"Fake fighting, staged attacks" in Afghanistan

[Jeffersons Ghost]

Afghan Guards Face an Inquiry Over Ties to Insurgents
By DEXTER FILKINS
Published: June 6, 2010

MAIDAN SHAHR, Afghanistan — For months, reports have abounded here that the Afghan mercenaries who escort American and other NATO convoys through the badlands have been bribing Taliban insurgents to let them pass. Then came a series of events last month that suggested all-out collusion with the insurgents.

After a pair of bloody confrontations with Afghan civilians, two of the biggest private security companies — Watan Risk Management and Compass Security — were banned from escorting NATO convoys on the highway between Kabul and Kandahar...

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.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/07/world/asia/07convoys.html?hp

[xchrom]

1. Mercenaries corrupt? What is the world coming to? Nt

[Jeffersons Ghost]

2. not just the mercenaries its the whole Afghan govt.

[onethatcares]

9. who's more corrupt?

the bribers or the bribees? I just can't figure that one out to save my soul.

[Forkboy]

3. K&R

[Lagomorph]

4. Combat is more fun if....

...you can arrange for the bullets to miss. Goes from firefight to fireworks.

Why didn't they think of that when I was in Vietnam?

[Festivito]

5. F-troop.

Where Indian fights are colorful sights and nobody takes a lick'n .

Where pale face and redskin both turn chicken.

Where sitting around don't get them down they have no moral F-Troop.

As long as they all relax in town before they resume with a bang and boom

F-Troop!

(Never did know the words, so I made some up.)

Hey, didn't they try to do this to Grayson so he'd be all frightened and stuff?

[Jeffersons Ghost]

7. your lyrics scare me! LOL

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

6. Well, it's a war fought for PR to show the president is "tough''.

A little staged combat is just part of the program.

[Soylent Brice]

8. "...and that they may sometimes stage attacks against competitors."

this is just another business venture.

[onethatcares]

10. one where opium is the product and

for some strange reason, there's more of it available than ever before.

Why should something that is supposedly so illegal, be so easy to move in a war zone? It's not like donkeys run faster than F-16s or drones.

[Soylent Brice]

11. good question.

i think the best people to ask that of would be the CIA.

:shrug:

[Mari333]

12. knr we are a rogue state who uses our tax dollars to hire thugs

wake up america

[Blue_Tires]

13. Any why not? Afghans are having their cake and eating it too

with the USA essentially dumping enough cash to fill the Grand Canyon into both allied and enemy coffers...