On the Ground in Afghanistan. By Rob Neil

Pacific Wings’ August issue featured the first of two articles by Rob Neil about the DOS-INL Air Wing and its support of the Afghan Eradication Force as it tries to stem the flow of poison from Afghanistan’s poppy fields. For this second article, Rob rejoined the DOS-INL team during poppy cutting season and learned more about the difficulties faced by both air and ground units in their fight against terror’s roots.

With an almost unnatural abruptness, the desolate red landscape of the Registan Desert (more commonly known simply as the Red Desert) gives way to the broad, flat expanse of the Helmand Valley on the other side of the Helmand River. It is March—springtime in Afghanistan—and the Helmand River is swollen with life-giving water; around 40 percent of the country’s total water resources flow through the Helmand Valley, making it a green and fertile garden at this time of year. Sadly, the green land that stretches as far as the eye can see on the other side of the river is almost entirely comprised of opium poppy plantations—thousands and thousands of acres of them.

As our Dept of State Huey II helicopter approaches the edge of the Red Desert, the relaxed atmosphere in the helicopter changes. The two medics in our “SAR bird” ready their M4 automatic weapons and take positions in the helicopter’s open doors. In the starboard doorway of the gunship helicopter two hundred metres off our rear quarter, I can see the gunner manning the starboard mini-gun as he maintains a vigilant lookout. We are entering hostile territory and these highly experienced professionals are ready for whatever the day will throw at them.

Pacific Wings has returned to Afghanistan to rejoin the DOS Air Wing for the second part of the story on the fantastic work it does to support the efforts of the Afghan Eradication Force (AEF) to eradicate the opium poppy menace. We were here in September last year and have returned in poppy season to see the manual “eradication” work first-hand.

We are truly amazed at the extent of the poppy plantations; even though we know that opium poppy is the region’s major crop, it does not prepare us for what we see below us. It is obvious as we cross from the desert to the poppy plantations that it is a truly impossible demand to expect that ground eradication will make any impact at all on such a massive problem. It would require literally thousands of people and millions of dollars’ worth of equipment to even begin to make a significant dent in these plantations by manual eradication.

No-one involved in the current eradication process is under any illusions as to its overall “effectiveness”; the decision to utilise the almost completely ineffectual manual eradication methods is entirely political. Although ground eradication can be effective in smaller growing areas, when one sees the scale of the problem in the Helmand Valley first-hand, and sees the million and one problems associated with ground eradication, it is rather difficult (for an independent observer) to understand any of the motives behind such a decision.

However, there is no doubt that the US (and international) policy-makers are serious about wanting to eradicate the opium trade. There is equally little doubt that the means to do this effectively is readily available in the form of widespread spraying. The DOS Air Wing operates highly effective spray control programmes in some “impossible” terrain (against some violent and determined terrorist opposition) in Colombia and has made a substantial impact upon the cocaine trade in that country. Unfortunately, the US and the international community must tread very carefully to avoid “upsetting” the extremely delicate political situation within Afghanistan and at present, the use of spray—however environmentally harmless the spray that would be used might be—is not politically acceptable within that strife-torn country.

For the meantime, then, until common sense prevails and the necessity of introducing spray control becomes accepted, the men and women of the DOS Air Wing must daily risk their lives to protect those on the ground who likewise risk their lives each day in the seemingly futile pursuit of “poppy eradication”.

Everyone involved in the poppy-eradication programme seems to understand—or at least accept—the need to continue with the present ground eradication for the time being, because however ineffectual it might be, ground eradication is better than no control at all. It is indisputable that the drug-trade and terrorism are inextricably linked throughout the world. The fight against drugs is one in which there can be no “giving up” if the civilised world is to have any chance at all of defeating terrorism.

The residents of the Helmand Valley are among Afghanistan’s most prosperous—thanks to the income they derive from their poison poppies. However, their “prosperity” is a relative term; no Westerner would consider him or herself “prosperous” were he or she to live in the mud huts of the Helmand farmers. As meagre as it is in comparison to “wealth” by western standards, the relative wealth of these farmers is at risk from any effort to eradicate their poppies. Not surprisingly, then, the AEF is not welcomed with open arms in the Helmand.

Our pilots point out to us a cloud of dust in the distance—it is the dust kicked up by the convoy of vehicles belonging to the AEF, which our helicopters are here to protect. The AEF has almost finished its work in the fields for the day, and we are here to cover their withdrawal to their base camp. As we cross field after field of lush, green, healthy poppies, I shake my head at the seeming impossibility of scale involved. I had imagined some covert, furtive process by farmers in disguised plantations hidden away in valleys, but this is so widespread and overt—and obviously “accepted”—that I find it hard to believe what I am seeing.

As we approach the dust cloud, I see the scores of vehicles—tractors, four-wheeler motorcycles and trucks—of the AEF. They stretch for kilometres along the narrow dirt roads that border the poppy fields and irrigation canals. In addition, it is obvious that there are hundreds of locals lining the roads along which the convoy is travelling. Having been a police officer for many years, I am well aware of the possibility for such a crowd to become unruly—even without the confrontational aspect implicit in the AEF’s presence here to “destroy” these people’s livelihoods (as they see it). Our crew tells us that they have never seen such crowds before…this may be an interesting afternoon!

It is a (slightly) comforting thought that the Air Wing’s helicopters have not been fired upon (that its crews are aware of) since they first arrived in Afghanistan at the beginning of 2006. The first poppy season was without significant incident (at least as far as the Air Wing was concerned). The AEF fought off attacks in 2006 and had endured more than a few this season, but these had not been while they carried out their work in the poppy fields; the attacks had been upon their camps at night—when there were no well-armed DOS helicopters circling overhead.

At an altitude of 300 feet, we maintain a standing patrol as the AEF finishes its work and begins an orderly withdrawal. As the ground vehicles line up and assemble along one of the bigger dirt roads to our west, our patrol path takes us a mile or so east of the convoy. The pilots—all ex-military and mostly ex-special forces pilots—understand the necessity to remain unpredictable and we never follow the same path twice.

We photograph everything in sight through the helicopter’s open doors. As we roll out of a left turn and begin a turn to the right, my eyes are drawn by a bright orange flash and a puff of smoke below us. It is unmistakably a deliberate “detonation” of some kind (an RPG launch, it transpires) and as I look towards it—a mere three hundred or so feet away—I can see two men standing upright a few feet to the side of the source of the flash; the two men are pointing rifles at us. As I point out the flash to Pete (the medic) beside me, we all hear the unmistakable sound of semi-automatic rifle fire. We are so close to the gunmen that the sound of the rounds is clearly audible over the noise of our helicopter.

Even as Pete alerts the pilot that we are taking fire, he is already responding and turning sharply away to the left. We have just had an RPG round, and between 15 and 20 rounds of rifle fire directed at us, but there is no panic in the helicopter—just an immediate and highly professional response to a situation that these men have all been through many times before in different places. There is no need to fuss—everything directed at us missed—however, the measured response of the crew paints a perfect picture for me of the kind of people we are accompanying.

Both pilots immediately demand responses—first from each other and then the rest of us in turn—as to whether anyone is hurt; no one is. Neither pilot felt any hits on the helicopter, which appears and feels to them to be undamaged. They elect not to land to check it out, because amongst the hundreds of Afghans on the ground below us, we know there are at least a few who do not take kindly to our presence, so it would not be sensible to land amongst them (I was guessing the pilots had seen the movie Blackhawk Down). The decision is made—although closely monitoring the helicopter—to maintain our existing patrol and check it out further when we refuel.

We know exactly where the bad guys are, and while our crew carry weapons and the mini-gun-armed helicopter is within 20 seconds of our position, there is no question of retaliating. We are safe, none of the good guys on the ground are in danger, and we cannot afford to risk hurting innocent bystanders. We have been told before that this is the policy—the Air Wing is here to protect the AEF and not as a combat unit—but it is further indication of the degree of professionalism amongst the crew that no personal desire to “get” the guys shooting at them enters the equation. From my own experience, I can imagine the frustration the guys must feel—it is not an easy thing (personally) to have the means to retaliate, yet sit there and take it and keep smiling—but it is the professional thing to do, as these guys’ actions clearly demonstrate!

Within minutes, we receive a report that the rear elements of the AEF convoy have also taken fire—they report just three rounds but have no idea where from. No-one is hurt; until it is time to refuel, we continue patrolling as if nothing untoward has happened.

After refuelling, when a check of the helicopter reveals no damage, we return to escort the AEF back safely to their base camp before we depart for Kandahar. It has indeed been an interesting afternoon.

As we make the one-hour return flight to Kandahar, the pilots respond to a request from the base for details of the afternoon’s incident—the first since the Air Wing began operating in Afghanistan. The information will be passed to the embassy; while it has been no big deal to the crew, it is potentially an important escalation in political terms if the bad guys are now apparently prepared to “take on” the armed helicopters.

The demonstration of professionalism continues when we reach Kandahar. There is no fuss or drama, simply a thorough and emotion-free de-briefing, during which the crew is asked—among other things—to explain its decision to continue patrolling and not land to check the helicopter. After an explanation, their decision is accepted. There is an atmosphere of mutual respect amongst the Air Wing’s personnel. They are all grown-ups who have “been there, done that” in the real world.

The Wing’s safety officer, who is once again our gracious and helpful host throughout our stay, takes his job seriously and asks us if we still want to accompany the next day’s mission—back to the Helmand—when we plan to land and accompany the men on the ground; we do.

The next day dawns as fine and sunny as the last. The mission is running according to schedule and we are away nice and early. Following a roughly similar route across the empty Red Desert to the Helmand Valley, the test-firing of our crew’s weapons takes on a little more significance today.

The AEF convoy is still en route to the cut site as we arrive overhead. After contacting “John” on the ground, we land through the cloud of red dust alongside the racing column of four-wheelers and trucks. The gunship circles overhead as we disembark and make our way to the trucks.

The “road”—such as it is—is a diabolically rutted and bumpy track criss-crossed at regular intervals by muddy channels. There is still plenty of water around after recent rain and it has not yet begun to get really hot.

We drive for almost an hour along rough narrow tracks and roads, passing endless high mud-brick walls that surround every home. Our escorts—as are those in every truck in the convoy—wear body armour and carry automatic weapons; they are constantly alert for trouble with their weapons at the ready. The surroundings offer limitless hiding places and ideal opportunities for potential attackers to launch attacks from.

Nearly everyone we see carries some sort of weapon; it is difficult for us to tell the difference between residents and local police, and the first time I see it, I am startled at the sight of a robed Afghan man holding an RPG on his shoulder. He is apparently a local policeman; why on earth the police require RPGs is anyone’s guess, but then this is Afghanistan! As we drive further, we come across a battered old Toyota pickup at the roadside, another non-descript Afghani sitting in the vehicle’s rear tray, which was bristling with half a dozen RPG launchers; another local policeman, apparently.

One wonders how many such weapons litter this violent country—how many such weapons were left behind by the Russians that now reside in the hands of goodness-knows-who.

As the convoy reaches the cut site, we are assigned an armed guard to escort us into the fields. The police of the AEF, who are specially trained and equipped, are a more professional group than the local police; we are soon to learn a few uncomfortable truths about the local police.

The local people watch proceedings from the shelter of their mud-brick homes. Their expressionless faces give nothing away, but the throngs of children willing to approach our convoy seem friendly and welcoming.

As we prepare to join the cutters, a young boy approaches us and addresses us in English. “Hello,” he says. “I your friend.” It surprises us to find a youngster out here in the Helmand Valley who speaks English and we ask him where he learned it. “I learn in my school,” he replies. We ask where he goes to school. “I not go to school anymore; Taliban come to school—tell us anyone who go to school have their head cut off.” He is neither exaggerating nor joking. It is a grim reminder of the realities of life for these people. The local farmers might make more money from opium than from wheat, but an inseparable association with terrorist overseers is one of the consequences they must pay for their part in the Helmand’s narcotic economy.

It is not the only price they must pay these days. At the second property we visit, its owner watches quietly as the AEF knocks down his crop. I wonder what the man is thinking as I snap his picture. He sees me with my camera pointed at him and walks towards calmly towards us; he is unarmed, but I wonder what he will say.

Through our interpreter, the farmer introduces himself as the land’s owner. He understands that we are journalists and wants to tell us what is happening. Apparently, although he has paid the local police the equivalent of US$100 for “protection” from having his crop cut, it is being cut anyway; understandably, he is not happy.

We have only been talking to him for a few minutes, when we notice three men approaching us across the field. Two of the men are armed with AK47s; while they do not appear threatening, our escort is wary. The larger (unarmed) man is one of the local leaders. He tells us the same story as the farmer in whose field we are standing. Several other farmers whose properties have been cut today have been forced to pay protection money to local police but their crops are being cut anyway. We establish from this man that it is common practice. To refuse to pay protection money invites a beating—or worse.

In reality, the local police seldom know which properties are destined to be cut—certainly until the last minute. The properties to be cut are negotiated by “committees” of local leaders (like the man we were speaking to), and representatives of the AEF and local government. One suspects that powerful local people avoid having their crops damaged and only a few unlucky “token” properties (those of the poorer, “less important” farmers) are targeted for the sake of appearances. According to our informant, while local police may prevent some cuts, they rarely appear to make much effort to dissuade the cutters.

We get the chance to speak to the AEF’s senior US advisor on the ground—a man with a distinguished special-force background. He tells us that many of the Helmand Valley’s “farmers” are not local, but transient growers here to make a “quick buck” growing poppies—or to find wives. One gets the feeling that the Helmand Valley might be the eastern equivalent of the Wild West goldfields in the late 1800s. He confirms the substance of what the farmers have told us about the corruption. It is a real problem for the AEF, and one that the ground eradication process unavoidably invites in such a lawless land.

He tells us that a much hoped-for spray programme was in place at the start of the season and was all ready to go, but was halted at the last moment. It must have been a frustrating blow for him, but like all the other professionals we met, he simply gets on with doing the best that he can in the circumstances.

He tells us how the AEF visited farmers in the Badakhshan Province before the poppy season and ploughed farmers’ fields there. The AEF was welcomed and its goodwill paid off in reduced poppy cultivation. Although bemoaning the ineffectiveness of ground eradication in general, he admitted that it did have effects beyond the simple destruction of individual crops. In smaller poppy-growing areas, the eradication of crops has more of an impact throughout a community. Farmers who have lost a crop to eradication are less likely to devote time, effort and money to growing another poppy crop if they fear it may also be destroyed.

The policy decision to use ground eradication is made at the national level in Afghanistan and is independent of external policy. Any possible future decision to spray will likewise be made by the Afghan government. From an outsider’s perspective, having seen the situation on the ground and having spoken to locals who are enduring the real-life consequences of the political to-and-fro, it seems inevitable that if the Afghan government is serious about controlling the opium trade, it will have to introduce a comprehensive spray programme. Delaying the inevitable is not good news for the men and women from the international community who are on the ground in Afghanistan trying to restore peace and unite a broken nation. It is particularly bad news for those on the front line of the war on drugs—like the men and women of the DOS Air Wing and the AEF—for they are at the very front of the global fight against terror. It can only be hoped that effective controls (spray) can be put in place as soon as possible.

If a spray programme is put in place, it will undoubtedly be the DOS Air Wing that carries it out. An efficient and corruption-free spray programme to target the major poppy producers would soon halt the flow of opium—and thus the funding to terrorist organisations that still very much depend on it for support.

I accompanied a third Air Wing mission that further highlighted the need for a different approach. After the usual Red Desert transit, we met up with the AEF at their base camp. Their late start was not the result of inefficiency but was a political (and potentially violent) standoff with local residents angry at another day’s planned eradication. After spending two hours on the ground (long enough for us to have to fly away and refuel), the day’s cutting was called off and the kilometres-long convoy turned back to its base camp. It was the ultimate demonstration of the reality of the current ground eradication programme. Today the locals had decided they didn’t want the AEF to cut down their poppies…so they didn’t!

Between our September 2006 visit and our return to Afghanistan in March, we had the opportunity to visit the Air Wing’s management team at Patrick Air Force base in Florida. After meeting the Air Wing’s Director, Sharon Nell; the Operations Division Chief, Paul O’Sullivan; and Deputy Director Rob Carlson, it was obvious why the Air Wing’s operations are so effective and professional. The attitude that pervades the DOS team exists because those at the top understand exactly what the men and women at the coalface are doing and they have their complete support.

Having met the management team, it was interesting later to hear those on the ground in Afghanistan talking about them. While there are (and will always be) some points of difference between members of any large team, something that stood out immediately was the universal respect with which those at the top were viewed, which I found both unusual and heartening.

Unlike many managers, the DOS leaders are not afraid to get their hands dirty. When we arrived in Afghanistan, Sharon Nell was there accompanying the crews on missions to experience conditions for herself. This was no ivory-towered politician hiding behind a desk and delivering unworkable edicts. Paul O’Sullivan and Rob Carlson are both ex-military and highly respected, and the whole Air Wing team realises that neither man has accidentally stumbled into his position in the State Department.

Only weeks after we left Afghanistan, an Australian television news crew was accompanying the AEF’s ground eradication teams in the Oruzgan Province when they came under attack from a significant group of insurgents.

Our friends in the Air Wing were on hand to support the ground forces, and a fierce ground and air–ground gun battle ensued, during which several AEF members were wounded and several insurgents killed. The very helicopters in which we had flown only weeks earlier took numerous hits and were almost shot down. Thankfully, none of our good friends in the Air Wing were injured, but having seen the photos of damage to their helicopters, it was a close and very lucky thing indeed. The “honeymoon” period for the Air Wing appears to be well and truly over. Pacific Wings thoughts and best wishes will be constantly with them.