Mullen visits Afghanistan, turns up heat on Karzai

The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, visited Afghanistan yesterday on the heels of the Obama chat with Afghan President Karzai concerning “corruption” in the country. This would seem to allude to the assertions that Karzai’s half brother, Ahmad Wali Karzai, who wields tremendous influence in the Taliban dominated Kandahar area, is allegedly linked to the opium trade and perhaps aligned with the Taliban. Karzai the president responds to these allegations concerning his half brother by demanding proof.

United States strategy in the region hinges on a major offensive that will take place in June in Kandahar that is intended to rid the area of Taliban influence. Though Mullen only speaks generally of this “corruption” without filling in the blanks, it would seem as though he is implying that President Karzai is enabling activities in Kandahar that the United States is ostensibly trying to squash.

Muddying the waters further, The New York Times reports that Ahmad Wali Karza is on the CIA payroll, and that part of the money that he gets from the American intelligence agency is used to support the Kandahar Strike Force, which is described as a “semi-private” army. If you didn’t know, the CIA created this same Taliban (that we are now spending $30 billion a year to fight) under the Carter administration.

So right now, today, it is clear that Obama and Mullen feel as though Karzai is playing both ends against the middle, and it does not seem off-base to suggest that the CIA may be working against the aims of the American military in Kandahar. We have been fighting this “war” for eight years. (I put the word war in quotes because it is really not a true war. It is an ongoing partial occupation that enables massive military spending). Considering the fact that America spends about as much as the rest of the world combined on its military, you have to wonder what good it is doing if we can’t “defeat” an enemy as undersized, under-armed, and underfunded (are what funds they have coming in part through the CIA and President Karzai?) as the Taliban.

Don’t necessarily villainize the CIA here. The military hasn’t been able to succeed over eight years and hundreds of billions of dollars poured down the drain. It would seem prudent, and much, much cheaper, to use covert ops to monitor and manipulate the machinations of a foe that is embedded among an innocent populace. Infiltration coupled with dollar diplomacy could have done the trick.

Anyone who has ever been in the military knows that they never, ever want their budget cut, and they will spend unnecessarily to make sure that doesn’t happen; I have experienced it personally. There is little doubt in my mind that pennies on the dollar are going directly into the cut and dried, black and white, effort to “win the war” in Afghanistan. It is an exercise in pouring massive amounts of money into the military coiffures, and oversight is difficult to impossible. They ask Congress for a particular sum, and Congress has no choice but to acquiesce lest they be charged with “not supporting our troops.” This is why we needed to exit both Iraq and Afghanistan a long time ago and engage covert pressures, intelligence gathering, and dollar diplomacy to secure America aims in the region.

Announcing to the Taliban, and to the world, that this massive offensive is to be launched will simply cause them to lay low and melt into the general populace. Some specifically targeted individuals and rogue fighters will get picked off, and for a minute all of these U.S. troops will dominate the area at a cost of $57,000 a minute. But I ask you this: how in the hell will that make you and me safer here in America?