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Pentagon Paying Taliban Who Are Killing US Troops
"It is an accepted fact of the military logistics operation in Afghanistan that the US government funds the very forces American troops are fighting." - Aram Roston, The Nation
In short, the United States is funding Taliban and Afghan insurgents who are killing and wounding US troops. But why ? An evil plot ? Not exactly.
Washington decision makers have tasked the US military with what may be an impossible job in Afghanistan, and a good deal of the reason it may be impossible lies in the very, very long trucking routes, winding through some of the most mountainous and rugged terrain on Earth, that supply US troops.
The Pentagon doesn't have enough forces to defend the supply convoys that bring food, water, bullets, equipment of all sorts to American troops stationed at remote command posts in hostile Afghan territory. So, it contracts with a welter of private Afghan contracting firms that have sprung up to take the lucrative supply business. As the Nation article lays it out,
the heart of the matter is that insurgents are getting paid for safe passage because there are few other ways to bring goods to the combat outposts and forward operating bases where soldiers need them. By definition, many outposts are situated in hostile terrain, in the southern parts of Afghanistan. The security firms don't really protect convoys of American military goods here, because they simply can't; they need the Taliban's cooperation.
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...
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.""
"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.
Tagged as: afghanistan, taliban
Bruce Wilson writes for Talk To Action, a blog specializing in faith and politics.
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