The Highway to Hell

March 1, 2017 chrisdsgreen Leave a comment

Sarah Sands, reporting for the Evening Standard reveals that Department for International Development (DfID) staff in Afghanistan are too fearful to travel by road. It’s a cruel irony since ‘Freedom of Movement’ was once a core tenet of DfID’s nation building strategy in Helmand and billions of dollars of international aid was invested in road building.

‘The Kandahar–Herat highway forms part of Highway One, which itself is part of the southern section of a 2,200km ring road inside Afghanistan connecting the cities of Mazari Sharif, Kabul, Ghazni, Kandahar, Farah, and Herat.

Originally constructed by the Soviets in the 1960s, hundreds of millions of dollars of international aid, mostly from the US, Saudi Arabia and Japan, have been invested in its reconstruction following ISAF intervention in the country. In 2005, then US ambassador to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad called the highway a ‘symbol of Afghan renewal and progress’. But in some quarters it is also known as the Highway to Hell.

Anyone wishing to travel the highway must pay illegal tolls, not only at the many ANA and AUP checkpoints along its route, but also to armed gangs and brigands, some of whom claim to be Taliban, who control its more remote stretches.

Kidnappings and killings of those unable or unwilling to pay are common, as are attacks on both military and civilian ISAF convoys that use the route. The road is heavily cratered in places and littered with burned out trucks, further hazards for the unwary traveller. In addition to logistics convoys, locals working with the government, aid agencies, and those connected to Westerners are also frequently targeted and killed.

Travelling at night is not recommended. Some sections of the highway have solar powered street lighting installed, but the photovoltaic panels have been stolen long ago. Lone headlights attract the attention of local bandits. Approaching one of the many ANA checkpoints after dark is likely to attract automatic gunfire from nervous soldiers who, with good reason, fear suicide bombers.’

SPIN ZHIRA: Old Man in Helmand. A true story of love, service and incompetence. Guaranteed to make you laugh and cry or your money back (but check the smallprint first).

‘Brims with authenticity and dark humour.’
Patrick Hennessey, bestselling author of The Junior Officers’ Reading Club

‘First class’
Doug Beattie, bestselling author of An Ordinary Soldier

‘A must read.’
Richard Dorney, bestselling author of The Killing Zone

‘The best book by a soldier concerning the Afghan War that I have read’
Frank Ledwidge, bestselling author of Losing Small Wars

‘Five stars’
SOLDIER The official magazine of the British Army

Ten reasons to read SPIN ZHIRA.

What others are saying about SPIN ZHIRA.

Spin Zhira

Nation Building doesn’t work

February 28, 2017 chrisdsgreen 4 Comments

11 Police Officers have been killed at a checkpoint in Lashka Ghar, the capital city of Helmand Province and the former citadel of Task Force Helmand.

Visited by Prime Minister David Cameron in 2012 it was once the epicentre of Britain’s £15m/day nation building mission to Afghanistan. It is a sad marker of failure that Lashka Ghar has been under siege since the summer of 2016 and would have fallen to the Taliban in October were it not for US military intervention.

Meanwhile, Sarah Sands, reporting for the Evening Standard reveals that Priti Patel the Secretary of State for International Development continues to describe the British mission in Afghanistan as ‘Nation Building’.

In January Prime Minister Theresa May told US Republicans the UK and America cannot return to “failed” military interventions “to remake the world in our own image”. She is, of course, correct. Two disastrous counter-insurgency interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan are clear evidence that nation building in our own image doesn’t work, but it seems the doctrine still stubbornly persists.

When will the Prime Minister communicate her message to the Department for International Development?

SPIN ZHIRA: Old Man in Helmand. A true story of love, service and incompetence. Guaranteed to make you laugh and cry or your money back (but check the smallprint first).

‘Brims with authenticity and dark humour.’
Patrick Hennessey, bestselling author of The Junior Officers’ Reading Club

‘First class’
Doug Beattie, bestselling author of An Ordinary Soldier

‘A must read.’
Richard Dorney, bestselling author of The Killing Zone

‘The best book by a soldier concerning the Afghan War that I have read’
Frank Ledwidge, bestselling author of Losing Small Wars

‘Five stars’
SOLDIER The official magazine of the British Army

Ten reasons to read SPIN ZHIRA.

What others are saying about SPIN ZHIRA.

Spin Zhira

On Love and War

February 24, 2017 chrisdsgreen Leave a comment

Lieutenant General Patrick Sanders CBE DSO is the British Army’s ‘LGBT Champion and straight ally’.

In a message to the Army LGBT Forum he talks of soldiers’ love for one another: ‘I have found that soldiers inspire and give profound love and loyalty to each other. I still feel deep love for the soldiers and officers I have been lucky enough to serve with.’

I couldn’t agree more. I witnessed this love firsthand every day in Afghanistan. Of course, hard bitten combat troops don’t like to speak of love or admit to feelings of fondness, devotion, tenderness or affection for their comrades in arms. It doesn’t seem appropriate somehow when your business is defined by effects terms such as destroy, degrade, deny and disrupt.

This is perhaps why General Sanders declares: ‘Search for the word “love” in a book of military quotations, and you will come up empty handed.’ But on this point I disagree. Warrior poets of the first world war frequently wrote of their love for their fellow man. So too did Alexander the Great and Napoleon. Field Marshal Montgomery preferred the term comradeship declaring it ‘makes a man feel warm and courageous when all his instincts tend to make him cold and afraid’, but it sounds a lot like love to me.

Somewhere along the way love has become unfashionable in war, just as it has in business. Search for the word love in a book of business quotations and you really will come up empty handed.

It’s odd because, at our core, love is what drives us all.

Isn’t it?

SPIN ZHIRA: Old Man in Helmand. A true story of love, service and incompetence. Guaranteed to make you laugh and cry or your money back (but check the smallprint first).

‘Brims with authenticity and dark humour.’
Patrick Hennessey, bestselling author of The Junior Officers’ Reading Club

‘First class’
Doug Beattie, bestselling author of An Ordinary Soldier

‘A must read.’
Richard Dorney, bestselling author of The Killing Zone

‘The best book by a soldier concerning the Afghan War that I have read’
Frank Ledwidge, bestselling author of Losing Small Wars

‘Five stars’
SOLDIER The official magazine of the British Army

Ten reasons to read SPIN ZHIRA.

What others are saying about SPIN ZHIRA.

Spin Zhira

Ronald Fiddler: Suicide Bomber

February 23, 2017 chrisdsgreen Leave a comment

Ronald Fiddler, a British born former Guantanamo Bay detainee and IS fighter has died in a suicide bomb attack on Iraqi forces in Mosul.

Like all inmates at Guantanamo, Fiddler was detained without trial and routinely tortured over a two year period. Following his release in 2004, it is alleged that he was paid £1 million compensation by the British Government. He was never charged with any offence.

The general consensus of social media opinion is that Fiddler must have been guilty after all and should not have been released or compensated. But I’m not so sure.

There is no evidence that Fiddler was a terrorist prior to his rendition and torture. Somewhat ironically, US Forces originally released him from a Taliban prison in Kandahar in 2002. However, days later he was rearrested as the Red Cross were preparing to repatriate him back to the UK. His reasons for travel in the region were deemed ‘implausible’.

However implausible his reasons for travel it seems entirely plausible to me that Fiddler was radicalised by his less than perfect experiences of freedom and democracy.

‘Brims with authenticity and dark humour.’
Patrick Hennessey, bestselling author of The Junior Officers’ Reading Club

‘First class’
Doug Beattie, bestselling author of An Ordinary Soldier

‘A must read.’
Richard Dorney, bestselling author of The Killing Zone

‘The best book by a soldier concerning the Afghan War that I have read’
Frank Ledwidge, bestselling author of Losing Small Wars

‘Five stars’
SOLDIER The official magazine of the British Army

Ten reasons to read SPIN ZHIRA.

What others are saying about SPIN ZHIRA.

Spin Zhira

Daily Star: Jihadi terrorists could bomb ski resort

February 21, 2017 chrisdsgreen Leave a comment

Here in the Trois Vallees we are all quaking in our ski boots after Patrick Williams, reporting for the Daily Star, exclusively revealed yesterday that “jihadis are targeting ski resorts“.

Security Expert Will Geddes of International Corporate Protection caused further alarm by declaring that “there is a real risk of a terror attack being a double threat with avalanches.” Apparently it’s a very complicated situation.

Iain Toff helpfully pointed out on social media: “Who on earth would go to France?”

Good point Iain, although to be honest the weather is rather lovely at present.

In the climate of fear that now pervades the slopes, The Star reports that the popular 360 Bar in Val Thorens has begun searching skiers backpacks for ‘weapons and devices’ before admitting entrance.

It is all in stark and terrifying contrast to previous seasons when they were only searching for supermarket booze their more cheapskate patrons were trying to smuggle onto the premises.

SPIN ZHIRA: Old Man in Helmand. A true story of love, service and incompetence. Guaranteed to make you laugh and cry or your money back (but check the smallprint first).

‘Brims with authenticity and dark humour.’
Patrick Hennessey, bestselling author of The Junior Officers’ Reading Club

‘First class’
Doug Beattie, bestselling author of An Ordinary Soldier

‘A must read.’
Richard Dorney, bestselling author of The Killing Zone

‘The best book by a soldier concerning the Afghan War that I have read’
Frank Ledwidge, bestselling author of Losing Small Wars

‘Five stars’
SOLDIER The official magazine of the British Army

Ten reasons to read SPIN ZHIRA.

What others are saying about SPIN ZHIRA.

Spin Zhira

A true story of love, service and incompetence.

February 17, 2017 chrisdsgreen Leave a comment

When I set out to write Spin Zhira my benchmarks were An Ordinary Soldier by Doug Beattie MC, The Junior Officers’ Reading Club by Patrick Hennessey, Losing Small Wars by Frank Ledwidge and The Killing Zone by Richard Dorney.

I read many books as I prepared for deployment to Afghanistan, but these four stood head and shoulders above the rest.

Consequently, I’m enormously proud that the authors have so positively reviewed my attempts to emulate them.

Here’s what they said:

‘Brims with authenticity and dark humour.’

Patrick Hennessey, The Junior Officers’ Reading Club

‘The best book by a soldier concerning the Afghan War that I have read.’

Frank Ledwidge, Losing Small Wars

‘A must read.’

Richard Dorney, The Killing Zone

‘First Class.’

Doug Beattie, An Ordinary Soldier

Follow the link to read the full reviews.

SPIN ZHIRA: Old Man in Helmand.

A true story of love, service and incompetence.

Chris Green had it all.

But when Chris became disillusioned with this seemingly perfect existence he didn’t:

Instead he went to fight the increasingly unpopular war on terror in Afghanistan.

In the process of discovering himself he unwittingly discovers that the courage and heroism of the soldiers he fights alongside are confounded by incompetence and corruption, not to mention “an industrial strength counterterrorism killing machine”.

It’s a world where the dipsomaniac governor is in the pay of the illicit opium trade, the Chief of Police is a pederast and all round bad guy and the locals still haven’t forgiven the British for the occupation of 1842, or for the Russian Invasion of 1979. All infidels look the same so you can’t really tell them apart.

Missing his two young sons, unable to influence policy and just a phone-call away from a brawl he can only lose with the elite SAS, Chris dreams of epic powder days in the High Alps a world away from Afghanistan. But before he can return home to a hero’s welcome – and his wife’s divorce lawyers – he must first complete one last mission to Zumbalay, the Taliban Heart of Darkness and an unlikely reunion with an old man in Helmand.

Spin Zhira is a rare insight into the male mid-life crisis. What every woman needs to know and why every man should be careful what he wishes for.

Ten reasons to read Spin Zhira.

Spin Zhira

NOT BEFORE TIME

February 13, 2017 chrisdsgreen 1 Comment

Sir Michael Fallon has announced that the Iraq Historic Allegations Team (IHAT) will be wound down over the summer. Sir Michael rightly observes “This will be a relief for our soldiers who have had allegations hanging over them for too long.”

However, he fails to point out that IHAT, which cost the taxpayer £34 million without a single successful prosecution, was funded by his own department, the Ministry of Defence.

Sir Michael could have and should have closed down the Allegations Team much sooner but lacked the necessary courage, determination and leadership. Qualities he demands from his Armed Forces every single day.

SPIN ZHIRA: Old Man in Helmand is the unauthorised, unvarnished and irreverent story of one man’s midlife crisis on the front line of the most dangerous district in Afghanistan where the locals haven’t forgiven the British for the occupation of 1842 or for the Russian Invasion of 1979. Of course, all infidels look the same so you can’t really tell them apart.

‘The best book by a soldier concerning the Afghan War that I have read’
Frank Ledwidge, bestselling author of Losing Small Wars and Investment in Blood

‘SPIN ZHIRA vividly conveys the disjointed essence of modern warfare and the impossibility of balancing the adrenaline of combat with ‘normal’ life. This book brims with authenticity and dark humour.’
Patrick Hennessey, bestselling author of The Junior Officers’ Reading Club and Kandak

‘If you want to read about political and military success in Afghanistan, this book isn’t for you. If you want a fresh perspective from someone who is not a career officer and who is brave enough to bare his soul, then SPIN ZHIRA is a must read.’
Lt Col Richard Dorney, bestselling author of The Killing Zoneand An Active Service

‘Five stars’
SOLDIER The official magazine of the British Army

‘A journey of love, service and adventure. Excellent.’
Amazon Customer

Ten reasons why you should read SPIN ZHIRA.

Spin Zhira

Sir Michael Fallon is not off the hook for Iraq abuse enquiry.

February 2, 2017 chrisdsgreen Leave a comment

The BBC reports that Iraq lawyer Phil Shiner has been struck off and ordered to pay interim costs of £250,000 by a tribunal. Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon told the BBC he was ‘delighted’ Shiner had been ‘exposed’, adding ‘the decent thing for him to do now would be to apologise’.

Let’s just remember that this is the same Defence Secretary whose department funds the Iraq Historic Abuse Team and who has, rightly, been accused by Johnny Mercer MP of a terrible betrayal of our servicemen and women.

Phil Shiner is a greedy, unscrupulous wanker who deserves what he gets but Sir Michael should not think for one moment that he is off the hook for his part in this scandal. Instead of showing some leadership and shutting down IHAT he extended its remit to include investigation into alleged abuse in Afghanistan. The decent thing for Sir Michael to do now would be to apologise for the untold misery and suffering his department has funded.

SPIN ZHIRA: Old Man in Helmand is a unique account of the Afghan war as seen through the eyes of a middle-aged man thrust onto the frontline by a failed marriage, financial ruin and the words of John Stuart Mill (1806–1873). A true story of love, service and adventure, it is a compelling examination of choice that explores the landscape of war and commitment to cause and honour, juxtaposed against heartbreaking love for family and the persistent call of the untracked snowfield and its descent into the unknown.

‘The best book by a soldier concerning the Afghan War that I have read’
Frank Ledwidge, bestselling author of Losing Small Wars and Investment in Blood

‘Five stars’
SOLDIER The official magazine of the British Army

Ten reasons why you should read SPIN ZHIRA.

Spin Zhira

Scores of Military Dogs Put Down

January 31, 2017 chrisdsgreen Leave a comment

The Daily Mail, my ex-father-in-law’s favourite newspaper, reports that ‘scores of war hero dogs have been put down because they are old and worn out’.

I can only hope that Soya, the military working dog who accompanied No.2 Company into Zumbalay and who succumbed to PTSD was spared this fate:

The day after Davo’s death I found myself bedding down in a squalid outbuilding with a military dog handler and his charge, Soya, a beautiful fox red Labrador. Somehow, Soya’s master had become separated from his kit and had no rations either for himself or his dog. We divided one of my own meagre ration packs between us and, with stomachs still rumbling, chatted quietly long into the night. After the events of the previous day only Soya, it seemed, could find solace in sleep, periodically farting heinously into the already foetid night air.

The following day all three of us were tasked to accompany a patrol to a nearby compound of interest. From the moment we stepped off we came under the unwelcome scrutiny of the Taliban. As the thermometer rose, so too did the intensity of the gun battle between us. Finally we were pinned down by a long range DShKM heavy machine gun.

The Dushka, or ‘Lover’ as it’s affectionately known in Russian, has a fairly low rate of fire but each round can punch a hole in all but the very thickest of armour. The human body could not survive being struck by such a round and our foot patrol had nothing to match either the range or the lethality of the big gun. The Talib team manning the Lover knew this and made no attempt to conceal their location as they rained fire down upon us.

It was time to call in the Fast Movers.

As we hunkered down behind a compound wall our Joint Tactical Air Controller (JTAC) talked two American F16 pilots onto the enemy position. Moments later they appeared, as if from nowhere, seemingly skimming across the ground in a heat haze of their own making, before rolling up their target.

The Lover was silenced.

As the F16s screamed overhead, firing chaff countermeasures, something snapped in poor Soya’s eager doggy brain. Unable to distinguish between friendly or hostile fire, it became all too much for him, and he howled plaintively before collapsing at his master’s feet, shaking fearfully.

Soya was never quite the same again after that patrol. Whenever things kicked off, which was often, the sound of gunfire would reduce him to a quivering wreck. No longer able to perform his duties as a counter‑IED dog, he would spend his days hanging around the command post. Even when rations were running low he was never short of scraps or love, willingly provided by the men who worked there manning the radios 24 hours a day.

The hapless dog was as much a part of our close‑knit team as anyone else and it was agonising for all of us to see his distress. None more so than his handler who was clearly heartbroken.

‘The best book by a soldier concerning the Afghan War that I have read’
Frank Ledwidge, bestselling author of Losing Small Wars and Investment in Blood

‘Five stars’
SOLDIER The official magazine of the British Army

Ten reasons why you should read SPIN ZHIRA.

Spin Zhira

Fake News or First to the Truth?

January 28, 2017 chrisdsgreen Leave a comment

Fake News is taking the world by storm. President Donald Trump uses the term to denounce unfavourable news, such as the size of the crowd at his inauguration, while President Vladimir Putin, allegedly, used it to influence the outcome of the US election.

In Afghanistan we prefered to use the term First to the Truth, but it amounted to the same thing:

As with all major incidents the J9 Cell was responsible for communicating the ISAF version of events to the local population. I was required to produce a statement which confirmed that an ISAF soldier had been killed and provide a sanitised outline of the events leading up to Michael’s death. Once approved this would be translated into Pashtu and transmitted across the district in regular news bulletins via the MOB Price RIAB, radio‑in‑a‑box.

Great importance was placed on the speed of reporting in order to be the first to fill the information vacuum following an incident. This was referred to as being first to the truth, FTTT, or in the lexicon of the phonetic alphabet Foxtrot Triple Tango.

It wasn’t always entirely clear to me which was the priority, being truthful or being first.

In the relentless quest for good news and the blind insistence that everything was going swimmingly well, even when this was quite obviously not the case, it seemed to me that the truth was not always the overriding consideration.

As long ago as 1758 Samuel Johnson observed: ‘Among the calamities of war may be justly numbered the diminution of the love of truth, by the falsehoods which interest dictates and credulity encourages. Little had changed, it seemed, in the intervening 250 years.’

‘The best book by a soldier concerning the Afghan War that I have read’
Frank Ledwidge, bestselling author of Losing Small Wars and Investment in Blood