Prairie Voice

Citizens of Highlands County Florida Fight
A Blackwater Wannabe

By Dan Kenney
10/18/09

Many “Blackwater wannabes” have been sprouting up around the country this past year. Proposed large private training centers have been brought to my attention from California, Ohio, Michigan, Virginia, and Florida. The one in Ohio was defeated by citizens. The ones in California and Virginia are still being fought.
The proposed 7,700 acre Eagle National Training Center that was under consideration near Venus Florida has for now been turned down on their attempt to secure zoning changes. The Highland County commissioners voted unanimously to not approve the requested zoning variances.
Opponents of the proposed private military and security training facility turned out in large numbers to speak out against the project. The citizens filled the meeting room and more waited outside. The meeting lasted for over 12 hours. It is unclear if the security center is a dead deal, the developer, Greg Eagle of the Ft. Meyers area isn’t saying. There is a good chance that it is and credit must go to the opponents who worked quickly and with determination to stop it.
The developers made many concessions to try and when over the local residents like giving up plans for a 6,000 foot runway and firing of large guns. But the citizens were not swayed. Many of the citizens voiced concern that Eagle was just purchasing the land but then would lease it to Blackwater (now known as Xe.)
But because Eagle lost this round it does not mean the fight is over. Eagle could come back in six months with a revised plan to try and fit into the present zoning requirements. Also De Soto County, one hour from Highlands, has let it be known that if Highlands didn’t want the training center they would take it. The promise of 1,000 jobs that Eagle has put out is very tempting in the present economic environment.
Also watch for another Eagle Training Center that may be coming to a neighborhood near you. According to a 10 year business plan that was submitted to the commissioners Eagle, following in Blackwater’s footsteps, plans to create twenty additional satellite training installations nationally. Their plan was to make the Florida location a headquarters. Their plan also included the training of foreign soldiers and police. It also mentioned the possibility of “flipping the property” to a larger private training company such as Blackwater.
It seems that many have seen the huge profits that companies like Blackwater, Triple Canopy, DynCorp, and others are making and have decided it is time to join them at the U.S. government privatization feeding trough.
Be on the watch for a private military security company near your home town.

What Is the True Cost of Our Wars?

By Dan Kenney
October 18, 2009

It occurred to me while I prepared for this year’s CROP Hunger Walk, how little is said or written about the connections between the cost of fighting two wars and our economy. We hear often about the cost of the health care overhaul bill, now forecasted in its present form to be $900 billion over the next 10 years. This cost is met with a resounding outcry, however the fact that we have spent over $921 billion fighting the wars in Afghanistan and in Iraq over the past eight years is seldom mentioned.
We are told by the U.N. food agency that over 1 billion people will go hungry worldwide over the next year. “We know a child dies every six seconds of malnutrition,” said the head of Action Aid international.
The USDA reported before the “economic meltdown” that over 36 million families in the U.S. live with food insecurity. That number has increased, as we have seen here in our own community. Our homeless shelter is turning more away than they are able to help. Besides sheltering the homeless, Hope Haven also serves an average of 67 meals per night to fellow citizens in need. At the same time, a weekly free community meal sponsored by the Voluntary Action Center serves an average of 75.
Based on IRS data, the tax payers of of my community have paid over $117 million for total Iraq and Afghanistan war spending since 2001. With that money we could have built 825 affordable housing units. This is only one of the many tradeoffs we have made locally; others include not being able to replace needed fire fighters or police officers. We must seriously question during this time of re-evaluating our strategy in Afghanistan if this tradeoff is really worth the price.
Two economists, Joseph Stiglitz former chief economist for the World Bank and Dr. Linda Bilmes of Harvard, have predicted the Iraq war alone may end up costing over $3 trillion dollars. The two economists arrived at this figure after taking into consideration such hidden costs as adequately caring for the Iraq war veterans and the economic impact of this being a war funded with borrowed money.
The Bush administration tried to keep the escalating cost of the wars hidden, and now the Obama administration is doing the same. Take for example the recent articles about the deficit reaching $1.45 trillion for the previous fiscal year. Mr. Geithner, head of treasury said that the deficit “was largely the product of the spending and tax policies inherited from the previous administration, exacerbated by a severe recession and financial crisis that was underway as the current administration took office.” This statement may be true enough but what about the over $2 billion per week for the two wars? Not one word.
During this time of reflection on the direction of our Afghanistan policy, we are told by the Congressional Research Service that one U.S. soldier in Afghanistan for one year will cost $1 million tax dollars or borrowed dollars. If Obama decides to deploy another 40,000 troops as he is being urged to do we can expect more hardship in our communities and around the globe. We cannot fight our way to any security if we are depleting food and job security in our hometowns at the same time.
I stand up to walk out into the clear brisk October afternoon in hopes that we will reach our $30,000 fundraising goal for our walk this year. At the same time my heart is heavy with uncertainty about what we may need to raise by next year if we continue down the path to more war.
We need to be very cautious about the direction our country takes with Afghanistan. As the Chinese proverb warns, “If we don’t change direction we are likely to end up where we are headed.”

We All Need To Rethink Afghanistan
By Dan Kenney
10/17/09

President Obama is not the only one who should be using this time to rethink the strategy for Afghanistan. All Americans should be engaged in debate about this war and where it may lead. After all it is the people who will pay. We will pay with our tax dollars, our loved ones, our democracy, our country’s reputation, and our hopes. This war has the potential to destroy the Obama presidency just as Vietnam buried LBJ’s 45 years ago.
We often hear about the high cost of the health care reform bill, the latest price tag being touted is $900 billion over the next 10 years, yet we don’t hear how we have spent $921 billion on the two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the last 8 years. We are expected to spend another $130 billion in 2010, and if Obama makes the choice to increase the number of troops that amount will climb higher. How many citizens could we insure with the over $2 billion per week we are spending on the wars?
These are also wars that the majority of citizens on both sides of the ocean oppose. According to a recent CNN poll 57% of Americans are opposed to the Afghanistan war. An ABC poll conducted this year found that the majority of Afghans blame the U.S. more than the Taliban for the strife in their country. At the same time a 2009 AP poll reported that 63% of Americans oppose the war in Iraq. It is clear that the wars are not wanted by the majority of the people in the U.S., Iraq, or Afghanistan. It’s time to listen to the people and for the people to listen to themselves.
President Obama tells us we must secure Afghanistan so it can no longer be a safe haven for al Qaeda. However experts on the country and our own intelligence reports tell us that al Qaeda is no longer in Afghanistan, and are now based in Pakistan. The people of Pakistan, 59% according to polls, share al Qaeda’s attitudes toward the U.S.
Al Qaeda is an international movement. They exist in Indonesia, Morocco, Somalia, Sudan, and Yemen. The al Qaeda even has enclaves in England and France. We cannot defeat them by increasing troops in a country they have abandoned. The various al Qaeda groups have different goals and strategies they are linked only by their resentment toward the Western military, culture, political and corporate power. Al Qaeda doesn’t need Afghanistan so why do we?
Next we are told that we need to protect the Afghans from the Taliban. This is dangerously familiar to our stumbling into the ancient ethnic hatreds of Iraq and Vietnam that we knew nothing about. The other problem with this reasoning is that the Taliban is not a unified group. There are many bands that refer to themselves as Taliban. The groups are mostly illiterate farmers, former anti-Soviet fighters, roving bandits, and drug traffickers. There is not one large organized Taliban force. The Taliban is dangerous, of course, and especially so for its brutal treatment of women and young girls. But not every member is barbaric, many are moderate. We should be working with the moderate ones to wipe out the barbaric ones.
The Taliban is not interested in attacking the U.S. nor are they capable of doing so even if they wanted to. The primary goal of the Taliban, which is mostly made up of Pashtuns, is to regain power. As long as we continue to side with their enemies we will find ourselves trapped in an endless civil war.
Also by becoming embroiled in their civil war we have sided with Karzai, which puts us at odds with over 40% of the country’s population. It also aligns us with his corruption and stolen elections.
The claim that we are there to train the Afghan army is also a faulty plan. The Afghan army is very poorly trained, poorly equipped, incompetent, and lacking any will to fight. The police forces are the same as well as openly corrupt. Mark Moyar, a national security analyst with the U.S. Marine Corps points out that doubling the Afghan troops will not double the security because there are not enough properly trained commanders to lead them. Also it is widely known that it takes “at least 10 years to turn raw soldiers into officers suitable for essential commands.”
Added to all of this is the fact that we will also be increasing our use of private military contractors with all the danger that entails. For the past two years over 65% of the Pentagon force in Afghanistan has been private military contractors.
Given the facts and not the hype, it becomes clear that this war is a dead end path that could not only bring down Obama’s presidency but also our own country. We cannot continue down this dangerous road while our own infrastructure crumbles here at home, or while we continue to sacrifice our security with loan after loan from the Chinese.
We all need to seize this moment to rethink what role we want our country to play in the world. We need organize the majority that wants these wars to stop and create the change we want to see. We cannot stand by passively allowing those few who reap profits from these wars drive us further down the path to our own destruction. As the Chinese proverb warns, “If we do not change direction, we are likely to end up where we are headed.”