In a dark and twisted revelation straight out of Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, we now learn that the U.S military is currently paying millions of dollars a year to the Taliban and local warlords so that they don’t shoot at the convoys we are using to supply our soldiers so we can shoot at them.
It’s all pretty simple, really. First, we contract out all of our supply deliveries and impose rules preventing the supply delivery companies from arming themselves. In turn, the supply companies need to hire security escorts as they travel through Afghanistan, which they subcontract out, driving up the overall price of contracting.
They then subcontract to Afghan security companies, which are run by shady relatives of the Karzai administration, who do one of two things. They could actually provide security to the supply convoys, but that is really tough, since they are only allowed to carry AK-47s, which do little in the face of rocket-propelled grenades.
Thus, the security firms end up paying local warlords and Taliban fighters fees in exchange for safe passage. The fees themselves are not staggering compared to other war costs- one truck can usually buy passage through a warlord’s zone for about $1,600 (the cost of transporting four gallons of gas). But that money goes a long way in funding the Taliban. In fact, conservative estimates suggest that at least 10% of security transport money goes directly into the hands of the Taliban or other insurgents.
For the Taliban, this is a golden pipeline. Literally as long as the war continues, they will have a source of revenue. Arom Roston’s article for The Nation focuses primarily on the Afghan security companies themselves, which took in $2.2 billion dollars last year from the Pentagon.
For perspective, that is about 10% of Afghanistan’s GDP, and roughly equal to Ambassador Eikenberry’s rejected requested for non-military reconstruction aid. One of the main security firms, Watan Risk Management, is run by a pair of Afghan brothers convicted of heroin smuggling in the United States in the 1990s.
This site has listed the many reasons why the war in Afghanistan is wrong, and several reasons why it is unwinnable. This may be the most damning piece of evidence I’ve come across yet. Only someone with a dark, fatalistic humor would order the continuation, let alone, escalation, of a war in which supplying our own soldiers financially enables our enemies.
That’s how you buy eggs for 7 cents in Malta, sell them in the mess halls for 5 and still make a profit.
