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Blackwater founder Erik Prince's controversial proposal to privatize a large portion of the U.S. war in Afghanistan is being met with growing opposition in Kabul and Washington.

President Donald Trump is reportedly considering the proposal as part of his monthslong review of the war in Afghanistan, where the U.S. is locked in a stalemate with the Taliban after 16 years of fighting.

Prince touts the plan as a cost-effective way to turn the war around. Under the proposal, about 5,000 contractors would replace U.S. troops currently advising Afghan forces. They'd be backed by a 90-plane private air force. The contractors would operate under Afghan control, Prince said.

"This is very much under the authority of the central government and the control of the chief of staff of the Afghan armed forces. This is not a local militia that's going to be raised," Prince said in an interview with VOA's Afghan service.

Unaccountable

But a growing number of prominent Afghans fear that Prince's for-profit, private military would be unaccountable and say the move risks a repeat of the atrocities carried out by Blackwater guards in Iraq and Afghanistan during the 2000s.

Afghanistan's government has not yet officially responded to the proposal. But a senior Afghan defense official told VOA, "The plan has legal problems and raises questions about our mutual security agreements with the U.S."

The Afghan official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to publicly discuss the proposal, specifically cited the U.S.-Afghanistan Strategic Partnership Agreement, which went into effect in 2012, and the Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA), which the U.S. and Afghanistan signed in 2014 during the first few months of President Ashraf Ghani's tenure as leader of Afghanistan.

His predecessor, President Hamid Karzai, had refused to sign the agreement, even after a traditional Loya Jirga (grand council) approved it.

Any amendment to the BSA in the face of the proposed plan to privatize the war could potentially call for another Loya Jirga, and that could further complicate an already complex situation in the country.

Stalemate

There are about 9,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Most are in noncombat roles, aimed at training and advising Afghan forces, since U.S.-led NATO troops ended their combat mission in 2014.

But since taking over security control of the country, the Afghan military has been losing ground to the Taliban. The Kabul government now controls just over half of the country. Top Pentagon officials, including Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, now concede the U.S. is not winning the war.

The war is also expensive. The U.S. is expected to spend about $45 billion on Afghanistan this year alone.

"The United States, right now, is spending more than the entire U.K. defense budget, just in Afghanistan. And the U.S. can't continue that forever," said Prince, who claims to be able to do the job for less than $10 billion a year.

Prince's plan

Under Prince's proposal, the U.S. war would be coordinated by a "viceroy," who would consolidate what Prince calls Washington's "very chaotic and disorganized" approach to the country.

The 5,000 contractors would attach to Afghan military units and would "live with, train with and fight alongside them, when necessary," Prince said. They would report to Afghanistan's government, he added.

"These would be contracted professionals attached to the Afghan army. So even by United Nations definitions, those are not mercenaries. They would be attached to and serving with the Afghan forces," he said.

Prince also proposes a "big increase" in air support. The 90 planes in his private air force "would be badged as Afghan aircraft, with Afghan call signs, with an Afghan on board, and Afghans making the weapons release decisions," he said.

Prince, a former Navy SEAL, said he also wants to keep about 2,000 U.S. special forces in the country to "maintain a unilateral ability to go after terrorist targets."

Pushback

But Prince's plan faces an uphill battle.

Trump has said he is open to new ideas in Afghanistan. But if he decides to embrace Prince's plan, he may have to override top U.S. military leaders, who are said to dislike the proposal.

A wide range of Afghans are also skeptical. Former Afghan President Karzai said via Twitter he "vehemently" opposed the plan, calling it a "blatant violation" of Afghanistan's national sovereignty.

Rahmatullah Nabil, Afghanistan's former spy chief, said the plan would result in more civilian anger that would only help Taliban recruitment.

Hameem Talwar, a 28-year-old from the northeast province of Kunar, told VOA he feared the move would result in more civilian casualties.

"People will rise up against them, and the war will become longer and will provide an excuse for the Americans to stay even longer," Talwar said.

Thomas Johnson, who specializes in Afghanistan and national security issues at the Naval Postgraduate School, said, "This has to be one of the most insane, dangerous proposals I have ever heard.

"This would basically be a foreign mercenary force that couldn't speak the languages, would wear ANSF [Afghan National Security Forces] uniforms, and would basically employ deadly military force outside the standard Law of Armed Conflict controls," Johnson said.

"It would represent one of our greatest abominations of military and international responsibilities in our history," he added.

Legal risks

Handing so many war responsibilities to private contractors could also make the U.S. more vulnerable to lawsuits, said Laura Dickinson, a law professor at George Washington University who studies the privatization of foreign affairs.

"If things go wrong, the United States could be on the hook legally for their actions," Dickinson said. "And we know from past experiences that without adequate planning, when you have a massive influx of contractors, things do go wrong."

Dickinson pointed to a 2007 incident in which four Blackwater guards were accused of killing 14 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad. A similar incident in 2010 in Kabul resulted in the deaths of two Afghan civilians.

Though Prince sold Blackwater in 2010 and now owns a Hong Kong-based company that would carry out the Afghanistan proposal, incidents like that could complicate his proposal.

Decision soon

Trump has indicated he is nearing a decision on Afghanistan. In addition to Prince's proposals, his options include boosting the U.S. troop presence there, or removing them entirely.

"We're getting very close," Trump said Thursday. "It's a very big decision for me. I took over a mess, and we're going to make it a lot less messy."

Excerpt from:
Plan to Privatize US War in Afghanistan Gets Icy Reception - Voice of America

Hes best known for his portrait of a young girl in Afghanistan named Afghan Girl from 1984. With her piercing green eyes, dark hair and red shawl draped over her head and shoulders, it made the front page of National Geographic, and went on to feature in many more magazines, becoming one of the most well known and famous front covers and a portrait that many will recognise. Its his single most striking portrait and is a timeless piece of work. As is much of Steve McCurrys work from his time travelling around Afghanistan.

On his first assignment to the country in 1979, the photographer ventured behind the lines, taking great risks, including dressing in Afghan robes in order to be smuggled across the border from Pakistan.

He journeys into treacherous and unpredictable landscapes much of which has been controlled by the Mujahideen, the Taliban and Russia. He thrives on getting out of his comfort zone to tell a story though his camera, as in many places he goes, there are no people left to tell the story.

He uses the battle-torn backdrops of the land to take centre stage for his work, in which hedelves into cultural traditions,framingeveryday people and activities, the effects of war, tribal rivalries and colonial wars, and which in turn gives a greatinsight into life in the country of his subject. But his work still retains its human interest elements, from young men selling oranges on the bonnet of a broken-down carto a portrait photographer and his Victorian-style camera on the streets of Kabul.

And despite the atrocities that have swept across the land, McCurry is able to find beauty in it too, both in the land and in the people that inhabit it. The Afhgans have always called their mountains the land of rebellion.

As his signature style, McCurry gives his work very short titles and almost no caption information, bar the location and date. The rest is left solely to the picture.

The American photographers latest book is a retrospective look back on his accomplished work across Afghanistan over the past 40 years, featuring more than 230 images that are almost all in colour, expect for a handful of black and white images from the70s and 80s.

After photographing India, the middle east and Afghanistan over the past four decades, McCurry founded ImagineAsia in 2004, which helps provide educational resources and opportunities to children and young people in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan: Steve McCurry is available to buy from Taschen.com

Kunar River, 1980 (Steve McCurry)

Bamiyan, 2006(Steve McCurry)

Bamiyan, 2003 (Steve McCurry)

Logar Province, 1984 (Steve McCurry)

Kabul, 2003 (Steve McCurry)

Read more here:
Afghanistan: Steve McCurry's retrospective look at a war-torn country - The Independent

According to Afghan officials 11 civilians, including women and children, were killed in Haska Mina district of Nangarhar province by a US air strike.

Photo by: AFP

Afghan women with their children walk as they flee the area where US air forces allegedly targeted a civilian vehicle in Haska Mina district Nangarhar province on August 12, 2017.

The United States on Saturday vehemently denied claims by Afghan officials that it had killed several civilians in an air strike in volatile easternAfghanistan.

Afghan officials had said 11 civilians, including women and children, were killed when a private vehicle was struck in Haska Mina district of Nangarhar province, a hotbed of Daeshactivity, on Thursday.

But United States Forces-Afghanistansaid in a statement the air strike "killed a number of militants".

"The militants were observed loading weapons in to a vehicle and were under surveillance until the vehicle was destroyed by an airstrike," said Bob Purtiman, a spokesman for American operations inAfghanistan.

"The strike was conducted in the middle of open terrain. There was zero chance of civilian casualties.

"This was the second false claim of civilian casualties in the same district in the last three weeks," Purtiman added.

Of the roughly 13,000 foreign forces inAfghanistanonly the US carries out airstrikes.

They have been regularly targeting Daeshpositions inseveral districts in restive Nangarhar.

Civilian casualties caused by NATO forces have been one of the most contentious issues in the close to 16-year campaign against insurgents, prompting strong public and government criticism.

Last month a US air strike killed 16 policemen in Helmand province. It came after a US air strike in Sangin killed at least 18 civilians, mostly women and children, in February.

Civilian deaths are at an all-time high inAfghanistan. In the first half of the year, 1,662 civilians were killed and more than 3,500 injured, according to the United Nations.

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US denies air strike killed civilians in Afghanistan - TRT World

Mohammada Khan, 42, a truck driver, said in a telephone interview that he had lost six members of his family including two children and two women in the airstrike, which hit a minibus in which they were fleeing. We got to the area of the bombing and put their body parts in a truck and brought them to Jalalabad city, where we buried them this morning, he said. There were no ISIS members in the area. It was not a valley or a mountainous area. It was a clear area, and they should understand that people in the vehicle are civilians, as the car was a civilian car.

Mr. Khan added, But it was Gods will, so we cannot say anything.

On July 24, Afghan officials said, nine civilians were killed in an American airstrike on a prayer ceremony held in Haska Meena, near the border with Pakistan, by relatives of ISIS members who had been killed.

The American military asserted that that strike, too, targeted fighters. This is the second false claim of civilian casualties in the same district within the last three weeks, the military said in a news release.

As American airstrikes continue at a rapid pace, there have been a number of such episodes in recent months.

Claims of civilian deaths from airstrikes have occurred this year in Kunduz in the north and in Helmand Province in the south, often as a result of fighting in areas where it can be difficult to distinguish insurgents from civilians.

Haska Meena District, also known as Dih Bala District, is in a rugged area neighboring Achin District. Achin was long a stronghold of the Islamic State and was where the United States dropped the so-called mother of all bombs in April, the largest conventional bomb ever deployed, on a tunnel and bunker complex where insurgents had taken refuge.

That led Islamic State fighters to seek new refuge, including in the Tora Bora cave and tunnel complex in Nangarhar, which Osama bin Laden once used as a hide-out. The Islamic State fighters are believed to be relatively few, and in the Nangarhar area they fight against both the Afghan government and the more numerous Taliban insurgents.

The United States military has deployed Special Forces and airstrikes against Islamic State militants in Afghanistan and says it has killed dozens of the groups leaders and hundreds of fighters this year.

Casualties among Afghan civilians, especially women and children, have risen to a record this year, according to a recent report from the United Nations. Most of those deaths have been attributed to insurgents, particularly through suicide bombings, rather than to airstrikes and other pro-government actions, the report said.

Rod Nordland contributed reporting from London.

A version of this article appears in print on August 12, 2017, on Page A6 of the New York edition with the headline: Afghans Say U.S. Strike Hit Civilians.

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US Airstrikes in Afghanistan Are Said to Kill 16 Civilians - New York Times

Augusta mother of three and Maine Army National Guard wife Michelle Ouellette couldnt be prouder of the man she married even if his multiple oversea deployments have brought different challenges for her family.

Ouellette was surrounded by her children while her husband, Col. Bryan Ouellette, commander of the 120th Regional Support Group said goodbye to visiting family, friends, local and state dignitaries and other service members at the units send-off Friday at Hampden Academy.

Every time hes gone something different breaks at home, she said with a knowing smile on her face. Is is easier? Yes and no. Its a familiar routine when he leaves, but its different every time.

Thirty-five members of the 120th are heading to Afghanistan, after a period of training at Fort Hood, Texas. Two-thirds of the 35 soldiers have deployed before.

The soldiers will manage facilities, provide administrative and logistical support for troop services and provide security during their year-long deployment.

Master Sgt. Harold Whitten of Enfield, the units readiness noncommissioned officer, played with his 10-month-old grandson, Landon Nickerson, during the entire ceremony. He said he was getting in all the one-on-one time with the child that he could before he had to leave.

Whitten is also on his third deployment. He said he joined the military because everyone else in the family did. My father was in, my grandfather was in, uncles were in.

He went to Bosnia in 1997 and Iraq in 2003. His brother, Maj. Jeffrey Whitten, who works at the Armys Regional Training Institute in Bangor, sat behind him in support.

Maj. Megan Colleen Swanger, an engineer plans officer, is leaving on her second deployment. She went to Iraq as an active duty member of the 10th Mountain Division in 2009. Her parents, her best friend and boyfriend and both sets of their parents were at the ceremony in support.

Everybody took time off, Swanger said. Were enjoying all things Maine. We ate a lot of lobster to prepare of the departure.

Col. Ouellette said that some of the soldiers, including Swanger, were tapped from different Maine Guard units to fulfill the jobs required for the deployment.

Ouellette also deployed with the unit, formerly known as the 240th Engineer Group, when it last mobilized in 2006 in support of Operation Enduring Freedom to Afghanistan.

At that time, instant messaging was something new, his wife said.

It was such a treat if he was on at the same time, she said. This time, We made sure his Facetime was set up already so the family can communicate via video face-to-face.

In July, it was announced that six members of Bangor-based Detachment 3, 2nd Battalion, 641st Aviation Regiment would also be heading to Asia this fall. There are 28 members of the Maine Air National Guard currently overseas, Brig. Gen. Douglas Farnham, adjutant general for the Maine National Guard and commissioner of the Maine Department of Defense, Veterans and Emergency Management, said.

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Bangor Army Guard unit heading to Afghanistan - Bangor Daily News