Kabul, Afghanistan
ANALYSIS
By Jim Maceda, NBC News Correspondent
Aunt Dee is the real pundit of my family – an opinionated, 80-year-old independent spirit if there ever was one. You never know whom she’ll target next, so getting an e-mail from our own gadfly is always special.
Her latest feint and thrust – on the war in Afghanistan – came about two weeks ago: "Well, I have to get started on dinner so will close this now. We see nothing about that war in Afghanistan. It’s like it doesn’t exist. And, no one is asking Obama, ‘What are we doing there?’"
Since that e-mail, it’s as if every politician and editorialist – on both sides of the Atlantic – is reading Aunt Dee!
"What’s the mission?" asks one. "To prevent another 9/11," answers another. "To build a viable Afghan state," chimes in a third. And on and on...
Some analysts wonder why we’re even in Afghanistan at all, when most "terrorists" and terror attacks are in, or originating from, Pakistan. Other experts rejoin that if we withdrew from or failed in Afghanistan, then Pakistan – and the rest of South Asia with it – might implode.
A maelstrom of opinion has burst wide open, and in its wake, even traditional positions have shifted.
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Richard Engel, NBC News Chief Foreign Correspondent
KABUL, Afghanistan – It is a brutal first impression. The moment my feet touch the sand as I step out of a Stryker armored vehicle, I hear an explosion. It’s far away; about half a mile. I hear a big deep thud and look over my shoulder. I see a cloud of brown dust expanding in an Afghan village.
The village walls and houses are all made of mud. One of the houses has just exploded into a brown cloud. American soldiers were inside the booby-trapped structure. Within seconds, we hear radio traffic.
One American is dead. Others are wounded. The radio calls are urgent, but formal. No names. They don’t use names so soldiers who listen to the radio don’t become upset in the midst of what is now a rescue operation to save the wounded soldiers.
I’ve been here for less than five minutes.
The Medevac helicopters fly in. They take away the wounded first. Nothing more can be done for the dead. The wounded are the priority.
Part of the surge in Afghanistan
In my blue spiral notebook I start to take notes to figure out where I am, and what’s going on.
The notes are short:
I’m in the Arghandab valley, just outside Kandahar.
It’s a Taliban stronghold.
It’s mostly desert with a few green orchards around the mud-walled villages.
I’m with the Army’s Stryker brigade. These soldiers were supposed to go to Iraq. Some learned Arabic before they were diverted to Afghanistan in February.
One soldier is dead. He’s the seventh soldier the Stryker brigade has lost in three weeks.
I write a number 7 in my notebook and circle it.
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Analysis
Richard Engel, NBC News Chief Foreign Correspondent
KABUL – When I saw the headlines today that both President Hamid Karzai and his rival Abdullah Abdullah are claiming victory in the Afghanistan election, I was somewhat surprised. I thought that this could be an issue of major concern because you don’t want to have a situation here like we had in Iran where there is a disputed election and both sides are claiming victory as the results are still coming in.
So I wanted to make sure what exactly the candidates were saying.
I went over to Abdullah’s house – he is the former foreign minister and main challenger in the race against the incumbent Karzai.
We spoke in English, and he speaks very good English, but I think some of the situation here has to do with language.
I asked him, "Do you think you’ve won the election?"
And he said, "Yes."
I asked him, "Are you claiming victory?"
He said, "No, the results are still coming in."
So I said, "Well then, what do you mean exactly? You think you’ve won, but the results are still coming in?"
He said, "Yes, exactly.
"But you’re not claiming victory?" I asked.
He said, "No."
So there is a big, big difference. I asked him to explain to me what he thinks the situation is now.
Abdullah said, "Indications are now that I’m in the lead and that I have won the elections outright and there will be no need for a run-off; but the final results are not in. But those are the indications we have at this point."
So, I called Karzai’s people because he is also quoted as saying he’s won and it’s over.
But his people said, "No, no, no. We are confident that we’ve won, but the results aren’t all in yet. But we think it will go our way."
So basically, you have both sides saying, "We think we’ve won" – but not quite claiming victory.
Now it’s a fine line. Could this escalate and tomorrow both sides harden their positions?
Yes, that could happen. We could be headed down a dangerous path here. But both sides at this stage are trying to not delegitimize the process and not put themselves onto a confrontational path.
Both sides are saying they’re confident and their own internal polling and fact-finding shows that they have won, but it’s not settled yet. They think they will have a much clearer idea by the end of the weekend.
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In a country where women have few rights, thousands will head to the polls on Thursday to vote in Afghanistan’s elections. NBC’s Richard Engel reports on women’s roles in the high-stakes election.
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Reporter's Notebook
By Jim Maceda, NBC News Correspondent
KABUL, Afghanistan – The ‘new’ U.S. strategy
in Afghanistan has a familiar ring to it.
"You can't kill your way to victory here, Jim," the U.S. Army Brigade Commander began, cocking his cap back off his forehead, as he often did before making a point. "You must protect the population, separate the enemy from that population, and then, quickly, bring good governance to the people so they reject the enemy when he tries to return."
The colonel called this a "new" strategy, fully supported by Washington, and based on proven counter-insurgency practice. He believed this would radically alter the course of war in Afghanistan and lead, hopefully, to a "tipping point" – shifting momentum away from the Taliban and towards coalition forces.
But, this comment wasn’t something I pulled out of my reporter's notebook from my recent trip to Afghanistan – although it could be. It's actually a quote from then-Col. John 'Mick' Nicholson, commander of Task Force Spartan, in Eastern Afghanistan, back in April of 2006.
Interestingly, Nicholson's boss at the time was Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry, the then-commander of U.S. and NATO’s International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan.
Now fast-forward more than three years. I am back in Kabul, but I kept flashing back to that earlier conversation as I listened to Eikenberry, now the new U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, define for me what he called "the conditions for success" here.
"First you must secure the area and separate the people from the enemy, Jim. But right behind that, steps have to be taken to help the government of Afghanistan..." My thoughts drifted as Eikenberry went on to describe the need for "good governance" and a "sense of justice." I was thinking instead about how I'd heard this "new doctrine" before, almost word for word.
My point: There's little really new about the Obama administration's "new strategy" in Afghanistan.
True, as reported in Monday's New York Times, there's been a clear shift in counter-narcotics tactics, away from indiscriminate poppy eradication – which hurt farmers, but not the Taliban – while going more aggressively after the drug lords and smugglers.
But the much touted "clear-hold-build" paradigm, and the need for both "military" and "civilian" surges, are ideas lifted right out of the U.S. military's counter-insurgency handbook, drawn up by Gen. David Petraeus himself.
This strategy was, in fact, formulated during President George W. Bush's administration and applied by Bush, despite resistance from his own advisors, in Iraq.
What is new – and a potential breakthrough – is the commitment that the U.S. government appears to have made to the strategy in Afghanistan.
Congress has allocated tens of billions of new dollars, not just to the fight, but, for instance, to turning Afghanistan back into the agricultural powerhouse it was before 30 years of war destroyed it.
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By Richard Engel, NBC News Chief Foreign Correspondent
KABUL, Afghanistan – President Obama's address in Cairo sounded even better in Arabic translation, which after all was the point.
From my hotel room in Kabul I listened to Obama’s speech as it was broadcast on the Arabic-language network Al-Jazeera. Often accused in Washington and by U.S. military commanders of having an anti-American bias, Al-Jazeera dedicated "special events" coverage to the Cairo speech. The network, the leading Arab broadcaster, had correspondents posted around the world to gather reaction and ran highlights of Obama’s address in every newscast.
Its reporters described Obama’s appeal to open a new page in relations with Muslims as a possible "turning point." The speech will be the focus of Al-Jazeera’s Friday analysis program Aktar Min Rai, "More Than One Opinion," which is similar to NBC’s "Meet The Press."
This is a huge break from the past. Former President George Bush was Al-Jazeera’s bête noire. Yesterday, one of the network’s guests remembered Bush as "a warmonger" who spoke "in a language of blood and killing." Another analyst compared the former president to Osama bin Laden.
"I don’t see much of a difference between Bush and Bin Laden," he said. "Both say, ‘You are either with us or against us.’"
In contrast, Al-Jazeera described Obama’s speech as "honest," "historic" and "deeply respectful."
I suspect a main reason Obama was so well received was that he – either by design or coincidence – successfully used the tools of Arabic rhetoric: flattery, history and religion. Simply put, Obama translated well into Arabic.
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As the war in Afghanistan morphs into a drug war, the U.S. is shifting its tactics by trying to develop alternative crop programs for the world's top opium producer. NBC News' Jim Maceda reports.
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Fighting the Taliban now includes a concerted effort to cut the organization's financial lifeline: the illegal drug trade. NBC News' Jim Maceda goes behind the scenes in Afghanistan as a U.S. DEA team carries out drug raids.
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KABUL For centuries, the women of Afghanistan have had to walk behind men, their faces hidden, their dreams denied. They have often been forced to live a harsh life in a place where most women are illiterate, forced into marriages, and beaten by their husbands.
In a rare protest, nearly 300 women gathered Wednesday to demand equality and the repeal of a new law imposing even more restrictions on their rights.
NBC’s Chief Foreign Correspondent Richard Engel reports on a women's shelter in Kabul where Afghan women fleeing violent homes can find safe shelter.
Reporter's Notebook
By Jim Maceda, NBC News Correspondent
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan – It took us an hour to get past the heavily-armed guards and bomb-sniffing dogs and through the gate of the U.S. Embassy. A few days earlier, a suicide bomber had blown up himself and his car, killing at least two civilians, only 50 yards from the building.
But now we were inside the embassy and interviewing Loren Stoddard, a top official at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). It was a surreal time and place to be talking about pomegranates.
"You see this?" asked the sharp, jovial Stoddard, reaching for a ruby red fruit the size of a grapefruit. "You know the one main thing that's been lacking in Afghanistan is hope. Hope in a successful, productive, prosperous future. Well, this pomegranate represents hope to all Afghan farmers."
Stoddard explained how this traditional Afghan fruit – so popular these days in the U.S. and Europe for its elixir-like effects – was skyrocketing in price and capable of even replacing opium poppy as Afghanistan's chief cash crop.
Then he held up an even bigger, and ruddier, fruit. "And this is the ‘Kandahari’ from Kandahar, one of the best pomegranates in the world. At least in this part of the world, it's its own brand name.''
A light went off in my mind: A brand name? Just what Afghanistan needs.
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