Obama's war.

• Author: Hightower, Jim
• Position: The Lowdown - Barack Obama

Hi-ho, hi-ho, it's off to war we go!

As President Obama begins winding down the Bush war in Iraq, he is building up his own war further east. We're told that it will be a new, expanded, extra-special American adventure in Afghanistan, involving a vigorous surge strategy to "stabilize" this perpetually unstable land.

The surge will add 21,000 troops to the 38,000 already there. This mass of soldiers is expected to be deployed to a series of new garrisons to be built in far-flung regions of this impoverished, rural, mostly illiterate, warlord state that is ruled by hundreds of fractious, heavily armed tribal leaders. We're not told how much this escalation will cost, but it will substantially increase the $2 billion a month that American taxpayers are already shelling out for the Afghan war.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

The extra-special part of this effort is to come from a simultaneous "civilian surge" of hundreds of U.S. economic development experts. "What we can't do," said Obama in an interview on 60 Minutes , "is think that just a military approach in Afghanistan is going to be able to solve our problems."

What Obama has not mentioned is that, in addition to soldiers and civilians, there is a third surge in his plan: private military contractors. Yes, another privatized army, such as the one that did all the damage in Iraq.

Already, there are 71,000 private contractors operating in Afghanistan, and many more are preparing to deploy as Pentagon spending ramps up for Obama's war. The military is now offering new contracts to security firms to provide armed employees (a.k.a., mercenaries) to guard U.S. bases and convoys. Despite the widespread contractor abuses in Iraq, Pentagon chief Robert Gates defends the ongoing privatization push: "The use of contractor security personnel is vital to supporting the forward-operating bases in certain parts of the country," he declared in a February letter to the Senate Armed Services Committee.

What the gentle war secretary is really saying is this: "We don't have a draft, and I don't see a lot of Senators' kinfolks volunteering to put their butts on...