Category: Afghanistan

Signs of Progress in Iraq and Afghanistan, They Are Entering the Modern Financial System

No Comments

Specifically insurance fraud, but it’s only the contractors, who have conspired with insurance companies to stick it to the tax payers.

It’s basically kickbacks. The contractors negotiate their own insurance deals, which are over priced, and they get commissions from the insurers:

KBR Inc., one of the largest defense contractors in Iraq, paid the insurance giant AIG $284 million for medical and disability coverage under the Defense Base Act, a reference to the federal law mandating the insurance. Due to the way KBR’s contract is structured, this premium, along with an $8 million markup for KBR, gets billed to the taxpayer.

“Out of this amount, just $73 million actually goes to injured contractors, and AIG and KBR pocket over $100 million as profit,” Waxman said.

Lovely.

IDF Ramps Up Ground Forces Training

No Comments

This increase in focus in training ground forces, which accompanies an increase in the status of ground forces is not surprising.

The conclusion of the Winograd report*, which reviewed the 2006 Lebanon campaign was quite clear:

The military has abandoned the doctrine that stressed precision stand-off firepower over maneuver warfare, arguably the biggest mistake Israel made in the conflict.

It should be noted that the doctrine that they are abandoning is the central doctrine of the US military, particularly the USAF, and it is why you are seeing changes as a result of the experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In fact, when one looks at the failures of the US military, at their core have been a consistent over-reliance on air power, whether USAF fast jets or slower helicopters.

*Warning, the format is some sort of mutant flash called NTXbook.

Eddie Haskell David Petraeus to Head CENTCOM

No Comments

Great. This is a man who has staked his personal reputation in Iraq, and now they want him to allocate resources between Iraq and Afghanistan. I wouldn’t expect much perspective here.

Even more disturbing are his lies regarding Iran, which implies that Bush and His Evil Minions™ now have someone who be willing to attack Iran without question.

Furthermore, this will create a problem for an eventual Democratic nominee, because It’s clear that Petraeus will be a voice for Iraq forever, otherwise he looks like the charlatan he is, and there will be political blowback if they try to remove him from the post.

My hope would be that the hearings for his appointment would be scheduled for sometime in late January, 2009.

US Air Power as a Force for Terror, as Opposed to a Weapon Against Terror

No Comments

Tom Engelhardt makes a very convincing case that US air power is making terrorism worse, not better.

His thesis is that, “U.S. air power has, in the last six and a half years, been an effective force in a war for terror, not against it.”

When one considers the nature of the United States’ use of air power, particularly on a strategic level, it has largely proved a failure.

In WWII, when the entire 8th air force was focused on bombing the German aircraft industry during the “big week”, aircraft production increased.

In Viet Nam, bombing increased the support of the Viet Cong in the south, and of the general citizenry in the north, as the North Vietnamese civil defense authorities have attested to repeatedly.

While strategic bombing is more often a failure than not, and is currently failing in both Iraq and Afghanistan because it is the strongest recruiting tool of Jihadists, but the military, including the Army and, to a lesser extent, the Marines, continue to call air strikes in rather than clearing buildings.

It is a fundamental error in doctrine that permeates the US military establishment.

Bush and His Evil Minions™: Fraud In Iraq and Afghanistan is Just Fine

No Comments

The Bush administration, after much prodding, will be tightening up the standards for fraud, waste, and abuse in government contracting, but only in the US.

If you are contracting outside of the US, say like Halliburton in Iraq, you do not have to report, “internal fraud or overpayment on government-funded projects” in excess of $5 million.

My guess is that it would sweep up too many of their campaign contributors and Dick Cheney’s Golfing Buddies.

News Flash: Europeans Conflate Efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Support Neither

No Comments

Robert Gates is surprised and alarmed by this attitude. I say, “Well, Duh!!!”

It’s painfully clear that Afghanistan was shortchanged for the invasion of Iraq, and that the US is unable to support both efforts fully, so this means that European aid with operations in Iraq actually does free up US resources for operations in Afghanistan.

The European public has realized this for some time, as have the governments.

However, those in power realize that saying, “You’re on your own, Jack,” will shatter an alliance that they see as valuable.

The support of the European public American military operations anywhere is a rapidly wasting asset, and the stupid, disasterous war in Iraq is at its core.

New Rule: Our Troops, No Midieval Clerics Get the Power to Judge People

No Comments

Sayed Pervez Kambaksh has been sentenced to death for blasphemy.

Hi crime, he “he downloaded a report from a Farsi website which stated that Muslim fundamentalists who claimed the Koran justified the oppression of women had misrepresented the views of the prophet Mohamed”, and “distributed the tract to fellow students and teachers at Balkh University.”

He was not allowed a lawyer. He was not allowed to speak.

We’ve turned the most secular government in the Arab world into an ethnically cleansed theocracy, and because of the resources we pulled from Afghanistan to do that, Afghanistan is heading back towards becoming…well…Afghanistan.

Heck of a job, Bushie.

Bob Gates: Moron

No Comments

I guess that Robert Gates is just Don Rumsfeld without the charisma.

He’s criticising NATO forces for not doing a proper job in Afghanistan.

Of course, he would be a bit more convincing if:

  • The US had not allowed Osama bin Laden and Mullah Mohammad Omar get away because they were too timid about potential US casualties.
  • Bush and His Evil Minions™ hadn’t simply dropped a not-yet pacified south to go after Saddam, who had nothing to do with 911.
  • If US tactics in the south weren’t so violent and indiscriminate (particularly the bomb happy USAF), that the British weren’t asking US special forces to get the hell out.
  • If US aid policies in Afghanistan weren’t primarily for the benefit of US contractors who were Republican donors.
  • If the US wasn’t juxtaposing this incompetence in delivering aid with an aggressive anti-opium program that leaves Afghan farmers with a choice between aiding the Taliban or starving.
  • The US wasn’t currently limiting its operations in the east, where Taliban activity is minimal.
  • If the US were not committing a smaller proportion of its military to Afghanistan than the NATO allies.

Is there a single competent Republican party Apparatchik in this entire nation?

US Spending on Afthan Aid Inadequate and Incompetent

No Comments

Oxfam complaining about this. It appears that in addition to not spending enough money, $4.4 billion in Afghanistan since 2002, as versus $35 billion in 2007 alone for military efforts, too much is spent on, “profits of companies and subcontractors, on non-Afghan resources and on high expatriate salaries and living costs,” (up to ½ million/year for each contractor).

Additionally, “Some two-thirds of U.S. foreign assistance bypasses the Afghan government that officials say they want to strengthen”.

It’s almost as if there were a conscious decision among Bush and His Evil Minions™ to treat this as an opportunity for political payback to incompetent contractors who are political allies.

We are Losing Afghanistan

No Comments

Not surprising, and largely driven by American failures:

  • Failure to devote sufficient resources.
  • Failure to deal with Pakistani government support (by which I mean their intelligence service, the ISI) of the Taliban.
  • Just plain stupidity:

Although it is a volatile area and a centre of Taliban support, the Dutch forces had forged close links with community leaders, cutting down the fighting, until a botched poppy eradication program by a US private security firm a few months ago, analysts say.

“Uruzgan was going OK until they went in with tractors and started ripping the poppy fields up,” said the Kabul-based security analyst. “The Dutch had a good relationship with the people down there, the local leaders, but when they rip up your crop, what do you do? You grab your gun. They didn’t even do that much damage to the crops in the end.”

To quote John Wilkes Booth, “Useless”.

Afghanistan Clamps Down on Mercenaries Private Security Firms

No Comments

These guns for hire are not just a problem in Iraq, they are a problem in Afghanistan, where authorities are clamping down on unlicensed, incompetent, and excessively violent security contractors.

Two of the main problems are the US and UK, where many of these firms are based, and which have not signed the International Convention against the Recruitment, Use, Financing and Training of Mercenaries, which is why all the companies we hear about are from the US and UK.

Contact your congressman about getting the us to ratify this convention.