One of Obama's most important campaign promises was to bring the troops home from Iraq. Now as we see the Stryker Brigade come home, that promise is close to being kept. (There are still 50,000 non combat soldiers and 6,000 combat troops who will leave before the deadline.)
Congratulations to our returning troops and a job well done!
It is encouraging to see the phased, controlled withdrawal, and the peaceful turnover to the Iraqi government. The right wing proclaimed that this would be a disaster and McCain said he didn't care if we stayed a hundred years. More fearmongering. A year from now it will be time to begin the same controlled withdrawal in Afghanistan. The same right wing fearmongers are resisting that withdrawal.
But nothing is ever as simple as they appear on the 5 minute news clips. What is happening to our shadow army, our army of mercenaries? We had over 100,000 "Private Contractors" in Iraq, including more than 20,000 private security personal (Mercenaries), most of them making several times what our troops made for the same services.
In 2007 Blackwater Security gunned down 17 civilians without provocation. They were investigated for the killings of 14 civilians and the wounding of 18 others, but were never convicted of wrongdoing despite admissions of guilt and security videos.
Blackwater considered itself not bound by the military code of honor or rules of engagement and also did not think they were subject to Iraqi laws.
The government of Iraq demanded the removal of Blackwater from Iraq in January of 2009. As a result Blackwater changed it's name to Xe. In May of this year the company officially ended operations in Iraq when the military refused to extend their contract.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/...But there are still just as many mercenaries. When one company gets in trouble they change their name, the personal move from one "Private Contracting firm" to another, and nothing changes. The State dept. said that as our combat troops leave, we will double the number of private security contractors. Why do we need more mercs when we still have 50,000 troops there that need things to do?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100819/pl_...Now the President of Afghanistan has called for the removal of foreign mercenaries from his country to be replaced by Afghan security personal.
"We've received complaints that these security forces, some of them, not all of them, have been involved in robbery, kidnapping and misusing their authority and power," Karzai's deputy spokesman, Hamed Elmi told ABC News.
As many as 40,000 people work for private security firms in Afghanistan. The decree stipulates that they will need to start hiring local people, many of them from the Afghan police force.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/17/world/...In my opinion this is a good move. The history of foreign occupation in Afghanistan is full of failure. Our troops did not defeat the Taliban and drive them from the country in 2001, it was the Northern Alliance of Afghan fighters with American air support that drove the Taliban from power.
We never learned what bribes the tribal leaders took to throw off their oppressors, but we do know that the Taliban had eradicated 90% of the heroin in the country and after they were driven out, the tribal leaders were allowed to cultivate poppies again. They now provide 90% of the heroin in the world.
The point is that the Afghan people are competent fighters, but they resent foreign troops in their country and will take up arms against them. They may not like the Taliban but they prefer them to foreigners. As we leave, our job should be to provide incentives for the majority of the Afghan people to continue the fight against the Taliban, and to protect the schools, power stations, sewer systems and other infrastructure that will bring the country out of the stone age.