Lawyer on a mission in Afghanistan

Scott D. Delius puts practice on hold to help set up Afghan military justice system

By Meredith Hobbs, Staff Reporter

SCOTT D. DELIUS HAS a mission. Delius put his law practice on hold last October to go to Afghanistan with the Army National Guard, which is part of the NATO coalition training the Afghan National Army.

After a months training in Mississippi, Delius arrived in Kabul in late November, where he is the Judge Advocate General officer attached to the Kabul Military Training Center. It is the countrys largest base, he said in a telephone interview, with about 8,000 new recruits being trained at any one time. He is working with the bases top Afghan legal officer, Col. Khaliq, to establish a military justice system there. He also advises Khaliq and the U.S. base commander on any legal issues that come up and helps U.S. soldiers with any legal problems that arise for them back home.

Delius recently added a personal mission to his official duties. One Monday last month, he sat down at his computer after finishing his workday and sent out an e-mail to colleagues back in the States asking for clothing, shoes and tents for the Afghan people.

He was prompted by a visit hed made that morning to a refugee village that his unit was assessing for a humanitarian mission. It just floored me, he said. There were children with no shoes in the middle of winter, trash everywhere and livestock feeding off the trash, and people burning the trash to keep warm.

Delius keeps a blog, Afghanistan JAG, where he has been recording his experiences in Kabul. On his blog that day he wrote: Since I left the village this morning Ive been walking around in a fog. I am overwhelmed by what I saw, and he posted pictures hed taken of the desolate conditions in the encampment.

Of a barefoot little girl, he wrote: I knew that I would soon be back in my warm room, but shell go back to her mud hut with the collapsed roof. Shell still be cold. And she still wont have shoes tomorrow.

He said hed seen the ravaged condition of the country when on convoy traveling from base to base. But, he said, with boots on the ground, having the opportunity to walk through the village, I really saw it then.

He said he impulsively sent the e-mail asking for contributions out of a sense of frustration. I cant brush aside the suffering Im seeing here any longer. I need your help, the e-mail said.

My deployment will end here in a few months. Im short on time and Im out of ideas. Plus, my official duties require me to help train the Afghan army, which takes up most of my time. These people need clothing and shelter. I recognize that this is an emotionally driven, poorly planned shotgun approach fired totally from the hip. Sorry. I just cant sit still any longer and Ive got to try something.

Children milling around with no shoes in the cold is one of those experiences I cant forget, he said in the phone interview.

He has been amazed at the response. Within a week and a half, people had contributed more than $4,000. Deliuss wife, Allyson Garnett, initially planned to use the money to buy clothing, but then the donations of clothes, shoes, diapers and stuffed animals started coming in.

It turned into a campaign across the legal community, Garnett said.

Several Atlanta lawyers have spearheaded contribution drives, including Terrence T. Rock at Drew, Eckl & Farnham, where Delius used to practice; Matthew G. Moffett at Gray, Rust, St. Amand, Moffett and Brieske; James K. Creasy at Gillis & Creasy; and Deliuss sister-in-law, Christian F. Torgrimson at Pursley, Lowery, Meeks. Groups in Tennessee, Oklahoma and New York have also organized collections.

Garnett has used the money instead to cover the costs of shipping everything to Deliuss base in Afghanistan. Creasy alone shipped off 70 boxes of clothing and other donations, which take a couple of weeks to reach Kabul. So far, 10 boxes of clothes, shoes and other contributions, which have been sorted by age and gender have arrived, and Delius expects to receive about 200 more.

Khaliq, the Afghan colonel he assists, has told Delius about a nearby village, he said, which is in even worse shape than the one I visited. I hope to get out and take a survey of what they need, make a list, get some volunteers and bag up donations for each family.

Delius, who is 37, became a guardsman two years ago. He said the 9/11 attacks prompted him to join the military. He made several attempts to enlist in the Army Reserves, but they turned him away each time because of knee surgery hed had years before. He finally contacted the Army National Guard, which he said understood that the surgery doesnt affect his physical performance, and signed him up.

Although Delius is a JAG officer in Decaturs 78th Troop Command, he is serving in Afghanistan as part of an Oregon National Guard unit, the 41st Brigade. At officers basic training, an Oregon national guardsman told Delius his unit was going to be sent to Afghanistan as part of the NATO mission training the Afghan army. Almost two years later, the Oregonian e-mailed him about an opening on the mission, and Delius volunteered to go.

In civilian life, Delius is a solo plaintiffs lawyer. While he is in Kabul, two colleagues, Erik H. Olson and William M. Cummings II, have taken on a lot of his cases, which he said has been a huge help. But he acknowledged that he does not know how much of a law practice hell have when he returns in May or June. Im going to have to work hard to rebuild, he said.

Right now he is working to build the Afghan National Army. Were training them to be good soldiers who can help this nation stand on its own, he said.

After the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989, the country fell into civil war and then Taliban rule until the U.S. invasion in 2001 toppled the Taliban government. Since December 2001, a NATO force, which includes the United States, has been supporting the government of President Hamid Karzai.

New soldiers, all volunteers, come through the Kabul Military Training Center, where a NATO coalition is assisting with their basic training.

Establishing a well-functioning military justice system is a crucial part of getting the Afghan army, known as the ANA, to stand on its own, Delius said.

A well-functioning army involves instilling a system of fairness and justice throughout the ANA ranks, he wrote on his blog. The thought is that if we start the soldiers off right at the beginning here at [the training center], they will become conscientious soldiers and future citizens. You cant instill this type of outlook without having a military justice system. Imagine trying to motivate a soldier to fight for his country if rules within his own army arent enforced and if infractions go unpunished.

Delius is mentoring the Afghans as they set up a military court at the base. They had no military justice system at all, he said.

Last month an Afghan soldier was tried for a male-on-male rape on the base. Delius said the Afghans handled the legal work themselves from arrest and investigation to trial and sentencing, which he called a success story for the new system. We got a very strong conviction of eight years, he added.

We are trying to get the Afghan government and military to go after people who are breaking the laws, he said, explaining that Afghans are often afraid, after years of civil war, lawlessness and Taliban rule, of repercussions to themselves and their families if they report crimes.

Delius and Khaliq are creating training programs for the soldiers. A lot of them are illiterate, he said, so we have to come up with creative ways to teach them law of war issues. Deliuss team has produced what is informally referred to as the comic book, with pictures showing what is right and wrong on the battlefield for instance, that they should not kill the people they capture and should treat them humanely. Other photos, posted on his blog, instruct soldiers not to sleep on guard duty or go AWOL and illustrate that its a crime to sell weapons or other items issued by the military. (A literacy program has been established at the base.)

They are also teaching the officers more appropriate ways to discipline their own soldiers for infractions, such as giving them extra duty instead of physical punishment. Were helping them change their mindset, Delius explained.

He emphasized that the Afghan soldiers are smart people who grasp things quickly. You have to remember that the older officers were brought up through the Soviet system, which was much harsher. They had a different way of doing things. They didnt always play by the rules.

American news outlets have reported that the violence in Afghanistan has reached the worst levels since the U.S. attack against the Taliban in 2001. Delius said that he and other soldiers cannot leave the base unless fully armed and in convoy with other soldiers. If I go to the bathroom I take my weapon with me, he said.

To deliver the clothes and supplies to the village, he must organize a full convoy complete with MP security, because it will be dangerous to go out there.

He added that he hoped media coverage of the worsening violence would encourage other countries to send troops to help the NATO coalition in Afghanistan, where the United States has about 18,000 troops stationed.

Despite the surge in violence from the Taliban, Delius is optimistic about the Afghan army, which he said is getting a strong stream of volunteers. The army is standing up on its own, he said. People here are tired of war. They are tired of fighting. There is a generation here that has known nothing but war. They are tired of it and want it to stop.