24 December - Counting Days

'Twas the night before Christmas, and all though the sands
all the journos were waiting, for the US Marines to land

The news scene here is almost the same as the climate - a drought. We are dogged in our pursuit for access to the caves that supposedly harboured Al-Qaeda and Bin Laden, but are daily refused. What access we get is to smaller caves, filled with ammo, that may or may not have been used by Al-Qaeda. There is no proof that they aren't actually an ammo dump for the local commander.

This is compounded by the presence of US special forces still operating here. One assumes that they are coordinating the searches of the gaves and the gathering of whatever evidence may be there. The locals seem to be under orders to refuse everything and discuss nothing when the special forces are operating. We never really see them, but we can hear them ferrying back and forth in their choppers every night. Yesterday, though, our team literally ran into a group of special forces. They were coming down the mountain haveing toured a few small caves. Coming to a narrow part of the road, another vehicle was making speed in the other direction. The two trucks literally scraped sides. People got out, and low and behold a few of the folks in the other truck were Ameicans as well.

Word is that the US will be deploying several hundred Marines and Army soldiers here to speed up the excavaction of the caves that have been blown in by the 2 months of US air raids. Osama's trail has gone cold, so the DOD is now embracing the theory that Osama is actually dead and burried in a redoubt high in the White Mountains. In a way, it would be the easiest answer to both where he is and what to do with him. And a ironic ending for the iconoclast terrorist: crushed alive by tons of rubble falling all around him, like so many other did by his hand in New York and Washington.

Another little tidbit for you. Here is the story of what is becomming the most famous tank in the world. It has been in the background of just about every live shot that we and Geraldo have done from here. It's an old T-54, a Soviet bloc piece of armour. During the Gulf War, the Mujahideen had sent several hundred fighters to help liberate Kuwait. As a thank you, the Kuwaitis gave the Mujas a few hundred peices of captured Iraqi equipment. The tank in our liveshot is one of them.

Strangely, one of the guys in the crew that runs it looks like a young Charles Manson, and has a pet monkey. The monkey likes to sit on top of the gun barrell taking in the sights of Tora Bora, which is mostly me and the rest of the team. Several times each day a group of 20 or so people will gather around and just stare at us for hours on end. I guess there isn't much else for them to do. Afghanistan has no economy beyond drugs and smuggling. The fields have for the most part turned to dust after several years of drought. Whatever advancement people were beginning to reach for was decimated by the strict rules of the Taliban. So, the stand around and stare at the westerners. Some of the braver ones try to mooch phone calls off of our satellite phones. For all the guidebooks may say about Afghan hospitality, I'm finding a lot of them to be greedy and rude.

There are very notable exceptions. The two translaters we have working for us, Akbar and Shaqib, are great guys. We have been spending several evenings now sipping tea and discussing religion, them teaching us some Pasto and Persian and us helping them out with their English. They are just plain great guys who have worked very hard not only for us, but to get an education in a place where an education is as hard to come by as it is looked upon as unpractical. Most Afganis seem to want a Kalashnikov more than a diploma. This will be one of the most dificult challenges to rebuilding Afghanistan.

Pat Butler manning the uplink	camels passing our camp	shooter Mal James, producer Kevin Monahan and correspondent Greg Palkot at dinner	goats grazing between two tanks as the sun sets behind the White Mountains	Mal James and Greg Palkot do a liveshot fo the amusement of the local Mujahideen
	Greg Palkot enjoys a local Kafto, a meatball	local boy, supposedly fathered by an Al-Qaeda fighter	another sexy sunset shot

20 December - Back on the Road Again

Hopefully the month of waiting for a BenThere.com update will be worth it. Geraldo Rivera has pulled out of Afghanistan for the Christmas holiday, taking on of his engineers with him. I wound up being his replacement. Traveling with me are corrrespondant Greg Palkott, producer Kevin Monahan and shooter Mal James. Engineer Pat Butler has carried over from the Geraldo team.

Before going on, hopefully all of this will wind up on the site OK. I'm working off a satellite link, and it's definitely an experiment. So, the text may be a little short and I think I'm going to forgo the captions on the photos. Hopefully when I get back to the USA I'll be able to remember it all!

We started off on Tuesday in Islamabad. A frantic rush to pack everything up and get some last minute supplies. This was complicated by the Eid (end of Ramadan) holliday, and the usual slow decision making by the mothership. We left Tuesday around mid-day and headed for Peshawar. We overnighted there, and met up with the local contacts who would be arrangeing our transfer acorss the border the next day. Then off to a last wonderful dinner at the Khan Club, probably the best eating spot in Peshawar.

Up the next (Wednesday) morning we got on the road around 10AM. Driving out of Peshawar for the border, we first crossed in to the "Tribal Area." The Tribal Area is a broad strip of land along the Afghan border that is under the control of nobody in particular. Think of an Indian Reservation in the US without the government assistance and programs. This is truly a no-mans land. The first thing we pass through is the Smugglers Bazzarr. Millions of goods are imported into Afghanistan via Pakistan under customs bond. Thus they go into Afghanistan tax and duty free. People then smuggle the stuff back over into Pakistan and sell it here. It's also the place to pick up anything from a hand gun to a rocket launcher.

Briefly after this we begin our climb towards the famous Khyber Pass. The classical entry into Afghanistan, the pass climbs through several thousand feet. At it's narrowest point, the pass is only 11 meters wide. We move not only into another country, but another age. Pakistan, which is by no means a modern place, seems to be a shining western oasis. More on that thought later. Back to the journey.

We cross over in to Afghanistan at Torkham. The process is by no means organized, but nonetheless gets expedidted by out local contacts. After a short hour wait, we change vehicles and guards and escorts and cross over into Afghanistan proper. A sign greets us saying "The Sacrifice Country welcomes you with many pleases."

Another two hours on the road or so and we come to Jalalabad. Here we meet up with Pat Butler and the satellite gear we will be using. Our plan is to go back to Tora Bora, an area at the foothills of the White Mountains and the last stronghold of Al-Qaeda. Geraldo and his team we chased out of Tora Bora to Jalalabad by a fierce wind storm. There is not enough time today to make the trip, so we roll out our sleeping bags at a guest house in Jalalabad.

After a short 5 hours of sleep, we are up the next morning at about 2am to do live shots for our prime time shows in the US. We get a couple hours of shut eye here and there between shots. After our last shot for NY at about 8am local time, we pack everything up to make the trip to Tora Bora. We finally get moving around 11am or so.

It is a long, bumpy ride. I thought the tracks I made in Africa were rough, but they are superhighways compared to the "road" to Tora Bora. Along the way we pass through small farms being plowed with ox teams, goats and sheep grazing the arid plains, people digging crude irrigation ditches. This, I am told, is the part of Afghanistan that is better off. Children work on the road with shovels and pick axes, ostensibly filling potholes and smothing ruts. They hold out their hands for a gratuity for this work they do on the dirt road. There is nothing else for them to do. Will these same children soon put down their shovel and pick up a machine gun for the same reason: there is nothing to do?

We get to Tora Bora in the early afternoon. We are unsure of the current situation; all the other media have left, the last convoys of CNN and APTN passed us on our way in. We don't know if it is safe here, or if there is any news left. Supposedly, all the terrorists are gone, the fighting is over, close the book and move on to the next thing. We meet up with one of the local commanders, who assures us of our safety and says he will accomodate us for a few days. So, we start to pitch our tents. Greg Palkott and team go off to see what news there is to be found.

Indeed, there is still a story here. Sources tell us that many of the Al-Qaeda are still here, living discreetly amongst the locals. They are taken to a terrorist training camp that is now destoryed. The sprawling compound even had a swimming pool. They return around dinner time, then start to work on their daily package. Then, it's off to bed again around 8pm local, only to rise again at 2am for live shots. This is what is known in television news as feeding the beast.

Best wishes to all. I probably won't get an update on for another few days, so Merry Christmas to everybody around the world from me and the team here!

crossing into the Tribal Area: no foreigners allowed	Ben at the top of the Khyber Pass	looking out down the pass to Afghanistan in the distance	B-52 fling "lazy 8s" seen from Jalalabad	a mujahideen surveys the landscape at Tora Bora
goats grazing the scrubby plateau at the foot of the mountains	our camp at sunrise	our camp, still at sunrise	note supposedly with Osama's autograph at bottom	Ben and the Uplink