OpenDemocracy, 12 November 2014
In an article taking issue with recent reporting of the BBC’s John Simpson, the author quotes – among a many other sources – an AAN dispatch by Thomas Ruttig:
‘Armed strongmen – warlords and commanders… sit in most key positions and dominate the parliament, the judiciary and the still-partly factionalised security forces as well as the country’s few functioning business sectors. Those who received financial means from the US in 2001 to fight the Taleban often invested in the drug trade and, starting from there, gradually took over licit sectors of the economy, such as the import-export business, construction, and the real estate, banking and mining sectors as well as the contract economy fed by the billions of military, aid and reconstruction money flowing in from abroad. Early on, they remobilised old or recruited new fighters with that money and pushed through their bulk integration – i.e., with the old militia structures – into the ‘new’ armed forces… Their new military and financial force empowered them to win seats in the parliamentary elections in 2005.’
Revisions:
This article was last updated on 9 Mar 2020
