------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the Aug. 05, 2004 issue of Workers World newspaper -------------------------
TORTURE SCANDAL IN AFGHANISTAN--MAKING A KILLING: THE BUSINESS OF WAR
By Minnie Bruce Pratt
A torture scandal in Afghanistan is once again putting the spotlight on private mercenaries and the billionaire corporations behind them.
Three U.S. men were charged in an Afghan court on July 18 with running an illegal jail in Kabul, where they tortured prisoners by hooding, beating and kicking them, as well as pouring scalding water on them and pushing their heads repeatedly into buckets of water.
The leader of the group, Jonathan Keith "Jack" Idema, a former member of the U.S. Special Forces, known as the "Green Berets," claimed that he was working for a counterterrorist unit of the Pentagon and was in direct contact with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's office. He asserted that U.S. authorities "absolutely condoned" his activities. (The Guardian [UK], July 22)
During the 2001 war on Afghanistan, Idema was one of a number of former U.S. military members who worked with the Northern Alliance against the Taliban. During that time, Special Forces were participating in the slaughter of prisoners at Mazar-i-Sharif, and were hiring and training Afghan mercenaries to form the Afghan Militia Forces.
In 2003 National Public Radio interviewed Idema as the "former Green Beret" who captured videotapes of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan--tapes used to justify the continued U.S. military presence in the country. "CBS 60 Minutes II" aired the tapes in January 2002 and presented Idema as a war hero. Idema collaborated with Robin Moore on the New York Times bestseller "The Hunt for Bin Laden," and claimed that his life as a U.S. intelligence operative was the basis for the 1997 movie, "The Peacemaker," starring George Clooney.
Idema previously ran a company selling military clothing and equipment. In 1994 he was convicted of defrauding 60 companies out of $200,000, and was sentenced to three years in federal prison. Timothy Connolly, an assistant secretary of defense at the Pentagon at the time, appeared as a character witness for him. (Independent [UK], July 10)
However, U.S. authorities are now denying any knowledge of Idema, or connection to his activities.
BOUNTY HUNTERS OF BIG BUSINESS
The U.S. corporate media has generally presented Idema as one of an influx of extra-legal "bounty hunters" into Afghanistan, there because of the $25 million price offered for bin Laden, "alive or dead."
Another possibility is that Idema was there as a "private military contractor"--an arrangement that gives the U.S. military the ability to order brutal acts and then deny responsibility for them, as happened in the Abu Ghraib prison of Iraq.
Undoubtedly, Idema's presence reflects the money to be had in the growing privatization of war. But whatever business he made out of torture and jailing was small potatoes compared to the money-making schemes of big business.
A 2003 study by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) states that at least 90 private military companies (PMCs) provide "services normally performed by national armies" in Africa, the Middle East, Latin America and Asia. These services are usually military training, logistical support for military operations and removal of mines, but also include "active combat."
These companies close to the Pentagon have found a new gold mine in the Iraqi and Afghan wars.
In Afghanistan, the security guards that surround Hamid Karzai, the U.S.- dictated president of Afghanistan, are from DynCorp, a PMC that backed Bush's election campaign with substantial contributions.
The corporation employs 25,000 people worldwide, from Colombia to the former Yugoslavia. Many are former U.S. military, working in jobs from "security" to aircraft maintenance. DynCorp personnel contracted to the United Nations were reportedly implicated in the buying and selling of women in the Balkans within an international sex industry network. (The Guardian, Nov. 29, 2002)
KBR (formerly Kellogg, Brown & Root), a subsidiary of Texas-based oil colossus Halliburton, has sent the U.S. government a bill for more than $1.2 billion for military support activities in Iraq and Afghanistan. U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney was CEO of Halliburton until he left to join the Republican ticket with George W. Bush.
Halliburton is currently defending itself in congressional hearings against charges of waste, overcharging and mishandling of more than $8 billion in Pentagon contracts. (New York Times, July 23)
Meanwhile, in Iraq, Nesreen Berwari, minister of municipalities and public works, says that the amount of potable water originally expected from 90 planned water projects will be cut in half because of cost overruns and delays. This in a country, devastated by U.S. war and sanctions, that can now meet only 60 to 80 percent of its water demand.
The reason given? In large part, the high-paid contracts and skyrocketing expenses of private security companies hired by the giant construction companies. (New York Times, July 26)
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