Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned

By: Jordan Tappis | October 15, 2009 | Politics Travel

When you approach a hostile area how to you demonstrate that you are not a threat?
My approach is very simple. Take the Taliban in Afghanistan, for example. I walked straight up to them, and I said, “Hey, I would like to interview you so the Western world can understand what you want.” They said no, we don’t show our faces on TV. “You have to understand,” I said, “America is a big country. In Afghanistan, you speak in a mosque and talk only to the people in the room. You have to visit a lot of mosques in order to get your message out. In America, I use this camera, and I speak to everybody. More importantly though, in my country, we look people in the eye and we can tell if they are lying. And if you don’t want to show your face, you are like women hiding behind a burka.” That comment got them pretty angry, but it also opened up a window of dialogue. I then asked some of the special Taliban leadership to join me, called up my friend who was a Turkish journalist, and he conducted an interview with the Taliban leader. The bottom line is this: You can do anything, and you can meet anyone, as long as you understand what their motivations are. It generally means that even in the most hostile environments, people are people, and they don’t just randomly kill people.

Your latest book, Licensed to Kill, is about the use of private security in the “war on terror.” Since the beginning of the Iraq war there has been a lot of critical attention given to private mercenary armies. Do you think companies like Xe Services LLC (formerly Blackwater) and DynCorp International are an aberration of the military industrial complex, or do you think private security is a necessary tool used by the U.S. government?
Both. There are reasonable security companies that should do what they do, and there are companies whose entire staff and chain of command should be arrested and thrown in jail. In my book, I make the point very clear that the “war on terror” has allowed for certain people and certain business to conduct themselves in a way that is not only illegal, but profoundly damaging to our cause in both Iraq and Afghanistan. But I also demonstrate that it is nothing new for America. Ever since the War of Independence, America has been using private military. Done correctly, and with proper oversight, why not have a private contractor? They can be a very useful extension of the armed forces. But what happened in Iraq shows the other side of that spectrum. We let armed contractors drive down the streets of Iraq in full force and with no accountability.
That said, the typical military commander does not like private security companies in their operations because they are a wild card. In Iraq, the U.S. government allowed companies like Blackwater, Triple Canopy and DynCorp to operate with impunity. Now Blackwater has had its hands slapped, they have been thrown under the bus, but you’ve got to remember what they did was mandated, approved and monitored by the State Department. Condoleezza Rice pretended like she had no idea what was going on, but all along, her people told Blackwater exactly what to do. So when you look at the private military contractor question, you have to look a little further and see whom they work for. But regardless of the controversy, the U.S. military should not be cleaning toilets, driving delivery trucks or guarding businessmen.

I met with John Perkins, author of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, and he postulates that if America could reduce its dependency on foreign oil, we could reconcile a large majority of the conflict areas throughout the world. Do you agree?
America funds more terrorism by supporting oil-rich nations, than by any other means. Look at places like Syria, Nigeria, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, and look at the amount of money that goes into a ruling group of people and the damages caused by that ruling class. I know I sound like a hippie, but if we could just stop using oil, then most of our terror-related problems would disappear. If you look at the most inequitable regions in the world, they are typically countries where oil is the main source of revenue. When those countries don’t share the oil revenue amongst people, they inevitably have unrest. The trick is to split up all that money, and keep everyone employed so they don’t overthrow the government. Iraq did it for years, and it worked. Most, if not all, of the other oil-rich countries do not share their oil money with the people, and the terrorism we see today is the inevitable result. In Saudi Arabia, they were shitting their pants a couple of years ago; so rather than invest in their people, they hired all these private contractors as security. They were protecting themselves from their own people.
Chechnya is another example. Chechnya was a country that was given its independence, democratically elected a president and suddenly became a terrorist nation because of an oppressive regime. I feel saddened sometimes, because pre-9/11, I could meet with any terrorist, any rebel group, or whatever, and the issue was always regional, and it was always based on human dignity and conflict, but it was always solvable. Now we have a whole generation of nihilistic youth — like when you go to Pakistan, you are looking at a Maoist uprising in an agrarian, totalitarian society. Pre-9/11, most problems were localized. Now it’s “the Taliban are terrorists,” and “we’ve got terrorists trying to overthrow the government!” Pakistan is a fucked-up government, just as corrupt as Afghanistan and the Taliban, but we seem to only know how to deal with people who wear suits and speak English. We now see a third generation of terrorism, individuals no longer focused on regional issues, who will go outside those boundaries — not for Islam or jihad, but for revenge. Before they would go and attack the governments, but now they can get more of an impact by blowing up a subway in Madrid or London.

What are some recurring characteristics of war in your experience?
Wars have two things in common: Either there is some spectacular incident that occurs, like 9/11, or there is a gradual decline of civility so severe that people can no longer solve problems through discussion. Global terrorism could be solved on a regional basis, but we don’t have the perceived interest or the time to try and figure it out. Because of the Obama administration, everyone took a deep breath and said, “Let’s re-evaluate Afghanistan. What are we doing in Iraq? The pirates in Somalia?” These discussions have opened the doors for reconciliation, but unfortunately back here in the states we want quick fixes. We want it now! Predict that over the next 12 months, people will harden, they will get past the election — the hope, the change — and the people will become polarized again. I see subtle attempts to be more intelligent about conflict resolutions, but these days I see the prevailing mood in America as …

… Let’s get on with it already?
Exactly. You’ve got to remember we had eight years of a guy who polarized the entire planet, a man who is famous for saying simple things and demonizing entire segments of the globe. If you go to places like Somalia, they like the fact that they can find six degrees of separation with President Obama. But George Bush was such an alien creature to most of world. To them, he was just some rich white guy who made billions in the oil business and hated Muslims and most of the Third World. When a president goes on TV, and you don’t understand his language, you look at his facial expressions and read what he is saying through his body language. And with Bush, you just judge him for what he is — an idiot. With Obama, his facial [expressions] make people say, “Oh, he is a smart man; he can’t be any worse than the last guy. He’s multicultural, he acts like someone who thinks before he says something, and he seems to be someone who reduces rather than escalates tension.” Whether it’s in Iran, North Korea, China, Russia or Palestine, Obama is sort of saying, “Look, I hear what you’re saying, but these people have a valid perspective, too. We must come to an understanding in order to work this out.” He has a much more progressive point of view.

In your estimation, what is currently the most dangerous place in the world?
Right now in Afghanistan, there are some very dangerous elements because there is a massive criminal undercurrent there — lots of kidnappings and stuff. But even with all the crime, there is a degree of order throughout Afghanistan. It’s important to point that out. Mogadishu is really fucking dangerous at the moment. Southern parts of Somalia are also very dangerous. Also, in any totalitarian area like Russia or Central Asia, if you don’t watch yourself, you can get messed up pretty bad. People are talking about Mexico being dangerous, but it has always been like that; it’s just that we’ve never really paid attention to it. They always had people showing up with bats, and they always had severed heads showing up at police stations. It’s not dangerous for tourists; these are drug gangs banging it out against each other. It’s probably more dangerous in the Caribbean with roofies and people getting raped than it is in Mexico. I would have to say that if you are a Westerner, and you were to travel somewhere, there are not that many areas that are out of control. The last few places are the areas in and around Mogadishu and the tribal region along the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan. That’s about it.

Has there ever been a place that you wouldn’t go to?
No. Being afraid isn’t going to get me anywhere. I went to Bosnia during a time of war because no one else would go there. I went to Liberia, I went to Sierra Leone — all these dangerous places — I went there because no one gave a fuck. I love it when militants say they are going to kill you if you show up. Nine times out of 10, when you arrive they treat you with great respect. In most of the places I visited, the people really love me; they welcome me. Sometimes they even applaud when I show up. I talk to these people when no one else does. I show the world why they fight.

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