was better suited to the task of rebuilding. Inviting in a large U.S. contractor, said Donahue, was “the last thing you're going to want to do when you keep a small footprint.”
When I returned to Bagram Air Base in September 2004, I hardly recognized the place. The main roads were paved with fresh asphalt, and KBR ran a gleaming dining hall staffed with contract workers from outside Afghanistan; the tables groaned with trays of fresh fruit. Soldiers lived in climate-controlled huts and worked in modern-looking cubicles. The brilliant night sky was no longer visible, obscured by the glare of floodlights.
Large footprint or no, KBR knew how to make life comfortable for the troops. The U.S. military presence, however, was slowly morphing into something more permanent, and that troubles some Afghans. For one thing, Bagram houses a major detention facility; earlier this year, new revelations surfaced about prisoner abuse there, including the brutal deaths of two detainees at the detention center (an Army criminal investigation yielded charges against several soldiers).
One prominent parliamentary candidate, Ramazan Bashardost, is playing on Afghans' disillusion with international efforts to bring democracy and stability to the country. His main campaign pledge: a crackdown on “corruption” in foreign aid.
After the collapse of Taliban rule in late 2001, the international community promised to help Afghanistan rebuild its shattered economy. Donor nations pledged billions in aid; the U.S. Agency for International Development obligated $1.4 billion for fiscal year 2004 alone, and projects that cost another $1 billion per year there through 2010.
Many Afghans, however, have been frustrated with the way aid has been delivered. In Kabul, perhaps the most visible signs of reconstruction funding are the fleets of white Land Cruisers used to shuttle diplomats and aid workers between meetings. A micro-economy of high-priced restaurants, guesthouses, and carpet shops has sprung up to cater to the city's expatriate class, who, for the most part, are well compensated for their work in Afghanistan.
Bashardost, an ethnic Hazara, has tapped into popular suspicions that aid and reconstruction funds have largely benefited well-paid consultants and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). In a recent Reuters interview, he complained that diplomats and aid organizations were siphoning away money from ordinary Afghans.
“Government members, the NGOs, the big embassy staff, the United Nations staff … they made a mafia system, and you can see the result,” he said. “We received about $12 billion [over] three years. Where is the money?”
During his term as President Hamid Karzai's planning minister, Bashardost became the nemesis of NGOs. When I visited Afghanistan last fall, aid workers were reluctant to criticize him on the record, but some insinuated that Bashardost, who sat out the Soviet-Afghan war in European exile (his official biography, in mangled English, is posted here), was making a cynical bid for broader support.
Bashardost may be playing the populist, but he has a point. Afghans have indeed benefited from foreign-sponsored reconstruction work, but suspicion of outsiders has the potential to turn violent.
Last August, a massive car bomb targeted the Kabul headquarters of DynCorp, which held a contract for training Afghan security forces and provided a security detail for Karzai. More recently, David Addison, a British contractor working on a road-building project, was captured in an ambush of his convoy in the western Farah province; his body was discovered after a rescue operation.
It's not just private companies that are targets, either. An Italian aid worker was kidnapped in May and later released; a British aid worker was shot dead in Kabul in March. The United Nations has encouraged “nonessential” staff to leave the country ahead of the parliamentary elections on Sept. 18.
With Afghanistan's parliamentary and provincial elections approaching, the international community, the U.S. military, and NATO should pay heed. They cannot take Afghan hospitality for granted.
Nathan Hodge, a spring 2004 Pew International Journalism Fellow, is a Washington-based military-affairs reporter. His work has appeared in the Financial Times, on Slate, and in a number of U.S. and U.K. defense journals.
