Jonathan S. Addleton - The Dust of Kandahar: A Diplomat Among Warriors in Afghanistan

Most of the media interest in Americas longest war was focused on military operations. But some of the most important work in Afghanistan was done quietly behind the scenes by civilians striving to create a functioning nation that could withstand Taliban assaults. Jonathan Addleton was one of those civilians on the front lines. His journals provide an intimate, important and illuminating window into the challenges of nation building, the cost of war and the experience of civilians in the midst of military conflict.

Max Boot, Jeanne J. Kirkpatrick Senior Fellow in National Security Studies, Council on Foreign Relations, author of Invisible Armies and The Savage Wars of Peace

A profound work of intense humanity... no civilian has written an account like this of their experience in the Afghan war... a significant contribution to the growing literature of Americas involvement in Afghanistan... very compelling.

Carter Malkasian, former senior advisor, ISAF commander in Afghanistan and author of War Comes to Garmser

Jonathan Addleton writes with precision and gentle, understated emotion about Afghanistans endless torment. His memoir is an important, eloquent extension of the brave service he performed for the State Department and his country.

Thomas Mallon, critic, essayist, novelist, and author of Finale, Henry and Clara, and A Book of Ones Own

Throughout his distinguished career, Ambassador Jonathan Addleton has been an exemplar of what American public service is all aboutand of the promise of American leadership. Addletons stirring account is as close as any reader can get to diplomacys frontline in the twenty-first century.

Ambassador Bill Burns, former deputy secretary of state, and president, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

As the senior embassy representative in southern Afghanistan, Jonathan Addleton experienced a unique side of the conflict, involving travel to remote places and personal contact with Afghans of many different views. His deeply personal reflections capture the human drama of the war and provide an account of experiences in the field not available elsewhere.

Ambassador James B. Cunningham, former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan; senior fellow, Atlantic Council

ALSO BY JONATHAN S. ADDLETON

Undermining the Center: The Gulf Migration and Pakistan

(Oxford University Press, 1992)

Some Far and Distant Place

(University of Georgia Press, 1997)

Mongolia and the United States: A Diplomatic History

(Hong Kong University Press, 2013)

This book was brought to publication with the generous assistance of Marguerite and Gerry Lenfest.

Naval Institute Press

291 Wood Road

Annapolis, MD 21402

2016 by Jonathon S. Addleton

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Addleton, Jonathan S. (Jonathan Stuart), 1957 author.

Title: The dust of Kandahar: a diplomat among warriors in Afghanistan / Jonathan S. Addleton.

Other titles: Diplomat among warriors in southern Afghanistan

Description: Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, [2016] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016030991 | ISBN 9781682470800 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Addleton, Jonathan S.Diaries. | Afghan War, 2001Personal narratives, American. | DiplomatsUnited StatesBiography. | USAID/Afghanistan. | United States. Army. Infantry Division, 3rd. | Afghan War, 2001CampaignsAfghanistanKandahar. | Kandahar (Afghanistan)Politics and government.

Classification: LCC DS371.413 .A38 2016 | DDC 958.104/72092 [B]dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016030991

Print editions meet the requirements of ANSI/NISO z39.48-1992

(Permanence of Paper).

24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

First printing

All photos are part of the authors collection.

Table of Contents

CONTENTS

Map 1. Afghanistan

Map 2. Southern Afghanistan

A t the age of fifty-five I went to war. I did not wear a uniform or carry a gun, but I worked alongside those who did. Sometimes I travelled outside the wire, on occasion walking through potential kill zones in some of the most violent parts of Afghanistan. On one cruel day in early April, in what should have been the start of spring, I was part of a small group attacked by a suicide bomber in Zabul; a fellow diplomat, my Afghan American translator, and three of the American soldiers who were accompanying us were killed.

Our work focused on Kandahar and the districts that surrounded it. It included Maiwand, Zaray, and the Horn of Panjwai, straddling grape orchards and pomegranate fields, as well as the main highway west to Herat. It was a place where dozens of American and Canadian soldiers as well as hundreds of Taliban lost their lives. Other provinces in this region included Uruzgan, where the Australians spilled their blood and treasure, and Zabul, guarded in places by Romanian troops who controlled Highway One north to Kabul.

Spin Boldak to the southeast bordered Pakistan. A central point in the heroin smuggling network, it was a busy, vibrant, and violent town that also marked the main trade route to Quetta, and then to Karachi on the Arabian Sea. Most of the long border between Afghanistan and Pakistan was open and easily crossed, punctuated at almost every point by small valleys, narrow ravines, and high mountains. It was through these mountains that the insurgency organized multiple rat lines, bringing in explosives, young recruits, and supplies from Pakistan.

We often rode in Black Hawk helicopters. The female waist gunner on one flight from Kandahar to Spin Boldak was young and small, almost as young and small as my daughter who had just started her final year of high school. From time to time we travelled by convoy, protected by the heavy metal of a dust-colored MRAP vehicle. Each time I boarded an MRAP the thought briefly crossed my mind that this vehicle might well become my tomb.

On other occasions we walked to our appointments, donning helmets and protective armor to meet Afghan officials, visit schools, and inspect irrigation works. American soldiers from the Third Infantry Division out of Fort Stewart, Georgia, provided security. Again, it was the youth of those around us that was so striking. Lieutenant Brad Cohn directed my security on several trips to Kandahar. He had only recently graduated from West Point and had actively sought combat experience in Afghanistan.