You Hired the Taliban

Commentary by Dick Young
The U.S. Senate armed services committee put out a release this week acknowledging that American tax dollars have been used to hire and employ many Taliban fighters in Afghanistan. The Taliban are used as guards or “private security personnel” for compounds and convoys in the country. The men are employees of warlords who are the only people capable of supplying armed guards in certain areas. The lines between America’s enemies and America’s friends is extremely blurry (or nonexistent) in Afghanistan.

The committee’s report says that the same warlords that have been hired using U.S. tax dollars have committed “murder, kidnapping, bribery, and anti- Coalition activities.” Not the kind of people you expect Uncle Sam to put on the payroll right?

After the November elections a new battle will surely arise from GOP success. The battle will be between the neo-con led war hawks who wish to continue overseas operations and the libertarian leaning crowd that wishes to see the empire pulled back to protect America’s borders and save a boat load of money. The empire can end in one of two ways. The first is that Americans agree to pull back their forces from around the world to guard the borders of this country, not Germany, South Korea, Japan or Taiwan. The second is that the troops are continually deployed to the four corners of the earth until one day this country runs out of money to have a military at all and the empire crumbles like a dry muffin.

A strong military is a necessity for America, but one that is used to subsidize the security of America’s allies is not. Germany, Japan, most of Europe, and South Korea should be spending much more on their own militaries so the U.S. wouldn’t have to protect them.

As if subsidizing America’s allies wasn’t enough, the Senate Armed Services report concludes that America is subsidizing its enemies too. In Afghanistan the populace is not cohesive enough to bring in under the control of Kabul. After nine years spent in the country that ought to be obvious to anyone.

Commentary by E.J. Smith
If the GOP takes the House and Senate, as some predict, the role of the Tea Party is to not only hold the GOP accountable to reform, but to be able to measure the success of the expected reforms. With numbers in hand, the GOP and Tea Party can educate (like they already have) the electorate about the real changes they’ve installed. If they fail, then Obama will take all the credit in his campaign for reelection in 2012 while the GOP and Tea Party wonder what hit them. Believe me we’ll be doing our part. Stay tuned.