Afghanistan's president is issuing an ultimatum to thousands of private security contractors he says are undermining his nation's army and police force: Cease operations in four months.
President Hamid Karzai's strident decision, announced Monday by his spokesman, is expected to meet resistance from NATO officials who rely heavily on private security companies to guard convoys and installations across the country. ...
According to the Pentagon, there are about 26,000 private security contractors working in Afghanistan for 37 different companies — 17 of them Afghan-owned. The State Department and USAID rely the most heavily on the companies to provide their employees security.
Karzai knows we need those contractors--yet he also knows that the order won't lead to the Taliban beheading him after marching on Kabul. The order could only hurt our war effort and not undermine it fatally.
So what's the deal? Is Karzai that upset over our decision to field local defense forces over his objections?
So there will be a struggle over this issue. We'll win, ultimately, though I don't know what price we'll pay. Through it all, remember that as much as we may have trouble with Karzai, we can't own the war by replacing him with "our" man. It has to remain a matter of America and our allies supporting the Afghans at war, with leaders they choose (however imperfectly) and support.
In time, we should expand the local defense forces even more despite Karzai's unease. We fight subtraction with addition
The math sucks, but that's the way it is.
