Senate Report: Mismanaged US Contractor Money Aids Enemy in Afghanistan

[unhappycamper]

Senate Report: Mismanaged US Contractor Money Aids Enemy in Afghanistan
by Karen DeYoung
Published on Friday, October 8, 2010 by the Washington Post

The U.S. military has only minimal knowledge of - and exercises virtually no control over - the thousands of Afghans it indirectly pays to guard its installations, including "warlords and strongmen linked to murder, kidnapping, bribery" and to the Taliban, Senate investigators said in a blistering report released Thursday.

The bipartisan report, compiled after a year-long investigation, notes that the military has recently launched its own investigations of the situation and has taken some steps to address it. In one of the most significant steps, Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, has issued new contractor guidelines.

Still, the Senate investigation documents a failure to properly vet, train and supervise Afghan security subcontractors, hired by U.S. and other international firms under multimillion-dollar military contracts.

That failure has cost American lives, undermined the U.S. mission and the Afghan government, and "helped play into the hands of the enemy," said Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Some of the Afghan security subcontractors, Levin told reporters Thursday, are "creating the very threat they are hired to combat."



unhappycamper comment: Oooooh, new contractor guidelines. Does this mean it will be expressly verboten to hire Taliban to guard US bases? Or that the United States (gasp) must actually vet Afghan security subcontractors before training and paying them?

In case you haven't figured it out yet, Afghanistan is a clusterfuck of stellar proportions.

[soryang]

1. Is the Logistics train still stopped and burning at Pak. border?

If so the cost of the war is currently multiplied by a factor of 2.5. The episode of killing Pakistani troops and the countermeasure of stopping US logistics at the border and then allowing Taliban supporting warlords to burn them up will definitely shorten the war. If the ISI and the Pakistani Army have had enough, our efforts in Afghanistan won't outlast the 2012 election by much. I predict now that Obama will lose the 2012 election based on developements in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

What ISI is doing right now is equivalent to cutting off the Ho Chi Minh trail. This is why Karsai is negotiating with the Taliban and Hillary has indicated that she supports the talks. We are in deep trouble right now which the press and the Obama administration are trying to conceal before the November elections. Petraeus is looking at Dien Bien Phu or at least a Berlin crisis which only the Pakistanis can resolve.

[unhappycamper]

2. Yes, it is.

I think 'insurgents' burned another 24 takers overnight.

[soryang]

3. Here's an article supporting my contention

The rest of sheepdom media are avoiding the subject matter entirely:

Obama Will End the War or Lose the Elections

Posted By Kevin B. Zeese On October 8, 2010 @ 11:00 pm In Uncategorized | 8 Comments

http://original.antiwar.com/kevin-b-zeese/2010/10/08/obama-will-end-the-war-or-lose-the-elections/

....Now the war is expanding into an Af-Pak war-quagmire. Since coming to office, President Obama escalated attacks in Pakistan with drone after drone killing civilians and local insurgent leaders. Pakistanis are no longer sitting back but are responding by exploding oil tankers and blocking key border routes. Cutting off U.S. supply lines and burning the oil used to keep tanks rolling and planes flying may end up being the nail in a coffin of a war that cannot be won and should not have been fought. Even before these attacks on supply lines, it cost $1 million per year to keep a soldier in Afghanistan. With supply routes cut and oil burning, that cost will escalate quickly...

[soryang]

4. Bloomberg reports border reopened

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-09/pakistan-opens-border-for-nato-u-s-supplies-after-air-strike-apologies.html

Pakistan Opens Border for NATO, U.S. Supplies After Air Strike Apologies
By Abhishek Shanker and Farhan Sharif - Oct 9, 2010 9:11 AM ET

...

The Khyber Pass route was reopened after Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, expressed regret for the helicopter attack. Mullen’s letter this week to the Pakistani Army chief of staff, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, followed apologies from U.S. Ambassador Ann Patterson and the Afghanistan war commander, Army General David Petraeus.

...