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Donald Trumps administration is said to be considering radically changing the way it conducts war in Afghanistan, and may move away fromthe US military running the show in favour of laying that responsibility on private contractors.

The unprecedented proposal would put 5,500 private contractors in charge of advising the Afghan military in the 16-year-old war that Mr Trump has inherited from his two predecessors. Most of those contractors would be former Special Operations troops, though their private contractor status would likely mean they are not bound by the same rules of engagement as the US military. There are an estimated 8,400 US soldiers currently in Afghanistan.

Erik Prince, the founder and former CEO of private contracting company Blackwater USA, has put forward the plan. Speaking to USA Today, he said he had met frequently with administration officials to discuss his plan. However, with misgivings by Mr Trumps National Security Adviser, H R McMaster, and Defence Secretary James Mattis, it is unclear whether there would be a way forward for such a plan, despite Mr Trumps frustration at the lack of progress in the country. At least one senior official, chief strategist Steve Bannon, is said to be open to the use of private contractors.

Contractors working for Blackwater were involved in a deadly incident during the Iraq War, when they open-fired in Baghdads Nisour Square while escorting a US convoy in 2007, killing or injuring at least 31 Iraqi civilians. Those events led the State Department to revoke the companys license to operate in the country. One of the contractors recently had a murder charge overturned and a new trial ordered over the incident, while three others who had been handed 30-year prison terms after being convicted of voluntary manslaughter will be re-sentenced after their prison terms were voided. Defence lawyers argued the convoy was under fire from insurgents, a claim prosecutors denied.

But in addition to accountability concerns posed by giving broad agency to non-military, private contractors to conduct war such a revised strategy in Afghanistan could send the wrong message in Afghanistan, Vanda Felbab-Brown, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute, told The Independent.

International troops have been involved in Afghanistan for 16 years,following an invasionin October 2001. However, over the past year the Talibanhave made gains and violent attacks have increased in a number of areas leaving few signs of the stability the US craves.

It would be a political signal to Afghanistan including the Taliban, that the United States is really not willing to stick it out, Ms Felbab-Brown said of the plan over privisation. So, I think the will of the Taliban will be strengthened and the will of those who resist the Taliban will be weakened.

Mr Prince whose sister is Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos has argued that the US should cede control of the fight in Afghanistan to private contractors because, as the efforts there lack leadership. The efforts arent working, he says, and the Pentagon is spending a lot of money to do it.

Who has really been in charge of Afghanistan? Nobody. Its been extremely fragmented. Weve had up to 140,000 troops in the country and were now spending, the Pentagon consumes more than the entire defence budget of the UK just in Afghanistan and were losing, Mr Prince, a retired Navy SEAL, said on CNN.

His plan is to establish a viceroy in Afghanistan that would correspond with American troops there, and has said that the basic set up should be modelled after the British East India Company. He says that the plan costs a fraction of American military involvement, and could work around what the Department of Defence. Private contractors could also stay long-term without the political risks associated with having troops on the ground.

Ms Felbab-Brown said that ducking that political risk would still be degrading for efforts there. Already in Afghanistan, citizens are concerned that the US military is simply taking Afghan resources Mr Trump has said that the US should simply seize natural resources in the region and would be wary of a set up modelled after Britains colonial empire, she said.

Still, she concedes that there doesnt appear to be a surefire path forward for the US in Afghanistan. Completely withdrawing would forfeit huge American investments in the country while giving up control to the Taliban. Staying could simply be an exercise in hoping that the Taliban slowly falls apart through repeated mistakes.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson acknowledged this week that the White House is looking for a new strategy to bring Americas longest war to an end.

To just say were going to keep doing what weve been doing, the president is not willing to accept that, and so he is asking some tough questions, Mr Tillerson said earlier this week in Manila during an Asia trip.

The top US commander in Afghanistan, General John Nicholson, has recommended that several thousand more troops be deployed to Afghanistan, primarily to bolster the advisory mission and stop the Taliban gaining more territory.

Read more:
Trump administration considers privatising war in Afghanistan - The Independent

A Taliban commander who was targeted by the US military in an airstrike nearly a decade ago and who has links to Irans Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp Qods Force remains a key player in the insurgency in central Afghanistan. The Taliban commander, known as Mullah Mustafa, was instrumental in the Talibans takeover of Taiwara district in Ghor province several weeks ago. Afghan forces have retaken the district, but maintain a tenuous hold on it.

Taiwara district fell to the Taliban on July 23 after hundreds of fighters assaulted the district center and overran Afghan forces and the local militia and police forces. More than 700 Taliban fighters using humvees and trucks stolen from Afghan forces in Helmand province launched the assault, according to The New York Times. Out of a force of 50 Afghan commandos guarding the district, 12 were killed, more than 20 were wounded, and several more are missing. Afghan officials claimed that more than 200 Taliban fighters were killed during the fighting.

Mustafa, who The New York Times described as a local facilitator of the Taliban, had played a major role in the recent offensive to take Taiwara. He has contacts in Iran and is protected by senior figures in Kabul, the capital, including those in Afghanistans peace council assigned to negotiate with the Taliban.

FDDs Long War Journal has tracked Mullah Mustafa since the US military targeted him in an airstrike in Ghor province on June 9, 2009. The US military initially believed they killed Mustafa and prematurely announced his death. Two days after the US military announced his death, Mustafa spoke to the media. Mustafa claimed he never [has] been in the opposition to the [Afghan] government but did not deny attacking US forces.

The US military said Mustafa commands more than 100 fighters in Ghor and is thought to receive support from Irans Qods Force, the external operations branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps.

The commander of approximately 100 fighters in western Afghanistan, Mustafa had recently met with senior Taliban leaders, and reportedly had connections to Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Qods Force, the US military stated when it wrongly announced his death.

When it retracted its initial report of his death, the US military said it will continue to target Mustafa.

Mustafa is an enemy of Afghanistan, and were working with Afghan officials to pursue him until he is captured or confirmed killed, Navy Lieutenant Commander Christine Sidenstricker said.

Eight years after the US military tried to kill Mustafa, he remains a key player in the Talibans growing insurgency in western and central Afghanistan.

Mustafa likely played a role in the Talibans takeover of Char Sada district in Ghor in July 2014. Before the district was overrun, the Taliban exerted significant influence there. In 2013, Mustafa was spotted along with Mullah Abdul Rahamn, the Talibans shadow district governor for Char Sada. The two Taliban leaders imposed the Talibans strict brand of sharia law when they ordered the public beating of a couple for having an affair.

Irans links to the Taliban, particularly in western and central Afghanistan, have been well established by the US military and government. In an Aug. 2010 designation of General Hossein Musavi and Colonel Hasan Mortezavi, both senior officers in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Qods Force, the US Treasury Department noted that the two provide financial and material support to the Taliban.

Musavi was the commander of the Ansar Corps, the IRGC command that is assigned to direct operations in Afghanistan. The Ansar Corps is based in Mashhad in northeastern Iran. [See Iranian Qods Force commanders linked to Taliban: US Treasury.]

The US military has targeted multiple Qods Force-linked Taliban leaders and operatives inside Afghanistan, while Taliban commanders have admitted to receiving support from Iran.

Bill Roggio is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and the Editor of FDD's Long War Journal.

Tags: Afghanistan, Ansar Corps, Iran, IRGC, Qods Force, Taliban

Read this article:
Qods Force-linked Taliban commander leads insurgency in central Afghanistan - Long War Journal

WASHINGTON You will be forgiven for confessing that you are confused about where we are going in Afghanistan. You might also add that you still are not sure why we are there.

On top of that, you could admit to not knowing who from the White House to the Pentagon to the denizens of that mysterious country so far away to believe.

The Afghan War will be 16 years old in the fall. That is a special age when teenagers begin to approach their majority and even (God save us!) start acting a little like adults. Yet we see precious little evidence that our most recent disastrous war is approaching adulthood at all.

Rather, we see such a mixed bag of conflicting "answers" to the problem and confusing messages to the American people that I wonder if it is not time to ask: Is Afghanistan becoming our newest Vietnam?

Before he became president, Donald J. Trump was almost unrelievedly critical of American interventions. But since then, the administration's "strategies" for military action in both Iraq and Afghanistan have changed by the hour.

One day, a plan worked out by the commanding general in Kabul and the Afghan president called for doubling the size of the U.S./Afghan commitment. The next day, an impatient President Trump wanted to fire the American commander.

A new Afghan policy was to have been hammered out by May, then July, then ... when? Talks to supposedly compel the Afghan Taliban to negotiate with the U.S. went nowhere; instead, articles now reveal in disturbing detail not only Pakistan's support for the medieval-minded Taliban, but also Russia's and Iran's support, which is in large part revenge against the U.S. for previous supposed or real slights.

Perhaps the most amazing element to suddenly insert itself into the Afghan mix is Erik Prince, the famous, controversial and often reviled military contractor, who has now formally put forth a two-year plan to hire about 5,000 "global guns-for-hire." He has officially proposed putting the Afghan war through a restructuring "similar to a bankruptcy reorganization" and appointing a "trustee" to oversee it.

Yes, you are right. Our "Hessians"!

The kindest analysis of the Afghan situation I have been able to find comes from a high-level Brookings Institution panel that concluded, "The U.S.-Afghan partnership should be recognized as generational in duration."

The most unkind analysis in my search came from a former U.S. ambassador to Iraq, James Jeffrey, who is quoted in The Wall Street Journal as saying we have to deal with Afghanistan "like a chronic illness."

Meanwhile, in excess of 8,000 American soldiers remain in Afghanistan, almost as hostages to our lack of strategy for the region. Additionally, 2,300 Americans have died in the conflict, and 17,000 have been wounded in this land of warlords and opium fields that no foreign invader in history has mastered.

Is there anything left to say? Yes, this: It is far past time to go back to First Principles and define what is crucially important to America and what is mere destructive gamesmanship in war and peace. Let us look again at American thinking and action in both Vietnam and Afghanistan.

First, there is a dangerous comparable overreaching of power. Neither in Vietnam nor in Afghanistan was America endangered. They were/are wars of choice, what I call "hypothetical wars" (If this happens, then this will happen).

They were/are both wars pushed in Washington by (mostly) men with outsized ambitions to be great political figures on the world stage.

Second, in both Vietnam and Afghanistan, the interests of the local people are infinite, while ours are finite; theirs are eternal, while ours are seasonal. A prolonged war in their country will strengthen them against foreign invaders, and disarm and destroy us unless we destroy them completely, which we will not do.

Third, the U.S., for all its brilliance in so many areas, has shown a repeated incapacity for governing in Third World countries. Any concerned American who wants to know the why of this should read a brilliant recent book, "War and the Art of Governance," by Nadia Schadlow, now with the National Security Advisor's office.

In effect, Schadlow argues that several deeply ingrained principles in American thinking concerns about appearing to be colonialist, the idea that civilians must govern and traditional views about the military profession have caused American military governance to fail time after time.

There may be no immediate answers to the Afghan quandary, but there is nothing to stop us from analyzing where we are and why and what can be done about it on a deeper level.

Chronic illness has never been something I went out of my way to seek, and neither should we as a country.

Excerpt from:
Echoes of Vietnam reverberate in Afghanistan - Meridian Star

"There's a lot of people that say just pull out of Afghanistan. I disagree with that because I think the Taliban or ISIS would raise their battle flag over the US Embassy in six months or a year," Prince said in an interview that aired on CNN's "Erin Burnett OutFront" on Monday night. "That's bad. But continuing the same -- I would say insanity -- that we've been doing for the last 16 years, that has to change."

Instead, the former Navy SEAL and founder of the controversial defense contracting firm, now named Academi, has proposed implementing a US viceroy in Afghanistan and increasing the number of government contractors on the ground.

"They'd be military employees of the Afghan government," Prince explained. "Imagine them as a skeletal structure that provides leadership, intelligence, medical, communications and logistics support to all those Afghan battalions so it works reliably."

Prince said some in the White House, including one of President Donald Trump's top advisers, Steve Bannon, and members of the National Security Council, are open to the strategy -- along with others in Congress.

Bannon reached out to Prince after the WSJ op-ed published, expressing interest in alternative strategies for Afghanistan, Prince said.

However, White House national security adviser H.R. McMaster is opposed to the idea, Prince said.

"I would say Gen. McMaster does not like this idea because he is a three-star conventional Army general, and he is wedded to that idea that the US Army is going to solve this," he said.

But Prince was adamant that the contractor forces would not be mercenaries, or fighters trying to profit off the war.

"They are not mercenaries. They would be attached as long-term trainer-advisers," Prince said.

Prince also has a personal tie to the Trump administration; his sister is Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.

CNN's Eli Watkins contributed to this report.

See the original post:
Blackwater founder questions US Afghanistan strategy - CNN

Afghan war veteran Jody Mitic with his wife Alannah Gilmore and daughters Aylah in back and Kierah in front. ( Supplied photo )

By Jody Mitic

Wed., Aug. 9, 2017

I was honoured when I was asked to be an ambassador for the Invictus Games Toronto 2017. What that meant, I had no idea but I was certain that it was something I wanted to be part of. I would do my best to help in any way I could.

But when I was asked to go to Kabul and participate in todays ceremonial lighting of the Invictus Spirit flame, I couldnt believe it.

Ever since the day, 10 years ago, when I stepped on a Taliban landmine and lost both of my feet, I have been trying to get back to Afghanistan.

I tried when I was still in uniform, only to have problems with my health, as well as policy issues, prevent me from returning. I thought about applying to several NGOs inside Afghanistan. Nothing worked. Disappointed again and again, I eventually resigned myself to the fact that it was never going to happen. I would never return to Afghanistan.

That all changed when my phone rang one day and my friend, Michael Burns, the CEO of Invictus Games Toronto 2017, asked me if I would represent our Canadian veterans at the lighting of the Invictus Spirit flame in Kabul.

He wasnt even finished talking before I said yes four times in a row, in fact, getting louder each time. Michael knows Im a busy guy; with young kids, a demanding full-time job as an Ottawa city councillor, a new book project with Simon & Schuster coming out soon and some very challenging health and mobility issues since the new year. Michael wanted to be 100 per cent sure I knew what I was saying yes to.

I was sure. Or at least I thought I was.

What I did not predict, or even suspect would result from this project, were the highs and lows, the overwhelming emotions I would go through, just filling out the paperwork and packing a bag for the trip. I almost didnt make it. In fact, when applying for my visa, I sat in my car outside the Afghan Embassy for a day, completely paralyzed with what I can only call a fear of the unknown, returning to a place that had changed my life so dramatically.

But how could I turn down this opportunity? To be a part of an initiative that would retrace the journey home of many Canadian injured soldiers; one that would shine a light on the long road from injury to recovery that many have endured. With the support of my family and friends, in whom I confided my feelings, I woke up early the next day and took a deep breath. I became determined to complete my mission.

With my Visa in hand and my kit packed, I reflected on what the Invictus Games stand for. To me, it is a unification of efforts by Canada and our allies in the global war on terrorism to fulfil the obligation to the soldiers who have been forever changed, both physically and mentally, by the battles we are committed to in this fight for freedom and liberty.

Prince Harry, a fellow Afghan veteran, initiated the Invictus Games as a way to give motivation to the troops he personally fought alongside in combat. His sense of personal duty, honour and commitment to the welfare of his fellow veterans and their families is something that doesnt need to be explained to any of us who fall within the definition of veteran.

We all feel it. Deeply and truly. When we gather together and do the buddy check on each other. Sending out the subtle but very serious inquiries about how each other is doing. Or the comforting look and small nod you receive from a brother or sister who knows how you feel and doesnt need to talk about it (unless you want to). Just being there for each other is usually enough, but we are all ready to do more should the time ever come when our help is needed.

The Invictus Games gather hundreds of injured veterans from 17 nations not simply to compete with each other but to meet and support each other. The network we all belong to will grow again with each ally we meet, and hug, and trade tales of soldiering with. Dont get it twisted, the troops will be out to win at all costs, but the spirit of the games is the common bond we all share in each others future.

Todays lighting of the Invictus Spirit flame is the start of a journey in Kabul. For me and many of my comrades it is actually the completion of one.

Jody Mitic is a 20 year veteran of the Canadian Armed Forces, Invictus Games Toronto 2017 ambassador and currently serves as Ottawa City Councillor for the Innes Ward.

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Original post:
Looking back to move forward: My return to Afghanistan - Toronto Star