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Archive for April, 2009

One credible threat is worth 1,000 bombs

( Strategy and travel and Pakistan )

ISLAMABAD – On Friday, my laptop stopped connecting through it’s 53 layers of corporate IT endorsed security systems so I couldn’t receive any business emails from the great mother ship in the sky. So, I bundled it up in the little black bag and hiked into the local company office to connect directly to the […]

Please keep your seatbelt fastened while seated

KHYBER PASS – Well, okay, I was actually about 3,000 feet above the Khyber pass when I noticed the sticker carefully applied to the tray on the seatback in front of me.  It was cloudy, you see, so the infamous Khyber looked an awful lot like the prairies of Saskatchewan on a cloudy day.  Hence […]

A life in darkness… how does it change what we think, what we do?

KABUL – Afghanistan and Tajikistan share a number of things in common, but one that I’ve been forced to get used to (again) over the past few days is the reality of living in darkness.
And, by darkness, I don’t mean a forboding mood, or perpetual ecliptic shadows.  Rather, I mean that both countries suffer significantly from […]

So close…. and yet, so far…

KABUL — Practically across the street from where I am staying in Kabul, which is not my normal hangout but, instead, a theoretically more secure guest house belonging to the international organization with whom I am working, are two shiny European-style supermarkets that cater almost exclusively to… well… Europeans who want to shop in a […]

Early, late or just in time, you cannot move quickly through this airport

KABUL — I was up early today to check out the hotel in Islamabad, having managed to gain privileged access to precisely no Irish Pub facsimiles, and race to the airport anticipating the same heaving mass of humanity trying to squeeze through a single turnstile into the international departures area.
Last time through Islamabad, it took […]