OCTOBER 28 UPDATE
COMMITMENTS
Jennifer Giles - P, 3rd Midwest Magic(In) to Long Island University
Angie Ortiz,OF,Vienna VA Stars/Andersion, to Iona
Stephanie Talarek,SS, Vienna VA Stars/Anderson, to UNC-Greensboro
Vancouver Ford commitments: Melissa Dubay, IF, Boston University. Megan Miller,OF, University of Kentucky. Dani Stuart, IF, Syracuse University. Brooke Woodward,IF/P, University of Washington. Anne Zumwalt,IF, University of California. Patti Wunderlich, C, Texas A&M.
THE 1960 EAGLES
AOL just did a retrospective on the 1960 Philadelphia Eagles, improbable winners over the Green Bay Packers for the NFL championship. Tribute is paid to quarterback Norm Van Brocklin, whose record of 554 yards passing in one game still stands, and Chuck Bednarik,one of the last of the two-way players. Excerpts: There was Bednarik’s earth-shattering tackle of Frank Gifford that preserved the Eagles’ first victory, 17-10, over the Giants and that sidelined Gifford for a year. There was Bednarik's equally earth-shattering tackle of Jim Taylor at the 8-yard line as time ran out that preserved the Eagles' 17-13 NFL Championship Game victory over the Packers. There was Van Brocklin, through it all, summoning his teammates to meet every Monday morning at a saloon called Donahue’s for a day of beer and camaraderie.
AOL should have mentioned Tommy McDonald, the Oklahoma Sooner who virtually invented the flanker-halfback, and scored those critical Van Brocklin TD’s. Tommy, a classmate at OU, married the prettiest girl at Oklahoma, Ann Campbell. The marriage didn’t last but I can still see her effervescent smile.
IN OLD KABUL
There are some tough towns in this world. Then there is Landi Khotal.
This hell hole sits on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. And is reached by road from Peshawar, the center of Britain’s former Northwest Frontier Province. You pass the former headquarters of the once-famed Khyber Rifles, and can see the outpost where a young British officer named Winston Churchill served.
The night before I arrived in Landi Khotal, five Russian soldiers were killed (what a sad adventure that was for the Soviets). The next morning, I saw five new AK47 Kalashnikov rifles for sale in a street stall.
Then and now, Landi Khotal was a hub for the Southwest Asian opium and heroin trade. I was accompanied on my first trip by DEA agent Doug Wankel, who is now the expert advisor on the opium trade at our Embassy in Kabul. Then and now, Afghanistan was the major source of opium and heroin for the European drug trade, and a factor in our drug problem.
US newspapers this week carried stories about the resurgence of the opium trade, and highlighted the threat which the drug lords pose to Afghanistan’s fledgling government and to multilateral efforts to build a foundation of democratic process there.
Some reality focus. While the 1990’s opium/heroin trade found new roots in Mexico and Colombia, the trade never really ceased in Southwest Asia. It’s even a misnomer to say that it is an Afghan problem. The opium trade in both Afghanistan and Pakistan was and is controlled by Pushtan and Pathan tribesmen. Democracy is as foreign to them as chop suey. Their allegiances are to religion, family, tribe and tribal leaders, not always in that order. They do not recognize borders as more than lines drawn on a British map. The opium poppy is a cash crop. To be sure, they raise money through agriculture (maize and hemp), and through smuggling, etc., but opium pays better.
Various attempts have been made to wean farmers off the opium crop. The UN Fund for Drug Abuse Control once gave an Afghan agency 65 vehicles to support anti-drug efforts. The vehicles which weren’t seized by the Soviets were taken by war lords. The USA began a program in the early 1980’s to foster the cultivation of other crops, and, it has had some success over the years – not easily achieved. I remember going into one village where I decided to cut to the chase and focus on the poppy farmers. The entire village was assembled in a field; I asked those men who grew opium to move to one side. Every man in the village moved. They took tractors and seed, and probably improved their opium yield, but some grew other crops. The men in another village were less receptive. After I made my spiel, they stoned my car!
On another trip, where I was fronting an effort to photograph opium shipments across the border – so obvious a CIA activity that the Pakistani general with whom I negotiated got some substantial “bennies.” There are many reasons why it is difficult to find Osama bin Laden. The mountains on both sides of the border are pockmarked with caves. The mujahadin would hide in these caves and wait until the fearsome Soviet Hind helicopters would descend into the valleys below – then blow them to Kingdom Come within heat-seeking Stinger missiles provided by US “interests.”
I arranged to meet with a tribesman who would help me cross the border so that I could monitor the opium convoys on the roads leading to and from Kabul. I expected him from one direction. Suddenly, I sensed a presence behind me, and there was this young warrior, carrying an AK47. I learned a lot on that trek – mostly that neither we nor the Paks could seal that border.
Democracy has a lot of competition for the hearts and minds of the Afghan people, and especially among the tribes along its border.