According to a well-placed but unnamed Afghan official, the United States military and other NATO allies are directly bribing Afghan warlords and even some top members of the Taliban to reduce attacks on their supply convoys and generally reduce the level of violence overall.
The move comes even as violence continues to spiral across the nation, but officials apparently believe that the situation, which they term as “progress,” would be far worse without the overt bribery of the insurgents.
The official also claims that troops from Germany, France, the Netherlands and Britain have also agreed to “local peace deals” with the Taliban in their own spheres of influence, all of which are believed to include significant cash payments.
Which is a major concern for locals even as officials insist the Taliban is “weakening” because of US targeting of its foreign funding. It also adds to concerns that much of the Taliban’s funding, 10 years into the US-led occupation, is coming directly or indirectly from the US forces themselves.
Not good enough. Unnamed sources for important stories may be OK for the NYT but should not be good enough for this site. If the source cannot be quoted there are other things you can do to convince us why we should take the story seriously. Bad journalism is bad journalism.
Genius. Military genius. When the US/NATO war machinery can't grind the opposition into submission, well, bribe them into "peaceful" ways and means. Gosh and why oh why didn't the Petraeus brain trust devise this strategy about six years back? Golly, exactly how many of America's service boys and girls are dead and/or worse than dead on account of US military genius in the Afghaniscam to date?
quagmire |ˈkwagˌmīr| noun
a soft boggy area of land that gives way underfoot : torrential rain turned the building site into a quagmire.
• an awkward, complex, or hazardous situation, or Afghanistan
They've been at it for quite sometime. In fact, that is the only reason why it hasn't been a slaughter because the Taliban is getting paid to take it easy on them. However, cocky and stupid as Amerikans are, they're killing their people and pissing them off. They were warned about it too but they're dumb, deaf, blind and stupid. See my post below for more.
What kind of military is this that has to pay in order not to be attacked? Some military! Now I ubderstand why Petraeus was so upbeat a few days ago. He was counting on the Taliban receiving their US dollars and in return keep quiet for some time.
This is an excerpt from an interview with Jeremy Scahill on DemocracyNow! back in October. None of this is a secret to anyone who is paying attention:
JEREMY SCAHILL: "Just to give you a sense also how this is going to play out at a practical level, you know, when Rick and I were traveling along this major thoroughfare that the US and NATO uses to bring in supplies to Kabul, the whole name of the game there is convoy protection. And we talked to tribal leaders that are right now playing both sides of the fence. They’re getting money from the US and NATO to keep their convoys safe, and part of what they have to do is pay the Taliban not to attack convoys on certain days. So it’s a fundraising operation for the Taliban to be restrained in certain circumstances to not attack the convoys.
But when night raids keep happening in these communities along this highway in the Pashtun heartland, the community leaders who are working with NATO are saying, you know, "We can’t guarantee a year from now or two years from now that we’re going to allow your convoys to pass safely." It’s not that they want to join the Taliban. What they’re saying is, "If you keep disrespecting our women, if you keep killing our people, if you keep doing these night raids and targeted assassinations, if you keep relying on false information, we’re going to withdraw that support for you, because the money is not going to be worth it anymore."
One of those community leaders who is helping to facilitate safe passage of NATO vehicles, a man named Hajji Showkatt, who Rick and I spent a lot of time with, was a former mujahideen commander fighting against the Soviets and has the wounds to prove it on his body. He was saying to us, you know, "You ask anyone during the Soviet occupation era what it was like to try to go through our area. They could not pass." And if you look it up, Logar, this area, was one of the deadliest places for the Soviets, in terms of convoys being ambushed. We interviewed several former mujahideen commanders. These are not Taliban people. These are people that are working with the US now that are saying, "If they don’t stop this, if they don’t stop killing our people, we may actually attack these convoys or allow them to be attacked ourselves."
Killing Reconciliation: Military Raids, Backing of Corrupt Government Undermining Stated US Goals in Afghanistan
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/10/29/killing_re…
Thanks for that Dissenter. I'd missed the Scahill interview. Scahill is on his game for sure. I appreciate your feedback.
Jeremy is excellent. Erik Prince's nemesis. He also did an excellent piece for The Nation Magazine on the subject, you can read it here:
Killing Reconciliation
http://www.thenation.com/article/155622/killing-r…
Okay…… exactly what US government department do I need to send my donations to in order to do my part to pay off the Taliban so they won't kill our soldiers? I think this is a wonderful way to support the troops- and we know exactly where our contributions are going, and don't have to sorry about some deskbound Washington wonk skimming off the top.
At this point, I'm thinking the Taliban has a better and more well thought out plan for bringing stability back to Afghanistan. Certainly, until we withdraw all US forces, helping to support the Taliban financially is a wonderful way to show our support for Afghan independence.