95% of Private Contractors employed in Afghanistan are Afghans

[FrenchieCat]

The Pentagon's surveys reveal that the makeup of armed private security contractors varies considerably between the two war zones. In Iraq, less than 5 percent of the armed civilians are Americans, while less than 8 percent are Iraqi. The remaining 88 percent come from other countries, such as Fiji, Nepal, Chile and Nigeria.

In Afghanistan, the overwhelming majority — some 95 percent — are Afghans.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113389274


Guess giving Afghans jobs in their country which is without an economy is a bad thing??? :shrug:


Private Contractors and Armed Mercenaries are not always the same thing.....

Armed security contractors make up only a small portion of the overall Pentagon contractor workforce. The Defense Department employed a total of 193,674 private contractors in both Iraq and Afghanistan as of June (compared to a total U.S. military deployment of 189,678 soldiers), according to a separate Congressional Research Service report.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113389274


Also,
During his recent inaugural address, Afghanistan's embattled president Hamid Karzai dropped a major bombshell. "Within the next two years," he declared, his administration intends to phase out "operations by all private national and international security firms" and transfer their duties to "Afghan security entities."
http://motherjones.com/politics/2009/11/karzai-contractor-ban-obama-afghanistan

[ClarkUSA]

1. It's good to know the FACTS behind the latest Obama Outrage meme.

Thanks. :)

[FrenchieCat]

3. What I don't like is propaganda being spouted

The armed mercenaries are certainly an issue,
and I've never liked the likes of Blackwater being in
either countries....

And that is something to discuss.....

But the postings I have read make it look like something so much more nefarious,
like 90% more....and also makes it appear that they are all Americans.

I'm quite ashamed that folks on the Left, here at DU are doing this,
as though we are just dumb folks who don't know anything at all!

It should make one question anything posted that attempts to morph Obama into Bush
by implication. But I guess that serves a specific purpose, hey?

[ClarkUSA]

11. "But I guess that serves a specific purpose, hey?"

Of course. It serves the same bitter bullshit purpose it did all last year: demonizing Obama.

[Clio the Leo]

6. I heard he's about to outlaw Big Macs....

... to pay for the war. I realize that makes no sense .... but that's just what I heard!

[ClarkUSA]

12. !!

:rofl:

[slackmaster]

2. WOOF

[FrenchieCat]

4. LOL!

But that is a beauty!

[stray cat]

5. Jobs - how horrible!

[NYC_SKP]

7. K & R! Consistent with the stated purpose of turning it around, doing it WITH them, not TO them.

Supporting the economy, redirecting their enterprise, leaving Afghanistan a better place than if we left tomorrow.

:patriot:

edit sp.

[ipaint]

8. They are still for profit private corporate armies.

The nationality of the employees doesn't change that.

Spinning this into some kind of pentagon jobs program for the afghans is beyond absurd.

[FrenchieCat]

9. Most aren't even armed.....like 90% of them

although it is possible that more are armed than that.....like 15 to 20%...

but why not give Afghans a job, considering the economy.

If they don't shoot for you, they might shoot at you,
one could say.

[ipaint]

13. I believe Bush did say that.

We have gone from 3% contractors during the korean war to 50% today. War profiteering at it's finest and you defend it. Pathetic.

As far as the "they just might come to get you" meme conservative authoritarians just love to pull out in every discussion, save it for someone who doesn't have a clue, they scare easier.

[ipaint]

10. More pentagon "socialist" jobs programs,

profits of course go directly to private defense contractors. This jobs program :sarcasm: employed the Chileans, Nepalese, Colombians, Indians, Fijians, El Salvadorans, Iraqis and Filipinos.

"Estimated number of U.S.-(taxpayer)-paid private contractors in Iraq: More than 180,000, again undoubtedly an all-time high. That figure includes approximately 21,000 Americans, 43,000 non-Iraqi foreign contractors (including Chileans, Nepalese, Colombians, Indians, Fijians, El Salvadorans, and Filipinos among others), and 118,000 Iraqis, but does not include a complete count of "private security contractors who protect government officials and buildings," according to State Department and Pentagon figures obtained by the Los Angeles Times."

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070827/engelhardt

[FrenchieCat]

14. Why post an article about Iraq from 2007?

What 'Progress' in Iraq Really Means By Tom Engelhardt
August 13, 2007
(at your link)


Want us to get confused too, like you are?


I'm talking about Afghanistan.
95% are homegrown.

[ipaint]

16. Same private contract companies. Just because it's now

afghan employees doesn't change the for profit private corporate part.

[FrenchieCat]

18. The article is about Iraq, not Afghanistan.

[ipaint]

22. So. n/t

[Arctic Dave]

15. So 95% of the armed contractors are Afghani?

"The Pentagon has increased its efforts to monitor its own contractors over the past two years.

The Pentagon's surveys reveal that the makeup of armed private security contractors varies considerably between the two war zones. In Iraq, less than 5 percent of the armed civilians are Americans, while less than 8 percent are Iraqi. The remaining 88 percent come from other countries, such as Fiji, Nepal, Chile and Nigeria.

In Afghanistan, the overwhelming majority — some 95 percent — are Afghans."

Most likely they are subcontracted. That would be the only explanation for the insane amount we are paying for this occupation. This article doesn't say what the nationalities of the other types of contractors are.

[ipaint]

17. It's big business.

The war in Iraq and Afghanistan along with the promised long global war against terror has created a boom in the security and risk advisory market. Trained and experienced military personnel from Special Forces units in the US, UK, Israel and South Africa are retiring to take part. The same is true for the intelligence agencies as companies aiding business ventures in Iraq like GlobalOptions and Diligence see executives on the boards from the CIA, DIA, FBI, the Secret Service, FEMA and MI6.

Many companies are subsidiaries of larger firms. MPRI and Titan were bought by L-3 Communications which is traded on the NYSE. Defence Systems Limited was bought by Armor Holdings, Inc., renamed ArmorGroup than bought out by its board. Group 4 Securicor is a merger between Group 4 Falck and the Wackenhut Corporation providing services from armed prison guards to guarding embassies to supplying electronic surveillance. Computer Sciences Corporation acquired DynCorp.

Many of these companies, while paid with taxpayer money when working under government contracts, are often registered offshore somewhere, escaping tax on many profits from re-entering the representative, public Treasury.

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Private_Military_Corporations

[Arctic Dave]

19. Big Business, absolutely.

The post title is a bit misleading. It make it sound like 95% of all the contractors are Afghani, when in fact, it is just 95% of the armed contractors.


I'm sure that many a billionaire was made from our adventure in the ME.

[ipaint]

20. And we are paying for a piss poor job of it.

Trigger-happy security complicates convoys

By Sean D. Naylor - Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday Dec 2, 2009

HUTAL, Afghanistan — Ill-disciplined private security guards escorting supply convoys to coalition bases are wreaking havoc as they pass through western Kandahar province, undermining the coalition’s counterinsurgency strategy here and leading to at least one confrontation with U.S. forces, say U.S. Army officers and Afghan government officials.

The security guards are responsible for killing and wounding more than 30 innocent civilians during the past four years in Maywand district alone, said Mohammad Zareef, the senior representative in the district for Afghanistan’s intelligence service, the National Directorate of Security.

Highway 1, the country’s main east-west artery, runs through Maywand and is the route taken by logistics convoys moving west from Kabul and Kandahar to coalition bases in Helmand province. The Afghan government’s district chief for Maywand says the men hired to protect the convoys are heroin addicts armed with rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles.

The contractors’ actions are frustrating U.S. military leaders in Maywand and undermining coalition efforts to bring a greater sense of security to the Afghan people, particularly because the locals associate the contractors with the coalition.

Continued...
http://www.armytimes.com/news/2009/11/army_convoy_security_112909w/

[FrenchieCat]

24. 75% of Afghans make up the whole 104,100 currently in Afghanistan.

Third Country Nationals 16,400
Local/Host Nation 78,400
US Citizens 9,300
Total 104,100

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009/12/so_how_many_private_contractors_are_there_in_afgha.php

95% of the armed ones are Afghans.

I stand corrected.

[Arctic Dave]

33. No problem, I thought maybe I misread something.

[knightinwhitesatin]

21. So

we are paying mercenary Afghanis to kill their own people. What color is the sky in your world where the US paying poor people to kill other poor people in the middle of an ethnic civil war is ok?

[FrenchieCat]

23. Really? Link.

[knightinwhitesatin]

26. your link

in the OP......Thank you come again

[ipaint]

27. The link is in post 20.

You have to click on it and read the story.

"Afghan personnel

The problem of out-of-control security contractors operating at cross-purposes to the coalition’s counterinsurgency strategy is similar to the one that dogged the U.S. military and its allies in Iraq, with one major difference: unlike Iraq, where there were a series of high-profile incidents involving U.S. security personnel, here the guards causing the problems are Afghans."

[FrenchieCat]

30. Problems exist certainly.......

Taking on the problem
...
French told the local leaders that he had ordered his troops that if they received credible reports of security guards shooting at civilians, they were to move immediately to the site and investigate the incident by talking to Afghan security forces, local civilians and the convoy escorts.

“If … we feel that they were acting inappropriately and endangering people in this district, my intent is to basically take control of those individuals in that convoy, bring them back to Ramrod and lock them up in here … call their company, make sure we can get some kind of an understanding regarding their operations, and then my guys will personally escort them out of Maywand district,” French said.

On Nov. 15, French was able to back up his words with action. After receiving word of shooting from the vicinity of Highway 1 as three convoys were rolling through Maywand, 2-1 Infantry’s quick reaction force set up a checkpoint on the highway outside the battalion’s headquarters at Forward Operating Base Ramrod and pulled over two of the convoys at gunpoint before taking the two convoys’ security chiefs into the base for questioning.

One security chief, Fidal Mohammed, claimed to have 48 men under arms. He said he worked for a company called DIAK, said 2-1 Infantry’s executive officer, Maj. Dave Abrahams, who conducted the meetings. Mohammed also gave Abrahams the names of several other companies that work the convoy escort business along Highway 1. The other security chief, who gave his name as Lalai, said he worked for a company called Angar and commanded 52 armed men.

[jenmito]

25. K&R. Surprising GOOD news! n/t

[ipaint]

28. Great news!

Among incidents this year involving the security guards in Maywand, according to Zareef, the NDS chief:

• On May 9, contractors shot dead an Afghan National Policeman manning a checkpoint on Highway 1, then drove away.

• Contractors left their broken-down car for a night at a gas station and found the next morning that insurgents had burned it. In their anger, the security guards turned their guns on the local population. “They started shooting and killed a kid,” Zareef said.

• On March 28, speeding contractors killed a local man and his wife, and injured their child, when the security guards’ SUV hit the motorcycle on which the family was riding.

• Afghans arrested a convoy security guard for the March 4 killing of a kuchi, or nomadic herder.

Zareef’s accounts were consistent with the reports received by U.S. commanders.

“We’re getting fairly consistent complaints about them,” Thoreen said. “Everybody knows somebody who’s been shot by the contractors.”

[FrenchieCat]

29. I didn't say it was a wonderful thing or an ideal situation.....

just not what has been put out there,
that 140,000+ "mercenaries" are in Afghanistan....
that's a lie.

Mercenaries are those contractors who bear arms.
That number is closer to about 15% of the 140,000,
and most are Afghans.

That was my point.

I certainly understand that beyond that, war is hell,
and Afghanistan is a particularly terrible hell hole
that we have been in for 8 years.

[knightinwhitesatin]

31. So 15% scum sucking mercenaries is ok?

What about 16%, does your outrage kick in at 27%? Or is 43.5% a number of murdering mercenaries that bothers you? Your rationalization of war, death, and murder of innocent poor people would make Dick Cheney proud. I know I know, you will say where did I say that murder of Afghanis is ok, you said it when you got so gung-ho to send more Americans to fight, knowing full well that more soldiers on a battlefield means more dead civilians through accidents, firefights, and battlefield atrocities. Yes, yes you will deny it, but you are the one that has yet to say what a tragedy this surge is going to be for American moms and dads, as well as Afghani ones.

[FrenchieCat]

37. Propaganda isn't good, no matter who uses it....

I already said that it is a fucked up situation.

I'm not cheerleadering this fucking war, dumbass.

I'm just going to allow this President to end
in the way that he chooses......
cause that's what I voted for.

[knightinwhitesatin]

39. So it's fucked up

and you admit it is fucked up. It is going to be fucked up for 18 more months at a more fucked up rate than it was before the surge. So basically you are supporting 30% more fucked up just because the President said so. Stunning me into silence.

[bluedigger]

32. And there is Afghanistan's future.

You have it all there in your links, Frenchiecat, nice job!

This is the "American" solution. We are not building any sort of democracy in Afghanistan. That is pretty obvious. So what is our goal? Pretty simple. We want stability. And the best way to achieve that is to return Afghanistan to its traditional form of government. It will return to being a country of tribal warlords. Currently funded, with handsome profits for prime contractors on down, bu us. Karzai will be first, for as long as he can hold on, amongst many regional leaders. Call it decentralized government. In two or so more years we expect local (tribal) leaders to have sufficient control that the country will not be so easy for religious fundamentalists to take control of it. When the Soviets finally pulled out, they left in place a centralized puppet government that never had a chance, eventually leading to making conditions ripe for the Taliban. The anthropologist in me likes this plan. It might have a chance.

[FrenchieCat]

34. Poor Rachel. Using the inflated numbers and confusing folks.....

not good.

Guess I have to write to her.

Oh well!

[arcadian]

35. Without an economy? What fucking three-ringed, purple atmosphered planet are you inhabiting?

[FrenchieCat]

36. What economy?

Tell me.

I want to feel hopeful!

[arcadian]

38. Just because there isn't a Starbucks on every corner

Doesn't mean there isn't an economy. Bartering is a form economy. There are many methods of an economy. It's how people provide for themselves. Look up the word, "economy", it means "home" essentially.