“Here we have internationals and Afghans turning a blind eye to the fact that we are paying off the very Taliban that we claim to be fighting,” says an adviser to the Afghan Ministry of Interior. “It becomes a self-sustaining war, a self-licking ice cream.” –How Crime Pays For the Taliban, Time
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I am reading this stuff, and I am trying to keep a balanced view on all of it. Actually I am trying not to get mad as I write this, because this is insanity the more I think about it. Now I realize that money can grease the skids out there, but when we create an entire industry off of pay-offs to the enemy, someone has to say ‘what the hell are we doing’ and ‘what is the return on investment’?
Let’s take that a step further. If we are paying off the enemy, or allowing the practice of paying off the enemy by these NGO’s/PSC’s, then what is the signal to the government in Afghanistan? We continuously point out the corruption in this government, but isn’t what we are allowing to go on with these payoffs, the pot calling the kettle black?
It’s worse than that. When we pay off the enemy, we reduce the legitimacy of the government and the police, and we reduce the perceived strength of NATO. Matter of fact, paying off the enemy makes everyone look weak. If anything, we should be using these checkpoints as an opportunity to kill more Taliban. My point is if this kind of industry will bring the Taliban out in the open to man check points and interact with convoy leaders, then we should get a return on investment and track these Taliban to their lairs, and catch or kill some big fish.
We do the same tactic all the time in law enforcement in order to find drug dealers and we could be doing the same thing with these guys. If the Taliban want to come out and man checkpoints, then we should be taking advantage of this. Matter of fact, this could be a golden opportunity to do some damage. These convoy operations should be used not only for supplies, but as bait in order to kill Taliban. In my book, that is smart.
And from what it looks like, wherever we move the routes, the Taliban follow. So eventually we have to come to grips that the convoys and the contractors that run these things, actually matter in this war. If I was the Taliban, I would be hitting us equally on every route into and out of Afghanistan. The same goes for Pakistan, and in many ways we are seeing this. It will only get worse, because this is a strategy that pays off in so many ways for the Taliban.
Now I realize the guys on the ground are in a position in which they have to survive these routes and do all they can to get their convoy from A to B in one piece. I do not envy them, and convoy work is extremely dangerous. If they are having to pay off the Taliban to survive, then that is what they feel is the only option they have. I guess NATO and company could care less about protecting these convoys, or backing up these companies when they get in trouble, so these guys are forced to pay off the Taliban. How pathetic is that? From a strategist point of view, what NATO and company is allowing to happen has far reaching negative effects.
My question to NATO and company, is when does it stop? By allowing payoffs and allowing these companies to get massacred out there, you are empowering the Taliban. They relish these victories, they get paid handsomely, and are able to buy more weapons and kill even more troops. That is madness, and these payoffs are creating a thriving industry. It reminds of the piracy problems in the GOA, and how insurance companies keep paying them off. pffffft
Why would the Taliban want to stop, and why would their price for admission go down? They have an awesome deal, and they will just keep going with it, and laughing all the way to the bank. If that is our end goal with the Taliban, then keep it up. If not, then somewhat at the top needs to re-think this problem and find a better solution than this. –Matt
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Taliban Stepping Up Attacks on NATO Supply Convoys
By Tim McGirk
Wednesday, Oct. 07, 2009
To supply nearly 100,000 troops in Afghanistan, the U.S. and its Western allies rely on road convoys with dozens of trucks to carry in everything from jet fuel to frozen pizza. But increasingly these convoys are coming under savage attack by the Taliban. And experts say that if the ambushes get worse, it could impair NATO’s efforts to keep a supply lifeline running to its troops in forts and camps scattered across the mountainous country.
Often, the death of a private security contractor in Afghanistan goes unheralded; after all, they risk their lives for money, not country. Yet the drivers and guards who ride shotgun on the long convoys snaking over the mountains also suffer heavy casualties. Many have died heroically. Figures released to TIME by NATO showed that from June to September, more than 145 truck drivers and guards were killed in attacks on convoys and 123 vehicles were destroyed.
In previous years, the Taliban would scale down their attacks because of winter blizzards, but a NATO logistics officer says the militants now have the capacity to launch ambushes on supply routes year round. The Taliban are also widening the scope of their attacks so that convoys rumbling across two-thirds of the country are now prey to attack, usually by roadside bombs or a well-laid ambush in which rocket-propelled grenades are fired at the lead vehicle, forcing the convoy to a deadly standstill.
Last month, Taliban fighters in Kunduz, in northern Afghanistan, hijacked two NATO fuel tankers. The robbery escalated into an international incident because NATO aircraft, following a German request, bombed the two stranded tankers while civilians were siphoning free fuel. The death toll — more than 125 Afghans perished, nearly half of them civilians — overshadowed the gruesome fact that the Taliban had beheaded one of the tanker drivers. Beheadings and killings of NATO supply drivers are a common occurrence, according to several private security contractors.
The main supply arteries into Afghanistan are through mountain passes along the Pakistan border, through the fabled Khyber Pass, near Peshawar, and Spin Boldak in the south. The Khyber Pass was closed down by the Taliban seven times this year, and convoys were unable to get through, according to NATO. Currently, the Pakistani army, under pressure from Washington, is mounting a military operation to sweep Taliban fighters out of the Khyber Pass. On Aug. 30, near Spin Boldak, the Taliban attacked a major NATO convoy and destroyed 25 trucks and military vehicles. Contractors say that Taliban attacks have made vital supplies of fuel and food scarce at some NATO bases.
In trying to explain the worsening security situation on the roads, a British contractor recounts a joke that Afghans love to tell about themselves. It goes something like this: Alexander the Great was marching across the Hindu Kush mountains on his way to India over 2,000 years ago. The Greek had heard that Afghan tribes had fierce fighters, so he dispatched part of his force through the northwest, which was supposed to be the easier route, and led the remainder of his army straight through the middle of the Hindu Kush. The commander who had gone through the northwest, expecting less resistance, arrived exhausted and bloodied on the banks of the Indus River. He had fought every step of the way. But Alexander, who had journeyed through the most dangerous part, hadn’t lost a single soldier. “How is that possible?” asked the battered general. “Easy,” replied Alexander. “The chief of the Afghan tribes stopped us and said, ‘If you want to cross the mountains, either you pay us in gold or we fight.’ So I paid,” he said with a shrug.
“What was true 2,000 years ago is still true today,” says the contractor as he finishes the joke. “If you want to get through the mountain passes, you fight or you pay.” Like most contractors interviewed for this article, he preferred to remain anonymous because the U.S. and NATO have understandably strict rules about paying bribes to the Taliban, since that cash can in turn be used to buy more arms for fighting U.S. and NATO forces. NATO observes a “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on such payments. “We know that sometimes the contractors pay bribes to get the trucks through,” says a NATO officer, “but they’re not required to tell us that.”
Taliban spokesman Qari Yusef Ahmadi tells TIME in a telephone interview, “We don’t deal with the infidel; we want to destroy them.” But he admits that it’s possible “low-level Taliban” are taking protection money from NATO’s suppliers. Protection money is a major source of revenue for the Taliban, along with their rake-off from drug-trafficking.
The main Kabul-Kandahar highway was once a showpiece for how Western aid would modernize Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban. Repaved in 2003, the 300-mile highway is now pocked with craters from roadside bombs. Travelers face three or four Taliban checkpoints along the way. A Western businessman says his trucking firm pays a local commander from $5,000 to $6,000 for the safe passage of each fuel tanker along the highway, a sum which he suspects the Taliban get a share of. He also claims that in order to ship fuel from Kandahar to a Dutch base at Tirin Kot, the firm hired a local tribal mafioso who boasted of having a strong militia to protect the convoy. The arrangement worked well until the trucking firm quarreled with the mafioso over a price hike. The next convoy was ambushed, two tankers were set ablaze, and drivers reported that several of the mafioso’s gunmen were among the Taliban attackers. After that, the trucking firm forked out the extra fees for protection.
— With reporting by Aryn Baker / Kabul and Muhib Habibi / Kandahar
Story here.