Quit While The Quittings Good

In a previous post on Afghanistan I made a case for the withdrawal of Western troops and especially, Canadian troops from Afghanistan. My basic premise is that the situation in Afghanistan is filled with layers of loyalty and these loyalties are constantly shifting depending on the situation at hand.

Interestingly, I came across this article which discusses the use of private Afghani security firms, which guard western convoyas, and their many layered uses for their ostensible masters, the Western forces in Afghanistan. The article makes my point clearer: That loyalties are ever-shifting and the only rule for Afghanis is to survive and to make money while surviving, because sooner or later, the West will abandon Afghanistan to its own devices.

Although the investigation is not complete, the officials suspect that at least some of these security companies — many of which have ties to top Afghan officials — are using American money to bribe the Taliban. The officials suspect that the security companies may also engage in fake fighting to increase the sense of risk on the roads, and that they may sometimes stage attacks against competitors.

The suspicions raise fundamental questions about the conduct of operations here, since the convoys, and the supplies they deliver, are the lifeblood of the war effort.

“We’re funding both sides of the war,” a NATO official in Kabul said. The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation was incomplete, said he believed millions of dollars were making their way to the Taliban.
...

The investigation is complicated by, among other things, the fact that some of the private security companies are owned by relatives of President Hamid Karzai and other senior Afghan officials. Mr. Popal, for instance, is a cousin of Mr. Karzai, and Western officials say that Watan Risk Management’s largest shareholder is Mr. Karzai’s brother Qayum.

Source:nytimes.com