9 October 2010 I’d rather have been wrong about this

“"What used t0 he called warlord militias are now Private Security Companies. ..



Kandahar City Municipality & Dand

District, Narrative Analyst~

ISAF, Regional Command South

Stability Operations Information Center

March 30, 2010



Cassi Creek:

Actually, like anyone who throws their opinion out, I’d rather be proven right. But I'd rather the situation was different.
Historical, use of LIP contractors for any task by a foreign army has always become a means of infiltration and enrichment for the LIP’s and the force they support.

In every case, the use of local people to perform menial and manual labor that the troops do not wish to perform, or cannot perform due to manpower conditions; has served to infiltrate a group of enemy forces pretending to be there only for the money they can earn into the confines of the invading army’s bases. There is no way to avoid hiring infiltrators if locals are hired. Even the most menial and demeaning tasks offer opportunity for intelligence gathering. Money paid to LIP workers goes directly to the local economy and also to the opposing forces tax collectors.

Every man who served in VietNam outside the major cities has a war story about finding the barber who cut hair outside the company office or the operations office dead inside the wire after leading a sapper team into the base during a night attack. Some of these are true. Some are just war stories. But they all have their foundation in truth. Camp followers, pretending not to understand the invader’s language have always been a source of intelligence information.

Mercenaries fight for pay and sometimes for even less noble reasons. The history books are filled with reports of battles lost when a mercenary force switched sides during a battle. We are hiring mercenary contractors to fill manpower needs in Afghanistan and elsewhere. That the primary contracting corporations are officially “American in origin and makeup does not change the nature of the corporations from what they are; men pretending to be soldiers for profit, employed by a for –profit corporation. The bottom line is the controlling factor.

Since the going price for U.S. and European mercenaries is greater than that paid to Afghanis and other South Asians to pose as guards and gatekeepers, it should come as no surprise that these “American corporations” are selling out their home nation and its real soldiers by hiring the cheapest mercenaries they can find. Those are the LIP workers who are all too willing to wear a provided uniform, carry a provided weapon, and earn money for the local warlords and religious leaders who hold what loyalty these mercenaries do have.

We, the citizens of the U.S. are contributing our tax moneys so that Congress can approve the use of mercenary contractors. The mercenary contractors are hiring our sworn enemies to guard our bases, our embassies, offices, convoys, supply dumps, and people. We’re waging war for the benefit of the “free market.” At the same time, we’re paying our enemies to spy upon us, destroy our fuel convoys, ambush and kill our troops. Anyone who is truly surprised has not been paying careful attention.



The solution, as ever, is to field and maintain a military capable of meeting our manpower needs. There are millions of unemployed men and women today who would be happy to join up for the money that “American mercenaries receive in pay each month. We can increase our military manpower and still decrease the cost of our current wars by cutting out the mercenaries and their unscreened, un-vetted, local fighters. And by doing that, we might just see our WIA and KIA numbers decrease as well.

Congress released a 105 page report on this problem, linked below. Wade through it if you can. What is doesn’t really say loudly enough is that American mercenary corporations are hiring and paying Afghanis and others to kill American soldiers. That’s the sad truth, Americans are now paying to kill other Americans for profit.

There’s nothing that can be done about this situation until the Pentagon is allowed to field the armed forces we need. We need the best we can recruit, not the worst we can buy.







8 October 2010 Last updated at 06:50 ET

Afghan security contractors 'fund Taliban'

Private security guards are often used to guard compounds or convoys

Heavy US reliance on private security in Afghanistan has helped to line the pockets of the Taliban, a US Senate report says.

The study by the Senate Armed Services Committee says this is because contractors often fail to vet local recruits and end up hiring warlords.

The report demands "immediate and aggressive steps" to improve the vetting and oversight process.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-11498443







http://armed-services.senate.gov/Publications/SASC%20PSC%20Report%2010-07-10.pdf

“(U) In 2009, the Senate Armed Services Committee initiated an inquiry into private

security contractors operating in Afghanistan. In the course of the inquiry, the Committee

reviewed hundreds of thousands of pages of documents from the Departments of Defense and

State, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and private security contractors.

Committee staff conducted more than 30 interviews of military and contractor personnel and

solicited written answers from several others. This report is a product of that inquiry.



“(U) The Committee's inquiry uncovered evidence of private security contractors

funneling U.S. taxpayers dollars to Afghan warlords and strongmen linked to murder,

kidnapping, bribery as well as Taliban and other anti-Coalition activities. It revealed squandered resources and dangerous failures in contractor performance, including untrained guards, insufficient and unserviceable weapons, unmanned posts, and other shortcomings that directly affect the safety of U.S. Military personnel.”



“The Committee's investigation reveals the threat that security contractors operating without adequate U.S. government supervision can pose to the mission in Afghanistan.”