It is all but official: the Afghanistan expedition is a lost cause to be filed away and forgotten with the Vietnam 'experience'. Take your pick from the headlines; the news is all bad. The discovery of a dozen suicide vests stashed in a Ministry of Defense building in central Kabul to be used by kamikaze in a coordinated attack is just the tip of a melting iceberg. Eighteen serving Afghan soliders were arrested in the incident. It is claimed that the soldiers were planning to blow up the building and everybody in it. This disheartening report came just a day after two more NATO soldiers were killed in another case of Afghan soldier disaffection. So far this year 16 NATO personnel have been killed by their erstwhile allies. Pentagon records show 80 western soldiers have been killed by Afghan uniformed personnel since 2007. This news is particular relevant to the dimming prospect of handing over a functioning security apparatus before western occupiers leave Afghanistan. The necessary element of trust is gone. When the putative leader of the country, President Karzai, publicly referred to western troops as "devils" who deliberately burned Korans in a malicious "act which never can be forgiven", the situation is became untenable for western forces. His intelligence service head, Amrullah Saleh, resigned two years ago claiming Karzai was surrounding himself with Islamists. Saleh's deputy was blown up months previously by a Taliban suicide bomber. Head of NATO forces General John Allen admitted security precautions against their hosts have to be taken as well as altering operational procedures until US forces are withdrawn. As the atmosphere becomes more febrile and withdrawal plans proceed, businessmen are already planning to leave the country too.
A prominent international think tank, the International Crisis Group, based in Brussels, says the talks with the Taliban are going nowhere. They are unlikely to achieve a sustainable peace agreement because the talks are dominated by the US and a "half-hearted and haphazard" approach by the Karzai government. Regional powers Iran and Pakistan have also significantly hampered meaningful talks. But the debilitated, corrupt central Afghan government is also not in a position to agree to a comprehensive settlement with insurgents. The report authors believe a UN mandated team in the country will be needed to prevent Afghanistan from collapsing in total civil war once NATO forces leave. The shared frustration with the ten year occupation has been exhibited in the recent atrocities committed by US soldiers and Afghan personnel*.
Regardless of the US failure to build a modern nation in Afghanistan, it keeps funneling billions of dollars into the country in a mindless waste of taxpayer money. The desperate attempt to shore up the ostensibly pro-Western government against the Taliban insurgents is producing only mixed results at best. One US official said in an internal memo obtained by McClatchy News service that, "we are discouraged and exhausted with the continued flow of bad information. This is a huge example of poor performance on an extremely important development project." Despite the expressed misgivings the agency overseeing the Kabul power plant project more than doubled the plant's budget from $125 to $300 million. McClatchy found that funding for 15 large-scale projects grew from $1billion to nearly $3billion notwithstanding their lack of effectiveness or cost. The projects are overseen by the US Agency for International Development (USAID). Afghanistan is literally littered with thousands of unfinished or hazardous buildings thrown up with American taxpayer money. One hundred twenty-nine buildings, mostly schools and clinics, are not built to withstand earthquakes in earthquake zones. The US is also spending money on misguided social initiatives that fail in the face of a recalcitrant and xenophobic native population. A prime example is the costly and largely counterproductive effort to liberate Afghan women. Women sent into traditionally male workplaces are threatened with physical harm. Expensive farm programs are subjected to mass fraud. A seed and fertilizer giveaway program included thousands of phantom farmers who faked fingerprints to obtain free supplies. That program cost has grown from $33 million to $431 million. Fraud and poltiical influence is rampant on the side of western contractors too. A New Jersey contractor at the Kabul power plant project was fined $70 million for overcharging the US government, yet was not barred from bidding on more government contracts. The same contractor is still responsible for joint venture development projects worth $1.4 billion. US Person thinks it was Einstein who said a definition of insane is someone who takes the same failed actions over and over expecting different results. Apparently, the sad lessons of Vietnam were never really taken to heart by American political elites.
*According to Stars & Stripes, the miliary's newspaper of record, combat stress or PTSD as it is now known is rarely successful as a defense against serious crimes in courts martial. No military member has ever been found not guilty by reason of insanity in the US military courts system. Robert Bales' civilian defense attorney appears to be preparing the ground for a "diminished capacity" defense. If the defense is successful it could convince the court martial members that Bales was so incapacitated his actions did not rise to the level of 1st degree, or premeditated murder. But a former Veterans Affairs psychiatrist and PTSD expert says the "slaughter in Kandahar" as described so far does not add up to evidence of a psychotic break. Bales, dubbed "Sgt. Psycho" by a New York tabloid, is said to have taken two trips outside Camp Belambai to kill nearby sleeping villagers in the predawn hours of March 11th. Bodies were then gathered from where they were shot and burned. Afghan investigators believe Bales had help, and may have even taken part in a US raid. Allegedly, Bales earlier threatened villagers with revenge for an IED that amputated his buddy's leg. Bales will undergo an Article 32 hearing to determine if he is competent to stand trial. Diminished capacity could prove useful in reducing his crime from premeditated murder, which carries a mandatory life sentence without parole, to a lesser murder charge that would make him eligible for parole in as short a term as ten years. After the Koran burning incident, Major Robert Marchanti was executed with a single shot to the head while working inside a supposedly secure compound in Kabul by an Afghan intelligence specialist who worked for the Afghan police. Marchanti's killer is still at large.