Another look at the Mantech Files: ICTs as COIN, networking occupation & more

BLOG POST posted on August 6, 2011 by dawn

A graph showing how many different segments of the US government can be involved in rewiring Afghanistan

This morning I decided to go for Round II with last week's Fuck FBI Friday document release by Anonymous and Antisec. Click here to check out Round I, which provides more general context.

There's a lot of résumés and pretty random stuff in the documents, which were liberated from Mantech, a private info-tech/security company (lulz), but there's some gems in there as well. What I've found particularly interesting are plans for the "reconstruction" of the internet, cellphone, and microwave systems in Afghanistan.

Included in the release is a presentation by someone named Larry Wentz, who is involved with Verizon and the National Defense University. He goes through the possibilities for the reconstruction of the information & coms tech sector in Afghanistan, pointing out that he thinks interested parties should "View and treat Afghan ICT as an 'essential service' and 'element of COIN.'" (p. 29, nb. COIN stands for counterinsurgency).

There's also a more detailed outline of the occupiers' plan to network Afghanistan through the Systems Engineering Technical and Assistance program. The document includes maps and diagrams of how NATO would like to see Afghanistan wired and where it could be connected with neighboring states. 

There's also documents that give outsiders and idea of the kind of work Mantech is trying to get paid to do by NATO. By way of example, here's an internal doc about Mantech's $25 million bid for an ISAF Theatre Access Control and Threat Identification Capability contract.

Also among the documents in the release is a 2007 version of Mantech's strategic plan for 2008-2012.

There's one particularly revealing section that reveals how a company like Mantech sees the potential of a return to "national priorities" and away from the "global war on terror." Among the opportunities they point to on the horizon (p. 13): 

There's still many more files that I haven't had a look at yet. Since neither ICTs or Afghanistan fall within my areas of specialization, I'm hoping that folks who do report on or study these areas are inspired by this cursory blog post and do some digging of their own. Onwards!

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