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TechnoratiOur Corrupt Occupation of Afghanistan
s it just me, or is the pontification of Western leaders about corruption in Afghanistan growing rather tiresome?
There is something very Captain Renault about it. We're shocked, shocked that the Afghans have sullied our morally immaculate occupation of their country with their dirty corruption. How ungrateful can they be?
But perhaps we should consider the possibility that our occupation of the country is not so morally immaculate - indeed, that the most corrupt racket going in Afghanistan today is the American occupation.
US military officials in Kabul estimate that a minimum of 10 percent of the Pentagon's logistics contracts in Afghanistan consists of protection payments to insurgents, Aram Roston reports in The Nation. In southern Afghanistan - where General McChrystal wants to send more troops - security firms can't physically protect convoys of American military supplies. There's no practical way to move the supplies without paying the Taliban. So, like Milo Minderbinder in Catch-22, we're supplying both sides of the war.
Meanwhile, two-thirds of the nearly $30 billion in international aid to Afghanistan has been routed through foreign consultants, companies, and organizations hired by the US government and its allies, Farah Stockman reports in the Boston Globe. Afghan officials complain that American civilian advisers are often overpaid, underqualified, and unfamiliar with the culture of the country. A typical US adviser earns about $500 per day - several times what the average Afghan earns in a month, Stockman notes. That's about $125,000 a year - not a bad chunk of change, even by U.S. standards. It's more than the household income of about 85% of American families. The total cost of such an adviser, including security and accommodations (note that most people - in Afghanistan, like the U.S. - have to pay for their own accommodations out of their salaries or wages) is about $500,000 a year.
The Afghan government now has a program to hire its own advisers from friendly Muslim countries like Turkey and the UAE. The US supports this program with a $30 million dollar contribution. But that contribution represents 1.1% of the $2.7 billion that the US plans to spend on economic assistance to Afghanistan next year, the vast majority of which will be used to hire US contractors. So for every dollar we spend on paying Americans contractors, we spend a penny on a much cheaper program that allows Afghanistan to hire people who know the culture, speak the language, have more expertise, and can move around Afghanistan with less security because they aren't Americans.
What do you call that? Afghans call it corruption. As Diogenes might say, the big thieves are giving lectures to the little thieves.
Now consider an Afghan policeman making $120 a month - half the cost of supporting a family, Western officials concede - who sees all this going on. Do you think that guy might take a bribe? Berholt Brecht wrote, in Marc Blitzstein's translation: "First feed the face, and then tell right from wrong: for even saintly folk may act like sinners, unless they've had their customary dinners." But in practice, our aid bureaucracy in Afghanistan has not yet won this most trivial insight.
But the biggest corruption of all is the occupation itself, because it is all based on a big lie: the claim that our continued occupation of Afghanistan is justified by the threat of an Al Qaeda "haven" in Afghanistan. This is a lie because: 1) as former counter-terrorism official Paul Pillar has pointed out, "the case has not been made" that "such a haven would significantly increase the terrorist danger to the United States" and 2) Mullah Mohammed Omar's "Quetta Shura" Taliban have been signalling for months that they are done with Al Qaeda and there has been no U.S. response. McChrystal wants reinforcements to go to Kandahar. That's Mullah Omar's home turf. If McChrystal is given troops to go to Kandahar, then it's not about Al Qaeda.
19 Comments so far
Show AllThe really big payola in political terms will be with Russia which is still "dithering" with letting our armed forces use its air-space for supplying the troops in Afghanistan, most likely with weapons and ammunition which the Pentagon is loath to truck across the Khyber Pass. When you combine this with the "absolutely necessary" payola to Afghans to allow convoys through in Afghanistan you are looking at a disaster in the making: a war at the end of a dangerously vulnerable supply line.
I'm not quite clear on this.Why does it cost our troops $400 for a gallon of gas?
For a number of reasons. Firstly Afghanistan does not have a seaport hence everything the troops need must be brought in by land either through Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, or must be flown in from these countries and Russia. Secondly the land routes through these countries, especially the route over the Khyber Pass from Pakistan to Afghanistan cannot be 24 hours under the control of the US armed forces hence there inevitably will be losses. Thirdly to offset the insecurity of the land routes bribes are handed out to local tribes along these routes. Attacks that occur on convoys are not always due to insurgency but sometimes to the centuries-old robbery along the trade routes such as the legendary silk road.
It is now estimated that the annual cost to maintain one soldier in Afghanistan is one million dollars. To me a most appalling aspect of President Obama's current exercise is that this is now leaked from the White House as a major worry instead of the potential loss of life and whether "the war in Afghanistan can be won".
Incisive article followed by really strange commentary. What is impressive about the article is that it suggests actions which could lead us out of this mess. Thinking about what Naiman has to say, though, merely reminds us that, whether it be Vietnam, Iraq, or Afghanistan or any other country where we have "intervened", we have a tried and true formula for suffering, death, corruption and failure. Of course, we know that the people who make these decisions do not suffer, die, or fail and one man's corruption is another's enrichment.
Herman Schmidt
Hey you Afghans, if you do not clean up your act we will refuse to bomb and murder you.
anybody ready to recommend some new candidates to run in the democratic presidential primary of 2012? i'm talking about the one in new hampshire. i think it's time for somebody to step up. right now! if obama thinks he could be emabarrassed early next primary season, he might start worrying about keeping some of his campaign promises, and cease flinching before generals, bishops, teabaggers, beck, and the like. he's even afraid to investigate cheney, of all crooks! and the cia has killed many prisoners. no arrest made. no apologies given. yet cheney has made them out out to be the victims. amazing! ms means, another beck target, stepped down today from her post as white house communications director. another victory that legitimizes fox and the rest of the cunning right.
It's not OUR occupation. 80% of USans won't actively support the illegal/immoral US occupations of Afghanistan/Iraq. Instead, 80% of USans stand prepared to participate in the great purge of the perpetrators out of the US government and into war crimes tribunals. The occupations are not only corrupt, they are illegal, immoral, and destructive. These two occupations have turned the USA into, by far, the world's greatest pariah nation. At least the gargantuan crime of US war on Vietnam was carried out in the context of aggressive imperial competition from the USSR. However the terror strikes that the USA used to rationalize these evil occupations of Afghanistan/Iraq are nothing more than imperial blowback, plain and simple. There is ZERO justification for the USA's invasions/occupations of Afghanistan/Iraq, driven by the evil twin agendas of Zionism and US control of Mideast oil. The secondary level of the crime is of course the global warming threat to the survival of a great percent of the earth's magnificent living legacy, and the continued socio-political oppression of people worldwide, manipulation of market demand, consumption slavery, driven by elitevil's laisss-faire capitalist petro-profiteering. These crimes are extremely unfortunate for the many innocents caught in the blowback/crossfire, yesterday, today and tomorrow. And for the perpetrators, they face prosecution for crimes against humanity, sooner or later. The silver lining in the cloud is that MANY more USans are aware today of the elitevil in their midst and have made GREAT progress in stifling it. Much greater progress coming, soon, thanks to the dedicated work of the progressive community. We support the destabilization of the petro-rackets, to help wean USans off their petro-opiate addictions, and we support the alter-economy: Local ownership/control of production in all sectors, starting with energy/food.
rtdrury writes well and thinks incisively.
Dear Sir, My compliments and admirations. In full agreement I yet feel inadequate in the face of what you say.
But in this assessment of 80% USans now I must say only if they do it will we believe and be there with you. Take your present government to pieces! Split the USA into smaller centres of power. Revolt! No other way will give the people of America control over their destinies. The mycelium runs through you like the highways, roads, streets and tracks that enlace your country.
If you cannot challenge it effectively all you have written is unfortunately hot air; something which USans have produced in such quantities for so long now it is no wonder the world is overheating.
And one small point is that Cuban, Chinese, even Russian 'aggression' in the 20century was always largely founded on the incessant underhand aggression of the Janus USA we now see yet again in the difference between what Obama says and that which America does, which reality is derived from and built on the history of your brothers innocent British and others of like mind now collectively called the West.
The sins of the fathers are crawling like maggots all over the West. Clean them out.
Corruption begins at home......
Cut to the chase: what you have in Afghanistan is an oxymoron of "good" corrupt thugs and war lords that the U.S. can corrupt and control, administered by greedy, corrupt so called officials; as their thugs and puppets; and the " bad" thugs and drug dealing war lords that they cannot control or bribe.
Oh, come on. It is about human rights. The most fundamental human right is the right of parasitic elitist fiends to suck every last dime out of every little person, including the natural resources under the control of such little people, they can get their claws on, whether the little people be in Afghanistan, Iraq, the USA, or anyplace else.
Speaking of "Casablanca", the United States is Major Strasser and we will wind up in Afghanistan as he did at the end of that movie. Obama's probable favorite lines from that film are as follows:
"And remember, Louie, I've got this gun pointed straight at your heart."
"That is my least vulnerable spot."
Good one mordechai.
NO, 'cause it's about Obama licking the Coup Laida McChrystals of BetrayUS Oildinero!
It's never been about al-Qaida.
It's always been about US imperialist usurpation of strategic resource region.
Wars, hurricanes, crumbling cities, epidemics, floods, fires, tsunamis, you name it.
When every place and condition on earth is viewed as a potential "profit center" by those with the power to come in and exploit it, well, that's what's going to happen every time.
I don't get it. The US Ambassodor recommends no more troops to Afghanistan and to start bringing the troops home. We are spending taxpayer money to the Taliban to let our suppliers cross their borders without getting shot. Neither the Afghan or American people want us in Afghanistan and there is no proof that attacking the Taliban will get us any closer to al Qaeda.
Am I missing something here or are we fogetting Ike's warning about the military industrial complex? Aside from the military contractors, the GOP and Stupak-ed Democrats, no one wants or can justify this war.
I'd say trim the US military budget by $500 billion and use that money to un-kill (Harvard's study) 45,000 Americans this year and every year from now on and pass a Medicare for all Health care bill that could be funded by our Iraq/Afghanistan money hole.
you would have to ask president Rahm Immanual,he and his fellow Zionist reptiles, languishing in greed and eternal warfare.If you trim the military budget to eliminate the million dollars per minute that is presently spent,there would NOT be enough HUMAN SACRIFICES to sustain the vampires'thirst for blood.
Could it be that diverting money into health care coverage for all,schools that meet the global standards of education,non toxic environment,would be too much for the peasants to handle.
Scientists and academics have had their work thwarted and deterred and it would be a difficult adjustment for them.A planet transformed by projects for peace,misery globally disappearing,is asking a lot of the tried and true IMF,feds and Pentagon warriors.It would mean abandoning all of our and their conditioned life styles.
Using our genious to create and develop clean energy for everyone.Developing music,sports and art Programs for the young and not just the young of the rich,globally.It would mean involving architects to design energy efficient homes for the peasants and construction companies,who would have to build them,would be overwhelmed.
Major changes in our foreign policies,to genocide free thinking,quite radical,would of course be adopted.We would have to get used to not having a terrorist behind every bush and not taking off our shoes at the airport,fox news would be bewildered,with no bad guys to vilify,it could get boring for the sheeples not to have scapegoats to resent and blame.The planet might not be headed for extinction with the new no nukes anywhere policy.We could even all share in the pie.Without greed, paranoia,selfishness and inhumanity, we could be the best that we are supposed to be.What a strange concept and yet that is what our grand children believe.
Mookie, Israel wants us there.
It is Israeli policy to let no Muslim country become strong.
All are down but two. Persia, and the one, coincidentally, w/ about the same number of nukes as Israel; 200. Thus we are where we are, doing what we do. Oil was secondary even in Iraq, where so much lies.
Pakistan & Iran. Topeka's existential enemies.
Consider; if Israel had become part of Venezuela hypothetically, do you think Arabs would be vilified & bombed?