Afghanistan: Repairing the Unrepairable

The news out of Afghanistan is that there will no longer be news out of Afghanistan. In an article published on 1 May, the AP announced “The U.S. military stops releasing Afghan War information“. The title was misleading (and they wonder why they are called fake news). The military will stop producing “district control” data in an effort to prevent reporting news that aids the enemy. Having spent years living in various Afghan districts, I have always suspected the Pentagon’s reporting of who controls which district was more a SWAG (Sh**y Wild-Ass Guess) then legitimate analysis. So that news is no news — just another data point to insert in the blockchain documenting the death of a trustworthy independent media.

Another (legitimate) media story highlights the futility of our current approach in Afghanistan. The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (Sigar) John Sopko, issued a report titled: Afghan National Defense and Security Forces Facilities: Action needed to Address Confiscation of Contractor-Owned Property and Contractor Mistreatment. The report highlights stealing contractors’ parts and equipment, demands for repairs outside the scope of contract, and the arrest, detention and abuse, and shaving the heads (a grievous insult for Afghan men) of contractor mechanics.

There is nothing in this report that surprises anyone who has spent time with Afghan Security Forces. This is typical behavior for them that can be mitigated by the insertion of western trainers down to the kandak (battalion) level. Absent that level of military commitment, one has to (quoting former SecDef Rumsfeld) “go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time.”

In Afghanistan, the “army we had” drove around in Toyota trucks and used dated Soviet era armor. We gave them American trucks that require diagnostic computers to maintain and repair. We also gave them American armor, MRAPs, and HUMVEE’s — American rifles too. Why? Why would we not provide the Afghan army with vehicles and weapons they already knew how to not maintain? Toyotas and old Soviet weapons function acceptably when not properly maintained, and when they do break there are thousands of locals who can fix them. Why we never think things like this through is a mystery.

Wasting foreign aid on programs to benefit American businesses is old news. The modern twist is how the aid dollars are spent to maintain the equipment we gave the Afghans. In July 2010, ITT/Exelis Systems Corporation was awarded two firm-fixed-price indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity service contracts to provide O&M services for ANDSF facilities throughout Afghanistan. ITT/Exelis Systems Corporation is a global aerospace, defense, information, and services company headquartered in Washington DC. What do they know about Afghanistan, fixing ford trucks, and operating machine shops in one of the most primitive environments on the planet? Not one damn thing, because knowing what you are doing isn’t the requirement, the requirement is having the corporate infrastructure to handle the multi-million dollar contract.

The contract to maintain Afghan equipment has to pay for the giant overhead that comes with employing a giant international company. When you see the amount of money spent on Afghan aid, remember the vast majority of those dollars never leaves America. If we had just given them Afghan Toyotas, we could have told them they had to fix them themselves. This is a lesson the Untied States seems determined to never learn.

By request I’m including a picture of Maximus Lynch, Attack Yorkie.

Max is a known nemesis of the local opossum population, but what makes him an Attack Yorkie is attitude. When placed in a silly costume, as he was above for the Free Range International Christmas Party, he will not move a muscle until you take it off. And you better be quick too, or he’ll pee on the Afghan rug and look at you like it’s your fault. He’s a great listener, sub par editor, and, if it is true that dogs make the best people sometimes, then Max is a good dude to have around.