Afghan murderous warlord, NATO ally

This is a satirical video by Mark Fiore from the USA about Afghan warlords.

From the Sydney Morning Herald in Australia:

Key Australian Afghan ally ‘complicit in murder’

Tom Hyland

June 10, 2012

A FORMER US adviser has revealed how he warned that a militia leader who has become Australia‘s key Afghan ally was complicit in murder and should be stripped of any official role.

Instead, provincial strongman Matiullah Khan has been appointed police chief and his private militia is being rebadged as a government protection force. His transformation from illiterate warlord to security official has confirmed his position as the most powerful figure in Oruzgan province where Australian troops are based.

The federal government and defence force are highly sensitive about their relationship with Matiullah Khan, which predates his appointment as police chief last August.

The Afghan government is negotiating the merger of his personal militia – which earns millions of dollars by protecting supply convoys – with a new official security force.

His elevation comes seven years after a US government adviser in Oruzgan warned that Matiullah Khan was a suspected murderer who should be stripped of any official post. In a new book, The Valley’s Edge: A Year With the Pashtuns In the Heartland of the Taliban, former State Department adviser Daniel Green reveals that he wrote to the then US ambassador in 2005 recommending Matiullah Khan be removed from office, along with his cousin, the then governor Jan Mohammed Khan. At the time, Matiullah Khan controlled the governor’s main armed force.

”While their Taliban-fighting abilities are great, they also serve as the governor’s ‘muscle’ against his opponents and are known to intimidate, murder, and steal from local Afghans who are not friends of the governor,” Green told the ambassador.

Elsewhere in his book, Green said he suspected Matiullah Khan was complicit ”in intimidating the local population and, quite possibly, killing the governor’s opponents”. Dutch forces, who served in Oruzgan from 2006 to 2010, had similar suspicions and refused to deal with him.

They did not always refuse to deal with that warlord; according to here.

Australian and US forces, however, regard him as an effective ally who has helped improve security and serve alongside his men.

A Defence Department spokesman said Matiullah Khan’s official appointment was the responsibility of the Afghan government. ”As with all Australian involvement with influential people in Oruzgan, we aim to ensure that their influence is used positively, in support of governance and security in the province,” he said.

Matiullah Khan’s rise has alarmed Professor Amin Saikal, an Afghan expert at the Australian National University.

”What we and other members of the coalition are doing is very dangerous,” he said. ”The coalition are going to leave behind a patchwork of powerbrokers like Matiullah Khan, who has been accused of extortion and all sorts of unsavoury activities. That’s not what Afghanistan needs, but that’s what’s happening because that’s part of the exit strategy.”

…

In answer to questions by Senator Ludlam, the Defence Department said last month the Afghan government planned to merge Matiullah Khan’s militia with the Afghan Public Protection Force, a state-owned security business. Last October, Defence Minister Stephen Smith insisted Matiullah Khan answered to the governor, Mohammed Shirzad, a respected figure appointed at Australia’s urging.

Mr Shirzad, however, was sacked by President Hamid Karzai in April. An AusAID-funded report, written prior to his sacking, revealed Mr Shirzad had endured sustained criticism by Matiullah Khan who saw him as a rival.

He was also accused of undermining the former police chief, whose dismissal after just four months in the job left Matiullah Khan the ”province’s undisputed powerbroker”, the report, by The Liaison Office, said.

The rate of suicide among US military members is on track to be the highest since the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq began, exposing the mental toll that the wars of aggression and a deteriorating economy are taking: here.

Study: 13% of deployed Marines consider suicide: here.

The former commander of a U.S. Army brigade that served in both Iraq and Afghanistan is on trial for bigamy: here.

USA: A bipartisan group of nine lawmakers has enlisted the help of an Army whistle-blower in their determined efforts to bring a swift end to the war in Afghanistan: here.

Bombing Weddings in Afghanistan: It Couldn’t Happen Here, It Does Happen There. The Value of American — and Afghan — Lives, by Tom Engelhardt: here.

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