Horizon darkens for U.S. occupation of Afghanistan

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The political justifications for the U.S.-led occupation of Afghanistan are unraveling rapidly. And its prospects are fading apace. The most eloquent demonstration of the bankruptcy of the occupation was the attack on a NATO convoy by an angry crowd reported in the April 26 issue of The New York Times. This was not an operation by the Taliban but an outburst of rage against the occupiers by local people.

“Twelve trucks, most of them carrying fuel to NATO base in eastern Afghanistan, were burned by an angry crowd early Sunday less than 30 miles from Kabul, according to local officials and NATO reports. The attack was thought to be in retribution for two raids by a joint Afghan-American force over the weekend, Afghan officials said.”

The article went on to point out that the area of the assault had been the target of apparently successful NATO military operations against the Taliban. But the political backlash had left the occupation more embattled than before: “While insurgent activity had calmed there after a concerted effort by American troops and Afghan forces last year, it seems that the remaining insurgents are tapping into resentment among local people about continuing raids by American and Afghan troops, local officials said. These raids occasionally wound or kill civilians as well as insurgents.”

This incident was another episode in the basic story of the U.S. war in Afghanstan, military success fol(Above) April 29 protest in eastern Afghanistan following a military raid that killed an Afghan politician’s family member.

touted privatization as the magic formula for eliminating government inefficiency. They carried it to the point of largely privatizing the U.S. armed services. Thus, there are now far more private contractors operating in Afghanistan than there are members of the official U.S. armed forces. Now the mercenary outfits are being hit with a chain of scandals, and even the head of the U.S. command in Afghanistan, General McCrystal, has begun questioning their role.

AP reported April 16: “Gen. Stanley McChrystal, during a four-day visit to France, said the coalition in Afghanistan has become too dependent on private contractors in the effort to stabilize the country. ‘I think we’ve gone too far,’ McChrystal said at France’s IHEDN military institute. ‘I actually think we would be better to reduce the number of contractors involved.’...

“McChrystal said the use of contractors was founded upon ‘good intentions,’ such as to limit military commitments or to save money for governments. ‘I think it doesn’t save money,’ he said. ‘We have created in ourselves a dependency on contractors that I think is greater than it ought to be.’’’

Of course, it is unlikely that saving money is a good reason for using the contractors because they make very high salaries, many times the pay of soldiers. In fact, that is one reason the GIs hate them. The advantage of using mercenaries in reality is official deniability. Contractors killed are not counted among the casualties of war. But contractor deaths have been increasing rapidly in Afghanistan as their numbers have swelled.

ProPublica reported April 15: “Of the 289 civilians killed since the war began more than eight years ago, 100 have died in just the last six months. That’s a reflection of both growing violence and the importance of the civilians flooding into the country along with troops in response to President Obama’s decision to boost the American presence in Afghanistan.”

Contractor deaths will undoubtedly increase more because the local people hate them more than the soldiers because of their uncontrolled cowboy behavior. Mercenaries are being used in particular in Pakistan as a way of getting around the Pakistani government’s reluctance to allow U.S. military forces in the country. But their presence is becoming increasingly notorious.

The New York Times reported March 14: “Under the cover of a benign government information-gathering program, a Defense Department official set up a network of private contractors in Afghanistan and Pakistan to help track and kill suspected militants, according to military officials and businessmen in Afghanistan and the United States.”

The article continued: “The official, Michael D. Furlong, hired contractors from private security companies that employed former C.I.A. and Special Forces operatives. The contractors, in turn, gathered intelligence on the whereabouts of suspected militants and the location of insurgent camps, and the information (continued on page 11, in “Drowning in Debt”)