Carpenters In The Forehead/ What’s A Billion Dollars Here, A Billion There?

Okay, I fully realize that when you think about the total amount that our government spends every year, another billion or two here and there spent in Afghanistan is really not all that much:  a bit like peeing in an ocean awash in greenbacks, you might say.

But it tears apart the rafters in my forehead and rankles my mind to the point where I don’t know whether to scream out in frustration or to drown in tears of sorrow when contemplating the trail of corruption that flows into the Afghan quagmire.

Nine years into the longest war ever waged by the United States, we are told that the rationale for this protracted conflict is to help establish a stable government in Afghanistan, one that will provide its citizens an institutional structure which can be trusted to provide an equitable rule of law and the provision of public services, both accompanied by a lack of corruption.  We are assured that from this will flow a determination on the part of the Afghan citizens to reject the repressions of the Taliban and to keep Al-Qaeda from having a base of operations for plotting attacks against Western democracies.

Sounds all well and good in the cerebral thought processes, but how does this theory stack up against what is happening on the ground?  Follow the trail of our Treasury dollars, and where do they lead?  Directly to Dubai and Delaware:  to the former by courier, to the latter by coffin.

Reports coming out of Afghanistan are all too familiar by now: efforts at changing this national culture of money changing hands with greased palms continues unabated.  It is with good reason that this country has consistently been ranked as one of the most corrupt on earth, as this mentality reaches from the highest echelons of government all the way down to the war-ravaged roadways that provide transit for the materiel needed by our troops.

U.S. investigators have documented, via wiretaps and interviews, a multitude of evidence implicating top government officials who are on the take.  The result?  No action taken, case files redacted, evidence ignored, and arrests blocked for the politically connected.  And what is the comment from President Karzai’s palace spokesman, as quoted recently in the Washington Post? “There is no case, no instance, in which the palace or anyone from the palace has interfered with a case.”  Duh!  What did you expect him to say?

In other words, back off and go fuck yourself, you stupid Yankees.

Many millions of dollars have been documented being transported out of Afghanistan by way of the airport, blatantly shown to customs officials, en route on a swift journey to bank accounts in Dubai, Switzerland, and who knows where else.  In this land of warlords and ever-changing alliances, there is no law against taking any amount of money out of the country.  The only requirement is that you declare it.  In other words, take the money and run; a free pass out of the country.

Money disappearing in suitcases laden with cash is bad enough, but the ultimate tragedy is in knowing that millions of dollars from the Department of Defense are going each and every week into the pockets of the Taliban.  Try wrapping this realization around your mind:  we are helping to fund the exact same people who are killing our troops.  If this doesn’t amount to insanity, nothing ever will qualify as such.

A scathing Congressional report titled, "Warlord, Inc., Extortion and Corruption Along the U.S. Supply Chain in Afghanistan," was released this June, and reading through it is enough to make you want to throw in the towel.  Every newspaper in this country should publish this document in serial form, and if an iota of support for the war were to remain, we should all involuntarily be committed to an asylum.

In case you weren’t aware, the huge majority of goods that are transported to our forward base stations and outposts get there by truck.  These trucks travel in convoys along desolate, isolated roads that pass through Taliban strongholds.  Our own military is not really involved in this process, having contracted out the job to local Afghan companies, who in turn have to provide their own security.  And this means hiring the local warlords, who command their own personal armies, armed to the teeth with heavy weaponry.  The cost to U.S. citizens?  Upwards of $3000 per truck.  You either pay or risk being attacked.

And this is where it really gets ugly, for the security details in turn pay bribes to the Taliban in return for safe passage.  Thus, we indirectly pay cash to the Taliban, who turn around and use it to finance the killing of our troops.  One of the executives for an Afghan trucking company estimated that upwards of $2 million a month goes to the insurgents through these bribes.

Oh…. My….God.

Pay off the insurgents, and what do we get?  More and more of the same:

(Photo from the Washington Post, depicting soldiers carrying a wounded comrade to a helicopter.)

(Photo from the New York Times:  flagged-draped coffins of fallen troops arriving home to Dover, Delaware.)

Our government’s inane belief that this war in Afghanistan remains in our national interest is utterly beyond comprehension.   It is time to come to our senses and admit that the Afghan system of governance and political culture are beyond repair, no longer worth propping up with our money and lives.  Vietnam revisited is the reality of Afghanistan.  As Country Joe and the Fish sang so many years ago:  “It’s one, two, three, What are we fighting for?”