Los Angeles Times: A Night of Firsts for Afghans and Their U.S. Party Guests

[url]http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-022602shirzai.story[/url]

A Night of Firsts for Afghans and Their U.S. Party Guests
Asia: Taboos are cast aside at warlord's fete, in a show of thanks and a plea
for more help.
By JOHN HENDREN
Times Staff Writer

February 26 2002

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- As three Afghan men swung their arms and swayed to
music once banned by the Taliban, wide-eyed Afghans at a religious fete hosted
by a regional warlord watched another landmark event unfold.

Among the 400 U.S. and Canadian guests of Kandahar Gov. Gul Agha Shirzai, three
female American soldiers rose to mimic the dance, their M-4 rifles bouncing off
their swinging hips--this in the conservative birthplace of the Taliban, where
many women have yet to doff their head-to-toe burkas. In the back of the
cavernous tent, 22-year-old Fazal Amad Karzai broke into a broad grin.

"I have never seen women dance," Karzai, who said he was a cousin of interim
Prime Minister Hamid Karzai, explained in English. "I want to make my sister and
my daughter to be free. I want to free my women. This is the happiest day of my
life. I am almost crying."

The coed dance marked just one tradition cast aside for Sunday's event. The
party, held in honor of the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, featured a band
brought in from Kabul, the capital, where Taliban strictures against music were
less stringently observed than here. Then there was the mingled celebration with
"unbelievers," reviled as infidels by fundamentalists, on a Muslim holy day.

The abandonment of taboos amounted to an open show of gratitude by Shirzai, a
shrewd Afghan leader whom some U.S. officials consider a possible future prime
minister. U.S. defense officials say it also reflects the hope that Americans
won't abandon Afghanistan.

"One of the things they're very, very concerned about is: Are we going to stay?"
said Ravi Mallikarjunan, an American civilian working in U.S. military
intelligence. "Tonight was a way of showing that they would like for us very,
very much to stay. What you saw is the village elders coming together to pay
their respects."

Like other Afghan leaders, Shirzai has cultivated an alliance with U.S. military
and political officials.

"It's practically unheard of to invite a Christian," Mallikarjunan said of the
Eid celebration. "It's an enormous show of faith and affection. It transcends
normal religious decorum. He is taking an enormous risk of upsetting his more
fundamentalist Islamic folks."

-- continued --

Shirzai's government holds regular meetings with a team of U.S. Army civil
affairs officers at the governor's palace. One of them, Maj. Michael
Blankenship, who shared a warm greeting with Shirzai at the governor's party,
described the U.S. role as one of offering assistance but not determining
outcomes.

"We're not here to nation-build," Blankenship said. "We're here to set the
cornerstone for others to build on."

Shirzai has a reputation for wielding power with more discretion than less
subtle Afghan faction leaders, such as the reputedly brutal Northern Alliance
general Abdul Rashid Dostum. At least once, Shirzai is said to have persuaded
U.S. officials to hand over suspected Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters to his
regional army, who reportedly used more aggressive tactics to wrest intelligence
from the detainees within days.

To get to Sunday's party, the American and Canadian soldiers had only to walk a
few hundred yards outside the concertina wire of the U.S.-held Kandahar airport
to the walled compound of Razik Shirzai, the governor's brother.

Eid celebrants often don new clothes for the occasion. Razik Shirzai chose the
desert camouflage uniform worn by the Americans, adding an Afghan flag stitched
over the left breast pocket, and shiny black U.S. Special Forces boots that had
seen little contact with the inescapable Kandahar dust. He escorted the base
VIPs to a receiving line of southern Afghan dignitaries.

Sitting to the governor's right were Ahmed Karzai, a local official and brother
of the interim prime minister, and Khalid Pushtoon, a spokesman for the
provincial government. To his left were Shirzai's security officials, in white
navy-style jackets with gold epaulets. Directly at his side, wearing civilian
clothes and a black baseball cap, was the bearded American colonel in charge of
Special Forces troops at the base; military officials asked that he not be
identified by name.

The close relationship between Afghan leaders and U.S. special operations teams
is an open secret, but the details of the cooperation are closely guarded, at
least in part out of the Afghans' concern for the safety of their benefactors.

Yet the significance of the relationship was clear by the seat of honor the
colonel was given, along with the presence of several long-haired, unshaven
Americans in a mix of civilian and camouflage garb. U.S. leaders expressed
concern for the safety of the colonel after he was identified in a U.S. news
report this week. One Afghan leader complained that U.S. officials had
inappropriately allowed a journalist to attend the celebration.

For the Afghans inside the brightly colored tent, it was the first time in years
that they had heard a robab, an Afghan stringed instrument.

Waiters passed out trays of pistachios, walnuts, sweet raisins and almonds to
whet the appetites of soldiers accustomed to military rations. The Afghans
waited as hundreds of troops crowded the long table to fill their plates with
chicken kebabs, oranges and soft drinks.

-- continued --

"We call it AFC: Afghan Fried Chicken," quipped Col. Keith Bartsch, commander of
the Air Force's 19th Air Support Operations Squadron.

Later, Gulalai Ali strode onto the dance floor, stripped off his shirt and
demonstrated his bodybuilder physique, smiling as Shirzai and the crowd
applauded. Then, in the wee hours, a U.S. Army officer arrived to discreetly
urge the party-goers to return to the base, past the military police who sat in
heavily armed vehicles cheerfully munching leftover chicken.

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Excellent article! Thanks for posting it, warlord!

I just hope we can keep these Afghans as our friends!

Just imagine if Gore had been elected President! There would still be months and months of think tank discussions and focus group interviews before the first US soldier, Marine, or airman, ever hit the ground.

Now, the hardest part is behind us, and with so few casualties!

Allah be praised!

Eric The(JustJoking,Lord)Hun[>]:)]

Lord War,
thanks for the post - informative.

(I know I've lived a sheltered life as I've never seen a woman dance with an M-4 either !)

Yeah, I sighed a big relief when we didn't suffer too many causalties. But I think Geo. Bush Jr. wasn't about to land 200,000 GI there anyways. The Al Queda and Taliban were not going to get the luxury of a Soviet-style mano-au-mano ground war.

I will have to disagree that the hard part is behind us. We still have to rebuild a country that has been shattered by war for the last 20 years(?).  It is going to take a lot of $$$ and time. I just hope that other countries are willing to pitch and have the same resolve as the U.S.