It's hard for some people to imagine that there are winners in a war other than the army that finally prevails. However, besides its human and emotional costs, war also provides the opportunity for profits for those who make their living in the defense industry. Every war also has unintended consequences that some exploit. And as doctors and researchers study the effects of war, with ever more advanced analytical tools, it is also possible to improve our understanding of the extent of the "losers" in the Afghanistan war.
Winners Include
Heroin Traffickers
The CIA concludes that Afghanistan has become the "world's largest producer of opium" since the start of war in October 2001. Under the Taliban, opium cultivation had been banned and the Taliban enforced the rule with harsh penalties, including even execution. More opium poppy cultivation takes place each and every year under the Karzai government than took place during the entire five years of Taliban rule. Also, more land is now used for opium in Afghanistan, than for coca cultivation in Latin America. Even with a 20% drop in opium cultivation in 2009, and low prices for the crop, the United Nations Drug Office survey estimates that about 90% of the opiates on the world market originate in Afghanistan.
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Natural Resource Exploitation
For Afghanistan's Minister of Mines, Mohammad Ibrahim Adel, exploiting the country's natural resources isn't a bad thing. It's necessary, he contends, to bring money into a poverty-strapped nation. According to Adel, "Afghanistan is not known for its natural resources. It is known across the world and in history as a nation of war and violence and poverty. But we have a lot: copper, iron ore, gold, natural gas, oil, precious and semi-precious stones, chromite, talc, salt. Except diamonds. We haven't found diamonds yet, but we might." Adel believes that upwards of 95% of Afghanistan's natural resources are undiscovered. "We are trying to develop the economy using our natural and mineral resources."
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China
A Chinese firm has the largest single investment in Afghanistan, a $3.5 billion copper mining deal. The enormous copper field in Logar Province could contain up to $88 billion worth of copper. But no power plant in the region can generate enough electricity for the mining operations and the country doesn't have the heavy railroad capable of transporting tons of copper from the mines. China watchers say the Afghanistan mining work is part of China's overall strategy to develop cross-border connections to neighboring countries in order to satisfy its own great energy and natural resources needs. A stable Afghanistan benefits China.
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U.S. and International Military Bases in Afghanistan and the contractors who build them
Foreign Policy in Focus, a project of the Institute for Policy Studies, says: "[T]here are, at present, nearly 400 U.S. and coalition bases in Afghanistan, including camps, forward operating bases, and combat outposts. In addition, there are at least 300 Afghan National Army (ANA) and Afghan National Police (ANP) bases, most of them built, maintained, or supported by the U.S. A small number of the coalition sites are mega-bases like Kandahar Airfield, which boasts one of the busiest runways in the world, and Bagram Air Base, a former Soviet facility that received a makeover, complete with Burger King and Popeyes, and now serves more than 20,000 U.S. troops, in addition to thousands of coalition forces and civilian contractors. In fact, Kandahar, which housed 9,000 coalition troops as recently as 2007, is expected to have a population of as many as 35,000 troops by the time President Obama's surge is complete...." From 2002-2008, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers spent $4.5 billion building bases in Afghanistan. It plans to spend about $3 billion more just in 2010.
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Corporate military and police training firms Blackwater (Xe LLC) and others such DynCorp will make up at least half of the total military workforce in Afghanistan going forward, according to a study by the Congressional Research Service. The CRS estimates that President Obama's plan to deploy 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan in 2010 "could require an additional 26,000 to 56,000 contractors, for a total of between 130,000 to 160,000 contractors."
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Small specialized defense firms
In a 2010 report, "Aerospace, Defense & Security Report," The Wall Street Transcript, concludes that because of the nature of military operations in Afghanistan, there is increasing reliance on satellite coverage, drones, a Joint Tactical Radio System, and the need for heavily armored vehicles that can easily move around rugged, mountainous terrain. Small firms are benefiting because they specialize in niche markets and can respond faster to orders than the traditional, giant defense contractors. A financial analyst on the aerospace/defense industry notes, "With the projections going from 30,000 troops in Afghanistan at the beginning of 2009 to 100,000 over the next six months, Afghanistan is going to grow while Iraq is going down in terms of the number of troops. So overall funding and appropriations are going up for the defense group, which is a positive."
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Losers Include
The 1000+ dead American soldiers, and the 5000+ wounded.
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Afghanistan citizens
An estimated 3,000 to 4,000 have been killed by air attacks, drones, and Allied military mistakes. In late May 2010, the senior U.S. and NATO commander, Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, addressed a conference of 50 command sergeants and other senior enlisted troops at the Bagram Air Base. "Because of CivCas [civilian casualties], I think we have just about eroded our credibility here in Afghanistan. The constant repeat of CivCas is now so dangerous that it threatens the mission." Many other Afghan civilians are killed by Taliban operations, such as the 1,050 children who died in 2009 from suicide attacks, roadside blasts, and the cross-fire between Taliban insurgents and coalition forces.
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Afghan Women
The situation for women under the Taliban was repressive and hellish. And while it has gotten better in some areas under the Karzai government, Afghanistan got a failing grade on women's rights in a 96-page study, "We Have the Promises of the World." There are serious ongoing rights concerns in five areas: attacks on women in public life; violence against women; forced marriage of both children and adults; denial of access to the justice system; and girl's access to secondary education.
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The psychological health of soldiers
A Rand Corporation study, "Invisible Wounds of War - Psychological and Cognitive Injuries, Their Consequences, and Services to Assist Recovery," includes troubling conclusions about the soldiers who have served in Afghanistan and Iraq: "Early evidence suggests that the psychological toll of these deployments - many involving prolonged exposure to combat-related stress over multiple rotations - may be disproportionately high compared with the physical injuries of combat... Concerns have been most recently centered on two combat-related injuries in particular: post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury. With the increasing incidence of suicide and suicide attempts among returning veterans, concern about depression is also on the rise."
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The Environment
As early as 2003, a United Nations report, "Post-Conflict Environmental Assessment," had some ominous warnings. So-called combat erosion had led to loss of vegetation that caused serious soil erosion across the country. Chemical pollution, noted the UN, was high in regions in which ongoing fighting prevented any efforts to clean water supplies or contaminated soil. A Pakistani professor who studied the effect of the war on the environment noted that the Allied bombing displaced wildlife and threatened endangered species like pelicans and cranes. An estimated 10 million land mines destroyed key irrigation systems as well as causing substantial damage to humans and animals. For more information check Environmentalists Against War and Sierra Club.
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US Economy and Social Programs
The political activist organization Rethink Afghanistan, asks: "On May 30 [2010] , we'll pass the $1 trillion mark for the cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. That's a trillion dollars we could have used to create jobs, keep people in their homes, or make sure sick kids can see a doctor. Politicians and pundits throw the word 'trillion' around like it's chump change, and that means most people don't have any idea how much $1 trillion actually is. To get you thinking about the true cost of the wars, we've created a game that asks: 'How would YOU spend $1 trillion?'" At the group's Facebook site, there are examples of how far a trillion dollars would go to solve other problems. Some include: $2.3 billion for healthcare for 1 million children for a year; $61.1 billion to hire 1 million elementary school teachers for a year; and $129 billion for a million affordable housing units.
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