Gonzaga Debate Institute 2010

War on Drugs Add-On – Uniqueness – Funded by PMC’s

US PMC’s give money to warlords for protection – tens of millions
Allen 6/22 (JoAnne, Jun 22, 2010, “U.S. indirectly funding Afghan warlords: House report”)KFC

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States is indirectly paying tens of millions of dollars in protection money to Afghan warlords, and potentially to the Taliban, to secure convoys carrying supplies to U.S. troops in Afghanistan, congressional investigators said in a report. The Pentagon's system of outsourcing to private companies the task of moving supplies in Afghanistan, and leaving it up to them to provide their own security, frees U.S. troops to focus on counterinsurgency. But its unintended consequences undermine U.S. efforts to curtail corruption and build an effective Afghan government, according to the report to be reviewed at a congressional hearing on Tuesday. "This arrangement has fueled a vast protection racket run by a shadowy network of warlords, strongmen, commanders, corrupt Afghan officials, and perhaps others," Representative John Tierney, chairman of a House of Representatives national security subcommittee, said in a statement. Tierney, a Democrat, said the system "runs afoul" of the Defense Department's own rules and may be undermining the U.S. strategic effort in Afghanistan. The report by the subcommittee's Democratic staff called protection payments "a significant potential source of funding for the Taliban," citing numerous documents, incidents reports and emails that refer to attempts at Taliban extortion along the road. Congressional investigators began looking into the Defense Department's $2.16 billion Host Nation Trucking (HNT) contract in November 2009. The contract covers 70 percent of the food, fuel, ammunition and other supply distributions to U.S. troops in Afghanistan. "HNT contractors and trucking subcontractors in Afghanistan pay tens of millions of dollars annually to local warlords across Afghanistan in exchange for 'protection' for HNT supply convoys to support U.S. troops," the report said. "The HNT contractors frequently referred to such payments as 'extortion,' 'bribes,' 'special security,' and/or 'protection payments,'" the document said. Many contractors have told U.S. military officials that warlords were demanding protection payments in exchange for safe passage and that these payments were funding the insurgency, the report said. But the contractors concerns were never appropriately addressed, it said. It faults the Pentagon for a lack of effective oversight of its supply chain and private security contractors. "The Department of Defense has little to no visibility into what happens to the trucks carrying U.S. supplies between the time they leave the gate to the time they arrive at their destination," the report said. The congressional investigators said the Defense Department must take direct res8ponsibility for the contractors to ensure robust oversight. They also recommended a top–to–bottom evaluation of the secondary effects of the HNT contract, including an analysis of corruption and the impact on Afghan politics.
And, the reforms on PMCs are corrupt- it only allows warlords to keep theirs

Robichaud 7 (Carl, PROGRAM OFFICER, INTERNATIONAL PEACE AND SECURITY, INTERNATIONAL PROGRAM at the carnegie institute, World Politics Review, 10/31/7) ET

A "crackdown" on some of these firms may well be in order. According to some sources, however, the Ministry of the Interior's recent closures were not driven by a desire to achieve accountability but a desire to consolidate power. One Kabul insider, quoted by Rubin on his blog, noted that the timing of the "crackdown" is suspicious, since it comes just as the ministry completed a set of legal regulations that would bring the industry under control. The regulations, finalized on Aug. 5, have "since been put on the shelf by the [government of Afghanistan] which has started now to 'crack down' instead of introducing a legal procedure. . . . I cannot help the impression that some competitors closely linked to the president are trying to (a) extract bribes from the PSCs for not being shut down arbitrarily and (b) eliminate rivals." It is no coincidence, he argues, that "nobody so far has questioned the PSCs owned by illustrious people" or "operating under the control of local warlords . . . in the East and South either."

War on Drugs Add-On – Uniqueness – Funded by PMC’s

PMCs subcontract warlords instead of legitimate Afghan forces.

Avant 7 (Deborah, Professor, Political Science and International Affairs, Director, Institute for Global and International Studies, Contracting to Train Foreign Security Forces, Pg. 8, http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/congress/2007_hr/070425–avant.pdf)KFC

The US often has many sub-goals in a conflict and the pursuit of one may undermine others (e.g., US forces working with warlords in Afghanistan to gain access to al Qaeda hideouts –one US goal– worked against President Karzai’s efforts to consolidate control over the country by training a national Afghan Army –another US goal).Contractors have frequently used the complexity of US goals to suit their interests in the continuation of a contract. When it looks as if their contract might be frozen because a host country is violating human rights concerns or misbehaving in some other way, a company may claim that its contract should not be frozen because “engaging” human rights abusers may lead to improvements in civil–military relations and democratization that may enhance attention to human rights in the long term. In a number of instances, these kinds of arguments have allowed a contract to continue even when a legal embargo is in effect.18 When confronted with evidence that the same company’s contract may be in violation of local laws or be used politically by host country politicians in violation of human rights norms, though, the company can turn around and claim that it is serving US interests by enhancing the capacity of the host government’s forces or rewarding cooperative behavior internationally. More than once, contractors told me that, “it is not our job to insure that our boss [the host country] abides by its own laws.”19 Similar issues have cropped up in the training of Iraqi security forces.
PMCs hire Warlords directly – harms relations and the resources are used for personal gain

Gaston 8 (E. L., J.D Harvard Law School, Harvard International Law Journal, 49 (1), pg 239, http://www.humansecuritygateway.com/documents/HARVARDILJ_mercenarism.pdf)KFC

A large-scale example of this phenomenon is the way that PMSC hiring practices and cooperation with local warlords have undermined the disarma- ment progress made in Afghanistan. Many of the large foreign PMSCs hire directly from local warlords. According to a senior political officer with the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (“UNAMA”), this significantly un- dermined the multimillion-dollar disarmament process by allowing war- lords to keep their militias active.91 “They don’t have the same heavy weapons, but . . . you don’t need heavy weapons to terrorize neighbors, commit crimes, maintain control over an area.” Because the warlords are able to provide jobs—a scarce resource in Afghanistan—for those men loyal to them, they have an additional source of power.92 The UNAMA official said this practice was particularly harmful when PMSCs hired large cont- ingents of former militias in blocks, often under their same former com- manders. The American PMSC hired to protect one of the largest road construction projects outside of Kabul, U.S. Protection and Investigations (USPI), has done this most extensively.93 The UNAMA official described one incident in which the former Governor of Ghazni, who was closely affili- ated with local warlords, “borrowed back” 200 men, along with their USPI equipment for two weeks to “settle a score.”94

The control of warlords over the contractors delegitimize the government

Tierney 10 (John, Chair of National Security of foreign affairs in US House of reps, US Congress, june 10, P.2) ET

P 19-20Not all warlords are created equal. At the top of the hierarchy are the well-known tribal leaders, former mujahedeen commanders, or local power brokers who command the loyalty of men beyond their ability to provide a paycheck. For these warlords, providing security to U.S. and NATO convoys is just the latest iteration of long and colorful careers in war-torn Afghanistan. Long after the United States leaves Afghanistan, and the convoy security business shuts down, these warlords will likely continue to play a major role as autonomous centers of political, economic, and military power.55 Other warlords are newer to the scene but have grown in strength based on their ability to feed off U.S. and NATO security contracting, particularly the highly lucrative business niche of providing private security for the coalition supply chain. Men serve and die for these warlords for money, not tribal, ethnic, or political loyalty. In Afghan culture, this new class of warlord is undeserving of that elevated title because their power is derivative of their business function, not their political or tribal clout.56 According to one expert on Afghanistan, “the partial conversion of Afghan warlords into businessmen resembles in many ways the establishment of mafia networks, which are active both in the legal and the illegal economy and are able to use force to protect their interests and possibly to expand.”57 Whether called “businessmen,” “commanders,” “strongmen,” “militia leaders,” or “warlords,” any single individual who commands hundreds or thousands of armed men in regular combat and operates largely outside the direct control of the central government is a competitor to the legitimacy of the state.58