Socio-Economics History Blog

Socio-Economics History Blog

US Military Contractors Sued for Funding Terrorism in Afghanistan with ‘Protection’ Payments to Taliban

by mosesman

  • Sheeple: naive, gullible, easily deceived, useful idiots complicit in their own destruction and the destruction of others. People with an amazing ability to accept any amount of BULLSHIT. Last to know/understand what is going on. First to fall.
  • US Military Contractors Sued for Funding Terrorism in Afghanistan with ‘Protection’ Payments to Taliban
    by https://www.rt.com/
    Bribes paid by international military contractors in Afghanistan were used by the Taliban to fund attacks on companies that didn’t make the payments, according to a lawsuit filed by families of those injured or killed as a result.
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    “Large corporations that had lucrative businesses in Afghanistan”     paid off the Taliban through a series of subcontractors, bribing the Afghan militants in order to save money on security, according to a lawsuit filed on Friday in federal court by the families of 143 US soldiers and contractors injured and killed during the longest war in American history. The 288-page civil suit alleges the Taliban then used the money to finance acts of terrorism against companies that didn’t bribe them, detailing the grisly circumstances that led to the deaths and injuries of the victims.
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    Those protection payments aided and abetted terrorism by directly funding an Al-Qaida-backed Taliban insurgency that killed and injured thousands of Americans.
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    An employee of the US Embassy in Kabul referred to the payments as “organized crime,” according to the suit, which seeks unspecified relief for their families under the Anti-Terrorism Act.
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    Anywhere between 20 and 40 percent of the funding for major projects like the Kajaki Dam and a portion of the Ring Road went into the pockets of Afghan militants between 2009 and 2017, the lawsuit alleges. Contractors used Pentagon cash to hire sub-contractors, who hired their own sub-contractors and so on, until some of the money – amounting to millions of dollars, if not more – ended up in the hands of the Taliban.
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    Some government estimates show the Taliban strength in 2019 greater than at any time over the past 18 years of war that claimed the lives of more than 38,000 Afghan civilians, 2,400 US soldiers, and over $2 trillion in taxpayer funds.
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    read more.

Devil’s Game is the first comprehensive account of America’s misguided efforts, stretching across decades, to dominate the strategically vital Middle East by courting and cultivating Islamic fundamentalism. Drawing on extensive archival research and interviews with dozens of policy makers and CIA, Pentagon, and foreign service officials, Robert Dreyfuss follows the trail of American collusion from support for the Muslim Brotherhood in 1950s Egypt, to links with Khomeini and Afghani jihadists, to longstanding ties between radical Islamists and the leading banks of the West. The result is as tragic as it is paradoxical: originally deployed as pawns to foil nationalism and communism, extremist mullahs and ayatollahs now dominate the landscape, thundering against freedom of thought, science, women’s rights, secularism―and their former patron. Chronicling a history of double-dealing, cynical exploitation, and humiliating embarrassment that continues to this day, Devil’s Game reveals a pattern that, far from furthering democracy or security, ensures a future of blunders and blowback.
The updated edition of Secret Affairs covers the momentous events of the past year in the Middle East. It reveals the unreported attempts by Britain to cultivate relations with the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt after the fall of Mubarak, the military intervention on the side of Libyan rebel forces which include pro-al-Qaeda elements, and the ongoing reliance on the region’s ultimate fundamentalist state, Saudi Arabia, to safeguard its interest in the Middle East. In this ground-breaking book, Mark Curtis reveals the covert history of British collusion with radical Islamic and terrorist groups. Secret Affairs shows how governments since the 1940s have connived with militant forces to control oil resources and overthrow governments. The story of how Britain has helped nurture the rise of global terrorism has never been told.

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