Posted on 09/15/2008 4:57:43 PM PDT by Dawnsblood
The soldiers are living like animals at a little rat’s nest called FOB Gibraltar. They call it “Gib.” Named after the lynchpin of British naval dominance in the Mediterranean, this cluster of mud huts in the middle of hostile territory is more like Fort Apache, Afghanistan. The British soldiers from C-Company 2 Para live in ugly conditions, fight just about every day, and morale is the best I have seen probably anywhere.
The few outside visitors arrive in helicopters that are sometimes spaced days apart, so that if a visitor stays overnight, he could be stuck for a week or more. The closest Afghan dwellings are a few hundred meters away, and each is surrounded by a mud wall. The Brits and Americans call these dwellings “compounds,” because in fact they are little forts. Most Afghans here are a primitive lot who live far outside of cities, and even villages. The Brits say that locals live as their ancestors dwelled in the fourteenth century. Iraq is by comparison extremely advanced and familiar. Local homes are made of mud, straw, and poor-quality bricks that were dried in the sun, not fired in a kiln. Farmers in this area of Afghanistan keep their animals within the compounds, and so the families live in private zoos, and the Brits are in the middle of clusters of zoos that I call Jurassic Park. Though most compounds immediately around Gib are abandoned, crops grow nearly up to the concertina, tripwires, claymore mines and fortifications that form the perimeter of the base.
(Excerpt) Read more at michaelyon-online.com ...
He sees a much larger war coming to Afghanistan.
WOW! Thanks for posting. From Iraqi internal politics to the turbine-mission success in Afghanistan, this is great reporting. HOORAY Michael Yon!
I thought someone had seem my homepage picture..........:o)
thanks, bfl
Thanks neverdem.
Pakistan Is the Problem -
And Barack Obama seems to be the only candidate willing to face it
[Barf alert!]
slate.com | Sept. 15, 2008 | Christopher Hitchens
Posted on 09/15/2008 2:41:44 PM PDT by neverdem
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2083011/posts
[snip] The truth is that the Taliban, and its al-Qaida guests, were originally imposed on Afghanistan from without as a projection of Pakistani state power. (Along with Pakistan, only Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates ever recognized the Taliban as the legal government in Kabul.) Important circles in Pakistan have never given up the aspiration to run Afghanistan as a client or dependent or proxy state, and this colonial mindset is especially well-entrenched among senior army officers and in the Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or ISI. [end]
excellent reporting and both photographic and written from Mr Yon. thankyou for posting this article.
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