Or is the right acronym SNAFU? I’ll let you decide after you read this:
Welcome to the wartime contracting bazaar in Afghanistan. It is a virtual carnival of improbable characters and shady connections, with former CIA officials and ex-military officers joining hands with former Taliban and mujahedeen to collect US government funds in the name of the war effort.
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.
Maybe the right phrase is Catch 22? No wonder Obama doesn’t like the options presented to him by his military advisers. More troops = more private contractors = more fraud = more money to Taliban = more dead troops and Afghan civilians. Which would then require a further escalation, because why stop this insane circus ride we’re on? Then again, maybe if we just went away and stopped paying all these crooks, rogues and death merchants and focus on simply fixing up our our own house everyone would be better off.
Certainly things couldn’t get worse. Besides, then Blackwater (excuse me, Xe) could be hired by all the warlords and drug lords and crooks Hamid Karzai’s government in Afghanistan to “fight for their freedoms” and we, the people of America, could stop funding a right wing private mercenary army with US taxpayer dollars that no sane person would ever have thought possible just fifty years ago.
The last people to admit a war has already been lost are the people with a vested interest in keeping war going.
This is a recurring problem in guerilla warfare. Whoever owns the night is going to wind up with the weapons. And a good part of the money you throw around is going to wind up in the enemy’s hands.
War is a Racket. Still. Yes, this is the same Smedley Butler that exposed the businessmen’s plot that Prescott Bush was involved in.
Very true. Some today wont even admit Vietnam was lost.
“certainly things..” Are you kidding? you must be kidding. you post in great but puleeeze. just wait till we increase the troop strength. how about 40,000 more targets. keep one thing in mind- i will bet you that there will be an unlimited supply of ordinance for the predators that seem to be the favorite new toy. don’t you believe for one second that the us military/ indutrial complex won’t have their way.
It is nice to see use of the mercenary word. So few admit this truth.
The use of mercenaries in warfare involving major powers largely disppeared in the 20th century. It is an amazing fact that it was us that reintroduced this vile practice.
Ssshhhh–listen carefully. You can hear the snaps and locks of a civilization coming loose as it slips ever more perilously down the Afghan slope. And, as the US dollar continues to depreciate along with unchecked national spending, the threat of runaway inflation continues to mount. When that reaches a critical turning point, the rush to convert liquid assets into more substantial ones will become irresistible. Chaos will then reign in the domestic and international markets, banks will fail and world wide depression will ensue. Osama bin Laden will celebrate a tremendous victory as the capitalist nations flounder in a mess of the US making. Fasten seat belts everyone, the ride will be rocky, indeed.