Afghanistan: The Other War (Page 5)

Can the Europeans do any better than the US forces? Attempting to find out, I fly to a Lithuanian base called a PRT, for Provincial Reconstruction Team. These small military bases aim to mix peacekeeping and reconnaissance with development work and political support for fledgling local government institutions like the police and the provincial governor's offices.

I board a huge Dutch-operated C-130 transport plane and fly from Kabul over the rocky snowbound peaks of the central highlands to a rolling plateau in the middle of the country. Strapped into the flip-down seats along the sides of the plane's dark cargo bay is a motley assortment of bearded European soldiers, clean-cut American GIs, private contractors and mysterious armed men in civilian clothes. Landing at Chagcharan, Ghor Province, is like stepping out onto the moon: Not a tree or bush can be seen for miles.

The largest, poorest, least-populated province in Afghanistan, Ghor is a frozen, muddy desert inaccessible by road for much of the winter. Isolation sends local prices soaring and leaves Ghor's population in permanent debt to merchants and landlords. A thousand years ago this place was heavily forested, but its hills also held mineral deposits, so Ghor's trees were felled and burned to smelt the ore. Then the denuded region became the heart of Afghanistan's medieval cattle industry. Now Ghor is so stripped down that the only fuel available to most people are small bushes gathered during the summer from faraway hills. At an altitude of 9,000 feet, even the air is thin.

The Lithuanian-run PRT also includes a small Danish contingent. I am assigned to one of their squads, called a Mobile Liaison and Observation Team, or MLOT. These teams of six soldiers riding in two SUVs are the PRT's main means of operation. Their job is similar to that of the American squad I had been embedded with on the Shomali Plain. The MLOTs here comb their terrain of operations, driving for up to a week at a time, patrolling from village to village, gathering information, mapping the region's strengths and weaknesses, building links to the local population and letting people know that the foreign supporters of the central government are out and about with their guns, grenade launchers and who knows what else.

The information collected by the MLOTs is all digested by the PRT's intelligence and civil affairs sections and plotted on large maps and computer spreadsheets. "This will create institutional memory!" says a huge, enthusiastic Lithuanian civil affairs officer named Aleksiejus Gaizevsis. His databases track the whole province's vast array of needs, and he correlates all this on the wall-mounted maps. In the intelligence tent the walls contain a tree graph of the local power structure, illustrated with snapshots of Ghor's warlords. If violence flares, this information will help guide the military response. The accumulated knowledge is also supposed to help coordinate the efforts of NGOs and help avoid redundant efforts. But there are hardly any NGOs here.

One of the most difficult parts of the mission is collaborating with local authorities. The Danish intelligence chief describes the police commander as "the biggest crook out here." The governor, on the other hand, is seen as honest but weak.

The next morning, we set out across the empty hills in the SUVs of the Danish MLOT. A year ago two local warlords fought a pitched battle in Chagcharan, but the area has been quiet since then. The Danes are out to do a village survey and distribute some newspapers.

Unlike the American patrol, with its sloppy, halfhearted, ultimately divisive handouts, the Danes and Lithuanians limit their aid work to a few well-thought-out emergency-response projects: heat for an orphanage, shoes for the children of a displaced persons' camp, a few other things.

The European troops work hard to build bridges to the locals, growing beards, taking off their boots for indoor meetings, learning some Dari. And their sympathy seems genuine.

"I understand why everyone is armed," says Capt. Bo Jepsen while we wait for one of his vehicles to be towed out of the mud. "There is no law and order out here. They have to protect themselves."

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