Too Many Chiefs - Not Enough Indians

It is no secret by now that the war in Afghanistan isn't going well. Casualties are up, the recent presidential elections by all accounts are a miserable failure, government offices more corrupt than those in Chicago, and the Taliban influence is spreading over the country like a plague.

But who is to blame for these failures? Many are quick to pin it on the United States' "distraction" in Iraq, and that may well have had something to do with it, but from my recent experience in the country, I believe the failure has less to do with the war in Iraq than with who we left in charge of the war in Afghanistan in the meantime.

From shortly after the United States succeeded in overthrowing the Taliban with a handful of Special Forces troops and the help of the Afghan Northern Alliance, there has been a big push to put a global face on the war effort in Afghanistan. In the waning days of 2001, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) was created and given charge over the war effort. This NATO-run organization - not the United States Military - has been responsible for the progress, or lack thereof, in this war torn country over the succeeding eight years.

Let's take a look at some of the issues that have led to the state we see today in Afghanistan - a development effort teetering on the edge of collapse.

The Leaky Sieve

The United Nations and ISAF have spent nearly 200 billion dollars on "development" in Afghanistan since 2001. Unfortunately, lofty promises made in the opening stages of this effort have not come to fruition. At the start, the UN boldly pronounced that it would build 1000 schools a year to educate Afghan children. Eight years and billions of dollars later, the world body can point to a grand total of three. Three schools, all in Kabul.

Not impressive.

Part of the problem is bureaucratic friction. Administrative costs consume sometimes as much as 50 percent of every dollar spent by "world body" organizations like the UN, NATO and the World Bank. This in heinous contrast to other humanitarian aid organizations like CBN's Operation Blessing, whose admin costs hover somewhere around one-half a percent of income. The picture this paints of the UN-NATO is one of an organization that feeds off disaster and human misery for it's own self-perpetuation.

One obvious outlet for this money is security costs. ISAF and NATO must divert billions to physical protection in the form of barriers, guards, armored vehicles and the like just to operate in Kabul - and much of that money goes to foreign contractors, which means that money is siphoned out of Afghanistan and will never benefit the local economy. One local contractor I spoke to pointed out the ISAF base at Kabul International airport - gleaming new permanent structures sprawling along one side of the tarmac that are being built by foreign contractors and are still under construction five years after building began.

But aside from waste and bureaucratic friction , there is an even more insidious problem with where these funds are going - virtually all of the contractors who receive UN money allocated to infrastructure - from roads to cell phone towers - are forced to pay "protection" to the Taliban to ensure their projects won't get bombed and their workers killed. This means that at least some percentage of the 200 billion we've poured into rebuilding Afghanistan is actually funding the enemy - a sure recipe for perpetual war.

Brain Drain

Here's another problem - any Afghan who is reasonably well educated and speaks English is desperately needed within the Afghan government, health care and educational system. But with much higher salaries and perks being offered by ISAF and humanitarian organizations, a huge "brain drain" has taken place over the last eight years that has left Afghanistan's critical intellectual infrastructure in worse shape than it's road system. And that's saying something.

Too many decision-makers, not enough risk takers

ISAF is a loose conglomeration of high-ranking officers from more than forty countries, all of whom answer to their own governments, and many of whom are more concerned with covering their political backsides than defeating the enemy. In fact, of the 42 nations with troops in Afghanistan, only eleven will allow their forces to directly engage in combat. This begs the question, if they're not there to fight, aren't they just in the way?

Every additional command inserts another layer of bureaucratic friction - and it is leading to the deaths of our troops on the ground. One story from my recent trip to Helmand province told of a young Marine who took six hours to die while his comrades desperately called for a medevac but were repeatedly turned down by several of our "allies" who were not allowed to send their helicopters into the combat zone. Often, US and British helicopters are the only ones willing to go into hot landing zones to rescue the wounded.

With these facts in mind, maybe the first step toward victory in Afghanistan is putting development money on hold until the killing is done - when the Taliban have been routed, then we can focus on rebuilding. Step two would be thanking the UN and ISAF for its "contributions" to the war effort, and sending them on their way so that Americans can set about - unfettered - doing what it takes to win.

Print Email to a Friend posted on Friday, September 25, 2009 12:20 PM

Comments on this post

# RE: Too Many Chiefs - Not Enough Indians

This is very enlightening....why can't this news be put on mainstream media such as the Gitmo story? Not that it would do a lot of good, but it would reach more people who are looking for the truth. It's more than this administration can handle....I feel this country is being overrun by socialist and
Marxist behavior, something needs to be done before it's too late...it's coming down to the wire. Pray and pray hard to God to give us the wisdom to know what to do to prevent the destruction of our precious America. Our country is at stake, not to mention those countries we are trying to help and those countries who are our Allies.

Left by Carol on Sep 26, 2009 10:53 AM

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