Occasionally, You Win One

Bohdan, my Ukrainian sugar beet supervisor, called me to give an update on the various plantations scattered hither and yon about the planet. He should have been safely ensconced in Kiev, but this call was from Kandahar, something that gave me a jolt. Bohdan is brilliant at sugar beet nurture and growth, but AK 47's and I.E.D.'s are way beyond his remit. He replied that one must go where the sugar beet goes, as in the Frankie Laine song.

"Rubbish," I replied. "And the song was about wild geese, not sugar beets."

"Well, it sort of rhymes --"

"Stop it. Now what has happened?"

It turns out that the sugar beet project was doing extremely well. It is located outside the village of Deh-e-Bagh, south of Kandahar in the Dand district of Afghanistan. It got (pardon the term) its seed funding from Canada and Germany. Mind you, this took a bit of backing and filling. Originally CIDA, the Canadian international aid group, wanted to encourage Afghans to grow ginseng. When I got wind of this through Code Barry (see missives, passim) I used my not inconsiderable influence to bring this insane idea to an abrupt halt. Ginseng is difficult to tend and grow in the best of circumstances, to say nothing of the fact that the minute it is planted, it begins to kill itself. Sort of a mantra for CIDA, but I digress.

Long story short, after a quick conversation with the PM, the good Stephen Harper snarled down the blower, and soon CIDA officials were purchasing sugar beet seedlings like mad (I actually marked down the price somewhat -- we must all do our bit).

The Afghans who would be doing the actual planting and tending needed, and deserved, good wages. To underwrite these, I turned to Angela Merkel, who had really appreciated my help in getting the gas flowing again after that silly tiff between Yuliya Tymoshenko and Vladimir Putin. (And no, the woman still trots about wearing that braid.) I explained the situation to Angela, as well as reminding her that the German soldiers posted in the calm north of the country weren't actually doing much more than lazing about. She said I exaggerated, but was not averse to making a further contribution. So good wages came about.

As the project, approved and sanctioned by the village elders, began to grow, it naturally came to the attention of the Taliban. Horrified that a village was succeeding on its own, was enjoying the experience, and was actually creating wealth, they launched a suicide attack and an ambush. What is remarkable is that the Afghan National Army repelled the attack all on its own, wiping out several insurgents at the cost of one Afghan soldier who died, not in battle, but in a rifle mis-fire.

Bohdan, along with the Canadian commander stationed in the area, witnessed the whole thing.

After the attack, the villagers swelled with pride. This they had done by themselves, and it is this sort of thing that gives hope to the whole enterprise.

Nevertheless, I ordered Bohdan to get his ass back to Kiev as quickly as possible. Winning one small battle doesn't win the war, and the village would now be seen by the Taliban as a much greater threat than anything American marines could pose. I hope the Powers That Be see this as well.

A final comment. It is a truism that if Afghanistan is to succeed as a state, it is the Afghans themselves that will bring it about. In every state, in every nation, it has always been thus.

You go for it, Iran!