“No one knows both sides of the Pak-Afghan Frontier as [Wick] does. He has climbed the mountains, run the rivers, and sipped tea in countless tribal councils. In these thirteen tales, he offers readers a boots-on-the-ground feel for life and operations in this topographically and culturally rugged region.…The small villages, the dusty streets, the smell of smoky wood fires, the pace and cadence of conversations — this is the way it was.” — Gary C. Schroen, leader of the first joint CIA/military team in Afghanistan following 9/11

He was a charming old man, with that interest in life and affairs which distinguishes the hillman or tribesman from the peasant, and learning was to him a real divinity. — Freya Stark, The Valleys of the Assassins

Nuristan Province, Afghanistan, 2003–2004

At not yet four in the afternoon, the sun already had disappeared over a mountain ridge to the west, and frost formed quickly in the shadow. Where the narrow rocky road cut sharply left, away from the river to ascend a plunging side stream, lay the stripped and rusted shells of five armored reconnaissance vehicles. Bailey asked Abdullah to stop their Land Rover and for a long moment contemplated this monument to the deepest the Soviet Army had ever penetrated into Nuristan, fifteen years before. One chassis had been tipped up on its side. A tree grew through its empty windows, and from a bench inside the shelter an old man gazed back at Bailey with polite curiosity as he waited for a passing ride.

Beyond, the mountain fastness had only once in history been subject to invasion. In the 1890s, the armies of Emir Abdur-Rahman had stormed up the valley to convert the aboriginal Kalash to Islam by the sword — the final region of Afghanistan to succumb and only at terrible cost to both sides. With stunning irony the great Emir had celebrated his bloody victory by renaming the region Nuristan, “Land of Enlightenment.” Almost a century later, it remained remote, in topography and in thought, so much so that although the inhabitants were sympathetic toward the Great Jihad of the 1980s against the Soviets, this particular valley remained aloof from both sides, declaring themselves the independent Revolutionary Islamic State of Afghanistan, or Daulat, impartially denying Soviet passage and taxing Mujahedin supply shipments.

Bailey and his companions now carried up the valley a message of hope — of food to relieve starvation and medicines to combat epidemics, then of road upgrades, clean water, health care, electricity, and education. From Mazar-e Sharif in the north by the legendary Oxus River, to the cradle of Pushtun culture in southern Qandahar, and from hoary Herat by the Iranian border to the semitropical gateway to the Indian subcontinent at Jalalabad, the Taliban had been routed from the cities of Afghanistan. The chase now led through the remote deserts and mountains, and through the minds of their rugged inhabitants.

Thirty miles upstream, a village stair-stepped up the steep flanks of the mountain ridge on the left bank of the river, the roof of each man’s house his higher neighbor’s front veranda. Construction was of stone and elaborately carved timber, and the bridge that spanned the river consisted of massive timbers cantilevered from rock abutments. Even the mosque featured an ornate wooden minaret. To Bailey the architecture seemed more of the Himalaya, of Bhutan, Nepal, or Tibet, than of the Afghanistan he knew. Narrow alleyways snaked uphill, deep with mud and foot-polished ice that would not melt in the shadows until late spring.

Blanket-wrapped old men slowly gathered at a building by the river, curious but wary, assembling their shura council to meet the strangers. Ringing the assembly, most of the twelve-man Special Forces team that accompanied Bailey maintained a security perimeter. Initially wary, dozens of small boys peering from behind stone walls quickly caught on to Staff Sergeant Rabin’s first, taunting snowballs, and delightedly launched barrages of icy missiles at the invaders. Bright flashes of color and giggles from the rooftops hinted that the village girls were not totally excluded from the momentous event.

Inside, talk and tea flowed around the overheated room. Each bearded elder in turn greeted the visitors, with profuse expressions of welcome and hospitality. Of the momentous events that had rocked first New York, and consequently Taliban dominated Afghanistan, they were well aware, due largely to the shortwave broadcasts of BBC and VOA. Several offered their sympathy to the American nation for its loss. Others remarked upon the longstanding bonds between Afghans and America, notably her support during the war against the Soviets. With each sincere but lengthy welcoming speech, Abdullah’s translation grew briefer, until it became a simple “More greetings.”

Seated upon a floor deep in layers of red and brown wool carpets, Bailey sipped his tea and accepted a sugar cookie proffered by his neighbor on his right. A sudden, urgent itching around his ankles and up his legs revealed that humans were not the only occupants of the council house carpet, and the elders’ kind invitation to bunk down inside for the night lost its initial appeal. Finally each graybeard had had his say, and all turned expectantly toward Bailey for his response, for an answer to the question all had been too polite to ask. Why had the Americans come to their remote valley?

Pausing frequently to allow Abdullah to translate, Bailey thanked the assembly effusively for their welcome, commenting that he and his companions had journeyed to this remote location confident of finding Afghan hospitality, and security at their hearth. He invoked the historical bonds between their peoples, deliberately mentioning his pride and privilege in having his own bit part in the Great Jihad of the 1980s. Finally he got to the point he had traveled so far to make. Change was coming to Afghanistan; the modern world was asserting itself again after decades of barbarism. The new government in Kabul and its American allies intended to bring this change to every tribe and village, no matter how remote.

It would not come easily in regions as remote as this, of course, as his listeners knew better than anyone. The mountain barriers were formidable, government resources were limited, and the old enemies were in retreat but not yet vanquished. Bailey and his companions were but the first emissaries, come to introduce themselves, to talk about the new order, to see the difficulties — but primarily to listen, to learn firsthand from the people of this far mountain valley their needs and wants, their hopes for the future. If all went well, they would build a plan together, so that when help arrived, it would bring the best of the modern world, without harming their pristine land, their heritage, or their freedoms.

The first assistance efforts, Bailey emphasized, would be miniscule. Demands throughout Afghanistan for available resources were enormous in the wake of decades of warfare, and this valley was as remote as any in the land. The long and difficult road up the valley could support nothing larger than a pickup truck, and it traversed the territories of rival, equally needy, tribes. The imperative, therefore, was for this council to identify their most desperate, primary needs, and to help plan with the Americans for a first small shipment of aid during the winter months. The Americans and the Afghan government might find supplies, might even find funds to hire trucks and drivers, but only the elders knew the true needs of their community, how to arrange reliable transport, and how to deal with the other tribes through whose territory the shipments must pass.

Based on their experiences in other war-ravaged towns and villages throughout Afghanistan, the Americans had come to find out how many families were in dire need of food to avoid starvation during the long winter or heating oil to survive the cold. Were there epidemic or endemic diseases that required medicines to prevent winter deaths? And, of course, was the region under further threat from the Taliban and their al-Qa’ida allie

Bailey paused and turned the floor over to Captain Maclean, who dutifully repeated his team’s gratitude for the elders’ hospitality, their hopes for Afghanistan and for Nuristan, their desire to be the spearhead of a bright future. Bailey leaned back against the hard, round pillows that lined the walls, smiled inwardly at the new brevity of Abdullah’s translations, and unobtrusively scratched the fleabites on his ankles.

When Captain Maclean in turn ceased speaking, animated discussion broke out among the elders, exchanging salvos in incomprehensible Nuristani dialect across the carpet. Now they made no effort to direct their remarks to Abdullah. This was their private caucus, and Abdullah discretely directed his attention to his tea and to making conversation in English with the two Americans.

“Honored American guests, we are very grateful that you travel so far to speak with us.”

The white-bearded speaker, dressed in crisp, brown linen shirt and trousers with a darker wool vest, sat against the far wall, directly opposite Bailey and Captain Maclean. He waved Abdullah to silence and addressed the two in unexpected, although halting, English.

“Please accept our humble hospitality and gratitude for your offer to help us. As you said, we are far from cities. Now it is even farther than before, under the king. Everything you speak about, we need. Winter will be hard. Many families will be hungry before spring comes and crops grow. Some of our very old people will become sick and die in the winter…and some of the very young. It will be as God wills.

“But, I say to you, that is not because of the Taliban or the war. It is the way life always has been. Our humble request is for you to help us with the thing that we most need, that we could not get during all the years of the wars — education for our children. There is no money for books or to pay teachers. The school for boys, built just across the river by the king, is small and old and falls down. It is now a mosque school, a madrassa, not a regular school, because some money came from the Saudis. For the girls we have nothing. One or two women teach in their homes, but many, many girls have no place to learn at all. So this is the help we humbly request from our American friends: schools, especially one for the girls. This is the way we can become part of the new Afghanistan, and the modern world.”

FROM: SPECIAL OPERATIONS COMMAND/KABUL (SOC/K)

SUBJECT: REQUEST FOR SCHOOL AID

1. DO NOT, REPEAT NOT, COMMIT TO SCHOOL-BUILDING INITIATIVE. PROGRAM FUNDS ARE RESTRICTED TO WINTER EMERGENCY AID AND LOCATING AND FIXING HOSTILE ELEMENTS.

2. SCHOOL SUPPORT/CONSTRUCTION IS A FOLLOW-ON MISSION FOR MILITARY CIVIL AFFAIRS, USAID AND NGOS — NOT SPECIAL OPERATIONS FORCES. ASSURE VILLAGE ELDERS THAT WE HAVE FORWARDED THEIR REQUEST TO US EMBASSY, KABUL, FOR PASSAGE TO APPROPRIATE AGENCIES.

3. MAKE ARRANGEMENTS, PER OPERATIONS ORDER, FOR DELIVERY OF EMERGENCY FOOD, MEDICINES, FUEL OIL, THEN RETURN TO BASE.

Watching the blocky green letters scroll across the dark screen of his satellite-linked laptop, Captain Maclean swore under his breath, then turned in exasperation to his “special advisor.” “How the hell can we ask these guys to decide what they need, then blow them off and just send what those rear-echelon geniuses already decided was good for them? It’s like HQ’s been captured by Democrats,” he sputtered.

“I can’t tell them we’ve passed their request on to bureaucrats in Kabul. They’ll know what bullshit that is before Abdullah even translates. Five years at Columbia, and I didn’t feel a bit like the smartest guy in the room last night. Or the cleanest, for that matter. Isn’t there someone you can go to? Or, we do have contingency funds. Couldn’t we just drop a thousand on them for teachers’ salaries or something?”

“To live outside the law, you must be honest,” Bailey chanted in a nasal monotone. “You young pups probably don’t remember the great Bobby Dylan, singing ‘Absolutely Sweet Marie’ at Newport in sixty-eight. Anyway, there’s a reason we’re called Special Forces, and we’re allowed to roll around this far from the flagpole with enough guns to start a new religion and rucksacks full of money. Unfortunately that’s because we carry out orders, even the hard ones. Now that we’ve been told ‘no,’ we’re pretty much screwed–at least for now.

“I’m kicking myself; none of us saw a request like this coming. So Hindquarters is right, for once…no money programmed for this purpose, no supplies in the pipeline. And no time for us to wait around for a change from on high, even if the Old Man wants to support us. Hang out too long in one place in this country and trouble will always show up.

“So here’s what we need to do. We’ll be completely up front with the shura council, admit no one anticipated or prepared for supporting education this early, tell them right now we’re limited to the supplies in the pipeline. But when we tell them the request has been forwarded to Kabul, we’ll add that you and I, as American military officers, personally commit to the elders here to return to tackle this problem with them. We’ll be clear that we’re under military orders — and in a war — so it’s not entirely in our hands, but they’ll understand. It’s that personal commitment that will be meaningful to them, not some promises about Kabul. Of course, we have to mean it.”

Seven months later the river roared bank-full with milky glacier melt beneath the wooden cantilever bridge, and a heavy scent of pine seemed to flow down from the forested hillsides above the town. Higher yet, snowfields gleamed in the June sunlight. Across the river, Bailey and Captain Maclean watched a seemingly endless line of villagers, predominantly men carrying babies or leading small children by the hand, pass into a walled courtyard, where the two medics from Captain Maclean’s team conducted a free medical clinic. Yesterday, the day the team had arrived, most of the patients had been from the town, but today many were from villages as far away as a twelve-hour walk up the valley.

Abdullah brought the attention of the two officers back to the rectangle of roughly leveled rocky ground, outlined by a low stone wall less than a meter high, immediately in front of them. One soot-blackened corner, with several half-burned logs and a pile of rusty cans, gave the place an air of neglect and desertion even in the crystal sunshine. This was, Abdullah explained, the site chosen by the shura council for the first-ever school for girls in the valley.

Immediately after the winter snows melted and the road down the valley opened in the Spring, a man had arrived from Chitral. He was from a charity and development organization, he said, an NGO, and he would help them build their school. The village elders told Abdullah they were astonished that the message to the powers in far-off Kabul actually had borne fruit. Local craftsmen and merchants eagerly agreed to contracts for materials and labor, and work commenced as the Chitrali NGO representative snapped pictures on a small digital camera. After three days, he drove off down the valley, bound for Kabul to pick up the money to pay off the contracts and buy additional supplies. He never returned, and now the half-finished foundation stood, a monument to betrayed faith and idealism, to workers unpaid and merchants without materials or means to purchase more.

“This is happening all over Afghanistan,” Abdullah explained vehemently. Bailey had never before seen the old man so angry. The long white ringlets of his beard quivered, and his hooded black eyes flashed, like a very wrathful Moses about to strike Pharaoh’s army. “Villagers hear the promises of millions of dollars in aid from the West over the BBC and VOA, so of course they believe this is a true program. But miscreants like this one come, make promises, go to Kabul with the contracts and photos of make-believe projects, sometimes letters and petitions from the local shura. They receive money from government agencies and non-governmental organizations, put it in their pockets, and disappear. True Muslims do not steal from the poor like this. These are dacoits, common criminals.

“The worst thing is not the stolen money but the stolen faith. In village after village after village, Afghans learn to doubt the government and the NGOs and the promises from the West. Colonel-sa’b, why do they just sit in Kabul and give away the money and never check what is being done with it? The wahabbis, the Arabs, the Taliban are out here; people see their faces; and when they say they will build a school, or burn one down, they do it.

“Captain-sa’b, Colonel-sa’b, the reason they greeted us in friendship when we arrived yesterday was that you two are the only government officers, Afghan or American, who have ever returned here for more than one short visit, who ever came back from far away to see what really happens to them. Even if the news about their school is bad, they respect the promise you have fulfilled.”

Abdullah ceased speaking, flushed with emotion and perhaps embarrassment about lecturing the two officers. His audience exchanged glances.

“Gloves off?” suggested Captain Maclean.

“Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of PSYWAR,” responded Bailey.

FROM: PSYCHOLOGICAL OPERATIONS STAFF/KABUL (POS/K)

SUBJECT: INDICATORS OF ARAB PRESENCE/INFLUENCE.

1. COMMUNITY ANALYSTS READ WITH INTEREST YOUR INTELLIGENCE REPORT (INTELREP 001) OF SAUDI/WAHABBI MONEY AND INFLUENCE ENTERING THE REGION FROM PAKISTAN.

2. FOLLOWING TALKING POINTS ARE PROVIDED FOR FURTHER REPORTING, IF POSSIBLE:

A) PER INTELREP, VILLAGERS TRAVELING OVER THE DAULAT PASS, DIRECTLY NORTH FROM YOUR LOCATION, REPORTED TENSE ATMOSPHERICS AND RUMORS OF ARAB PRESENCE IN THE TRADING TOWN OF CHAMICHU, PAKISTAN. OTHER ALL-SOURCE REPORTING INDICATES THE RECENT PRESENCE IN CHAMICHU OF AN EGYPTIAN AND A SOMALI. CAN YOUR SOURCES IDENTIFY ANY OF THE FOREIGNERS? WERE THERE VISIBLE BODYGUARDS OR OTHER INDICATIONS OF HIGH-VALUE TARGETS (HVTS)?

B) CAN SOURCES COMMENT ON POPULAR REACTIONS TO ARAB FUNDING OF THE MADRASSA? ARE THERE OTHER INDICATORS OF OUTSIDE INFLUENCE?

“Good cast,” said Bailey as Captain Maclean hit the “send” button with his response. “There should be a lunker looking over your bait already.”

FROM: PSYCHOLOGICAL OPERATIONS STAFF/KABUL (POS/K)

SUBJECT: PROPOSED PSYCHOLOGICAL OPERATION

1. PSYCHOLOGICAL OPERATIONS STAFF/KABUL HAS REVIEWED YOUR RESPONSE TO COMMUNITY QUERIES (INTELREP 002) AND PROPOSES THE FOLLOWING PSYCHOLOGICAL OPERATION.

2. BACKGROUND: PER REPORTING, HOSTILE INFLUENCE OPERATIONS TO DATE SEEM LIMITED TO PROMOTING MADRASSAS AND TEACHING RADICAL ISLAM, MAKING THE BATTLEFIELD THE NEXT GENERATION — FOR THE MOMENT. IF UNCHECKED, EXPERIENCE IN OTHER AREAS INDICATES THEY MIGHT ESCALATE TO CHALLENGING LOCAL LEADERS’ AND SHURA COUNCIL’S AUTHORITIES, FIRST WITH PROPAGANDA AND THEN WITH ARMED COERCION. AT THIS POINT THERE IS NO REPORTING TO DETERMINE WHETHER THE REPORTED DISSAPPEARANCE OF THE NGO WAS SIMPLE FRAUD OR THREATS AND/OR DIRECT ACTION BY HOSTILE ELEMENTS. PER YOUR INTELREP, POPULATION AND LEADERS ARE PREDICTABLY RELUCTANT TO CHALLENGE AND RESIST ESTABLISHMENT OF MADRASSAS, AS LONG AS THERE IS NO OTHER CHOICE FOR EDUCATION OF THEIR YOUTH.

3. PSYCHOLOGICAL OPERATION: POS/K THEREFORE DIRECTS ESTABLISHING, UNDER GOVERNING COUNCIL LEADERSHIP, TRADITIONAL SCHOOLS TO PROVIDE AN ALTERNATIVE TO RADICAL RELIGIOUS INSTRUCTION AND TO REINFORCE TRIBAL SHURA AUTHORITY. FUNDS NOT TO EXCEED 1.2 MILLION PAKISTANI RUPEES [USD 20,000] HAVE BEEN ALLOCATED.

4. OBJECTIVES: PRIMARY OBJECTIVE IS TO INNOCULATE THE POPULATION IN YOUR VICINITY AGAINST RADICAL INFLUENCE OPERATIONS. THIS MAY IN TURN ENHANCE REPORTING ON THE AL-QA’IDA TARGET. ADDITIONALLY, IT MAY FORCE AL-QA’IDA TO SEEK A MORE LUCRITIVE TARGET AREA, RENDERING THEM MORE VULNERABLE TO DETECTION AND NEUTRALIZATION AS THEY MOVE INTO UNFAMILIAR TERRITORY.

5. SUBMIT FIELD COMMANDER’S CONCEPT OF OPERATIONS (CONOP) AND IMPLEMENT ASAP UTILIZING CONTINGENCY FUNDS ON HAND.

In the far corner of a dim, cavernous room, a five-man band beat out a raucous tune on drums and oddly shaped stringed instruments. Urged on by laughing comrades, men in turn strutted to the center of the dance floor and performed whirling, lunging solos to the insistent tempo. Crowding all four walls were what seemed to be all the males of the town (save perhaps the mullah from the madrassa), blowing smoke toward the ceiling, cheering the dancers, throwing rupee notes onto the floor to reward particularly flamboyant performances. The small red and green notes flew like confetti as Staff Sergeant Rabin claimed the floor and threw himself into a stomping, spinning break dance.

When a brief rest for the band reduced the din, Bailey leaned back against his red wool cushion, idly scratched his ankle, and raised an insulated aluminum travel mug of sour-smelling, milky local wine to Captain Maclean, Abdullah, and the white-bearded shura spokesman. The great Emir Abdur-Rahman’s conquest may not have been as complete as he had imagined.

“Here’s to the girls of the countryside,” Colonel Bailey toasted. “May they all grow up to be doctors, none of them lawyers.” In a quiet aside to Captain Maclean, he continued, “In all the best psychological operations, everyone believes he’s the PSYOPer, and no one realizes he’s the target. I’m sure POS/K realizes that as well.”