The words "Taliban" and "opium" are closely associated in people's minds. Without opium there would be no Taliban in the potent form in which it stands. The word "opium" should now be supplanted by the words "DoD contract" when thinking of the Taliban. The Taliban takes from its opium protection racket an estimated $300 million per year. The $4 million per week in the trucking supply protection racket, the figure given by the Pentagon, adds up to $208 million per year. As the Obama administration's third-highest-ranking official, behind the president and vice president, it is not clear how Secretary of State Clinton came by her information, or whether the president is aware of it. Going by the upper estimate in the Guardian report, 20% of U.S. contract funds go to insurgents, most of it "happening in logistics." Using only the $2.16 billion figure of the largest contract examined in the Tierney report, as much as $400 million in "U.S. taxpayer money" is financing the Taliban, far exceeding opium profits. In Pelosi's words, "systemic, huge money." This is material assistance which amounts to a bit more than socks and ponchos. Yet no one has been sentenced to 15 years.
Afghans in 2001 were particularly war-weary, happy that the weird, brutal government foisted upon them by Pakistan had been driven off, and looking forward to something different. Their wretched near-starvation existence for most of the last 30 years seemed to remain the same no matter who was in power. Looking around later, they saw many of the same warlords who had committed most of the atrocities against them over the years in the new government. These are the same people who now own the private "security" companies which act as middlemen between the U.S. military and the Taliban. An executive of one trucking contractor told Aram Roston of the UK Guardian: "Every warlord has his security company."
In the north, every contractor and subcontractor assigned to take U.S. supplies to Uruzgan exclusively uses Matiullah Khan's security services. The cost to move a truck is between $1,500 and $3,000 per truck, depending on whether it is toilet paper, tents, Oreo Cookies, fuel, Humvees, MRAP armored vehicles, or ammunition. The CEO of a private security company in Afghanistan stated that:
"Matiullah has the road from Kandahar to Tarin Kowt completely under his control. No one can travel without Matiullah without facing consequences. There is no other way to get there. You have to either pay him or fight him."
One problem with Matiullah is that he is the nephew and chief enforcer of Jan Mohammad Khan, the deposed governor of Uruzgan and the local strongman. According to press reports, Matiullah "led the hit squads that killed stubborn farmers who did not want to surrender their land, daughters, and livestock to the former governor."
A New York Times report says, "many Afghans say the Americans and their NATO partners are making a grave mistake by tolerating or encouraging warlords like Mr. Matiullah. These Afghans fear the Americans will leave behind an Afghan government too weak to do its work, and strongmen without any popular support."
One of the Tierney report's most elucidating passages explains:
"Commander Ruhullah [who controls the key Highway 1 between Kabul and Kandahar to the south] is just one of dozens of warlords, strongmen, and commanders who have found a niche in providing security services to the U.S. military in Afghanistan. Some are well-known tribal leaders or former mujahedeen who have been in the business of war for the past thirty years. Others, like Commander Ruhullah, are relative newcomers whose power and influence are directly derivative of their contracting and subcontracting work for the U.S. government. Both the old and new warlords' interests are in fundamental conflict with a properly functioning government...yet these warlords have flourished providing security for the U.S. supply chain there."
It's not as if the threats are bluffs. They are promptly carried out in most business-like fashion. In an incident in the summer of 2008, one convoy which made the mistake of not paying "Commander Ruhullah" reported hostile contact with 15-20 insurgents. According to the report:
"[The convoy security commander] came to the conclusion that this ambush... was well planned by Ruhullah...minutes before the ambush the guards of [the security commander] could see that the guards of Ruhullah were busy on their phones and now know that they were talking with the insurgents."
And what happens if the warlords/Taliban decide they have enough Ame-dee-can money and want their country back, so they can get on with the business of warring with each other? It is axiomatic that if the insurgents can allow the war to continue, they can also shut it down. This is perhaps the cruelest hoax, that we are sending young men and women into a war which everyone knows, by definition, cannot be won. This is much what the Pentagon Papers revealed to the public about Vietnam. Except this is not the Pentagon Papers. It is a report originating from the very body which is now deliberating the war, the U.S. Congress, which it is the duty of every representative and senator to read and understand. There is no plausible "I didn't know" thanks to the hard work of Chairman Tierney and his staff.
As the U.S. Senate next week takes up the issue of funding for the escalation of the war in Afghanistan, it will inevitably vote on whether to continue the flow of funding for the Taliban, at a time when U.S. jobs programs could themselves use some funding. The Obama administration has requested $30 billion to be voted on in the Senate, which only passed in the House after unprecedented procedural hijinks last month, and even Nancy Pelosi saying beforehand that she was not sure she had the votes to pass the war funding.
A "yes" vote in the Senate will place that senator in the company of Fahad Hashmi, with a clear, direct line provable in a court of law of "material assistance" for the enemy, and with far more foreknowledge than poor Fahad had with his lousy visitor. Passed without any component for civilian aid, even those relatively free of corruption like Afghanistan's National Solidarity Program, that vote will deprive not one people, but two, of their hopes for a better future. It will impoverish Americans by guaranteeing further civil war in Afghanistan, making it impossible for the U.S. ever to extricate itself, and turn into another $3 trillion war. It will impoverish Afghans by bringing to power the most violent, mysogynist gangster elements in the country, again. Who will win? As always, the profit-taking side of the war machine.
Such as the Carlyle Group, whose name was made by buying undervalued defense stocks and then connecting them with big-time government contracts, a feat made easier by the presence of such names as George H.W. Bush and James Baker III on its Advisory Board. Chief investment officer Bill Conway told the Financial Times after the first 18 months of the Iraq War, when the company's profits from Iraq came to $6.6 billion, a span of time in which nearly 900 U.S. soldiers had died: "It's the best 18 months we ever had. We made money, and we made it fast."
Last May, 18 senators voted for a Russ Feingold amendment to require the president to submit a timeline for military withdrawal from Afghanistan by December 31, 2010. This is only 23 votes short of the votes required to sustain a filibuster, which could be mounted to prevent the war bill from coming to the floor for a vote. The mystery is gone. The casing has been yanked off the meat-grinder-money-machine for all to see, and it is uglier than anyone ever imagined.
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