Apparently it’s worth at least a billion dollars though.

The U.S. is looking for private bids on a $1 billion contract for its AFRICAP program, to help train peacekeepers and provide military logistics in Africa. There aren’t any details on exactly what the contract entails, which the Danger Room seems to think might be an indication of how it’s managed to fly under the radar.

In a speech in 2003, Theresa Whelan, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for African Affairs, explained why they use private contractors in a nice little list of pros and cons, which I will summarize below. I think this list is a pretty good indication of how government thinks about the issue.

CONS:

• Occasional discipline problems
• Have to manage contractors closely to make sure they do what they’re supposed to
• Legally messy
• Indicates a lack of U.S. interest – does America really care if they’re only hiring help?
• Inefficient in the long run

PROS:

• Fast
• Cheap
• Easy…. diplomatically, that is
the fighter film divx

This could explain some of the problems we’re seeing in Iraq. Here’s hoping they don’t crop up in Africa too.

As mentioned in a previous post, Canada has given an ultimatum to the other NATO nations: pony up another 1,000 troops, or we go home.

So far, Canada seems likely to get its way, although there might never have been a question of it. Really, when you think about it, 1,000 troops from all of NATO aren’t all that much to ask for.I’m not sure what Canada is trying to do by putting that 1,000 troop requirement in place. Domestic political reasons seem to be the most likely explanation.

After all, France is poised to offer another 700 troops or so. The U.S. recently announced a deployment of 3,000 marines to Afghanistan. Although the U.S. says that these troops will be leaving well before Canada’s February 2009 deadline, they could probably be convinced to stay.

So it’s hard to say what we’re trying to get out of this. Or, rather, what Harper is trying to get out of this.

He’s expected to table a motion for a future confidence vote on the Afghan mission soon. That means it’s all up to Dion to either change his tune and keep the government up, or stick to his guns and bring it down.

UPDATE: The confidence motion was introduced Friday. It will be voted on in March. When asked if he will bring down the government over this issue, Dion declined to comment.

According to a report by the Council on Foreign Relations, the long-term effects of military spending in those two countries could harm the U.S. economy in the future.

The report states that the U.S. has already spent about $368 billion in Iraq, plus another $45 million in associated costs. It has also spent about $200 billion in Afghanistan. This amounts to about 6.2 percent of America’s GDP. Add it together, folks.

That’s a lot of cash.

Experts don’t seem to agree on what the ultimate effects of all this spending will be.

They do point to “negative externalities” – unexpected negative economic consequences of the war that affect people not directly involved.

For example, the war in Iraq has definitely affected Iraq’s oil supply, which in turn affects the U.S. economy. To paraphrase the Council on Foreign Relations report, rising oil prices fan inflation in the States, and rising oil prices, when combined with a falling dollar, also hurt U.S. consumers at home.

Because the international economy is so tied together, it’s hard to do anything without affecting everything else. In all fairness, I highly doubt that the American recession is caused entirely by the war in Iraq. Still, something to think about.

Witness the secret origin of Ameer as he returns home to find his country in shambles. Swearing to return the rule of law to his native country of the Philippines, Ameer dons a mask and begins the fight against the Abu Sayyaf Group of terrorists using his expert knowledge of kuntao, a Philippine martial art.

In the tradition of such other American psychological operations hits as “Deadly Legacy,” a 12-page land mine awareness comic starring Superman, this scintillating new comic was conceived, designed and distributed by American special forces officers in the Philippines. It’s being distributed in the Sulu Islands today!

Based on true events, including the Sulu co-op bombing of 2006, this comic follows Ameer as he bands together with local villagers to drive away the terrorists.

Parents and government officials will be pleased at the comic book’s strong anti-terror message, written to discourage young people from joining terrorist groups in the future. The book is carefully crafted to accurately reflect life in the Sulu islands, and police and Philippine military characters are portrayed in a positive light. It’s a message youth can relate to.

This already-popular comic is already popular in the streets of the Philippines, where children rip out pages and trade them with each other. T-shirts emblazoned with Ameer’s face are appearing everywhere.

Can you afford to miss this sure-fire hit?

Look for more psyops comics coming soon!

The U.S. is looking for special treatment for its independent contractors, and the Iraqi government seems unlikely to grant it.

The United Nations mandate that American forces were operating under is due to expire soon, and a new treaty will have to replace it.

It’s not unusual for this sort of diplomatic arrangement, called a “status of forces agreement”, to include provisions that exempt foreign soldiers from local laws and allow soldiers to continue to take local prisoners. But, the U.S. is hoping to extend these same privileges to its civilian security contractors, and that could cause a problem.

The U.S. has about 154,000 civilian contractors in Iraq. Most of these carry out fairly innocuous duties, such as driving trucks or cooking. Some 13,000 of these are “private security contractors”, of a far nastier sort.

At the moment, all 154,000 contractors have protection from Iraqi law, according to the New York Times. That’s pretty unusual. The question is whether this will continue, now that the issue is once again on the table.

After Blackwater scandals where private security contractors were involved in civilian deaths, these people are not very popular among Iraqis.

In no other country are contractors with the American army immune from local laws.

These are both good reasons for the Iraqi government to refuse special treatments for the Americans. We’ll have to see how this actually plays out – it might show just how independent the Iraqi government is.

The report itself is a doozy, weighing in at a hefty 90 pages, including several appendices. So, I’m going to focus on its recommendations.

It says that Canada should “continue with its responsibility for security in Kandahar,” including its combat role, past February 2009, the date the current mandate ends. It also recommends emphasizing development.

This is a little contradictory, but should please everyone. It also quite nicely supports the Conservatives’ historic support for longer mandates.

But, if we want to stay past 2009, says the report, we will need a few things first:

• Medium-lift helicopters
• More Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs)
• Another 1000 soldiers from other NATO countries

Helicopters and UAVs, like all military equipment, take a very long time to build or buy. We can always rent if we really have to. It’s a little undignified, but we’ve done it before.

Unfortunately for us though, we can’t make NATO countries send more soldiers. Support for the Afghan mission is just as spotty everywhere else as it is in Canada. Nobody wants to volunteer their soldiers for it, now that it’s been proved how dangerous Kandahar really is.

This is a very common problem for any multinational force: everybody agrees that they should do something, but nobody will risk their army and national public opinion to do it.

By making Canada’s involvement dependent on factors outside its control, the report gives Harper an easy way out of Afghanistan, if he wants to take it.

No helicopters? Too bad.

No new battle group of 1000 highly-trained European or American soldiers? I guess it’s time to pack it in.

A Maclean’s blog post has a great set of links about the report. Take a look for more information.

So I’m a little slow on picking up this story, but I still think it’s worth writing about.

The report hails the development of independent media outlets in Afghanistan as a “relative success story.” It highlights the role that media can play in bringing people together, by exposing people to a diversity of opinions and allowing them to participate in debate about public issues. In this way, media can help reinforce a fledgling democracy.

Radio is Afghanistan’s medium of choice. The country has a very low literacy rate, (43% for men and 13% for women) so newspapers are not very popular. Unreliable power makes television unpopular too. But, with a cheap radio, most Afghans can listen in on their news, or quiz shows, or music.

Unlike in Bosnia and Iraq, Afghan media seems to be helping to bring people together, instead of reinforcing cultural and linguistic divides. Afghans are making their own local shows and syndicating them across the country.

Afghanistan’s journalists are having a rough time of late, despite all these positive developments. Not only are Afghan reporters being threatened, beaten and killed, but Afghanistan’s government appears to be doing little about it. This is a growing problem.

If Afghanistan’s media are really doing all these great things for the country, it’s a problem that should be looked into.

This is a very troubling development for the future of Iraq. The last thing that place needs right now is a budding drug economy, on top of everything else that’s going on there.

Want some proof of the danger? Look at Afghanistan.

Afghanistan produces 93% percent of the world’s opium, says the UN. Poppy is grown in the least secure areas of the country – Kandahar and Helmand province, where the Afghan government has the weakest presence and where the Taliban and local warlords have the most control.

Iraq seems to have a lot of these insecure areas. That means lots of room for poppy to grow.

We should care because of how easily a drug economy can undermine the government of an emerging state. In Afghanistan, the opium trade corrupts government officials both high and low.

The most spectacular example was when almost nine tons of opium were found in a provincial governor’s office a few years ago. Farmers also regularly bribe government officials into ignoring their huge poppy fields. Even the President of Afghanistan is known to have ties to the opium trade.

Corruption reduces people’s trust in government – and trust is needed for a new country to function.

The Iraqi government doesn’t exactly have a lot of trust to work with.

Most worrying to Western powers with military forces in such countries, the opium industry directly funds the insurgents that they (and the domestic governments) are fighting against. The Taliban is using its opium money to kill NATO soldiers in Afghanistan on a pretty regular basis.

The international community is already banging its collective head against the wall trying to solve Afghanistan’s opium problem.

If Iraq is starting up now, we should all be worried.