The Wrongologist

What’s Wrong Today:

For seven months, Pakistan blocked ground
convoys from resupplying NATO troops based in Afghanistan, wanting an apology
for the deaths of 24 Pakistani soldiers killed in a U.S. strike last
November. They also wanted a new $5000 per container fee for every shipping
container transiting the country.

On July 3rd
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton apologized and Pakistan reopened the border
and even dropped the request for the new shipping fee.

 “I offered our sincere condolences to the
families of the Pakistani soldiers who lost their lives,” Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton said in a statement Tuesday, following a telephone call with
Pakistan’s Foreign Minister, Hina Rabbani Khar. “Foreign Minister Khar and I
acknowledged the mistakes that resulted in the loss of Pakistani military
lives. We are sorry for the losses suffered by the Pakistani
military. We are committed
to working closely with Pakistan and Afghanistan to prevent this from ever
happening again.”

Until Pakistan got
its apology, the border remained closed, forcing NATO to transit all supplies
through a costly aerial route in Kyrgyzstan, which is exorbitantly
costly, averaging a shipping cost of $15,800 per container. (That’s
significantly more than the $6,200 a Pakistan-routed container costs, even after
tacking on the $5,000 fee Pakistan wanted.)

In total, shifting supply routes back to Pakistan
could save $100
million per month.

 So, What’s Wrong?

It was reported in
the Pakistan Express Tribune that resumption of
supply lines in Pakistan appears to be good news for the Afghan Taliban, as
well as local militants, as the
closure had deprived them of
millions of dollars they used to indirectly receive as protection money.

A
prominent militant leader, known for his close ties with the infamous Afghan
Taliban leader, Mullah Omar, told The
Express Tribune that the Afghan Taliban and local militants who are
active along the Pak-Afghan border were “seriously annoyed” by the ban.

The
leader, who is also one of the key leaders of the Difa-e-Pakistan Council, said
that the Afghan Taliban had even protested when his council was holding
nationwide demonstrations pressing Pakistan against the lifting of the ban.

“The Taliban had
frankly told me that the ban had caused them huge financial losses during the
last eight months,” the militant leader said.

“We are offended
over the resumption of the NATO supply lines from Pakistan to Afghanistan but
at the same time we are glad that at least our Taliban brothers in Afghanistan would be happy over this
decision,” he said, adding: “Believe me it is good news for Taliban and
militants.”

The
Express Tribune also reported that:

“it is an admitted
fact that US and NATO pay a handsome amount of money to the militants in return
for safety and security of their supplies to Afghanistan via two land routes in
Pakistan.”

The Express Tribune is a respected source of news in Pakistan.  The Wrongologist was able to find a 2nd
source for this surprising story in the Tierney Report,
prepared for Rep. John Tierney (D-MA) in June, 2010.

 The report, entitled: “Warlord Inc.: Extortion and Corruption along the U.S. Supply Chain” 
indicated that the contractors employed by the
DoD to truck supplies of food, fuel and ammunition from Pakistan to Afghanistan
are responsible for their own security while enroute to Afghanistan. To do
this, the Report says that these contractors subcontract their private security
to various:

“warlords,
strongmen, commanders and militia leaders who compete with the Afghan central
government for power and authority.”

So, the US Government
is indirectly paying protection money to the Warlords who control the truck
routes, some of whom are undoubtedly Taliban.  

Here is the
Wrong writ large: The US pays militants in Afghanistan to prevent them from
attacking convoys containing our military supplies that will be used to fight militants
in Afghanistan.

The DoD is full of smart guys, so it must
occur to them that the funds they are indirectly paying to the Afghan militants
also fund attacks on NATO personnel by the Taliban.  

So imagine you are in the meeting at the
Pentagon in big conference room when this dilemma is discussed:

Our smart guys say that paying protection
money is the “cheapest” and “lowest risk” strategy to use in order to get
critical supplies to our troops in Afghanistan. Fewer drivers die, fewer
shipments are lost, our troops are better equipped. Nobody makes the argument that
this strategy violates long standing Pentagon rules about oversight
of vendors, nobody makes the case that indirectly arming our enemy can make
us a laughingstock, much less prolong our enemy’s ability to fight.

In this Catch 22 of military logic,
the Taliban probably can increase the frequency and severity of their attacks
on NATO, now that their indirect US funding is restored.

If Taliban attacks
increase, then NATO will need more supplies to put down the new Taliban attacks,
which will mean paying more “protection” money, which means they can fund even
more attacks.

Will we ever kiss this conflict goodbye?

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Emerson, Lake & Palmer, 1974