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CIA

CIA HQ, AFGHANISTAN, 2021

In a compound some two miles square, surrounded

by razor wire and guard towers, on a hillside

three miles north east of the airport and six

from Kabul’s centre, are rows of burnt out cars

and pick-ups. Beneath the vehicles

are solidified pools of molten metal.

Elsewhere in the compound are the ruins

of a mock-up village used to train

operatives to carry out night terror raids.

The recreational block is intact.

Inside are unfinished meals and abandoned

games of chess. The detention block too

is intact. Inmates gave it the soubriquet

‘the dark prison’, the cells having

no natural light – nor electric except

when the torturers came.

SLEEPLESS IN WAZIRISTAN

The Waziris call them ‘bangana’ (Pashto

for ‘buzzing wasps’) as they drone day and night –

like Doodlebugs in perpetual motion –

endlessly visible, unremittingly

audible, five thousand feet above

the clay-walled villages and towns, the markets

and the farms, the madrassas and the schools,

until some CIA operative,

in a Nevada mountain bunker,

or RAF personnel near Lincoln,

wakes and, after his/her double espresso

and cranberry muffin, identifies

the true enemy and left-clicks the mouse.

 

 

Note: the piece has subsequently been published at http://thirdsundaybc.com/2012/12/