I’m not sure how much stock to invest in an article written by a political activist. Let’s not confuse real investigative journalists who do some really difficult work, with op-ed writers who cobble together stuff that could have been authored by, frankly, anyone here on this forum.
And I have to say it, The Guardian are suckers for this kind of shit, which is why I read New York Magazine, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, or ProPublica for really good investigative reporting.
There’s no denying that there’s a lot to criticize the US for, but crap like this is getting close to “The US created Saddam Hussein”
I mean if there were just isolated examples of corruption, it wouldn’t have been possible to write The Afghanistan Papers. The prominent figures in the NatSec establishment that weren’t willing to deceive the public to continue a perpetual war would have been able to steer the ship away from that paradigm, or at least would have blown the whistle on it long before FOIA request was necessary.
Please. Even a quick search would have shown you that this is not just one article by one journalist.
Even the House Subcommittee for National Security said the same thing. That was in 2010, but nothing at all changed in the next 11 years, except that it got worse.
The investigation, begun last year by the House Subcommittee for National Security, found that money given to these Afghan warlords often amounts to little more than mafia-style protection payments, with some NATO convoys that refused to pay the warlords coming under attack.
The subcommittee, led by Representative John F. Tierney, Democrat of Massachusetts, also uncovered evidence suggesting that American taxpayer money is making its way to the Taliban.
A year-long military-led investigation has concluded that U.S. taxpayer money has been indirectly funneled to the Taliban under a $2.16 billion transportation contract that the United States has funded in part to promote Afghan businesses.
The unreleased investigation provides seemingly definitive evidence that corruption puts U.S. transportation money into enemy hands, a finding consistent with previous inquiries carried out by Congress, other federal agencies and the military. Yet U.S. and Afghan efforts to address the problem have been slow and ineffective, and all eight of the trucking firms involved in the work remain on U.S. payroll. In March, the Pentagon extended the contract for six months.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is indirectly paying tens of millions of dollars in protection money to Afghan warlords, and potentially to the Taliban, to secure convoys carrying supplies to U.S. troops in Afghanistan, congressional investigators said in a report.
The report by the subcommittee’s Democratic staff called protection payments “a significant potential source of funding for the Taliban,” citing numerous documents, incidents reports and emails that refer to attempts at Taliban extortion along the road.
The United States military is helping fund both sides of the war in Afghanistan, knowingly financing a mafia-like collection of warlords and some of the very insurgents American troops are battling, according to Afghan and American officials and a new Congressional study released today.
Trucking executives and investigators from the House Subcommittee on National Security say the United States military knew it was helping fund the people it was fighting but did nothing about it.
The study’s findings are reinforced by half a dozen interviews conducted in the last few months by ABC News with executives from trucking and security companies, both Afghan and American.
But you still haven’t provided convincing evidence of your central argument; that this corruption was created by the Americans rather than something the Afghanis were doing without needing any encouragement from us.
Nor have you shown a connection between Afghans taking bribes and why their military forces collapsed so quickly.
And I’m going to criticize the sensational reporting from these outlets as well. You’re characterizing the funding of the Taliban as though there’s some grand conspiracy when in reality, it’s more complicated than that. Again, we’re getting into “Saddam Hussein was created by the United States” territory here.
No, corruption doesn’t require a grand conspiracy.
It’s simply that the contractors found that they could make more money by paying off the Taliban than by providing their own security.
The generals wanted the contractors to make money, and they wanted the war to continue, so they turned a blind eye.
Neither group could care less if that made the Taliban stronger and resulted in more deaths, compared with making more money for themselves and boosting their careers.
This is a hopelessly naive view of a 20 year war in a country where it is nearly impossible to tell friend from foe and where tribal alliances change with the seasons or arranged marriages.
Yes, when you’ve spent over a trillion dollars on various efforts to fight, train, support and build, some not insignificant amount of money will be wasted, abused and co-opted by various corrupt entities. You might have to make deals with people you don’t like or trust. It may even end up in enemy hands.
The alternative was what, in your humble opinion, on how wars and diplomacy ought to be conducted? Bonus points if your answer includes the phrase “Never engage in a land war in Asia”.
The press is freaking out because the Taliban got a Blackhawk in the air. I’m not surprised. Makes sense that some of the pilots we trained got captured. They have to serve the Taliban now or see their entire families killed.
I’ve heard rumors that the software in US aircraft has backdoors? Supposedly the US can brick these aircraft with a software patch? I hope that’s true. They can probably locate aircraft with GPS. That would be useful in finding new airfields.
I’d assume Russian and Chinese aircraft have similar vulnerabilities?
The alternative was that Donald Rumsfeld could have accepted the surrender of the Taliban when they offered a full surrender in 2001.
The US could have set up a reasonable non-Taliban government in Kabul, trained a reasonable army – similar to the Taliban, but with better equipment, training, and funding – declared victory, and pulled out.
No big deal, just set up a government and train an army… nothing the US military (which tried to do this for 20 years and completely and utterly failed) couldn’t accomplish with ease!
That’s pretty fresh news, and the places I’ve checked point out that the video hasn’t been independently verified to be showing what it purports to show.
According to Wikipedia, they had 16 Black Hawks before the Taliban moved in; there’s no mention of how many of these remained after the Taliban’s arrival.
