Back in Australia

Its funny how time can fly when your back in the place your life revolves around. But here I am back home in Melbourne. Its funny Bruce our erstwhile Afghan colleague has been on 3AW - Mitchell's program no less giving his thoughts about his time there. People really can't believe that we had a pretty nice and ordinary time. Although I read that 2 Germans were killed on the road to Bamiyan on Sunday - very sad news - although camping out in the middle of nowhere is not a good idea is most of Central Asia I dare say...

On the way out of Kabul we had an interesting run-in with a South African ex-military man, one of J's drinking buddies. He is working in Aghanistan for one of the many private security firms that seem to be popping up in Iraq, Afghanistan and other places where the US operates. His main task is poppy eradication. Last year he and his team burnt about 2700 hectares of opium. Which in his estimation is "f*ck all". This does accord with the figures that show that the 2006 Afghan opium crop is the largest of all time. And the eradication business seems like a hard task. His team sometimes spend weeks scoping out valleys, doing air and land reconnaisence before moving in to "neutralize" the farmers and burn their crops. And obviously the farmers or local militia who are set to lose from the burning of these crops are not too happy about the arrival of our ex-military friend. Though his comment that he has "..never been paid more money to kill less people.." could mean that he gets paid a lot or that he doesn't kill many opium growers and traffickers. But I do understand that private secuirty firms pay a fair bit. Pretty hard to imagine anyone doing that kind of work for peanuts. Especially when in one case they had spent two weeks scoping out one particularly valley in Southern Afghanistan and had choppers ready and were about to move in when there US bosses insisted they "stand down". Evidently the valley belonged to the Karzai family.

When our South African friend met us at the airport he insisted that we bribe the Afghan airport security so we could sit in the VIP area. So 20 euros later and our passports stamped we made our way to the VIP lounge - which was a few plastic chairs outside the terminal in the garden. A little spartan but very comfortable in the afternoon sun. As we sat there many a heavy set Marine or a 4wd full of seemingly connected Afghans shuffled past. In the garden we sat amongst military people and diplomats. When our plane arrived 2 hours after scheduled departure we tried to make our way through to the plan. Two boys made it through but Jez and I were stopped for not carrying a Diplomatic passport in the VIP lounge. As was our South African friend. He kicked up an almighty fuss but the guard stood firm (and wouldn't take a further bribe much to our mans chagrin). So we were made to go back through the main terminal. 3 x-ray machines and 5 secuirty checks later we were the last 3 people on the plane. I thought for a moment I might have been stuck in Kabul. But alas it was not to be.