Rockets and Reckoning
Streets of Kabul
Aside from a sleepy as-salaam alaikum, sob bakhair (greetings, good morning), “Could you lower that RPG” were the first words I spoke today. We were stopped at a checkpoint on the way to the gym when dozens of Toyota pickup trucks equipped with revolving machine guns roared into the main street. Swarms of ANP alighted, rockets strapped to their backs like arrows in a quiver, and grenade launchers mounted on their shoulders. “Dostum,” said my driver, Bashir, rolling his eyes. “He’s going to pass by.” The national police began their cursory inspections through the haphazard mess of traffic, asking some passengers to get out of their vehicles for an impromptu pat down. A young officer approached my window, the aforementioned weapon poised directly at forehead level. After ceding to my request he began shouting at Bashir, a flood of angry words that began to draw the attention of those in the immediate vicinity. A small group of uniformed men and onlookers gathered around our car, all of them staring at me as the officer continued his polemic. Eventually we were allowed to pass. “What did he say?” I asked, concerned. “Well, mostly he said he didn’t like your outfit.” I looked down and laughed. I’d forgotten my abaya. I was a vision in bright pink patterned Lululemon running gear.
There was a more sinister component to his diatribe, though, a message I could only piece together from the snippets that Bashir was willing to translate. Broadly, it had to do with foreign occupation, American hubris, and the denigration of religious tradition. Today is a national holiday in Afghanistan, a celebration of the withdrawal of the Soviet combatant forces, the last of whom crossed the Friendship Bridge into Uzbekistan on this day in 1989. The withdrawal closed a bloody period in the country’s history, but it also ushered in a period of instability that gave rise to the Taliban, another foreign intervention, and the state of war that endures. What misery awaits Afghans now? How can peace be achieved? When will the madness end? Mornings like this one bring such questions to the fore.
