U.S. INDIRECTLY FUNDING THE TALIBAN

"New Report Reveals US Indirectly Funding the Taliban... the Pentagon’s civilian contractors in Afghanistan end up paying insurgent groups to protect American supply routes from attack... The practice of buying the Taliban’s protection is not a secret. US military officials in Kabul... (say) that a minimum of ten percent of the Pentagon’s logistics contracts consists of payments to the Taliban... That translates into millions of dollars being funneled to the Taliban. This summer, anticipating a surge of US troops, the military expanded its trucking contracts in Afghanistan by 600 percent to a total of over $2 billion... (but) if these companies did not pay these bribes or this extortion, then the US military would have to actually defend these convoys to be able to get supplies to its troops, which would mean more American casualties, so this is, in effect, a way to avoid more American casualties in the war..."
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/11/12/taliban