The air around Bagram airfield, the main American base in Afghanistan, is thick with the smell of jet fuel, the roar of aircraft taking off on bombing missions and the constant drone of electricity generators. Outside the ramparts, a snakelike convoy of brightly coloured lorries waits to unload fuel hauled from Pakistan and Central Asia. These are the modern equivalents of the pack mules that once carried military supplies-much of it fodder for the beasts themselves. The British army calculates that it takes seven gallons of fuel to deliver one gallon to Afghanistan.
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