The website Antiwar.com is an excellent source of news and reports on countries around the world. The focus is usually critical and on situations that have some relevance to US foreign and military policies.
Today, one of the many articles posted is about Gen. Patraeus request for 2,000 additional troops for Afghanistan. You can find the full article at: http://news.antiwar.com/2010/09/06/patraeus-seeks-more-troops-for-afghanistan.
Another article (see below) deals with plans for the US to spend $6 billion a year on the Afghan police and military forces, probably a low-ball estimate.
These articles unfortunately suggest that US military leaders in Afghanistan are expecting to be in the country for many years. This follows the pattern of US military wars and interventions around the world since at least the Korean War. Once in a country, stay there.
US Plans to Spend $6 Billion a Year on Afghan Troops
Posted By Jason Ditz On September 6, 2010
http://news.antiwar.com/2010/09/06/us-plans-to-spend-6-billion-a-year-on-afghan-troops
According to previously undisclosed estimates, the United States is planning to spend $6 billion annually on supporting Afghanistan’s military and police starting in 2011, an expense which given the weak Afghan economy will probably continue more or less forever.
But the estimate could also be unrealistically low, as the administration spent about $9 billion this year and is planning to spend $11.6 billion next year on this expense. As US plans to increase the size of Afghanistan’s military seem to grow virtually annually, it seems the expected “drop” past 2011 is not based on anything.
Training pledges and goals seem to constantly go unfulfilled, and most officials openly say that it will take another decade, at best, to build the Afghan security forces, so the $6 billion “maintenance” level, which will be quite a bit lower than the training costs, will likely not come for quite some time.
This cost is only a comparatively small percentage of the overall amount the US spends annually on its occupation of Afghanistan. But it serves as perhaps the clearest reminder of how long the Obama Administration intends to keep the US chained to Afghanistan.
Article printed from News From Antiwar.com: http://news.antiwar.com
Showing posts with label training Afghans. Show all posts
Showing posts with label training Afghans. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Pentagon report questions quality of Afghan army
The US-led occupation of Afghanistan is justified publicly by official statements from the US government and military that the US occupation will end, or largely end, when two objectives are achieved: (1) a "democratic" government of some sort is established, and (2) an Afghan military force, capable of providing "security" to the country is created. There are a host of reports that find the Afghan central government in Kabul has little influence in the country as a whole, is filled with corruption, and is dependent on warlords.
The following article reports on a new Pentagon report and related interviews that strongly indicate that there is too little progress in creating an effective Afghan army. There is another relevant point, made by Rachel Maddow on her MSNBC program last night. Rachel said that the cost of the US training programs is currently 9 billion, rising an additional billion a year over the next two years (or more). If the US were to withdraw its troops, the Afghan government would not have the financial ability to maintain an Afghan army of any sufficient size, let alone an army like the one now being trained or in the field.
The implication is that the US is on a fool's errand.
Here is a quote from an article by correspondent Tim McGirk in Time magazine online, June 14, 2010 (http://www.time.com/). The title of the article: "Will Afghanistan's Military Ever Be Fit to Fight?" McGirk reports in the quote on just the US support payments for the Afghan army and refers to the relatively paltry Afghan government's annual tax revenues.
"It will require loads of money to stave off the ANA's collapse. Not counting training costs, the price tag for just keeping the Afghan army fed, paid, clothed and ready for combat is estimated at more than $6 billion a year, far beyond the Kabul government's yearly earnings of $1 billion in tax revenue, as calculated by the presidential office. This guarantees that the U.S. and its NATO allies will be footing the bill for many years to come." Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1993886-2,00.html#ixzz0to9uiRoB
Quality of Afghan Army Questioned by Pentagon
Ben Farmer and James Kirkup, The Daily Telegraph, with files from Matthew Fisher, Postmedia News · Wednesday, Jul. 14, 2010
Source: National Post.com (see full URL at end of article); also can be found at Antiwar.org, July 15-2010
Raising the competence of the Afghan army is central to the entire NATO strategy for Afghanistan, but a recent Pentagon report questions the quality and reliability of the force.
With the Afghan National Police widely regarded as corrupt and unreliable, even greater importance rests on the Afghan National Army (ANA). Western nations have said they will only withdraw their forces when the Afghans can secure the country themselves.
NATO leaders have repeatedly claimed that the ANA is making excellent progress, but those claims have been questioned by a U.S. government audit.
Arnold Fields, the U.S. Defense Department's inspector general for Afghanistan, concluded that the capabilities of many "top-rated" ANA units had been "overstated" by NATO commanders.
Several ANA units officially passed as able to operate without international support or guidance have not proved they are capable of independent operations, the auditor found in a report last month.
NATO admits that Afghan forces remain totally reliant on NATO for air support and artillery, for medical evacuation from the battlefield and often for supplies.
The audit's findings are echoed by NATO commanders in the field.
Many NATO troops have hair-raising stories of careless young Afghan soldiers accidentally firing their weapons, including rocket launchers.
Commanders in the field have also occasionally questioned the Afghans' commitment.
On a recent visit to the Babaji area of Helmand, where yesterday's shooting took place, The Daily Telegraph saw Afghan troops refuse to carry their own food or water on patrol and demanded that Gurkhas supply them instead.
Some Afghan soldiers also refuse to patrol at night or in the heat of midday. One British officer said, "The Afghan soldiers and police like to have fresh food. They are fixed to their meal times. Sometimes they have been out on patrol and said 'It's lunchtime, it's over'."
NATO commanders almost always describe operations as Afghan-led, although it is not always obvious that is the case. For example, when an important bridge near Kandahar City was blown up by insurgents several months ago, NATO said the operation to fix it was led by Afghan troops.
In fact, virtually all the work was done by Canadian and U.S. navy Seabee engineers while the few Afghan soldiers at the site rested in the shade.
There are about 119,000 members of the ANA. To allow the transfer of security duties, NATO has set a target of 171,000, due to be reached by 2014. That means an accelerated process that sees new recruits given two months' basic training before being assigned to units, often formed from scratch.
Professor Michael Clarke of the Royal United Services Institute said a few units are of good quality but, because of the short training period for rank-and-file soldiers, "the quality is always going to be patchy".
There are questions about the commitment of the ANA and Prof. Clarke estimated that one in ten newly trained ANA soldiers go absent without leave.
British officers training the ANA say that there is a particular shortage of noncommissioned officers, the sergeants and sergeants-major who are the backbone of any modern army.
Read more: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/world/Quality+Afghan+army+questioned+Pentagon/3273913/story.html#ixzz0tnaie8sW
The following article reports on a new Pentagon report and related interviews that strongly indicate that there is too little progress in creating an effective Afghan army. There is another relevant point, made by Rachel Maddow on her MSNBC program last night. Rachel said that the cost of the US training programs is currently 9 billion, rising an additional billion a year over the next two years (or more). If the US were to withdraw its troops, the Afghan government would not have the financial ability to maintain an Afghan army of any sufficient size, let alone an army like the one now being trained or in the field.
The implication is that the US is on a fool's errand.
Here is a quote from an article by correspondent Tim McGirk in Time magazine online, June 14, 2010 (http://www.time.com/). The title of the article: "Will Afghanistan's Military Ever Be Fit to Fight?" McGirk reports in the quote on just the US support payments for the Afghan army and refers to the relatively paltry Afghan government's annual tax revenues.
"It will require loads of money to stave off the ANA's collapse. Not counting training costs, the price tag for just keeping the Afghan army fed, paid, clothed and ready for combat is estimated at more than $6 billion a year, far beyond the Kabul government's yearly earnings of $1 billion in tax revenue, as calculated by the presidential office. This guarantees that the U.S. and its NATO allies will be footing the bill for many years to come." Read more: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1993886-2,00.html#ixzz0to9uiRoB
Quality of Afghan Army Questioned by Pentagon
Ben Farmer and James Kirkup, The Daily Telegraph, with files from Matthew Fisher, Postmedia News · Wednesday, Jul. 14, 2010
Source: National Post.com (see full URL at end of article); also can be found at Antiwar.org, July 15-2010
Raising the competence of the Afghan army is central to the entire NATO strategy for Afghanistan, but a recent Pentagon report questions the quality and reliability of the force.
With the Afghan National Police widely regarded as corrupt and unreliable, even greater importance rests on the Afghan National Army (ANA). Western nations have said they will only withdraw their forces when the Afghans can secure the country themselves.
NATO leaders have repeatedly claimed that the ANA is making excellent progress, but those claims have been questioned by a U.S. government audit.
Arnold Fields, the U.S. Defense Department's inspector general for Afghanistan, concluded that the capabilities of many "top-rated" ANA units had been "overstated" by NATO commanders.
Several ANA units officially passed as able to operate without international support or guidance have not proved they are capable of independent operations, the auditor found in a report last month.
NATO admits that Afghan forces remain totally reliant on NATO for air support and artillery, for medical evacuation from the battlefield and often for supplies.
The audit's findings are echoed by NATO commanders in the field.
Many NATO troops have hair-raising stories of careless young Afghan soldiers accidentally firing their weapons, including rocket launchers.
Commanders in the field have also occasionally questioned the Afghans' commitment.
On a recent visit to the Babaji area of Helmand, where yesterday's shooting took place, The Daily Telegraph saw Afghan troops refuse to carry their own food or water on patrol and demanded that Gurkhas supply them instead.
Some Afghan soldiers also refuse to patrol at night or in the heat of midday. One British officer said, "The Afghan soldiers and police like to have fresh food. They are fixed to their meal times. Sometimes they have been out on patrol and said 'It's lunchtime, it's over'."
NATO commanders almost always describe operations as Afghan-led, although it is not always obvious that is the case. For example, when an important bridge near Kandahar City was blown up by insurgents several months ago, NATO said the operation to fix it was led by Afghan troops.
In fact, virtually all the work was done by Canadian and U.S. navy Seabee engineers while the few Afghan soldiers at the site rested in the shade.
There are about 119,000 members of the ANA. To allow the transfer of security duties, NATO has set a target of 171,000, due to be reached by 2014. That means an accelerated process that sees new recruits given two months' basic training before being assigned to units, often formed from scratch.
Professor Michael Clarke of the Royal United Services Institute said a few units are of good quality but, because of the short training period for rank-and-file soldiers, "the quality is always going to be patchy".
There are questions about the commitment of the ANA and Prof. Clarke estimated that one in ten newly trained ANA soldiers go absent without leave.
British officers training the ANA say that there is a particular shortage of noncommissioned officers, the sergeants and sergeants-major who are the backbone of any modern army.
Read more: http://www.nationalpost.com/news/world/Quality+Afghan+army+questioned+Pentagon/3273913/story.html#ixzz0tnaie8sW
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Ambassador Eikenberry's cautionary cable to the Obama administration regarding the surge
This post focuses on excerpts from one of two classified cables sent by US Ambassador to Afghanistan, Gen. Eikenberry, to the Secretary of State in November, 2009. The cables were leaked that month and published in the New York Times shortly thereafter. You can see the original cables in their entirety at: http://documents.nytimes.com/eikenberry-s-memos-on-the-strategy-in-afghanistan#document/p1 The text of the cables is now available and/or commented on at numerous Internet sites. The cables have thus become a part of the public record, whatever their original status.
On the Democracy Now program yesterday (3-30-10), Daniel Ellsberg was interviewed. He is the citizen, then employed at the RAND Corporation with access to classified materials, who leaked the classified Pentagon Papers to the public during the Vietnam War. During the DN interview, Ellsberg drew parallels between the Pentagon Papers and the Eichenberry cables and discussed the implications and the need to have transparent public discussions on matters of importance to the American citizenry.
New York Time journalists Elisabeth Bumiller and Mark Landler provide some background and context for understanding the implications of the Eikenberry cables in their article, "US Envoy Urges Caution on Forces for Afghanistan," Nov. 11. 2009. You can find the article at: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/12/us/politics/12policy.html_r=2.
In the first of the two cables, Amb. Eikenberry offers his views on why President Obama should not send additional US troops to Afghanistan, or "surge" the number of troops going there. We here at stopafghanwar are in accord with Eikenberry's position, as far as it goes. We would also support a firm timetable for the withdrawal of US troops from the country.
Amb. Eikenberry later modified his views, at least publicly at congressional hearings, and did not then demur from the surge-of-troops policy.
Bob
-----------------------------
First Eikenberry cable: (excerpts follow)
....Here are my reasons for this assessment:
1) President Karzai is not an adequate strategic partner. The proposed counterinsurgency strategy assumes an Afghan political leadership that is both able to take responsibiltiy and to exert sovereignty in the furtherance of our goal—a secure, peaceful, minimally self-sufficient Afghanistan hardened against transnational groups. Yet Karzai continues to shun responssibiliy for any sovereign burden, whether defense, governance, or development. He and much of his circle do not want the U.S. to leave and are only too happy to see us invest futher. They assume we covet their territory for a never-ending “war on terror” and for military bases to use against surrounding powers....
2) We overestimate the ability of Afghan security forces to take over. Success of the proposed counterinsurgency strategy hinges upon Afghan forces steadily assuming responsibility for security and fully taking over this duty by 2013....The Army’s high attrition and low recruitment rates for Pashtuns in the south are crippling. Simply keeping the force at current levels requires tens of thousands of new recruits every year to replace attrition losses and battlefield casualties; those requirements would steepen dramatically under the proposed strategy. Building an effective Afghan National Police, which is in many ways more crucial to extend the Afghan government’s reach into villages and districts will prove even tougher. The Police receive lower benefits and face higher risks in many places than the Army....
3) We underestimate how long it will take to restore or establish civilian government. The proposed strategy assumes that once the clearing and holding process has been accomplished in a given area, the rebuilding and tranferring to Afghans can proceed apace followed by a relatively rapid U.S. withdrawal. In reality, the process of restoring Afghan government is likely to be slow and uneven, no matter how many U.S. and other foreign civilian experts are involved. Many areas need not just security but healthcare, education, justice, infrastructure, and almost every other basic government function. Many have never had these services at all. Establishing them requires trained and honest Afghan officials to replace our own personnel. That cadre of Afghan civilians does not now exist and would take years to build....
5) The proposed strategy may not be cost-effective. Sending additional combat brigades will require tens of billions of dollars annually for years to come, costs not detailed in DOD [Department of Defense] charts....
– In particular, we should weigh whether a relatively small additional investment in programs for development and governance would yield results that, if not as visible as those from sending more troops, would move us closer to achieving our goals at far lesser cost and risk, both in lives and dollars. Accelerating our work on signature projects to deliver greater access to electricity, water, and education could have a high payoff in stability over the long term. With a greatly stepped-up development effort we can could be in a position at some point to call off further troop deployments, as Afghans begin to see their lives improving and their needs addressed....
Respectfully,EIKENBERY
On the Democracy Now program yesterday (3-30-10), Daniel Ellsberg was interviewed. He is the citizen, then employed at the RAND Corporation with access to classified materials, who leaked the classified Pentagon Papers to the public during the Vietnam War. During the DN interview, Ellsberg drew parallels between the Pentagon Papers and the Eichenberry cables and discussed the implications and the need to have transparent public discussions on matters of importance to the American citizenry.
New York Time journalists Elisabeth Bumiller and Mark Landler provide some background and context for understanding the implications of the Eikenberry cables in their article, "US Envoy Urges Caution on Forces for Afghanistan," Nov. 11. 2009. You can find the article at: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/12/us/politics/12policy.html_r=2.
In the first of the two cables, Amb. Eikenberry offers his views on why President Obama should not send additional US troops to Afghanistan, or "surge" the number of troops going there. We here at stopafghanwar are in accord with Eikenberry's position, as far as it goes. We would also support a firm timetable for the withdrawal of US troops from the country.
Amb. Eikenberry later modified his views, at least publicly at congressional hearings, and did not then demur from the surge-of-troops policy.
Bob
-----------------------------
First Eikenberry cable: (excerpts follow)
....Here are my reasons for this assessment:
1) President Karzai is not an adequate strategic partner. The proposed counterinsurgency strategy assumes an Afghan political leadership that is both able to take responsibiltiy and to exert sovereignty in the furtherance of our goal—a secure, peaceful, minimally self-sufficient Afghanistan hardened against transnational groups. Yet Karzai continues to shun responssibiliy for any sovereign burden, whether defense, governance, or development. He and much of his circle do not want the U.S. to leave and are only too happy to see us invest futher. They assume we covet their territory for a never-ending “war on terror” and for military bases to use against surrounding powers....
2) We overestimate the ability of Afghan security forces to take over. Success of the proposed counterinsurgency strategy hinges upon Afghan forces steadily assuming responsibility for security and fully taking over this duty by 2013....The Army’s high attrition and low recruitment rates for Pashtuns in the south are crippling. Simply keeping the force at current levels requires tens of thousands of new recruits every year to replace attrition losses and battlefield casualties; those requirements would steepen dramatically under the proposed strategy. Building an effective Afghan National Police, which is in many ways more crucial to extend the Afghan government’s reach into villages and districts will prove even tougher. The Police receive lower benefits and face higher risks in many places than the Army....
3) We underestimate how long it will take to restore or establish civilian government. The proposed strategy assumes that once the clearing and holding process has been accomplished in a given area, the rebuilding and tranferring to Afghans can proceed apace followed by a relatively rapid U.S. withdrawal. In reality, the process of restoring Afghan government is likely to be slow and uneven, no matter how many U.S. and other foreign civilian experts are involved. Many areas need not just security but healthcare, education, justice, infrastructure, and almost every other basic government function. Many have never had these services at all. Establishing them requires trained and honest Afghan officials to replace our own personnel. That cadre of Afghan civilians does not now exist and would take years to build....
5) The proposed strategy may not be cost-effective. Sending additional combat brigades will require tens of billions of dollars annually for years to come, costs not detailed in DOD [Department of Defense] charts....
– In particular, we should weigh whether a relatively small additional investment in programs for development and governance would yield results that, if not as visible as those from sending more troops, would move us closer to achieving our goals at far lesser cost and risk, both in lives and dollars. Accelerating our work on signature projects to deliver greater access to electricity, water, and education could have a high payoff in stability over the long term. With a greatly stepped-up development effort we can could be in a position at some point to call off further troop deployments, as Afghans begin to see their lives improving and their needs addressed....
Respectfully,EIKENBERY
Thursday, February 11, 2010
US assault on Marja - liberation or war crime?
In the following report on the looming assault on Marja and vicinity, where 80,000 or more Afghans live, Robert Naiman's main point is that the US-led forces have an obligation to protect Afghan civilians in the anticipated battles. The problem is that, as Naiman points out, there is no satisfactory way to distinguish civilians from the Taliban. Under relevant international law, the US-led assualt may become a war crime. If it should turn out this way, there is nothing new in this, in what US officials have referred to as "collateral damage," as though the lives of children and other civilians are an unfortunate but inevitable consequence of war.
Let's hope that somehow the assault on Marja becomes an exception to what the US had done in Iraq (with over a million "excess" deaths and over 4 million internal and external refugees), and in other parts of Afghanistan. Let's hope that it does not become yet another example of the long bloody history examined by William Blum in his book, Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II, or, in a more general way, by Howard Zinn in his widely read, A People's History of the United States.
Bob
------------------------
Afghan Civilians Imperiled by US/NATO Assault in Marjah
Submitted by robert naiman on 11 February 2010 - 2:07pm
Source: http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/node/480
The United States and NATO are poised to launch a major assault in the Marjah district in southern Afghanistan. Tens of thousands of Afghan civilians are in imminent peril. Will President Obama and Congress act to protect civilians in Marjah, in compliance with the obligations of the United States under the laws of war?
Few civilians have managed to escape the Afghan town of Marjah ahead of a planned US/NATO assault, raising the risk of civilian casualties, McClatchy News reports. "If [NATO forces] don't avoid large scale civilian casualties, given the rhetoric about protecting the population, then no matter how many Taliban are routed, the Marjah mission should be considered a failure," said an analyst with the International Crisis Group.
Under the laws of war, the US and NATO - who have told civilians not to flee - bear an extra responsibility to control their fire and avoid tactics that endanger civilians, Human Rights Watch notes. "I suspect that they believe they have the ability to generally distinguish between combatants and civilians," said Brad Adams of Human Rights Watch. "I would call that into question, given their long history of mistakes, particularly when using air power. Whatever they do, they have an obligation to protect civilians and make adequate provision to alleviate any crisis that arises," he said. "It is very much their responsibility."
Indeed, a report in the Wall Street Journal casts fresh doubt on the ability - and even on the interest - of U.S. forces to distinguish combatants from civilians. "Across southern Afghanistan, including the Marjah district where coalition forces are massing for a large offensive, the line between peaceful villager and enemy fighter is often blurred," the Journal says. The commander of the U.S. unit responsible for Pashmul estimates that about 95% of the locals are Taliban or aid the militants. Among front-line troops, "frustration is boiling over" over more restrictive rules of engagement than in Iraq, the Journal says - a dangerous harbinger of potential war crimes when the U.S. is about to engage in a major assault in an area densely populated with civilians.
If the U.S. assault in Marjah results in large scale civilian casualties, the U.S. will have committed a major war crime. If the United States cannot protect civilians in Marjah, as the U.S. is required to do under the laws of war, the assault should be called off.
Let's hope that somehow the assault on Marja becomes an exception to what the US had done in Iraq (with over a million "excess" deaths and over 4 million internal and external refugees), and in other parts of Afghanistan. Let's hope that it does not become yet another example of the long bloody history examined by William Blum in his book, Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II, or, in a more general way, by Howard Zinn in his widely read, A People's History of the United States.
Bob
------------------------
Afghan Civilians Imperiled by US/NATO Assault in Marjah
Submitted by robert naiman on 11 February 2010 - 2:07pm
Source: http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/node/480
The United States and NATO are poised to launch a major assault in the Marjah district in southern Afghanistan. Tens of thousands of Afghan civilians are in imminent peril. Will President Obama and Congress act to protect civilians in Marjah, in compliance with the obligations of the United States under the laws of war?
Few civilians have managed to escape the Afghan town of Marjah ahead of a planned US/NATO assault, raising the risk of civilian casualties, McClatchy News reports. "If [NATO forces] don't avoid large scale civilian casualties, given the rhetoric about protecting the population, then no matter how many Taliban are routed, the Marjah mission should be considered a failure," said an analyst with the International Crisis Group.
Under the laws of war, the US and NATO - who have told civilians not to flee - bear an extra responsibility to control their fire and avoid tactics that endanger civilians, Human Rights Watch notes. "I suspect that they believe they have the ability to generally distinguish between combatants and civilians," said Brad Adams of Human Rights Watch. "I would call that into question, given their long history of mistakes, particularly when using air power. Whatever they do, they have an obligation to protect civilians and make adequate provision to alleviate any crisis that arises," he said. "It is very much their responsibility."
Indeed, a report in the Wall Street Journal casts fresh doubt on the ability - and even on the interest - of U.S. forces to distinguish combatants from civilians. "Across southern Afghanistan, including the Marjah district where coalition forces are massing for a large offensive, the line between peaceful villager and enemy fighter is often blurred," the Journal says. The commander of the U.S. unit responsible for Pashmul estimates that about 95% of the locals are Taliban or aid the militants. Among front-line troops, "frustration is boiling over" over more restrictive rules of engagement than in Iraq, the Journal says - a dangerous harbinger of potential war crimes when the U.S. is about to engage in a major assault in an area densely populated with civilians.
If the U.S. assault in Marjah results in large scale civilian casualties, the U.S. will have committed a major war crime. If the United States cannot protect civilians in Marjah, as the U.S. is required to do under the laws of war, the assault should be called off.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Counterinsurgency is destined to fail in Afghanistan, just as it did in Vietnam
William R. Polk argues in the following article that US counterinsurgency in Afghanistan is failing - and will fail - just as it did in Vietnam and as it did when the Russians attempted it in Afghanistan back in the 1980s. Counterinsurgency doctrine says that a combination of military force and civil aid is necessary. Polk contends that you cannot lay the basis for providing civil aid until all groups in the society come to believe that the aid is not being used to consolidate a foreign military occupation and the continuation of associated corruption in the government and among warlords.
Polk's plan would start with the US giving a firm and comprehensive date for the withdrawal of US troops. This is a first step. He contends that, once this is accepted as authentic, civil aid will be welcome by "traditional [village] councils, who "will begin to seek those things that will heal their sick, feed their hungry, repair their destroyed and decayed infrastructure and generally make their lives easier." The Taliban already have agreed, he says, to negotiate once foreign forces are withdrawn. Once aid is offered and being delivered, and with foreign troops leaving the country, it will be hard for the Taliban to continue their warfare, given the great needs of the people. Polk implies that this aid would go directly to villages rather than through a central government.
Polk's analysis squares with our own and maintains that the US-led war should come to an end. He does not address how the political system, particularly the central government, will be reconstituted. He does not address how a national army, if there is one, can be organized in a way that it is not dominated by the Tajiks. And he does not address how the warlords and their militias can be marginalized or phased out. But the implication of his article is that all of these challenges will more easily reconciled or overcome in the absence of the US-led military occupation.
Bob
----------------------------
Missteps on Afghanistan
By William R. Polk
http://www.hnn.us/articles/122319.html - History News Network
William R. Polk was Professor of History at the University of Chicago. During the Kennedy and part of the Johnson administrations, he was the member of the Policy Planning Council responsible for North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia. Among his books are Understanding Iraq, Violent Politics and Understanding Iran. He is now at work on a book to be entitled Afghanistan: Descent into Unending War. He is the senior director of the W.P. Carey Foundation.
In his final report on January 6, 2009 to the Security Council, the senior UN representative to Afghanistan, Ambassador Kai Eide of Norway, highlighted two issues that will determine events far into the future. The first of these was development aid and the second is building a military capacity for the central government. He and others have argued that failure to accomplish one or both is likely to result in what General Stanley McChrystal called “mission failure.” Eide may be right, but history suggests that even more danger may result from success.
The Vietnam war tells us why. Then, as now, we engaged in the “civic action” programs Eide urges that we increase. Also then, as now, our adversaries regarded them as hostile moves. The Viet Minh deliberately destroyed not only the beneficial contributions – clinics, schools, bridges – but also targeted those Vietnamese and foreign aid workers who were trying to help the people. If proof were needed for the diabolical nature of the Communist guerrillas, this was surely it. At least that was what many of my government colleagues then thought. It is also what many people today think of the Taliban and their similar actions. What could have made them act in this way?
The obvious, but rarely mentioned, reason is that insurgents see civic action programs as a counterinsurgency tactic. In Vietnam they were designed to “win the hearts and minds” of the Vietnamese and so win them away from the insurgents. The insurgents regarded our civil aid as more dangerous to their cause than our bombs.
Ironically, they were partly wrong. Neither we nor the Viet Minh recognized a fatal side effect of our program: because the South Vietnamese government was hopelessly corrupt, any aid we turned over to officials was apt to be stolen or even sold to the Viet Minh. So we took on ourselves the task of delivering the aid direct to the villagers. Since our officials were honest, the program worked.
But, without realizing it, we sidelined the very government we were dedicated to supporting: by our intervention, we literally became the government of South Vietnam. Of course, we remained foreigners – indeed a study made during my time in government showed that many villagers thought we were a new batch of French colonialists, perhaps Foreign Legionnaires. But, since we were doing the “good things,” and the Saigon government continued to do the “bad things,” in part through our aid efforts, we further weakened its claim to legitimacy.
How does this experience in Vietnam relate to Afghanistan? Those who point out that there are major differences are right, but the general context, dealing with a hopelessly corrupt government, is what we now face. Few competent observers think we can reform that government. So, while we at least talk about trying, we effectively by-pass it just as we did in Vietnam. Consequently, while history does not exactly replay, knowing it can sometimes stimulate our thinking. What might Vietnam teach us to question Ambassador Eide’s recommendations that we increase our civic action program?
Like the Viet Minh, the Taliban understand the purpose of civic action. Simply put, it is a counterinsurgency weapon. Indeed, we told them it was. As General David Petraeus said, “Money is my most important ammunition in this war.” To implement this tactic, the U.S. Army published “the Commander’s Guide to Money as a Weapons System” (Handbook 09-27 April 2009) which tells officers how to use money and civic actions programs to defeat insurgents. This is the basis of a training program at the Combined Arms Center at Leavenworth, Kansas.
Our civic action program not only was informed by the Vietnam War, but mirrors the large-scale program undertaken by the Russians in Afghanistan. (It is odd that in his manual on counterinsurgency, General Petraeus never mentions the Russian program. Did he or the actual authors of the manual not know of it? As the philosopher George Santayana warned, those who are ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it. Perhaps that explains the manual.) During their occupation of Afghanistan, the Russians poured in hundreds of millions of dollar-equivalents to civic action. It did not win Afghan hearts and minds.
Will ours? After conducting some 400 interviews, Andrew Wilder of Tufts University concluded that “Afghan perceptions of aid and aid actors are overwhelmingly negative.”
This background and these findings explain, I think, both why the Taliban blows up the facilities we build and why the general population allows them to do so: what we see as generous help to needy people, they see as part of a campaign by foreigners to subdue them.
But it is clear that the Afghans need help. Without aid from abroad, the future of the people of Afghanistan would be grim and the chances for the reforms we have set as our goal would be unlikely. So can civic action programs be configured in a way that would make them acceptable? I believe they can. This is how:
Once we set a firm and believable date for actual withdrawal, the psychology of the war will change. This was not, of course, accomplished by President Obama’s vague statement that the process will begin in July 2011, particularly after what he announced was further weakened by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’s definition of “withdrawal” as amounting only to a “handful” of the occupation forces. To be effective the date must be firm and comprehensive -- and be believed. Then, particularly if they can at least partly be made multi- or inter-national, aid projects will gradually cease to be seen as “ammunition in this war.” At that point, the traditional councils (known in various parts of the country as jirgas, ulus and shuras) that exist in, and essentially govern, virtually every one of Afghanistan’s approximately 23,000 villages) will begin to seek those things that will heal their sick, feed their hungry, repair their destroyed or decayed infrastructure and generally make their lives easier.
Hopefully, by that time, negotiations with the Taliban – which even President Hamid Karzai has called vital and which he promised in September 2009 he would launch -- will begin. On his side, the Taliban leader, Mullah Muhammad Umar, has also agreed to negotiate once the foreign forces are withdrawn. He, too, should be driven by the announcement of a firm date. In December he even “signaled” that the Taliban would not allow aggressive action by al-Qaida on other states from Afghanistan. We have said, essentially, that we are not interested.
If we get interested and the war winds down, the Taliban will cease to oppose a redefined form of civic action. The Taliban will have to permit it because, if they continue in the new context of the winding down of the war to destroy what the villagers want, they will lose their most important asset, the support of the people. And without that support, as Mao Zedong memorably put it, they will become like fish stranded without supporting “water.”
So the setting the date of withdrawal is absolutely crucial. It must be the first step.
Now what about the call Ambassador Eide, almost everyone in the American and British governments, and our military leaders have sounded to create a much expanded security apparatus for the central government?
I do not believe this is in either ours or the Afghan national interest. Again, consider what history can teach us.
For many years before the Russian invasion in 1979, Soviet training missions worked with the almost entirely Pashtun Royal Afghan Army and took many officers and trainees to Russia for advanced instruction and indoctrination. By world standards, the army was not an impressive force, but it existed, had coherence and was disciplined. So when the Russians invaded and occupied the country, they and their puppet government “inherited” a standing army. To it, they added approximately 100,000 well-paid militiamen. These forces actually performed reasonably well for the Russians during at least the early part of their occupation. But they did not enable the Russians to “win.”
Contrast this with our current position: we have not inherited an existing army. The old royal army was compromised by its relationship with the Russians and virtually disappeared in the aftermath of their withdrawal in 1989. Thereafter, the resistance forces, particularly the “Northern Alliance,” the Tajik-based guerrillas who had operated from the Panjshir valley under the leadership of Ahmad Shah Massoud, and their Hazara and Uzbek rivals fought one another for dominance all over the country. They had nearly destroyed Afghanistan when the Taliban moved in and defeated them. Most of their leaders, the “warlords,” ran away. When the United States invaded in 2001, and defeated the Taliban, it began to rebuild the power of the warlords as the cheapest way to control the country. Helped by America, these warlords decimated what remained of the Taliban. Out of this turmoil, the local winners were mainly the Tajiks.
Today, Tajiks, who number about one in four Afghans (roughly half as many as the traditionally dominant Pashtuns), hold most of the key positions in the government, including intelligence and political police, and command seven in ten of the army’s battalions. Unwittingly, therefore, we may have laid the basis for a civil war. That is a long-term potential danger, but other aspects of what Ambassador Eide has recommended and General McChrystal intends to implement are more immediately worrying.
Because today’s soldiers are without a background of training and, according to NATO advisers, nine in ten are illiterate and three in ten are drug addicts, turning them into an army will justify – indeed require, as both the American and British military commanders agree – our forces to remain in Afghanistan for years, or more likely, decades. Such a program on such a timetable will not only convince the Afghans that we have become a colonial power but will also serve to convince the adherents to the party line of al-Qaida that Usama bin Ladin is right to target America and Britain.
The second effect is that emphasizing the army will inhibit the negotiating process that nearly everyone is beginning to see as the only hope of ending the war on acceptable terms.
The third result is that the army will become a major drain on the limited resources of the country. Pentagon planners are already calculating how soon we can off-load the costs onto the Afghans. Pursuit of this objective necessarily will clash with the plan we must also try to implement of making Afghanistan reasonably secure and reasonably prosperous. Today they can barely feed themselves: an estimated 42 percent live on the equivalent of about 7¢ a day. It will be decades, if ever, before they can shoulder the sort of war we want them to fight.
The fourth result is (mercifully perhaps) a future danger: it is that since balancing civil institutions are weak and will take years to become strong, a military force on the scale General McChrystal is beginning to build is likely to lead once again to a dictatorship of the kind that destroyed the earlier attempts in the 1920s and 1960s to build a reformist, modern state.
Thus, it seems to me that the message Ambassador Eide has delivered and which many of the new “experts” on Afghanistan also espouse would lead us in precisely the wrong direction – toward a period of greater threats of terrorism, further damage to our society, economy and legal system, and will result in virtually unending war.
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Polk's plan would start with the US giving a firm and comprehensive date for the withdrawal of US troops. This is a first step. He contends that, once this is accepted as authentic, civil aid will be welcome by "traditional [village] councils, who "will begin to seek those things that will heal their sick, feed their hungry, repair their destroyed and decayed infrastructure and generally make their lives easier." The Taliban already have agreed, he says, to negotiate once foreign forces are withdrawn. Once aid is offered and being delivered, and with foreign troops leaving the country, it will be hard for the Taliban to continue their warfare, given the great needs of the people. Polk implies that this aid would go directly to villages rather than through a central government.
Polk's analysis squares with our own and maintains that the US-led war should come to an end. He does not address how the political system, particularly the central government, will be reconstituted. He does not address how a national army, if there is one, can be organized in a way that it is not dominated by the Tajiks. And he does not address how the warlords and their militias can be marginalized or phased out. But the implication of his article is that all of these challenges will more easily reconciled or overcome in the absence of the US-led military occupation.
Bob
----------------------------
Missteps on Afghanistan
By William R. Polk
http://www.hnn.us/articles/122319.html - History News Network
William R. Polk was Professor of History at the University of Chicago. During the Kennedy and part of the Johnson administrations, he was the member of the Policy Planning Council responsible for North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia. Among his books are Understanding Iraq, Violent Politics and Understanding Iran. He is now at work on a book to be entitled Afghanistan: Descent into Unending War. He is the senior director of the W.P. Carey Foundation.
In his final report on January 6, 2009 to the Security Council, the senior UN representative to Afghanistan, Ambassador Kai Eide of Norway, highlighted two issues that will determine events far into the future. The first of these was development aid and the second is building a military capacity for the central government. He and others have argued that failure to accomplish one or both is likely to result in what General Stanley McChrystal called “mission failure.” Eide may be right, but history suggests that even more danger may result from success.
The Vietnam war tells us why. Then, as now, we engaged in the “civic action” programs Eide urges that we increase. Also then, as now, our adversaries regarded them as hostile moves. The Viet Minh deliberately destroyed not only the beneficial contributions – clinics, schools, bridges – but also targeted those Vietnamese and foreign aid workers who were trying to help the people. If proof were needed for the diabolical nature of the Communist guerrillas, this was surely it. At least that was what many of my government colleagues then thought. It is also what many people today think of the Taliban and their similar actions. What could have made them act in this way?
The obvious, but rarely mentioned, reason is that insurgents see civic action programs as a counterinsurgency tactic. In Vietnam they were designed to “win the hearts and minds” of the Vietnamese and so win them away from the insurgents. The insurgents regarded our civil aid as more dangerous to their cause than our bombs.
Ironically, they were partly wrong. Neither we nor the Viet Minh recognized a fatal side effect of our program: because the South Vietnamese government was hopelessly corrupt, any aid we turned over to officials was apt to be stolen or even sold to the Viet Minh. So we took on ourselves the task of delivering the aid direct to the villagers. Since our officials were honest, the program worked.
But, without realizing it, we sidelined the very government we were dedicated to supporting: by our intervention, we literally became the government of South Vietnam. Of course, we remained foreigners – indeed a study made during my time in government showed that many villagers thought we were a new batch of French colonialists, perhaps Foreign Legionnaires. But, since we were doing the “good things,” and the Saigon government continued to do the “bad things,” in part through our aid efforts, we further weakened its claim to legitimacy.
How does this experience in Vietnam relate to Afghanistan? Those who point out that there are major differences are right, but the general context, dealing with a hopelessly corrupt government, is what we now face. Few competent observers think we can reform that government. So, while we at least talk about trying, we effectively by-pass it just as we did in Vietnam. Consequently, while history does not exactly replay, knowing it can sometimes stimulate our thinking. What might Vietnam teach us to question Ambassador Eide’s recommendations that we increase our civic action program?
Like the Viet Minh, the Taliban understand the purpose of civic action. Simply put, it is a counterinsurgency weapon. Indeed, we told them it was. As General David Petraeus said, “Money is my most important ammunition in this war.” To implement this tactic, the U.S. Army published “the Commander’s Guide to Money as a Weapons System” (Handbook 09-27 April 2009) which tells officers how to use money and civic actions programs to defeat insurgents. This is the basis of a training program at the Combined Arms Center at Leavenworth, Kansas.
Our civic action program not only was informed by the Vietnam War, but mirrors the large-scale program undertaken by the Russians in Afghanistan. (It is odd that in his manual on counterinsurgency, General Petraeus never mentions the Russian program. Did he or the actual authors of the manual not know of it? As the philosopher George Santayana warned, those who are ignorant of history are doomed to repeat it. Perhaps that explains the manual.) During their occupation of Afghanistan, the Russians poured in hundreds of millions of dollar-equivalents to civic action. It did not win Afghan hearts and minds.
Will ours? After conducting some 400 interviews, Andrew Wilder of Tufts University concluded that “Afghan perceptions of aid and aid actors are overwhelmingly negative.”
This background and these findings explain, I think, both why the Taliban blows up the facilities we build and why the general population allows them to do so: what we see as generous help to needy people, they see as part of a campaign by foreigners to subdue them.
But it is clear that the Afghans need help. Without aid from abroad, the future of the people of Afghanistan would be grim and the chances for the reforms we have set as our goal would be unlikely. So can civic action programs be configured in a way that would make them acceptable? I believe they can. This is how:
Once we set a firm and believable date for actual withdrawal, the psychology of the war will change. This was not, of course, accomplished by President Obama’s vague statement that the process will begin in July 2011, particularly after what he announced was further weakened by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’s definition of “withdrawal” as amounting only to a “handful” of the occupation forces. To be effective the date must be firm and comprehensive -- and be believed. Then, particularly if they can at least partly be made multi- or inter-national, aid projects will gradually cease to be seen as “ammunition in this war.” At that point, the traditional councils (known in various parts of the country as jirgas, ulus and shuras) that exist in, and essentially govern, virtually every one of Afghanistan’s approximately 23,000 villages) will begin to seek those things that will heal their sick, feed their hungry, repair their destroyed or decayed infrastructure and generally make their lives easier.
Hopefully, by that time, negotiations with the Taliban – which even President Hamid Karzai has called vital and which he promised in September 2009 he would launch -- will begin. On his side, the Taliban leader, Mullah Muhammad Umar, has also agreed to negotiate once the foreign forces are withdrawn. He, too, should be driven by the announcement of a firm date. In December he even “signaled” that the Taliban would not allow aggressive action by al-Qaida on other states from Afghanistan. We have said, essentially, that we are not interested.
If we get interested and the war winds down, the Taliban will cease to oppose a redefined form of civic action. The Taliban will have to permit it because, if they continue in the new context of the winding down of the war to destroy what the villagers want, they will lose their most important asset, the support of the people. And without that support, as Mao Zedong memorably put it, they will become like fish stranded without supporting “water.”
So the setting the date of withdrawal is absolutely crucial. It must be the first step.
Now what about the call Ambassador Eide, almost everyone in the American and British governments, and our military leaders have sounded to create a much expanded security apparatus for the central government?
I do not believe this is in either ours or the Afghan national interest. Again, consider what history can teach us.
For many years before the Russian invasion in 1979, Soviet training missions worked with the almost entirely Pashtun Royal Afghan Army and took many officers and trainees to Russia for advanced instruction and indoctrination. By world standards, the army was not an impressive force, but it existed, had coherence and was disciplined. So when the Russians invaded and occupied the country, they and their puppet government “inherited” a standing army. To it, they added approximately 100,000 well-paid militiamen. These forces actually performed reasonably well for the Russians during at least the early part of their occupation. But they did not enable the Russians to “win.”
Contrast this with our current position: we have not inherited an existing army. The old royal army was compromised by its relationship with the Russians and virtually disappeared in the aftermath of their withdrawal in 1989. Thereafter, the resistance forces, particularly the “Northern Alliance,” the Tajik-based guerrillas who had operated from the Panjshir valley under the leadership of Ahmad Shah Massoud, and their Hazara and Uzbek rivals fought one another for dominance all over the country. They had nearly destroyed Afghanistan when the Taliban moved in and defeated them. Most of their leaders, the “warlords,” ran away. When the United States invaded in 2001, and defeated the Taliban, it began to rebuild the power of the warlords as the cheapest way to control the country. Helped by America, these warlords decimated what remained of the Taliban. Out of this turmoil, the local winners were mainly the Tajiks.
Today, Tajiks, who number about one in four Afghans (roughly half as many as the traditionally dominant Pashtuns), hold most of the key positions in the government, including intelligence and political police, and command seven in ten of the army’s battalions. Unwittingly, therefore, we may have laid the basis for a civil war. That is a long-term potential danger, but other aspects of what Ambassador Eide has recommended and General McChrystal intends to implement are more immediately worrying.
Because today’s soldiers are without a background of training and, according to NATO advisers, nine in ten are illiterate and three in ten are drug addicts, turning them into an army will justify – indeed require, as both the American and British military commanders agree – our forces to remain in Afghanistan for years, or more likely, decades. Such a program on such a timetable will not only convince the Afghans that we have become a colonial power but will also serve to convince the adherents to the party line of al-Qaida that Usama bin Ladin is right to target America and Britain.
The second effect is that emphasizing the army will inhibit the negotiating process that nearly everyone is beginning to see as the only hope of ending the war on acceptable terms.
The third result is that the army will become a major drain on the limited resources of the country. Pentagon planners are already calculating how soon we can off-load the costs onto the Afghans. Pursuit of this objective necessarily will clash with the plan we must also try to implement of making Afghanistan reasonably secure and reasonably prosperous. Today they can barely feed themselves: an estimated 42 percent live on the equivalent of about 7¢ a day. It will be decades, if ever, before they can shoulder the sort of war we want them to fight.
The fourth result is (mercifully perhaps) a future danger: it is that since balancing civil institutions are weak and will take years to become strong, a military force on the scale General McChrystal is beginning to build is likely to lead once again to a dictatorship of the kind that destroyed the earlier attempts in the 1920s and 1960s to build a reformist, modern state.
Thus, it seems to me that the message Ambassador Eide has delivered and which many of the new “experts” on Afghanistan also espouse would lead us in precisely the wrong direction – toward a period of greater threats of terrorism, further damage to our society, economy and legal system, and will result in virtually unending war.
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Sunday, January 24, 2010
US and UK put pressure on Karzai government
Here are the principal points from an article found in today's Independent newspaper (UK, on-line).
The US and UK administrations are putting pressure on President Karzai to expedite efforts to ban a key ingredient used in "improvised roadside explosives.
Karzai is also being asked to meet certain deadlines with respect to the number of Afghans sent to the British and US trainers for police and military training. General McCrystal wants training to be completed by October 2011 for a total of 171,000 troops and 134,000 police.
Bob
--------------------------------
On the eve of a London conference on his country, Afghanistan's President bans key ingredient used in insurgents' bombs
By Jane Merrick
Sunday, 24 January 2010 - http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/karzai-takes-on-the-roadside-bombmakers-1877279
President Hamid Karzai has banned a key ingredient in the roadside bombs that have killed hundreds of British, American and Nato soldiers in his country as he moved to reassure the international community that he is acting against terrorism ahead of a major conference on Afghanistan this week.
The Afghan government outlawed the use of ammonium nitrate fertiliser, used by the Taliban in 90 per cent of improvised roadside explosives, on the eve of the London conference to set out a political and military plan for the region. President Karzai will join US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Gordon Brown for the one-day meeting, chaired by Foreign Secretary David Miliband, on Thursday. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Nato Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen and foreign ministers of Afghanistan's leading regional partners will also attend.
It will follow an emergency conference on Yemen in London on Wednesday, prompted by the heightened threat of terrorism following the attempted airplane attack on Christmas Day, which it is suspected was hatched in the country.
The Afghanistan conference will set out a strategy for the next 12 months, including milestones for President Karzai's government to pass before the eventual handover of military control and political governance to Kabul.
At the London gathering, President Karzai will propose a plan, funded by Western governments, to offer money and jobs to rank-and-file Taliban fighters, who are not members of al-Qa'ida or other terror groups, in an attempt to persuade them to switch sides and bring an end to the fighting. Taliban commanders pay their foot soldiers higher rates than government forces, but wages for Afghan forces would rise from $120 (£75) a month to $165 a month.
Mrs Clinton unveiled a plan last week, to be presented in London, for the stabilisation of Afghanistan, also including bringing low-level fighters back into mainstream society. Taliban leaders have been excluded from the reintegration plans, but yesterday Pakistan's foreign ministry said it was reaching out to "all levels" of the Taliban in an attempt to bring peace to Afghanistan.
The British government wants the conference to approve a timetable for transferring power to Afghan security forces and government.
At the Commonwealth heads of government meeting in November, Mr Brown called on Kabul to identify within three months from the date of the conference additional Afghan troops to be sent to Helmand for training. By six months, there should be a clear plan for police training, including tackling corruption, while within nine months some 400 provincial and district governors should be appointed. Within a year, the Prime Minister said, 50,000 additional Afghan troops must be trained, taking the total number of soldiers to 134,000. At least five out of 34 provinces should be under Afghan control within a year.
US General Stanley McChrystal, commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan, wants the London meeting to set a target of 171,000 Afghan soldiers by October 2011, and police numbers to increase from 94,000 to 134,000 by that date.
The scale of the task facing world leaders was underlined on Friday with another death of a British soldier from an explosive device in Helmand. The soldier from A Company 4 Rifles was the 250th to be killed in the country.
Nato troops have seized tons of ammonium nitrate fertiliser over the past five months in southern Afghanistan, but the new ban is designed to send a message that the government is doing everything it can to curb the insurgency. President Karzai banned the use, production, storage, purchase or sale of the fertiliser and farmers have one month to turn in their stocks or face prosecution.
The Afghan president is under intense pressure to act against terrorism and corruption following his disputed second-term election last year. Mr Miliband last week said the Afghan government needed to show it was taking steps. Writing in the New Statesman, the Foreign Secretary said: "To remain resistant to Taliban intimidation, Afghans need to know that their government can provide basic justice and maintain order."
Mrs Clinton said on Thursday: "What [Afghans] want is a government that can and will function, and we are expecting a lot from President Karzai and his new government."
US President Barack Obama has set a timeline of July 2011 for the start of a withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, echoed by Mr Brown.
The Independent on Sunday has led calls for a withdrawal of British troops from Afghanistan within a year, while leaders in other EU countries are under pressure to demand a speeded-up withdrawal. Germany is among those said to be frustrated at the lengthy commitment.
The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, who will not attend the talks at Lancaster House, central London, but who is instead sending her foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle, yesterday stressed her country's commitment to training Afghan troops. She will hold talks in Berlin with President Karzai this week before he travels to London for the conference.
The meeting will also highlight the effort needed by Pakistan to tackle terrorism in its country and border areas with Afghanistan.
Pakistan's foreign ministry said yesterday that the government was reaching out to "all levels" of the Afghan Taliban to end the insurgency against Kabul.
The talks on Yemen on Wednesday will bring together the foreign ministers of the country's main development partners, including the US and Saudi Arabia. Britain arranged the conference to coincide with the Afghanistan meeting after a Yemen-based al-Qa'ida group claimed it was behind the failed bid to blow up the Amsterdam to Detroit plane on 25 December.
The talks will focus on security and development funding to prevent Yemen becoming a failed state and being used by al-Qa'ida to launch further attacks. The Yemen government is also contending with a Shia revolt in the north and separatist movement in the south.
Underscoring the fragility of the its authority over the country, the bodies of 20 of 26 Saudi soldiers reported missing were yesterday found on the border after fighting against Shia rebels.
US General David Petraeus, who discussed military co-operation with Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh earlier this month, pledged a doubling of aid from Washington to the country, taking it to $140m (£87m).
Saudi Arabia is believed to be spending between $200m and $300m a year on helping Yemeni security authorities conduct counter-terrorism work. Britain launched a £7m five-year justice and policing programme in the country in 2008, and earlier this month Mr Brown agreed funding with President Obama for a counter-terrorism police unit.
The US and UK administrations are putting pressure on President Karzai to expedite efforts to ban a key ingredient used in "improvised roadside explosives.
Karzai is also being asked to meet certain deadlines with respect to the number of Afghans sent to the British and US trainers for police and military training. General McCrystal wants training to be completed by October 2011 for a total of 171,000 troops and 134,000 police.
The article also notes that President Obama has set a deadline of July 2011 for the start of a withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan.
In addition, President Karzai will propose a plan, financed by Western governments, to offer money and jobs to rank-and-file Taliban fighters who are not affiliated with terrorist groups. The wages are designed to be higher than the Taliban commanders pay their "foot soldiers."
UK and Britain also expect the Karzai government to extend its control over provincial and district governments and to root out corruption in the government.
Comment: It remains to be seen whether these goals will be met. Past experience justifies some skepticism. It's not clear what types of jobs will be proferred to Taliban soldiers. There is nothing explicit here about rebuilding the economy or economic support for Afghan villages and towns. Obama's goals for the withdrawal of US troops, beginning in July 2011, offer few details about how many troops will be withdrawn or over what period of time. Many such pledges are qualified by "conditions on the ground."Bob
--------------------------------
On the eve of a London conference on his country, Afghanistan's President bans key ingredient used in insurgents' bombs
By Jane Merrick
Sunday, 24 January 2010 - http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/karzai-takes-on-the-roadside-bombmakers-1877279
President Hamid Karzai has banned a key ingredient in the roadside bombs that have killed hundreds of British, American and Nato soldiers in his country as he moved to reassure the international community that he is acting against terrorism ahead of a major conference on Afghanistan this week.
The Afghan government outlawed the use of ammonium nitrate fertiliser, used by the Taliban in 90 per cent of improvised roadside explosives, on the eve of the London conference to set out a political and military plan for the region. President Karzai will join US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Gordon Brown for the one-day meeting, chaired by Foreign Secretary David Miliband, on Thursday. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Nato Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen and foreign ministers of Afghanistan's leading regional partners will also attend.
It will follow an emergency conference on Yemen in London on Wednesday, prompted by the heightened threat of terrorism following the attempted airplane attack on Christmas Day, which it is suspected was hatched in the country.
The Afghanistan conference will set out a strategy for the next 12 months, including milestones for President Karzai's government to pass before the eventual handover of military control and political governance to Kabul.
At the London gathering, President Karzai will propose a plan, funded by Western governments, to offer money and jobs to rank-and-file Taliban fighters, who are not members of al-Qa'ida or other terror groups, in an attempt to persuade them to switch sides and bring an end to the fighting. Taliban commanders pay their foot soldiers higher rates than government forces, but wages for Afghan forces would rise from $120 (£75) a month to $165 a month.
Mrs Clinton unveiled a plan last week, to be presented in London, for the stabilisation of Afghanistan, also including bringing low-level fighters back into mainstream society. Taliban leaders have been excluded from the reintegration plans, but yesterday Pakistan's foreign ministry said it was reaching out to "all levels" of the Taliban in an attempt to bring peace to Afghanistan.
The British government wants the conference to approve a timetable for transferring power to Afghan security forces and government.
At the Commonwealth heads of government meeting in November, Mr Brown called on Kabul to identify within three months from the date of the conference additional Afghan troops to be sent to Helmand for training. By six months, there should be a clear plan for police training, including tackling corruption, while within nine months some 400 provincial and district governors should be appointed. Within a year, the Prime Minister said, 50,000 additional Afghan troops must be trained, taking the total number of soldiers to 134,000. At least five out of 34 provinces should be under Afghan control within a year.
US General Stanley McChrystal, commander of Nato forces in Afghanistan, wants the London meeting to set a target of 171,000 Afghan soldiers by October 2011, and police numbers to increase from 94,000 to 134,000 by that date.
The scale of the task facing world leaders was underlined on Friday with another death of a British soldier from an explosive device in Helmand. The soldier from A Company 4 Rifles was the 250th to be killed in the country.
Nato troops have seized tons of ammonium nitrate fertiliser over the past five months in southern Afghanistan, but the new ban is designed to send a message that the government is doing everything it can to curb the insurgency. President Karzai banned the use, production, storage, purchase or sale of the fertiliser and farmers have one month to turn in their stocks or face prosecution.
The Afghan president is under intense pressure to act against terrorism and corruption following his disputed second-term election last year. Mr Miliband last week said the Afghan government needed to show it was taking steps. Writing in the New Statesman, the Foreign Secretary said: "To remain resistant to Taliban intimidation, Afghans need to know that their government can provide basic justice and maintain order."
Mrs Clinton said on Thursday: "What [Afghans] want is a government that can and will function, and we are expecting a lot from President Karzai and his new government."
US President Barack Obama has set a timeline of July 2011 for the start of a withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan, echoed by Mr Brown.
The Independent on Sunday has led calls for a withdrawal of British troops from Afghanistan within a year, while leaders in other EU countries are under pressure to demand a speeded-up withdrawal. Germany is among those said to be frustrated at the lengthy commitment.
The German chancellor, Angela Merkel, who will not attend the talks at Lancaster House, central London, but who is instead sending her foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle, yesterday stressed her country's commitment to training Afghan troops. She will hold talks in Berlin with President Karzai this week before he travels to London for the conference.
The meeting will also highlight the effort needed by Pakistan to tackle terrorism in its country and border areas with Afghanistan.
Pakistan's foreign ministry said yesterday that the government was reaching out to "all levels" of the Afghan Taliban to end the insurgency against Kabul.
The talks on Yemen on Wednesday will bring together the foreign ministers of the country's main development partners, including the US and Saudi Arabia. Britain arranged the conference to coincide with the Afghanistan meeting after a Yemen-based al-Qa'ida group claimed it was behind the failed bid to blow up the Amsterdam to Detroit plane on 25 December.
The talks will focus on security and development funding to prevent Yemen becoming a failed state and being used by al-Qa'ida to launch further attacks. The Yemen government is also contending with a Shia revolt in the north and separatist movement in the south.
Underscoring the fragility of the its authority over the country, the bodies of 20 of 26 Saudi soldiers reported missing were yesterday found on the border after fighting against Shia rebels.
US General David Petraeus, who discussed military co-operation with Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh earlier this month, pledged a doubling of aid from Washington to the country, taking it to $140m (£87m).
Saudi Arabia is believed to be spending between $200m and $300m a year on helping Yemeni security authorities conduct counter-terrorism work. Britain launched a £7m five-year justice and policing programme in the country in 2008, and earlier this month Mr Brown agreed funding with President Obama for a counter-terrorism police unit.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Afghan troops still not ready to be full partners
The following report is from Stars and Stripes and based on interviews with US soldiers involved in training and going into combat with Afghan troops. The thrust of the article is that Afghan recruits and troops have not yet been trained well and are not ready to become reliable partners in this war. Dianna Cahn, the reporter for Stars and Stripes, does not attempt to fully answer why so many Afhan soldiers are not ready to assume responsibility for their role in the counterinsurgency warfare now being advanced in Afghanistan by the US military. But she does refer to how poorly Afghan troops are equipped, their poor "quality" [preparation, motivation, training], their low pay, the rush to have them join US soldiers in combat situations, high rates of desertion, some theft of US vehicles, weapons, fuel, and even attacks by some Afghan troops on US and NATO soldiers.
What is being done? The US command has recently raised the salary of Afghan army forces to $165 a month and is in the process of bringing more US trainers into the field and expanding US training facilities.
We have concerns. The US troops are overall not familiar with local cultures, do not speak the local language, and cannot protect Afghan communities around the clock. There are also reports that the Taliban have been paying local Afghan men more money to join their ranks than the US has been paying (some reports say up to three times more). The Taliban appear to have ample sources of financial support, from the drug industry, support from individuals in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States, the ability to impose "taxes" on those who use roads in their areas of influence, and payments for providing security to US convoys transporting supplies to US troops in southern provinces of the country. Past reports have also indicated that the central government has not been of much help in the recruitment and coordination related to the building of an army, leaving it to US and NATO forces.
If the US/NATO efforts are to provide adequate military training of Afghan men, sufficient equipment and salaries, while also building a relationship of trust with US and NATO advisers and securing communities from Taliban intimidation and attacks, then we may need more US advisers and troops and greater continuity in their services. It appears that it will take time and perhaps even more troops to achieve the goal of creating a national Afghan army willing to fight for some as yet vague national purpose - and a lot of money to rebuild or establish viable agriculture and other relevant industries. This is not only counter-insurgency but also nation-building. President Karzai of Afghanistan said yesterday that Afghanistan may need the assistance of US and NATO forces for 15 or more years to achieve security and the political capacities for genuine independence.
And beyond these concerns, there is nothing explicitly in US policy to deal with the warlords in areas of the country where there is little or no Taliban influence. Are the warlords viable allies in these efforts?
Bob
-------------------------------
Troops fear corruption outweighs progress of Afghan forces
By Dianna Cahn, Stars and StripesMideast edition, Wednesday, December 9, 2009 [URL included at the end of the report]
RELATED STORY: Afghan police slow to earn trust of Americans
BAGHLAN PROVINCE, Afghanistan — Tomorrow, Afghanistan’s homegrown soldiers might be ready to take over the fight against the Taliban, so that American forces can begin to come home as President Barack Obama hopes.
But today, they are far from ready. Even the best Afghan units lack training, discipline and adequate reinforcements. In one new unit in Baghlan province, Afghan soldiers cower in a ditch whenever shooting breaks out. Others routinely steal U.S.-supplied fuel, equipment and weapons. And a few are suspected of collaborating with the Taliban against the Americans.
“I do not feel I am a mentor here,” said Capt. Jason Douthwaite, a logistics officer with the 73rd Troop Command of the Ohio National Guard who has tried to stop rampant pilfering by the Afghan soldiers his brigade is training. “I feel like I am an investigating officer. It’s not, ‘Let me teach you your job.’ It’s more like, ‘How much did you steal from the American government today?’ ”
In his speech at West Point last week announcing a surge of 30,000 additional U.S. troops into Afghanistan, Obama said building and training the Afghan security forces would become a pillar of America’s new war strategy so that U.S. forces could begin to be withdrawn in July 2011.
Obama’s top commander in Afghanistan, Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, said the goal is to double Afghan forces to 400,000, and to do so in four years.
But given the unbridled corruption that infests the ranks of the Afghan National Army and national police, as well as a the severe shortage of quality recruits and a gaping void in the Afghan leadership and command structure, many outside experts — and, increasingly, U.S. trainers on the ground — doubt that the Afghan forces will be able to stand on their own any time soon.
“You’re always going to have this tension of quantity over quality,” said Candace Rondeaux, a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group in Brussels. “The danger of moving too quickly is that you won’t have the cohesiveness, the loyalty, and even the infrastructure to support those soldiers and police fighting. But with the domestic pressure to wrap this up and get it done, it becomes easy to rush it.”
Rondeaux predicted that properly training and equipping an Afghan security force of 400,000 will take at least another five years.
“There is no way to do it fast,” agreed Andrew Krepinevich, president of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington, whose own time estimate runs to a decade. “You’ve got to keep providing advisers at the maneuver and staff levels, and work with them every step of the way. Otherwise it’s not going to work.”
By all accounts, the Afghan National Army is a more mature and efficient security force than the Afghan National Police. The force is developing a reputation for facing down the rising insurgency, and NATO training commanders in Kabul say the infrastructure is now in place to build up weaker units in the coming years.
Yet the experience of U.S. forces mentoring Afghan soldiers in Baghlan province last month underlined just how relative that assessment is.
During a Taliban ambush, gunfire was coming at the Americans and their Afghan counterparts from three sides. But the Afghan National Army soldiers of the 209 Corps, 2nd Brigade, 3rd Kandak (battalion), fresh out of training in Kabul, were not ready for a fight.
So after returning initial fire, the Afghan soldiers simply lay in a ditch, refusing to budge.
“They don’t have the basics, so they lay down,” said Capt. Michael Bell, who is one of a team of U.S. and Hungarian mentors tasked with making this young kandak battle-ready. “I ran around for an hour trying to get them to shoot, getting fired on. I couldn’t get them to shoot their weapons.”
Bell, with the 1st Battalion, 148 Infantry Regiment of the Ohio National Guard, and another American soldier treated several superficial wounds — the Afghan soldiers didn’t even have bandages, much less a medic — then finally persuaded most of their Afghan counterparts to get in their pickup trucks and push out.
The experience left the Americans rattled, and exposed just how far NATO coalition forces still must go to ready the Afghan security forces to protect their own country.
Rushing to failure?
The Afghan army currently numbers about 97,000 soldiers, with a target of 134,000 by November 2010 and 240,000 by 2013. Meanwhile, the end goal for the 94,000-strong national police force is 160,000. Currently, an average of 2,500 new soldiers and 2,000 new police officers are recruited each month, but the monthly attrition rate is as high as 25 percent.
To grow the force, NATO is creating incentives, including a recent $45 raise for all police. Starting salary for a police officer is now $165 a month.
The pace of training is also expanding. Army training schools in the five regional commands will soon double student numbers and shorten the courses from 10 weeks to eight. Instructors are being readied and massive building is under way to accommodate 1,400 new students this cycle, compared with 600 in previous ones, said NATO Brig. Simon Levey, commander of the Combined Training Advisory Group-Army in Kabul.
“We’ve built both infrastructure and training bases which are absolutely key, and are just coming on line now,” Levey said. “The Afghans are recruiting more vigorously. It’s something we couldn’t do before because the pipeline was not adequate.”
But mentors in Kelagay, for example, say the Afghan corps commanders for their unit refuse to allot adequate training time, regularly sending Afghan army companies out on patrols and operations without a basic knowledge of fighting.
Maj. Jeffery Leslie, whose unit of 58 U.S. mentors and support staff is embedded with a Hungarian Operational Mentor and Liaison Team at the ANA’s Camp Kelagay, wondered if unqualified recruits were being signed up in the push to build up the Afghan army so quickly.
“We suspect the ANA have bad guys in the ranks, whether they are known or unknown to anybody,” Leslie said. “There are ANA units out there that are very capable. I think it’s just too much too fast for the manpower of the country to sustain.”
Leslie said 100 new recruits were sent to Kelagay to replace dozens of deserters, but many of them ran off, too.
“I think they are hitting the bottom of the barrel and pulling in guys who just don’t want to be here,” he said.
Raiding the cookie jar
At Kelagay, the growing pains of a young force are apparent.
After a series of problems, the corps changed out the kandak commander and his executive officer in October for a commander who had run a top-rated Afghan army command before. Mentors say it’s a big improvement, but you can’t change an entire battalion by changing one man.
The mentors report missing vehicles, weapons and other military equipment, and outright theft of fuel provided by the U.S. Then there are the AWOL rates — up to 60 percent, far higher than the average for the Afghan army — and death threats leveled against two different U.S. officers who tried to stop the Afghan soldiers from stealing.
“This kandak would not be ready in five years,” said mentor Sgt. 1st Class Sam Livingston, 35, a guardsman from Cleveland. “I see so much waste and corruption. Even though it’s on a small scale, it’s an indication of what’s going on. Everyone has their hand in the cookie jar.”
Discouraged, he added: “At some point, you begin to question, ‘How much good am I personally doing here?’ ”
Douthwaite, the logistics officer, said he was threatened twice after he began trying to control the steady pilfering of U.S.-supplied fuel.
“It’s a corrupt system all the way from the corps level on down,” he said.
That’s not to say that there are no successes. At the squad level, Staff Sgt. Eric Schabell, an Ohio National Guardsman from Independence, Ky., and a former flight instructor, said he’s happy with small achievements, like teaching the Afghan soldiers how to zero a weapon — a first step in aligning its sights.
“I’ve been pleasantly surprised several times by what they already know,” Schabell said. “The [executive officer] and platoon leaders tell me they want their soldiers to be trained. They are happy we are here. They understand the soldiers don’t know their jobs. And I see that they care, and I think that keeps me from getting frustrated.”
Trust, but verify
The death threats and recent attacks by Afghan forces on U.S. and NATO soldiers make for an uneasy relationship.
In March, an Afghan soldier guarding the tower at Camp Shaheen shot three U.S. soldiers, killing two.
In Wardak province, soldiers from Company A, 2nd Battalion, 87th Infantry Regiment say they’ve come across more than 70 bombs since they arrived in the hostile Tangi Valley last summer.
Two soldiers have been killed and dozens wounded. But their Afghan army partners have never been hit.
“The cold hard facts are that in the Tangi valley, the ANA have not been attacked,” said Staff Sgt. Jim Putman of Company A’s intelligence support team. “Yet here we sit, we’ve had [70]-something IED incidents since July. One would have to assume they’re dirty or paying off the Taliban.”
The Afghan soldiers frequently find improvised explosive devices and snip the command wires instead of marking them and waiting for U.S. forces to come detonate them. The Americans say this just allows the insurgents to return and reconnect them.
Capt. Hayhatullah Adil, the Afghan company commander in the Tangi valley, said his soldiers don’t get hit because they are good at looking for bombs and command wires. Plus, he said, there is a higher Taliban bounty for blowing up U.S. troops, and the villagers know there will be trouble if his soldiers are blown up.
“I will light up the whole village,” Adil said.
Despite the concerns, Marine Staff Sgt. Benjamin Ricard, part of a training team working with the Afghan army, defended the Afghan soldiers last month.
“I walk in front of them, I walk behind them and they all got loaded weapons,” he said. “I don’t question it at all.”
On Nov. 13, Ricard and another Marine were severely injured when a bomb went off under their Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle. Army Spc. Christopher J. Coffland and a 20-year-old interpreter were killed. U.S. soldiers said they were leading Afghan soldiers to a recently discovered bomb site.
“I have no choice,” Ricard said days before the blast. “It’s my job to trust them.”
Stars and Stripes reporters Leo Shane III and Geoff Ziezulewicz contributed to this story.
http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section+104&article=66544
What is being done? The US command has recently raised the salary of Afghan army forces to $165 a month and is in the process of bringing more US trainers into the field and expanding US training facilities.
We have concerns. The US troops are overall not familiar with local cultures, do not speak the local language, and cannot protect Afghan communities around the clock. There are also reports that the Taliban have been paying local Afghan men more money to join their ranks than the US has been paying (some reports say up to three times more). The Taliban appear to have ample sources of financial support, from the drug industry, support from individuals in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States, the ability to impose "taxes" on those who use roads in their areas of influence, and payments for providing security to US convoys transporting supplies to US troops in southern provinces of the country. Past reports have also indicated that the central government has not been of much help in the recruitment and coordination related to the building of an army, leaving it to US and NATO forces.
If the US/NATO efforts are to provide adequate military training of Afghan men, sufficient equipment and salaries, while also building a relationship of trust with US and NATO advisers and securing communities from Taliban intimidation and attacks, then we may need more US advisers and troops and greater continuity in their services. It appears that it will take time and perhaps even more troops to achieve the goal of creating a national Afghan army willing to fight for some as yet vague national purpose - and a lot of money to rebuild or establish viable agriculture and other relevant industries. This is not only counter-insurgency but also nation-building. President Karzai of Afghanistan said yesterday that Afghanistan may need the assistance of US and NATO forces for 15 or more years to achieve security and the political capacities for genuine independence.
And beyond these concerns, there is nothing explicitly in US policy to deal with the warlords in areas of the country where there is little or no Taliban influence. Are the warlords viable allies in these efforts?
Bob
-------------------------------
Troops fear corruption outweighs progress of Afghan forces
By Dianna Cahn, Stars and StripesMideast edition, Wednesday, December 9, 2009 [URL included at the end of the report]
RELATED STORY: Afghan police slow to earn trust of Americans
BAGHLAN PROVINCE, Afghanistan — Tomorrow, Afghanistan’s homegrown soldiers might be ready to take over the fight against the Taliban, so that American forces can begin to come home as President Barack Obama hopes.
But today, they are far from ready. Even the best Afghan units lack training, discipline and adequate reinforcements. In one new unit in Baghlan province, Afghan soldiers cower in a ditch whenever shooting breaks out. Others routinely steal U.S.-supplied fuel, equipment and weapons. And a few are suspected of collaborating with the Taliban against the Americans.
“I do not feel I am a mentor here,” said Capt. Jason Douthwaite, a logistics officer with the 73rd Troop Command of the Ohio National Guard who has tried to stop rampant pilfering by the Afghan soldiers his brigade is training. “I feel like I am an investigating officer. It’s not, ‘Let me teach you your job.’ It’s more like, ‘How much did you steal from the American government today?’ ”
In his speech at West Point last week announcing a surge of 30,000 additional U.S. troops into Afghanistan, Obama said building and training the Afghan security forces would become a pillar of America’s new war strategy so that U.S. forces could begin to be withdrawn in July 2011.
Obama’s top commander in Afghanistan, Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal, said the goal is to double Afghan forces to 400,000, and to do so in four years.
But given the unbridled corruption that infests the ranks of the Afghan National Army and national police, as well as a the severe shortage of quality recruits and a gaping void in the Afghan leadership and command structure, many outside experts — and, increasingly, U.S. trainers on the ground — doubt that the Afghan forces will be able to stand on their own any time soon.
“You’re always going to have this tension of quantity over quality,” said Candace Rondeaux, a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group in Brussels. “The danger of moving too quickly is that you won’t have the cohesiveness, the loyalty, and even the infrastructure to support those soldiers and police fighting. But with the domestic pressure to wrap this up and get it done, it becomes easy to rush it.”
Rondeaux predicted that properly training and equipping an Afghan security force of 400,000 will take at least another five years.
“There is no way to do it fast,” agreed Andrew Krepinevich, president of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments in Washington, whose own time estimate runs to a decade. “You’ve got to keep providing advisers at the maneuver and staff levels, and work with them every step of the way. Otherwise it’s not going to work.”
By all accounts, the Afghan National Army is a more mature and efficient security force than the Afghan National Police. The force is developing a reputation for facing down the rising insurgency, and NATO training commanders in Kabul say the infrastructure is now in place to build up weaker units in the coming years.
Yet the experience of U.S. forces mentoring Afghan soldiers in Baghlan province last month underlined just how relative that assessment is.
During a Taliban ambush, gunfire was coming at the Americans and their Afghan counterparts from three sides. But the Afghan National Army soldiers of the 209 Corps, 2nd Brigade, 3rd Kandak (battalion), fresh out of training in Kabul, were not ready for a fight.
So after returning initial fire, the Afghan soldiers simply lay in a ditch, refusing to budge.
“They don’t have the basics, so they lay down,” said Capt. Michael Bell, who is one of a team of U.S. and Hungarian mentors tasked with making this young kandak battle-ready. “I ran around for an hour trying to get them to shoot, getting fired on. I couldn’t get them to shoot their weapons.”
Bell, with the 1st Battalion, 148 Infantry Regiment of the Ohio National Guard, and another American soldier treated several superficial wounds — the Afghan soldiers didn’t even have bandages, much less a medic — then finally persuaded most of their Afghan counterparts to get in their pickup trucks and push out.
The experience left the Americans rattled, and exposed just how far NATO coalition forces still must go to ready the Afghan security forces to protect their own country.
Rushing to failure?
The Afghan army currently numbers about 97,000 soldiers, with a target of 134,000 by November 2010 and 240,000 by 2013. Meanwhile, the end goal for the 94,000-strong national police force is 160,000. Currently, an average of 2,500 new soldiers and 2,000 new police officers are recruited each month, but the monthly attrition rate is as high as 25 percent.
To grow the force, NATO is creating incentives, including a recent $45 raise for all police. Starting salary for a police officer is now $165 a month.
The pace of training is also expanding. Army training schools in the five regional commands will soon double student numbers and shorten the courses from 10 weeks to eight. Instructors are being readied and massive building is under way to accommodate 1,400 new students this cycle, compared with 600 in previous ones, said NATO Brig. Simon Levey, commander of the Combined Training Advisory Group-Army in Kabul.
“We’ve built both infrastructure and training bases which are absolutely key, and are just coming on line now,” Levey said. “The Afghans are recruiting more vigorously. It’s something we couldn’t do before because the pipeline was not adequate.”
But mentors in Kelagay, for example, say the Afghan corps commanders for their unit refuse to allot adequate training time, regularly sending Afghan army companies out on patrols and operations without a basic knowledge of fighting.
Maj. Jeffery Leslie, whose unit of 58 U.S. mentors and support staff is embedded with a Hungarian Operational Mentor and Liaison Team at the ANA’s Camp Kelagay, wondered if unqualified recruits were being signed up in the push to build up the Afghan army so quickly.
“We suspect the ANA have bad guys in the ranks, whether they are known or unknown to anybody,” Leslie said. “There are ANA units out there that are very capable. I think it’s just too much too fast for the manpower of the country to sustain.”
Leslie said 100 new recruits were sent to Kelagay to replace dozens of deserters, but many of them ran off, too.
“I think they are hitting the bottom of the barrel and pulling in guys who just don’t want to be here,” he said.
Raiding the cookie jar
At Kelagay, the growing pains of a young force are apparent.
After a series of problems, the corps changed out the kandak commander and his executive officer in October for a commander who had run a top-rated Afghan army command before. Mentors say it’s a big improvement, but you can’t change an entire battalion by changing one man.
The mentors report missing vehicles, weapons and other military equipment, and outright theft of fuel provided by the U.S. Then there are the AWOL rates — up to 60 percent, far higher than the average for the Afghan army — and death threats leveled against two different U.S. officers who tried to stop the Afghan soldiers from stealing.
“This kandak would not be ready in five years,” said mentor Sgt. 1st Class Sam Livingston, 35, a guardsman from Cleveland. “I see so much waste and corruption. Even though it’s on a small scale, it’s an indication of what’s going on. Everyone has their hand in the cookie jar.”
Discouraged, he added: “At some point, you begin to question, ‘How much good am I personally doing here?’ ”
Douthwaite, the logistics officer, said he was threatened twice after he began trying to control the steady pilfering of U.S.-supplied fuel.
“It’s a corrupt system all the way from the corps level on down,” he said.
That’s not to say that there are no successes. At the squad level, Staff Sgt. Eric Schabell, an Ohio National Guardsman from Independence, Ky., and a former flight instructor, said he’s happy with small achievements, like teaching the Afghan soldiers how to zero a weapon — a first step in aligning its sights.
“I’ve been pleasantly surprised several times by what they already know,” Schabell said. “The [executive officer] and platoon leaders tell me they want their soldiers to be trained. They are happy we are here. They understand the soldiers don’t know their jobs. And I see that they care, and I think that keeps me from getting frustrated.”
Trust, but verify
The death threats and recent attacks by Afghan forces on U.S. and NATO soldiers make for an uneasy relationship.
In March, an Afghan soldier guarding the tower at Camp Shaheen shot three U.S. soldiers, killing two.
In Wardak province, soldiers from Company A, 2nd Battalion, 87th Infantry Regiment say they’ve come across more than 70 bombs since they arrived in the hostile Tangi Valley last summer.
Two soldiers have been killed and dozens wounded. But their Afghan army partners have never been hit.
“The cold hard facts are that in the Tangi valley, the ANA have not been attacked,” said Staff Sgt. Jim Putman of Company A’s intelligence support team. “Yet here we sit, we’ve had [70]-something IED incidents since July. One would have to assume they’re dirty or paying off the Taliban.”
The Afghan soldiers frequently find improvised explosive devices and snip the command wires instead of marking them and waiting for U.S. forces to come detonate them. The Americans say this just allows the insurgents to return and reconnect them.
Capt. Hayhatullah Adil, the Afghan company commander in the Tangi valley, said his soldiers don’t get hit because they are good at looking for bombs and command wires. Plus, he said, there is a higher Taliban bounty for blowing up U.S. troops, and the villagers know there will be trouble if his soldiers are blown up.
“I will light up the whole village,” Adil said.
Despite the concerns, Marine Staff Sgt. Benjamin Ricard, part of a training team working with the Afghan army, defended the Afghan soldiers last month.
“I walk in front of them, I walk behind them and they all got loaded weapons,” he said. “I don’t question it at all.”
On Nov. 13, Ricard and another Marine were severely injured when a bomb went off under their Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle. Army Spc. Christopher J. Coffland and a 20-year-old interpreter were killed. U.S. soldiers said they were leading Afghan soldiers to a recently discovered bomb site.
“I have no choice,” Ricard said days before the blast. “It’s my job to trust them.”
Stars and Stripes reporters Leo Shane III and Geoff Ziezulewicz contributed to this story.
http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section+104&article=66544
Thursday, November 26, 2009
It may be difficult and dangerous to train Afghan men to be part of national police and military forces
One of the principal reasons for the escalation of US troops to Afghanistan according to the Obama administration is that it will provide a greater number of military advisers to help train an Afghan police force and army. The idea is that the sooner Americans can train enough Afghan police and soldiers, the sooner the US troops can be drawn down. Other posts on this blog indicate that Afghan recruits often leave such training after they have been paid. In the following commentary, Brian Cloughley identifies other difficulties related to cultural differences that may make the American training efforts ineffective and even dangerous. You may recall that there were similar efforts in Vietnam back in the late 1960s and early 1970s that ultimately failed. Cloughley statements are quoted on Juan Cole's blog, Informed Comment, this morning (11-26-09).
Bob Sheak
---------------------------
Juan Cole writes: Brian Cloughley warned last September [9-17-09 in the Dailey Times of Pakistan]. Cole makes some statements, while quoting directly from Cloughley's article.
'In Kabul last week, “an American service member and an Afghan police officer got into an argument because the American was drinking water in front of the Afghan police, who are not eating or drinking...because of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan...[The policeman] shot the American and seriously wounded him, while other American troops responded and seriously wounded the [policeman].” This depressing cameo encapsulates the problem for foreign troops in Afghanistan. And it shows the problems that Afghans have with ignorant foreigners whose boorish insensitivity would be laughable were it not so dangerous. . . . In Afghanistan the training course is ten weeks, and 90 percent of recruits are illiterate and language-incompatible with their peers, let alone the foreigners. Afghan instructors are keen but barely effective and the logistics system is a tattered joke. Some foreign instructors may be good, but most are depressingly ignorant of language, culture and customs. It is reported that “As part of the Obama administration’s surge, the 4th Brigade of the 82nd Airborne is being deployed to serve as trainers. This brigade is a regular Army brigade not specifically structured for the advisory mission.” My case rests.'
Bob Sheak
---------------------------
Juan Cole writes: Brian Cloughley warned last September [9-17-09 in the Dailey Times of Pakistan]. Cole makes some statements, while quoting directly from Cloughley's article.
'In Kabul last week, “an American service member and an Afghan police officer got into an argument because the American was drinking water in front of the Afghan police, who are not eating or drinking...because of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan...[The policeman] shot the American and seriously wounded him, while other American troops responded and seriously wounded the [policeman].” This depressing cameo encapsulates the problem for foreign troops in Afghanistan. And it shows the problems that Afghans have with ignorant foreigners whose boorish insensitivity would be laughable were it not so dangerous. . . . In Afghanistan the training course is ten weeks, and 90 percent of recruits are illiterate and language-incompatible with their peers, let alone the foreigners. Afghan instructors are keen but barely effective and the logistics system is a tattered joke. Some foreign instructors may be good, but most are depressingly ignorant of language, culture and customs. It is reported that “As part of the Obama administration’s surge, the 4th Brigade of the 82nd Airborne is being deployed to serve as trainers. This brigade is a regular Army brigade not specifically structured for the advisory mission.” My case rests.'
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