Kandahar - The Taliban reportedly shoot a rocket into the base every two days or so. Although the base itself is like a mini-country well protected by some of NATO's best, the mountains pose the biggest challenge. You never know where one of these rockets came from.
Even "mini-country" might be an understatement for the Kandahar base. I can't lay out the infrastructural part of the base, for obvious security reasons, but let me say this - if the kind of money that gets poured into a base like this was spent in one of the poor countries in Africa, that country could solve its problems very soon. Well, except the fact that it would have to be invaded first.
As Afghanistan awaits the arrival of 20,000 new American troops, the base continues to expand fast. Soon there will be new tube-tents, new offices, new shops and if the guys are lucky, maybe even a Starbucks. (That's my assumption because the Canadians get their Tim Hortons.)
What's comes to mind looking at the base here is that this war will not end anytime soon. Trying to fight a fanatic and determined enemy and win against them does come with a heavy price tag, literally.
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The thundering sounds of Apaches, Chinooks and Harriers keep the base alive and busy. But what keeps the soldiers at the base alive and busy is the endless drinking of bottled water, most of which comes from the UAE. As one of the journalists here put it, "Somebody in Dubai is making sh*tload of money from all this."
Thank goodness for Starbucks!
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