Afghan National police officers stand in formation during a visit by U.S. Brigadier General Christopher Bentley to an Afghan National police installation in the Nangarhar province of Afghanistan December 16, 2014. Credit: Reuters/Lucas Jackson
Washington Free Beacon: U.S. Official: America Paying Salaries of Afghan Cops That Don’t Exist
WNU Editor: It looks like Iraq is not the only U.S. supplied and trained military/security force that has a problem with 'ghost soldiers'. Sighhh .... the same mistakes that were done in Iraq appear to be repeating themselves in Afghanistan.
More News On Reports That Salaries Are Being Paid For Afghan Police Officers That Do Not Exist
Over $300 Million in US Money for Afghan Police May Be Wasted -- Fiscal Times
Watchdog: Afghanistan unable to properly track, pay police -- Washington Post
U.S. Probably Paying for Non-Existent Afghan Police, Probe Finds -- Bloomberg
U.S.-funded Afghan police payroll at risk of waste and abuse - watchdog -- Reuters
The US Can't Totally Account For The $300 Million It Gives The Afghan Police Each Year -- Business Insider
Afghan police struggle as US watchdog finds holes in payroll data -- The Guardian
Afghanistan Has No Clue How To Pay Cops, So America Just Hands Over $300 Million A Year -- Daily Caller
US threatens money cut-off to UN agency over Afghan police corruption scandal -- FOX News
Update: Afghanistan’s $3.6 billion police problem: Broken systems and corruption -- Al Jazeera
11 comments:
Col. Pat Lang has been writing columns for years, noting that in USMTO abroad, "Ghost Soldiers" have been a problem since the late 1940's,
And the only reason it's a problem now, is because the US Military Command, tolerated the problem.
I agree Jay ... I have also heard about it for years. But why all the publicity now?
The US can't afford to lose wars. This politically cripples the use of US Military Power abroad, and it's one of the few " hammers" remaining in the US toolbox.
So at worst, the "illusion" has to be created in the US Body Politic that the US took second place, a la Vietnam, so a stready stream of stories are leaked, to create the meme that it wasn't the US that lost the wars, it was the Iraqi's, the Afghans.
It's a problem
You can solve it quietly outside of the limelight.
You can be fed up with behind the scene efforts & go public. I don't see why we didn't go public, since Karzai was never shy.
Mobuto Seko & Karzai's brother are very close. They are in the same special club.
Selective leaks or selective revelations serve to rile people up, so that you have political cover to leave, which is what Obama wanted in the 1st place.
Vietnam was won war.
Congress lost it.
1972 the North Vietnam was crushed . Giap was fired.
1975 Congresss shut off all aid.
WNU Editor,
See, point proven.
One of the interesting things about the War is Boring, story on arming and training the Iraqi's back in the early 50's, was that the USAM was well aware of the predominance of ghost soldiers in the 4 Royalist Brigaides.
My uncle was a senior officer in the Soviet Army later Russian army .... the stories of non-existent soldiers at non-existent military bases that he told after the fall of the Soviet Union .... it could fill a book. I guess the corruption with no oversight is just too tempting.
It's more of a " loophole" exploitation.
You have Officers, NCO's and Conscripts, not paid a living wage, in brutal conditions, yet expected to fight for the country, yet not located the needed resources to train.
So it starts with a low level minor corruption, NCO's allowing a conscript to work offbase as a taxi driver for a cut, instead of the guy just killing time on base, doing nothing productive, And it snowballs from there.
There's an ongoing corruption case in Milwaukee, where Firefighters, paid other Firefighters cash under the table to take their shifts, while still collecting full pay, pensions, leave, holidays and benifits. One guy spent two years in California, working as a contractor, while still collecting as a Fireman in Milwaukee.
Of course now we must have pundits expertly divine whether the Afghani ghost troopies are more effective than the Iraqi ghost troopies, it is a deep game indeed.
If they were actual Ghost Soldiers, they would probably more effective,
At least they could scare AQ,ISIS and the Talib, and couldn't be killed, again.
LOL good one Jay. Let us push the story that Afghanistan has two million soldiers .... that should scare the Taliban into surrendering. :)
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