The Fromson File

The United States has never before had a Foreign Legion like the hired guns the French used as enforcers during the days when the tri-color flew over their colonial empire in the 19th and 20th Centuries. They were soldiers of fortune, cherry-picked from some of the most ruthless military resources anywhere in the world. In short, many of them were scumbags for which the French took little public credit. The less they knew of these recruits, the better.

If President Obama is beginning to look like a wimp, pre-occupied with bi-partisanship, now’s the time to show the American people they’re wrong. He can do that immediately by putting the brakes on the legion of private contractors recruited by the Pentagon to do the kind of work it would not dare assign to American GIs in Afghanistan. According to the New York Times there are far more of these hired guns doing America’s bidding than soldiers who would be under stricter constraints if they were in uniform. From what we know of President Obama, we cannot believe he wants to have anything to do with a legion of foreigners who are not answerable to U.S. military commanders.

According to the Congressional Research Service, the Times reported Wednesday, 57 percent of the Pentagon’s force in Afghanistan consist of private contractors. They may be from the notorious Blackwater company, now known as Xe Services recruited by the Bush/Cheney Administration that made its name during the Abu Ghraib scandal in Iraq. It is not clear whether or not companies like Dyncorp International or ArmorGroup which is owned by Wackenhut Services are spinoffs from Blackwate/Xe or in some way are affiliated with them. For sure, the private contractors over the past two years consist of 65% of the non-military on duty in Afghanistan. Over the past two years, the figure would be even higher. What’s clear is that each of these companies is being paid six figures that are difficult to track down.

Some of the recruits are Afghans themselves, but apparently answerable to any American authority. Once and for all, President Obama needs to clamp down on the Pentagon. Its onerous policy of circumventing the Congress or any other body that would have the authority to investigate how and under what circumstances these hired guns go about their business without any apparent oversight borders on scandal, if not illegality.

It is rather startling that the President has allowed himself to be drawn deeper into Afghanistan with a questionable election and probable instability hanging overhead It increasingly takes on the appearance of a quagmire. From the moment that General Stanley McChrystal assumed command of all U.S. forces there, you could wager on the likelihood that he would be asking for more troops to accomplish stability or achieve victory over the Taliban.

Given the record of the past eight years, the casualties may seem insignificant. Nonetheless, they are steady and numbing. The same principle that has hounded every impressive three-or four-star general trying to earn his spurs in combat and every president who seems unable to resist the appeal for more troops to rescue the United States from the latest snakepit with honor. We have no substantive proof that Osama bin Laden is still alive or that the Pakistani army is willing to hunt him and his terrorists down ruthlessly. The American people have yet to be shown the extent to which Al Qaeda controls the insurgency in Afghanistan or Pakistan. We need proof, not conjecture, that we are involved in something other than an insoluble civil war. Unless President Obama is willing to offer the American people the whole truth and nothing but the truth, it is time to extricate ourselves from a hopeless mess.

There’s little to be gained in asking the Republicans to share in a joint Congressional investigation of the U.S. role in Afghanistan. The GOP is so politicized, so bitter and determined to embarrass and undermine President Obama. As a result it has forfeited a place at the table for a meaningful, bi-partisan discussion’ to extricate the United States from yet another foreign policy mess. It is time for a senior senator like Russ Feingold of Wisconsin to step forward and summon every expert and every premise as Sen. William Fulbright of Arkansas did in 1966 on nationwide television to examine the premises of the Vietnam War.

Tags:   afghanistan · al qaeda · barack obama · blackwater · osama bin laden · Taliban · xeNo Comments