Alicia Leonard
SoWal Insider
Richard grew up in Northwest Florida and spent almost two years in Afghanistan. He is now the editor of VetVoice.com. I think this article goes back to the price of getting supplies to troops and why it is costing so much just to supply fuel and such. IMHO, this is insane. Is it the price of war?
Paying Peter to Kill Paul
by: Jon Soltz and Richard Allen Smith
Wed Nov 11, 2009 at 19:21:31 PM EST
When we began our careers in military service, conflicts were often presented to us in black and white terms. There were good guys and bad guys, clear battle lines and we always knew which side we were on, as well as the side of the enemy. However, our experiences on active duty and in the reserves, as well as overseas deployments has taught us that this is regularly not the case. There are a myriad of complex relationships that transcend roles of good and bad guys. Private security contractors are among the most complex relationships we have in overseas contingency operations. Since the beginning of the war in Afghanistan in 2001, both domestic and foreign corporations have been contracted to provide security to American bases, dignitaries and logistics convoys. At worst these corporations, such as Xe (formerly known as Blackwater) and Triple Canopy, make our jobs harder through their murky command structure and wild west cowboy attitudes. When Blackwater massacred civilians in Iraq it certainly hindered our counterinsurgency efforts. It wasn't, however, as if they were directly funding the insurgency we were fighting.
No, the private security contractors saved that tactic for Afghanistan.
Writing for The Nation, Aram Roston has uncovered a tangled web of former military and CIA officials, relatives of the Afghanistan President and Defense Minister and various other shady characters who act as a pipeline from the U.S. treasury to the Taliban:
As part of the Sunni Awakening movement in Iraq, the United States paid Sunni insurgents who previously fought American forces to secure their own neighborhoods from foreign fighters, with the promise that they would later be folded into the Iraqi national security apparatus. That is very different then the way operations are being conducted in Afghanistan, where we are essentially telling insurgents "Here is some money, just don't attack us here. Attack us somewhere else." Then, we give them the money to do it.
Using Roston's excellent investigative journalism as a starting point, the Senate Foreign Relations and Armed Services Committees must investigate the allegations contained therein. We simply cannot continue to put brave men and women in harms way while are tax dollars are funding that harm.
American and NATO service members deserve better then this. We should not send them to possibly die fighting an insurgency that even American contractors working in the operation admit is being funded by DoD. This is simply another example of the rampant privatization of military operations and the corruption caused by it. If a service can be performed by uniformed military, uniformed service members should perform it. If the forces are not available for that service, then that is a fairly reliable indicator that we have overextended our force.
Paying Peter to Kill Paul
by: Jon Soltz and Richard Allen Smith
Wed Nov 11, 2009 at 19:21:31 PM EST
When we began our careers in military service, conflicts were often presented to us in black and white terms. There were good guys and bad guys, clear battle lines and we always knew which side we were on, as well as the side of the enemy. However, our experiences on active duty and in the reserves, as well as overseas deployments has taught us that this is regularly not the case. There are a myriad of complex relationships that transcend roles of good and bad guys. Private security contractors are among the most complex relationships we have in overseas contingency operations. Since the beginning of the war in Afghanistan in 2001, both domestic and foreign corporations have been contracted to provide security to American bases, dignitaries and logistics convoys. At worst these corporations, such as Xe (formerly known as Blackwater) and Triple Canopy, make our jobs harder through their murky command structure and wild west cowboy attitudes. When Blackwater massacred civilians in Iraq it certainly hindered our counterinsurgency efforts. It wasn't, however, as if they were directly funding the insurgency we were fighting.
No, the private security contractors saved that tactic for Afghanistan.
Writing for The Nation, Aram Roston has uncovered a tangled web of former military and CIA officials, relatives of the Afghanistan President and Defense Minister and various other shady characters who act as a pipeline from the U.S. treasury to the Taliban:
In this grotesque carnival, the US military's contractors are forced to pay suspected insurgents to protect American supply routes. It is an accepted fact of the military logistics operation in Afghanistan that the US government funds the very forces American troops are fighting. And it is a deadly irony, because these funds add up to a huge amount of money for the Taliban. "It's a big part of their income," one of the top Afghan government security officials told The Nation in an interview. In fact, US military officials in Kabul estimate that a minimum of 10 percent of the Pentagon's logistics contracts--hundreds of millions of dollars--consists of payments to insurgents.
Here's how the chain works: The U.S. government pays trucking firms to move supplies around Afghanistan to its rural and far flung outposts. These trucking companies then pay private security contracting firms, operated by druglords, warlords, the Taliban and relatives of senior Afghan Administration officials, or consortiums of any or all of them, for safe passage to American installations. As one American trucking executive said, ""The Army is basically paying the Taliban not to shoot at them. It is Department of Defense money."" As part of the Sunni Awakening movement in Iraq, the United States paid Sunni insurgents who previously fought American forces to secure their own neighborhoods from foreign fighters, with the promise that they would later be folded into the Iraqi national security apparatus. That is very different then the way operations are being conducted in Afghanistan, where we are essentially telling insurgents "Here is some money, just don't attack us here. Attack us somewhere else." Then, we give them the money to do it.
Using Roston's excellent investigative journalism as a starting point, the Senate Foreign Relations and Armed Services Committees must investigate the allegations contained therein. We simply cannot continue to put brave men and women in harms way while are tax dollars are funding that harm.
American and NATO service members deserve better then this. We should not send them to possibly die fighting an insurgency that even American contractors working in the operation admit is being funded by DoD. This is simply another example of the rampant privatization of military operations and the corruption caused by it. If a service can be performed by uniformed military, uniformed service members should perform it. If the forces are not available for that service, then that is a fairly reliable indicator that we have overextended our force.
