Looking back after heading West
Posted: Monday, November 02, 2009 4:55 PM by Daily Nightly Editor
Filed Under:
Brian Williams
Brian Williams, anchor and managing editor
Our last moments in Kabul left an indelible impression, and I'm afraid not a good one. While we were at the airport, waiting in the parking lot to be "processed," two SUV's full of American contractors arrived: all wearing visible body armor, many with thigh-mounted ankle holsters for their 9mm handguns, and still others with conspicuous automatic weapons held across their chests. They are not alone -- this kind of thing is now ubiquitous there.
There is a dynamic developing in Kabul which is reminiscent of Baghdad: Highly visible American security contractors, operating aggressively in Afghanistan. They are aggressive in traffic, they are threatening-looking in public (which they will admittedly tell you is by design, to protect their charge). Many of these firms are the same ones we all came to know in Iraq -- the security structure in Afghanistan has become a massive industry. It also works hand in glove with the deep corruption in that country: I watched as two gatekeepers at the airport were handed cash to allow admittance to the parking lots, and I watched as two passport workers were handed cash to facilitate a departure. Corruption is pervasive -- and it all can make for a rather toxic backdrop against which we now consider Afghanistan's future, and America's role in that. We were handed a whole new set of circumstances with the de facto dissolution of the election this morning, and we'll have to wait and see how (and if) that affects the security environment there.
One more thing: I transited home through Dubai. I opened a copy of GQ magazine on the plane, only to find many of the pages stuck together. After pulling several pages apart, I found that someone (I later learned it was the Government) had gone through every magazine with a heavy black liquid magic marker and blotted out any sensitive or provocative body parts. To be more blunt: if there was a nipple visible through a t-shirt, if too much of a derriere was visible, it was hidden behind a huge splotch of black ink.
I've now travelled through Dubai many times, and have spent a fair amount of time there. It's a confusing place: they advertise good times, while a conservative government and culture place limits on popular culture and discourse. As a friend who lives there points out constantly, "It is not a free society." As long as you know that going in.
As long as you don't mind knowing your magazine's been read before you opened it
--and portions of it have been turned black.
As always, it's good to be home.
We hope you can join us tonight from New York.
