Should American Tax Dollars Fund the Taliban?

(SALEM, Ore.) - The U.S. government is not one that easily learns from its mistakes, and George W. Bush's Iraq "Surge" of 2007 will likely go down as one of that war's greatest errors and oversights. Now it looks like the U.S. and Afghan governments may be softening to the idea of paying the Taliban to back off.

That's what happened with the famous Iraq Surge which lowered violence, but was really just a flash in the pan. There was no security in it for the Iraqi people, because it wasn't designed to last. Are we capable of making that mistake twice in the same decade? That would surely be a record of some kind.

In a story published Saturday, Agence France-Press reports U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates saying that the notion of a deal being forged between the government of Afghanistan and the Taliban remains remote because the Taliban is gaining "momentum on the battlefield".

Gates said the time was not yet ripe for the kind of "reconciliation that occurred in Iraq" with armed opponents of the Baghdad government, in an interview with NBC television's "Today" show.

The Defense Secretary implies that the Surge was a success, and that is highly questionable. This program to pay Sunni tribal militia who had been killing Americans and other Coalition members did work.

But I was in Iraq last summer and personally watched more than one American patrol tell these people that the program was ending, and it didn't go over well. The Iraqi men who formed the Sons of Iraq under the Sunni Awakening Councils, did not all know that the U.S. commitment was going to end in September 2008.

Iraq's Shi'ite government assumed the responsibility for paying the Sons of Iraq, who successfully operated checkpoints throughout the country, and it was immediately announced that more than half of them would be let go.

Members of the Sons of Iraq told me that there was always a recruitment campaign underway for Iraqi men who would attack American facilities, and the base where I spent most of my time there was attacked several days a week.

I learned that in the Balad area, they can earn $200 for firing a rocket or lobbing a mortar at the nearby Air Base.

These men earned $305 per month in the Sons of Iraq program. That was sufficient for most of them to feed their families and safely live their lives. Most Americans believed that the program was positive and very helpful at keeping violence down.

"But you never really know if they are loyal or working for the other side," Staff Sgt. Ryan Ahern of the 101st Airborne told me while patrolling a different village. He believed that the program had accomplished a great deal, but that there was limited success in many cases.

It also would be safe to say that Ahern's opinion on U.S. tax dollars funding the Sons of Iraq program is different than mine. He believes it is not something Americans owe the Iraqi people.

"It's time for the people of Iraq to start paying their way. We have a budget deficit and they have money in the bank, why should we have to pay for all of this?"

But it takes money to live, and that is about all the Iraqi people know. Most Muslims in the world are Sunni, but Iraq's government is Shi'ite and in this nation they comprise the majority. There is a fierce rivalry between these divisions of Islam and that was kept at bay first by Saddam Hussein, and then by the Coalition. But I was told repeatedly by Iraqi people that the two sides were waiting for us to clear out and after we did, a major civil war would re-erupt.

I reported from Afghanistan on December 30th 2006, in Afghanistan National Police: An Exercise in Survival, that the Afghan Police were making far, far less than what it takes to live. Two officers I interviewed and accompanied on a nighttime winter patrol, didn't have gloves, body armor or other standard police gear.

"Right now we have 3,500 Afghani,” an officer named Abib, said through an interpreter. That is about $65 a month. Another ANA officer named Barriela, added, "We don't have enough money because here everything is day by day, the price has become high." Since that interview was recorded, prices for items like flour have increased in cost by several times.

I learned by talking people in places like Kabul, that the Taliban paid more than the Afghan National Army, and that was considered to be one of the biggest problems in gaining military leverage there. The information about the Taliban paying a better wage than the ANA was also confirmed for me by American sources.

Wikipedia states that there are approximately 80,000 Afghan National Army soldiers and the country hopes to expand that number to 134,000.

President Barack Obama has said that he wants to see the ANA expand to almost 260,000 troops over the next five years. That is expected to cost $20 billion.

The Afghan National Police have approximately 75,954 officers at the time of this writing, according to Wikipedia. I am no mathematician, but that sounds like we've been working with a rough total of about 156 thousand people; soldiers and police combined.

The Afghan Police in 2006 made approximately $65 a month, as mentioned before, and they told me that Afghan soldiers had received a pay raise in 2006. I don't know what that came out to, but I think they were making a little closer to a hundred dollars a month.

According to my calculations, and please consider the tens of billions of dollars that have been injected into the much-better funded war in Iraq, it would cost $31,200,000 a year to pay all of Afghanistan's military and police $200 a month, a sizable increase by their standards, which at least a couple of years ago, would have been nothing less than a Godsend to all of them.

For all of these years that our military has been on the ground fighting the war in Afghanistan, the U.S. and world governments have allowed the Afghan soldiers and police and people to languish and struggle more than they should when we are their friends.

I have written several times about the tragedy the last administration committed by canceling the short-lived Afghan Children's Fund in 2005, when it was the only U.S. government program that Americans could donate to that directly reached the kids there and had been heavily promoted.

Money needs to be allotted to our troops so they can better serve the people of Afghanistan with more food supplies, more winter clothing, and medical supplies which are of paramount importance. Tylenol is like gold to an Afghan mother, it is terribly sad and should be more widely available. As it is only wealthy people can afford such things there and there are far more who are poor.

One positive development is the relaunch of the New Afghan Children's Fund that came into existence May 20th 2008, thanks to National Geographic. I think the group is fantastic, and they are, but once again it is not the U.S.A. that is helping; it is, in this case, a media group.

The government is missing the point and possibly forgetting that everyone serving in Afghanistan, at least when I was there in 2006 and 2007, was talking about, "The Battle to Win Hearts and Minds" of the people. And yet the medical relief mission that I watched American, British and Canadian soldiers conduct for almost 400 Afghan civilians dealt with only donated materials. Uncle Sam and the Queen's labor donations were important, but I didn't understand why the mission had to use and provide only medical supplies donated by civilians back in the states and Canada and the UK.

People in Kabul talk about how much they hate the Taliban and some take the time to say that the Americans have done a great thing by killing them and driving them away. I met two women at a Kabul hospital who were wheelchair bound after being attacked by members of the Taliban in Kabul.

A recent New York Times report indicated that factions of the Taliban were holding serious talks with the Kabul government, and seeking a deadline for a withdrawal of NATO-led forces. Gates is on the record at this point saying that Washington would "absolutely not" accept any such idea.

Americans like Gates need to drop the bluff that the Surge in Iraq was anything more than a temporary measure. I am going to produce a report on this in the near future detailing the problems associated with the termination of the Sons of Iraq programs all over Iraq, while showing the level of success they were seeing.

The cost to maintain these programs for a couple of years would not have been astronomical, and would have made the remaining time Americans are spending in Iraq a much safer experience. But more than that, it would have made Iraq safer for the people who live there, and that would have gone down as a great accomplishment. According to some estimates, up to a million Iraqi's have died as a result of our war there. The number far exceeds the deaths Saddam Hussein is alleged to have committed toward the Kurds and other Iraqi people.

The Iraqi government estimated that 87,215 Iraqis had been killed between January 1, 2005 and February 28, 2009. The number excludes thousands of people who are missing and civilians who were buried in the chaos of war without official notice.

The Associated Press stated that more than 110,600 Iraqis had been killed since the start of the war, based on government tally, casualty counts, hospital sources and media reports.

The World Health Organization reported the results of the "Iraq Family Health Survey" in the New England Journal of Medicine on January 9, 2008; the study surveyed 9,345 households across Iraq and estimated 151,000 deaths due to violence.

The Lancet study's figure of 654,965 excess deaths through the end of June 2006 is based on household survey data. The estimate is for all excess violent and nonviolent deaths.

Finally, the Opinion Research Business (ORB) poll conducted August 12-19, 2007 estimated 1,033,000 violent deaths due to the Iraq War. The range given was 946,000 to 1,120,000 deaths.

The actual number of Iraqi people killed as a direct or indirect result of the 2003 U.S. led invasion will never be known, but the number is high and the price the people there have paid, along with U.S. and Coalition casualties, has been unjustifiable at best.

One central point of the invasion of Iraq was the President and Vice-President Dick Cheney's assertion that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, and the second major point was that Hussein was a murderer of his own people. I have been to Al Dujail, where an unsuccessful assassination plot against Saddam Hussein in 1982 led to the deaths of many, but On November 5th 2006, the Iraqi President was convicted in the executions of 148 Iraqi Shi'ites, and was sentenced to death by hanging.

148 is only a fraction of one percent of even the most conservative death count estimates involving the people of Iraq.

Paying off your enemies as a last resort is fine, if you can make it work, right up until you say the word Taliban. For everything in the world that matters, they are not a true or honest expression of Islam, or any kind of a healthy society or school of thought. This is based on their treatment of women among many other things, and their and strict interpretation Shariah means women in this country walk around in Burqas, never showing their faces. This is not how the Muslim faith was set forth in the Holy Qur'an.

I became friends with an Afghan interpreter who watched the Taliban drive by his home in a pick up truck and shoot his two-year old daughter dead in his front yard for sport. Religion they say?

The Taliban attempted to stamp out the marijuana and opium poppy fields of Afghan farmers over their strict doctrine, but others will tell you that they absolutely are financed in part through these top dollar illegal Afghan products that are always in demand in other parts of the world.

The western society in general seems more driven by emotions than anything else, and that is a two-way street.

One way is the flag waving nationalist that September 11th 2001 gave birth to; the guy with a yellow magnet on his mini van reading "Support our Troops" - that was made in China.

The other is a peace-oriented grandmother from Code Pink being forcibly drug out of a public demonstration by police.

The two are one when you think about it, and you certainly can't have one without the other. What I think we need to remember this Memorial Day, is that we have a responsibility to the people of these countries that we have waged war in, and the better we do by them, the better we do by us. Fund the Afghan military and police and you will draw the fighters back from the wrong side; it is simple. I never tallied that figure before and I am shocked at how comparatively little it would cost to properly fund the Afghans, the regular way, not by dropping to the lowest peg and putting the Taliban on our payroll.

Tim King is a former U.S. Marine with twenty years of experience on the west coast as a television news producer, photojournalist, reporter and assignment editor. In addition to his role as a war correspondent, this Los Angeles native serves as Salem-News.com's Executive News Editor.
Tim spent the winter of 2006/07 covering the war in Afghanistan, and he was in Iraq over the summer of 2008, reporting from the war while embedded with both the U.S. Army and the Marines. Tim holds numerous awards for reporting, photography, writing and editing, including the Oregon AP Award for Spot News Photographer of the Year (2004), the first place Electronic Media Award in Spot News, Las Vegas, (1998), Oregon AP Cooperation Award (1991); and several other awards including the 2005 Red Cross Good Neighborhood Award for reporting. Serving the community in very real terms, Salem-News.com is the nation's only truly independent high traffic news Website, affiliated with Google News and several other major search engines and news aggregators.
You can send Tim an email at this address: newsroom@salem-news.com

Salem-News.com Top Stories

2025: Hope for the Best, Prepare for the Worst

Two Wars with No Way Out

No One Owns the Future

The Ugly Origins of Trump's America First Policy

A One-State Solution Could Transform the World

Comments Leave a comment on this story.

All comments and messages are approved by people and self promotional links or unacceptable comments are denied.

Vignesh January 9, 2013 9:31 pm (Pacific time)

Oh, the Bush Administration was focused, ok on Iraq!Changes in cutlures don't happen overnight.How people treat their women and children and seniors, vary from culture to culture. You don't win points by telling people what to do. You can encourage and reward good behaviour. You can get the government of that country to pass laws protecting different groups. But you can't baby-sit an entire culture. I'm not saying abandon them when/if we pull out. But, in the end, Afghanistani's have to support that change. And you're talking about an ancient tribal country.' They won't make the change overnight.In the end, I'm not sure what to do, other than encourage those that want to leave to go ahead and leave. But where to? And with what support system when they get there? It's not like that part of the world has a plethora of countries with stellar womens rights backgrounds. Look at the Saudi's.Over here? I don't think in our current political environment, you can convince conservatives to allow Muslim women to come to the US. Look at the battles back in the day over allowing Vietnamese families to come here. Maybe I'm wrong about the conservatives. I just don't think so.And besides, we have our own issues with women right here in this country.We passed the Ledbetter Law just last year. And that was only 90 years after giving women here the right to vote.Options for choice get narrower every year. Hell, you have groups out there who want to limit peoples options for birth control working the state legislatures all over the country right now.And you recently had people working in the medical and pharmaceutical fields wanting the option of not selling birth control pills and prophylactics, or telling women of other options.We have our own American Taliban that we have to deal with.BTW Please don't tell me that any members of the American Taliban are arguing to stay in Afghanistan to protect the women there. I couldn't stand a dose of that level of hypocrisy.In the end, though, it's the law of unintended consequences. Before you do something, you need to think it through thoroughy. Obviously, we didn't. And no matter what we do, stay or leave fully, or only partially withdraw, it will be, as it always was before, the women and children who suffer.You need to think about these things before you unleash the dogs of war, like some people are clammoring for in Iran. Look before you leap. Then look again, and again, and again I would like to hear what other think we can, or should do.

Russ Fournier May 25, 2009 9:00 am (Pacific time)

As far as how we got into Iraq: First, Congress endorsed the Iraq war plan before fighting began. Both democrats and republicans. Second, Congress could have stopped the war at any time by withholding funding. The most recent Congress, over the past two-plus years, could have denied funding with democratic votes alone. They did not. Third, President Obama could have withdrawn troops with one phone call to his defense secretary during his nearly four months in office. He has not. Finally, and most important, Iraq dictator Saddam Hussein acquired weapons of mass destruction and disregarded 17+ U.N. directives. We know he had WMDs: he used them several times against Iran in their 8-year war and against the Kurds in northern Iraq. It was reported that 4,300 Kurds died in several poison gas attacks. The U.S Senate voted to sanction Iraq for use of this WMD poison gas. On top of that Hussein killed tens of thousands of his own people and supported international terrorism. Let's get the history correct and in chronological order, including all those senators who told us about Iraq's WMDs before Bush was elected.

stephen May 24, 2009 2:29 pm (Pacific time)

Ron Pauls resolution now has 170 co-sponsers to audit the fed. please help. I know the fed reserve are obamas friends, but I am not hurting his friends, just to see what they are doing. The same as they do when the IRS audits OUR taxes.. I am sure much of the federal reserve money goes to more than funding the taliban. its time for the truth.

Henry Ruark May 24, 2009 1:55 pm (Pacific time)

Stephen: If you will but read the Constitution's plain language, you will learn that all of the actions you cite were approved by OUR chosen LEGISLATORS. Without their specific OK, no funds are spent, no action can be accomplished, except under very limited wartime powers for the President, in themselves under Congressional control. SO it is OUR CHOICE, with VOTE still the ultimate weapon for citizens who will but take time to learn, grown, think and then act. IF we allow current erosion of that latter process, we have NOBODY to BLAME but US. Pogo had it dead to rights when he proclaimed: "We has met the enemy...and he is us." Turn your tv back on, free up the program selection knob, and rejoin the world... OR see something other than your cited Internet sources, wellknown for distortion or perversion...whichever will generate the most dollars and win the biggest crowd of non-thinking and misinformed.

stephen May 24, 2009 11:48 am (Pacific time)

should american tax dollars go anywhere other than what the Constitution allows? obama already gave trillions to the banks, billions to israel, and now billions to the IMF. Clinton robbed social security, bush used the orchestrated attack on 911 to invade Iraq and promote the patriot act, and obama is putting the last nail in the U.S. coffin. please wake up.

Tom from Colorado May 24, 2009 11:08 am (Pacific time)

To me, the suggestion that we should seriously look at funding the Afghan police and military at a level that would allow them to provide for their families makes a lot of sense. Especially if Tim King's numbers are correct. The suggestion that we should be providing medicine as well as security for the Afghan people caught in the fight with the Taliban also makes sense. Here is one important correction to Mr. King's discussion on Iraq. The majority of Iraqis are Shia Muslims, like the current government. According to the CIA World Factbook (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/iz.html#People), at most 37% on Iraqis are Sunni. Some of the most troublesome parts of the country have a Sunni majority, but the country as a whole has a Shiite majority. To learn more about the religious makeup of Iraq, how it impacts politics and who might be involved in shaping post-war Iraq, you might find the following site at the University of Georgia interesting: http://www.uga.edu/islam/iraq.html

Anonymous May 24, 2009 9:52 am (Pacific time)

Do you remember what it was like before the surge? When is the last time you remember hearing about the number of US Soldiers killed this last month. You never hear that stuff anymore, but you remember when you couldn't turn on the TV without hearing about it. Ever since the surge, reporters like yourself won't touch it, becuase the numbers have fallen so much. Since you want to cover the bad part of the surge you should also broadcast the successes. OR you could just keep spewing your anger, and portray anything that happens as negative. What kind of Marine would look at pre-surge Iraq, and the present situation there and not see a positive change?

Tim King: Did you read the article? I am not saying the Surge didn't help, it clearly did, but there was no long-term game plan. This isn't an anger-based report, and I generate plenty of those, so know there is a clear difference. I specifically tried not to anger people in writing this one.

Davis May 24, 2009 9:50 am (Pacific time)

From a strategic point of view, of which there are many, getting hostilities to calm down allows for us to get more of the indigenous people trained and online to deal with their own hostilities and other domestic problems. Of course we have been in many parts of the world for a long time now, like Japan, Germany and Korea. Hopefully we can pull out of the middle east as soon as possible. Maybe in time we can start dealing with our own violence we have, which seems to be growing by leaps and bounds. The recent gangbanger arrests in the Hawaian Gardens community in the LA area demonstrates a very serious problem between blacks and hispanics.

Anonymous May 24, 2009 9:44 am (Pacific time)

What kind of Marine are you. thsi holiday is not about your anger with the Bush Administration. It's about the soldiers and sailors that carry out the orders of whatever administration is in office. I, as a veteran, think your you political BS is misplaced and timed badly as you put a damper on the holiday that is not about you and your individual political views. Guess what I'm saying is keep that @#%* to yourself! Sounds like it's been along time since you were a MARINE brother!

Tim King: True blue and good to go anytime anywhere man, I work from personal experience brother and it takes more to question the system than to just nod your head like a bobble-head doll. Semper Fi.

Hawraman May 24, 2009 6:00 am (Pacific time)

Mr. Tim, it is regretable that you doubt all the atrocities that have happened to us, ' the number Saddam..."alleged" to have..' Saddam Husseins genocide against us (Kurds) is well documented by international NGOs. 182 000 civilian Kurds were brutally murdered by the Iraqi dictator in a period of two years alone and 4000 villages and towns were razed. Anyone with doubts should visit Kurdistan and see the evidence for themselves. Regards.

Tim King: I do not question those figures; I just wanted people to comprehend the vast number that U.S. forces have killed. I would like to know why the U.S. government did convict him of those crimes. I'm very sorry about what happened to the Kurdish people, and I'm sorry the first Bush's encouraged you to stand up against the government of Iraq then abandoned you.

[Return to Top]

Should American Tax Dollars Fund the Taliban?

Quick Links

DINING

MUST SEE SALEM

AUCTIONS - APPRAISALS

CONSTRUCTION SERVICES

ONLINE SHOPPING

Advertise with Salem-News