Afghanistan: Funding both sides

[w8liftinglady]

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/articles/42/Afghanistan-Funding-both-sides.html

War junkies popped their champagne corks on 7 June to celebrate the 104th month of U.S. military engagement in Afghanistan, America’s longest war in history (Vietnam lasted 103 months). Presumably they toasted the five NATO soldiers killed on 6 June. Troop deaths have skyrocketed this year and NATO forces are continuing to “mow the grass”, killing dozens of “Taliban” every day, and lots of civilians, though no one seems to know just how many of each or how to tell the difference. In any case, what’s the point of questioning numbers provided by those doing the killing?

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NATO, U.S. and Afghan forces are proceeding with their biggest offensive yet in Kandahar. Foreign troop numbers will peak at 150,000 by August and by July 2011 will gradually be withdrawn according to U.S. President Barack Obama’s plan. But whether Obama realises it or not, U.S. generals are not planning to leave -- ever -- and America’s longest war is poised to become America’s first “everlasting war” in the words of Congressman Michael Honda.

No better evidence of this are Army building plans; in particular, the $100 million expansion of U.S. Special Operations headquarters in Mazar-e-Sharif in northern Afghanistan, and the 700 bases the U.S. has built in the country. Construction on the new HQs is supposed to take a year, just when the U.S. is supposedly to begin drawing down its forces in Afghanistan.

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In a dispute over territory and cash, Karzai's cousin Rashid Popal, head of another such private army/ security company, Watan Risk Management and Compass Security, was caught red-handed colluding with Taliban, allowing them to attack a convoy headed for Kabul in which a Afghan driver and a soldier were killed and their truck burned. Within two weeks, and with more than 1,000 trucks backed up, Karzai allowed his dear cousin to resume his "safeguarding".

“We’re funding both sides of the war,” a NATO official in Kabul said. Matiullah's U.S. paymaster General Carter said he fears that the legions of unregulated Afghan security companies have a financial interest in prolonging chaos. Well, yes. And is the Pope Catholic?

much more at site

[unhappycamper]

1. The quagmire in Afghanistan will continue to degenerate into chaos.

There is nothing the United States can do about it.