Training the enemy

 

At last a glimmer of sanity in the manic optimism on the future of Afghanistan.

We have armed, trained and financed 350,000 Afghan Police and Army. The hope is they will put their lives at risk in the service of a corrupt Karzai and his lawless police and in the service of foreign nations. They will not kill their brother Afghans for a few dollars a day. They are now generally content to take the money and weapons until the day when NATO leaves in 2014.

Other have turned on us, their future enemy and 47 NATO soldiers have been murdered this year by the Afghans we are training. 

The US says it is suspending training for new recruits to the Afghan local police (ALP) while checks are carried out on possible ties to the Taliban.

The suspension of training - which only applies to new ALP recruits - will allow US special operations forces to "re-vet" current ALP forces.

"While we have full trust and confidence in our Afghan partners, we believe this is a necessary step to validate our vetting process and ensure the quality indicative of Afghan local police," Col Thomas Collins, spokesperson for US forces in Afghanistan, said in a statement.

I had a call on this from a Daily Mail journalist. In spite of past experienec I am hopeful that the truth will break through. The press in Canada and the Netherlands influenced public opinion and force their parliaments to come to their senses. All their combat troops are safely home.

Our parliament should recognise the hopelessness of the situation and bring the troops home. Keeping them there a day longer than necessary is a reckless neglect of duty.

Comments

[rwendland]

Learnt something new today.

The fuel bill for Afghan forces, paid by US + others, is $480 million/year. If there are 350k soldiers, that is $1370 of fuel per soldier/policman. Or $3.75/day each, similar to salary it seems.

Another way of looking at it, is that this fuel is 2.6% of total Afghan GDP.

Beyond that, it seems US officials have shredded $475 million of records for this fuel, so the Special Inspector General for Afghan Reconstruction cannot investigate where this fuel went!

Just one of many a financial slip in Afghanistan.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/2012/09/10/uk-usa-afghanistan-fuel-idUKBRE88904D20120910

[HuwOS]

" While we have full trust and confidence in our Afghan partners, " - a lie
" we believe this is a necessary step to validate our vetting process and ensure the quality indicative of Afghan Local Police."

Incomprehensible and meaningless Americanese designed to reassure the Afghans that they are not being lied to.

Afghans aren't that stupid.
The situation is getting worse, as we knew it would if we stayed.
Children are being directly targetted for murder now, for being related to people acting with or on behalf of the occupation forces and the western-friendly government.
http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/08/31/afghanistan-beheading-child-idINDEE87U0AC20120831

The longer we wait to pretend to have won, the worse it will be for everyone who actually has to live there, which makes me wonder, why on earth are we so cruel.

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It has been a serious problem trying to make succesive governments see sense on this issue. They seem reluctant to learn from history. It is as if they have forgotten the Russian invasion and previous British invasions.

I have hoped for a long time that the government will treat this issue with the gravity it deserves, but I feel they treat this war as some kind of side issue which can be treated as a joke. They are animals acting in an entirely self interested manner.

War always has tragic consequences for soldiers and local civilians. I think this is something which has been ignored by recent governments.