At the Embassy

I had a good talk with a guy working for Blackwater last night, a talk I've been meaning to have with one of those guys for a long time. We were at the US Embassy, a massively fortified compound not too far from the institute where I'm staying. I was invited there that evening by the regional security officer (RSO) at the Embassy--a guy who makes sure that US Government personnel at the Embassy rarely, if ever, leave the Embassy. During the day, I had gone to the Embassy for a security briefing with the RSO, and afterwards he was nice enough to show me around the place and introduce me to a bunch of people.

I'd like to think, at least, that it was one of the few times I've shown up to a place and everybody was definitely not glad to see me. (American citizens aren't really encouraged to be in Afghanistan right now.) But in a funny twist, the folks at the Embassy told me that they are aware there are many NGOs working here, and they really support NGO work being done in Afghanistan because it helps with the whole hearts-and-minds aspect. Anyway, as I left the Embassy, the RSO invited me to a marine's birthday party that night.

I showed up at the Embassy around 8, just as the party was getting going. I usually hate arriving early to parties, or to anything for that matter, but that's when my ride could drop me off and I wasn't about to walk to the Embassy at night from the institute. I walked into the Marine House after going through about five bunkered checkpoints all along the street outside and at the gates of the Embassy itself. I found a half-empty room of people, some of whom I'd met that day--foreign service officers, marines, and a few private security contractors. I started talking to a foreign service officer I'd met earlier, and he introduced me to one of the contractors, this guy working for Blackwater. He says, "This is Matt, he works for an NGO--one of the good ones." I thought to myself, what's a bad one?

While I've got some mixed feelings about our government outsourcing something like military security to a private company, I do think that guys like this are pretty important here, especially at a time when our administration has stretched our usual US Military personnel around the globe to such a drastic degree. We related at first about the Pacific Northwest (he's from north of Seattle), and then inevitably microbrews, and then our mutual love for the India Pale Ale. After establishing this unshakable connection, I decided to ask him about his job. (And by the way, the following is a pretty rough approximation of what was said.)

"So, what's the management structure like for your group?"
"What do you mean?"
"Like, do you have a manager here from Blackwater that evaluates or supervises you?"
"We work for the State Department, but mostly we work for ourselves. We're basically our own individual businesses, subcontracting our skills to the US Government. If they consider me an asset, they offer to keep me on."
"Does the State Department provide you with gear and weapons?"
"They offer some things, but I like to bring my own, it's better."
"Were you a marine before you joined?"
"No, I was in the navy for a couple years, then a cop for twelve years."
"So how long have you worked for Blackwater?"
"I've been here for three contracts...so, three years."
"What brings you back each year?"
(He rubs his fingers together in the international sign for, It pays a lot of money.)
"I don't love this country," he says, in a short, flat way. "I don't even agree with what's going on here."
"Um, what part don't you agree with?"
"Um, have you got two hours?"

He then went on (not for two hours, mercifully) to talk about how he felt it is impossible for the US to export Jeffersonian democracy. How it is impossible for any other country to replicate the developmental experience we as a nation, as a people have had over almost four centuries. The people here, he said, have no frame of reference for what we are trying to establish for/with them. What we can do, he basically said, is good works in the meantime, and who knows what'll happen in the long term. At the end of the day, obviously, this was just one man's opinion.

I agree with him on the first part, though I think I'm more optimistic about the long term, as long as a wide range of nations as well as the US (the governments and their people) are committed to helping over the long term. Whether militarily or not, that commitment has to be there for this to work out. And in the meantime, he's right that there is a lot of great work being done by the international community, together with Afghans at all levels. But I feel like I'm more certain that this work that can lead to a more stable and thriving Afghan society.