09/30/14 – Matthew Hoh – The Scott Horton Show

Hey all, Scott Horton here.
Coming up this October 18th at Columbia University in New York, the Future Freedom Foundation is hosting a conference titled Stop the Wars on Drugs and Terrorism featuring Glenn Greenwald, Radley Balko, Jeremy Scahill, Eugene Jarecki, Jonathan Turley, and others.
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That's the Stop the Wars on Drugs and Terrorism Conference, Saturday, October 18th, 2014 at Columbia University, sponsored by the Future Freedom Foundation at fff.org.
All right, you guys, welcome back to the show.
I'm Scott Horton.
I'm tweeting and direct messaging and I'm running a radio show and I'm trying to read a bunch of stuff and catch up.
What the?
God dang it.
I got Matthew Ho on the line.
He was, correct me if I'm wrong here, Matthew, U.S. Army in Iraq and U.S. State Department in Afghanistan.
Is that correct?
Right?
Hi, Scott.
How are you doing?
I'm doing great.
I was, no, with the Marine Corps.
I served with the Marines for 10 years.
I don't know why I got that screwed up.
I thought Marines, but then I thought I was wrong about that, but no.
Okay.
Yeah, now Marines and then I served on State Department teams in both Iraq and in Afghanistan.
Okay.
All right, well, we're going to start with Afghanistan today and I don't know if we'll have time to get to the situation in the land formerly known as Iraq at all, but I guess today is the day they signed the deal to keep 10,000 troops there in Afghanistan.
And this is combined with the deal that makes or sort of takes place simultaneously with the deal that makes Ashraf Ghani, the president and Abdullah Abdullah, the chief executive, I guess, co-president in the new situation in this John Kerry broker deal.
So I guess if you could just break it down a little further than that, help explain what you think this means for the future of the so-called, at least, government there in Afghanistan and the future of the American occupation.
Sure.
Well, what you had happen this past spring was fraudulence in the elections for the president of Afghanistan that was so great that this concept of a unity government had to be pursued because the top two vote getters.
And again, the fraudulence was so great that we don't even know what the actual numbers in terms of turnout and votes cast are.
They're not being released because no one can agree on them.
And again, this goes back to the level of corruption and theft and malfeasance in this process is so great that there's not even an attempt to put down numbers on this because no one believes them.
So to fix this problem, because neither Ashraf Ghani or Abdullah Abdullah, the top two, quote unquote, vote getters in this election refused to acknowledge the other's victory, a unity government was formed.
And this is extra constitutional, not that the Afghan constitution matters for anything, but it's extra constitutional.
And Ashraf Ghani, who is a former World Bank executive, is the president.
And Abdullah Abdullah, who lost to Hamid Karzai in 2009 when Hamid Karzai stole those elections, Abdullah Abdullah will be the chief executive, which is sort of like a prime ministerial position, but not exactly.
And I have not seen anything that clearly lays out who will be doing what in this government.
And in Afghanistan, that's very important because the executive in Afghanistan has almost all the authority, all the money transfers through the executive, the executive responsible for appointing everybody in the government from the ministers in Kabul down to the police chiefs and the district governors.
District governors are basically, say, county commissioners.
So it's a very corrupt process.
It's a very opaque result.
I don't know anyone who has any confidence in this other than the spokespeople for the Afghan government and for the U.S. government.
And I think to clearly show what's behind all this and what motivates this, Scott, is the understanding that the way that Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani finally came to an understanding that they would share power, basically split the baby, was because the United States government, Secretary Kerry said, if you don't agree, we're taking all our money and leaving.
So I think that's a good understanding of what's really motivating a lot of this.
What is the underpinnings of this?
The United States spent $80 billion in Afghanistan last year.
This year, we've asked for about $60 billion.
Of that, $7 billion is for reconstruction programs, so cash that's being applied directly to Afghanistan.
So I think you get a pretty good understanding that the money is the prime motivator here and that the Afghan people will continue to be left out of any legitimate political process.
And as you've seen, there's been no mention of the current insurgency.
There's been no mention of resolving this civil war that's torn apart Afghanistan for almost four decades now.
OK, so, yeah, there's a lot there.
First of all, is this just a contest of who gets to shoot who in the back of the head first between Ghani and Abdullah?
Or does anybody think that this is actually going to be a thing, that they're going to be co-presidents like this and get along somehow?
I don't see how.
I mean, again, the thing that I go back to, Scott, that would make this that keeps this together is the money and the understanding amongst Ghani and Abdullah and their camps that the only way to keep the American cash cow, the $7 billion a year that we're providing directly to the Afghan government, basically, the only way to keep that is to put on a good face and stand in front of the crowd on a podium together and hold hands.
But behind the scenes, absolutely, I think that's a good description.
And certainly if you're familiar with Afghan history, modern Afghan history prior to the Soviet invasion in the 70s, you had lots of Afghan leaders shooting other Afghan leaders in the back of the head.
So I think all you've seen in Afghanistan is a continuation of these politics, this conflict that has been not carried forth by real internal divisions in Afghanistan, but then also outside interference by whether it be the Americans or the Russians or by the Indians or the Pakistanis.
But certainly there's quite a lot for the Afghans to contend with.
Yeah.
Well, and I mean, what does this say for the American empire that after all this occupation for 13 years for, you know, really with at least stability in the palace in Kabul under Hamid Karzai, all this time and all the chance, all the money they've spent, all the chance they've had to build things up the way that, you know, with the blank check that the American people have signed for them, that they can't even pull off an election, a simple kind of presidential election at all.
I mean, to read a Matthew Aydin, Anand Gopal on, I think they're reporting and Harper's was on the first round of the election here where the people out in the countryside didn't even get to vote at all.
Basically, you get to vote if the cameras are there, you know, for the international press.
And otherwise the whole thing is just a put on.
And then with the dispute over Abdullah Abdullah, like now they're trying to work out this thing where you don't release the numbers because the numbers now are going to say that Ghani won, but Abdullah is so convinced that he really won in the first round, even though they double extra stole the second round of this.
I mean, what are we even talking about here?
This is the most ridiculous exercise in so-called democracy ever.
It's a it's like some skit from the kids in the hall or something.
And this is what Bush and Obama have to show for 13 years of occupation and nation building.
And then at the end, with their surge failed and all the rest of it down around their ankles, all they can say is, well, I guess we got to keep 10,000 troops for another 10 years.
Twenty twenty four, which that's the deal that Obama had actually signed with Karzai.
Less the details a couple of years ago.
And now the music's playing because I complained too long to get to my question.
But we're going to go to break and then we're going to get back and talk more with Matthew Ho about the horrible catastrophe in Afghanistan.
This is Scott Horton Show.
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All right, guys, welcome back.
I'm Scott Horton.
Stars and Stripes says they got a new story about the new American Veterans Disabled for Life Memorial in Washington, D.C., because it's high time that the maimed had a little statue of their own and there are plenty more coming where that came from.
It looks like they signed this deal till 2024.
And it, of course, includes the all important immunity, Matthew, so that the U.S. Army can continue to operate, I guess, in with only ten or twenty thousand people there.
Was that even is that count as counterterrorism forces?
Is that mean Delta Force night raids are going to continue indefinitely kind of thing?
Or is that just force protection for the capital city?
I think you're still going to see some limited raids occurring.
But mainly, I think that that President Scott is mainly directed outwards towards Iran and Pakistan.
You're looking at the primary purpose of the U.S. presence there being both those countries opposed to Afghanistan.
So utilizing the airfields in Afghanistan to conduct reconnaissance and strike missions into both Pakistan and potentially Iran in the future.
But doesn't that assume stability and American friendly control in Afghanistan?
And isn't that a pretty big assumption at this point?
Right.
You know, but I don't think anyone is accusing our government of having any type of forward thinking or long term vision or empathetic understanding of national and regional difficulties in that area.
I mean, precisely, Scott, if.
Our presence in Afghanistan is dependent upon stability, and we want that presence so that we can fly missions into Pakistan and Iran, well, then Pakistan and Iran is going to do everything possible to ensure that Afghanistan is instable.
And so, of course, we get back to it.
The Afghan people pay for the you know, the geopolitical maneuvering out of Washington, D.C., these folks in D.C. who want to play their version of risk.
And you see this throughout this inability to think logically or think two or three steps ahead.
In 2009, you know, getting back to the elections in 2009 when I was in Afghanistan, I participated in the elections and it was magnificent how well how well run those elections were from a fraudulent and crooked standpoint.
It was a thing of beauty how how rigged those elections were.
And here's the problem is when the American government not just accepted those elections in 2009 and said, Hamid Karzai, you're our guy.
We you know, we didn't accept elections.
We sent him 30,000 more troops.
Well, in that election, wasn't it that the CIA was trying to rig the thing for Abdullah Abdullah and just Karzai rigged it better for himself?
You know, I've heard that where I was, I certainly saw how well Karzai's people rigged it and how well the how how well integrated the security forces were.
And, you know, where I was, I went to the Afghan army base and they just had their soldiers voting over and over again.
And just all the the way everything was handled from the way the ballots were distributed to the way they were collected to the way they were shipped just was what was watertight to ensure that no one could observe and that the ballot boxes could be stuffed or counted in any way that was desired.
It just seemed like the politics here were that Obama was sick and tired of Karzai and hated him and wanted to get rid of him.
And the CIA even put a story in The New York Times saying that Karzai's brother is a CIA agent and a drug dealer in order to discredit him, which I thought was pretty funny.
It was, I think, written by CIA staff was the byline on the damn thing.
But the reality was Karzai's brother was a drug dealer.
Yeah, yeah, of course.
But the fact that the CIA is outing him as a CIA agent and a heroin pusher in order to discredit him so that they can replace him is, you know, a little bit Mad Magazine for me, but OK.
But, you know, that's the problem.
We participate in these things.
We sanction them.
We try and have our hands behind things.
We try and pull the levers so that our results come out.
And that may make sense for a year or two.
But now look at what's happening in Afghanistan, where you've got this because we sanctioned fraudulent elections, agreed with them, sent more troops.
One, we have no ground to stand on to criticize Iranian elections or Ukraine elections or whatever.
But the other is that now how do you walk back from a fraudulent process?
How do you now say in Afghanistan this is no good when you've sanctioned and further what you've done politically in Afghanistan is by cutting out.
And this is what I really saw.
A lot of damage was done by allowing Karzai to keep power in 09 that disenfranchised, not the Pashtuns, because they're already disenfranchised and they were fighting with the Taliban in this insurgency.
But it disenfranchised those groups that made up Karzai's coalition.
And that's why you've seen even more fractured, more disparate situation in Afghanistan, where you have these warlords over the last several years in the north and the west have just basically entrenched themselves.
And so Kabul really is on its own little orbit, its own, you know, different from the rest of the country.
And so getting back to those 10,000 troops, those American troops, like I said, I think primarily they're going to be focused on air bases.
They'll still be doing some training for Afghan security forces, but their primary focus will be missions into Iran and Pakistan, drone missions, you know, backing those up, protecting the airfields, maintaining those aircraft, as well as being able to conduct strike missions, whether in Afghanistan or in Pakistan.
Well, you know, I don't know if I'm really reading you right here or not, Matthew, but it sounds to me like what you're talking about, basically, and, you know, I'm not saying this is the last time they looked at it, but it doesn't sound like they've changed the plan for what to do since back before the surge, that by 2014, this is how it's going to be.
And so we're going to have these outward focused bases will be left and whatever, but everything will be taken care of by them because David Petraeus promised that by July, 2011, he will bring the bloody nosed Taliban to the table and they will agree to all of his terms because he will have whooped them so bad for the last year and a half in the surge.
And so everything's fine.
But it sounds to me like what you're saying is that they're completely setting, you know, the way I said, are they going, they're going to still be fighting the Taliban or is this forced protection for Kabul?
And your answer was neither.
There is no force protection for Kabul to prevent the or other than maybe a few drone pilots or something, but no real force there to prevent the Taliban from marching straight back in because they're operating on a plan that was written up before the surge completely failed.
Am I right about that?
Am I understanding you correctly about that?
That's right.
And if you just want to see me take it to its disgusting conclusion is read the press release the White House put out today about this agreement that we're going to keep 10,000 more troops in Afghanistan and the glowing terms it speaks of American policy and the successes we've had in Afghanistan and how we've brought democracy to Afghanistan, how we've, you know, we've avenged 9-11 and all these things that are so the dichotomy from reality.
And it really is disgusting to read that press statement because it's so, so obscene in its dissonance from what is actually occurring there.
You know, and certainly you see, you look at all the facets, all the, all the things going on in Afghanistan, you look at the insurgency and more Afghan civilians may kill this year than last year.
And last year, more were killed in the previous year.
And so the violence keeps getting worse.
The insurgency, the Taliban is bigger and stronger.
They're emboldened.
They withstood our surge and now they're in complete control of the negotiation process.
They come and go as they please.
The only, the corruption is just endemic.
And we have spent more money in Afghanistan on reconstruction than we spent on the Marshall Plan in Europe after World War II.
In today's dollars, we spent about $100 billion on the Marshall Plan after World War II to rebuild Europe and widely claimed as successful.
And it was.
In Afghanistan, we have spent already $104 billion trying to rebuild Afghanistan.
And it has been a complete failure.
And we're continuing to spend money.
Again, we'll spend $7 billion more this year trying to rebuild Afghanistan.
So just the dissonance that is between what our government is saying, and I think what many of them believe, and what's actually occurring in Afghanistan, allows things to occur, Scott, like you said, where, hey, in 2009, we said we're going to do this.
And now we're doing it.
It shows that we're winning, when the reality is, is that we're not winning.
We're losing, we're making the situation worse.
We're wasting just resources, both lives and treasure at a level that we just simply can't sustain.
And it's immoral to do, let alone the destruction that we're causing in that part of the world.
Yeah.
Hey, real fast here.
Can you give me any kind of ballpark number on how many Taliban fighters there are now in Afghan Taliban?
I haven't seen, you know, they stopped, you know, a couple years ago, 20, 30, 40.
About 30, 40,000 would probably be the estimate, but probably more than that reality in terms of supporters and their networks.
Yeah.
All right, everybody, that's Matthew Ho.
He was with the Marine Corps in Iraq and the State Department in Iraq and Afghanistan.
He writes at the Huffington Post.
And I'm sorry, I don't have all your information in front of me.
Can you give me, is it MatthewHo.com?
Yeah, MatthewHo.com.
Yeah.
OK, thanks very much.
We appreciate it.
Hey, thanks, Scott.
You have a good one.
You too.
All right, y'all, we'll be right back after this.
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