DO AFGHAN POLICE HELP OR HINDER THE MISSION?

It seems that the Canucks have their hands full with the Afghan police. An AFP reporter in Maiwand (famous for the 1880 defeat of the British there in the Second Anglo-Afghan war – link below) details how the Canadian Army is trying to prop up Afghan cops that look and act more like stoned out hippies.
“Colourful ribbons tied to their Kalashnikovs and opium flowers decorating a van, police in flip-flops,” she writes.

This is both Taliban and poppy country - a key place for security to take hold, obviously. But unfortunately its one of those places you rarely hear about in the U.S. press.

It’s common knowledge among U.S. troops that work alongside Afghan forces that the Afghan military are mostly scruffy, barely-trained guys in uniform. This week – the press reported that the Afghans have wrapped up their first full-scale military operation without U.S. or NATO forces…other than NATO-supplied air support, logistics etc.

I really wonder how much involvement foreign troops had in planning and executing Operation Nawrozi (New Year) in Helmand over the past week. Or is it just another PR tactic to put on an Afghan face?
You have to give the Afghan troops credit, they are serving their country. But they are surely less-disciplined that U.S. soldiers.However, they carry much less gear and can scramble up hilltops much faster than our guys – after all they have been scrambling up hills in high altitudes their entire lives. They would stay at some lonely observation posts on guard all day and night, with few gripes. And many appeared to want missions to succeed. Some want peace and security and many were proud to be soldiers for Afghanistan.

Others are thugs in uniform. One Afghan soldier, Janet Ghul, told me during a 2005 interview near Tora Bora that the Americans are okay because we bring aid supplies to the people – “But if the Americans ever start acting like the Russians – we’ll kick you out too.”
I nearly slugged this ungrateful shit – why the hell are we risking our lives out here – under the guise that we are establishing Afghan freedom and democracy – only to be judged by some uneducated Afghan trooper, likely paid with U.S. taxpayer money. (I could not use his comment in my story because I was writing DoD news/spin propaganda at the time. – see link below)

But he spoke the truth, as angry as it made me then – these rugged mountain people have banded together to force out two modern armies in the past 150 years – the British and the Russians – both who had power and technology well-advanced for their times. So, maybe his rant should be a warning.

Our guys never have a ton of confidence in the Afghan military – even less for the so-called Afghan police. I remember seeing them asleep on cots outside a mud hut – which was supposed to be a police checkpoint. One U.S. troop told me they called the Afghan police – “Klucks.” I’m not sure what that really meant, but it does not seem to be a term of endearment.

The AFP writes…The Canadians do not really expect this small post to do much to stop the Taliban. "Two or three guys in a hut, armed with rifles, could not do much if they were attacked. They could not even stop a vehicle," said one soldier.
The Canadian soldiers suspect the Afghan police are high from smoking opium. Thankfully, the drug has yet to become popular among U.S. and NATO troops – as it had been in the Soviet military by the mid-1980's when they were starting to get their asses severely beaten and morales hit bottom for Russian troops.

Frankly, I can’t imagine trying to fight a war stoned.

AFP STORY LINK:
http://www.france24.com/france24Public/en/administration/afp-News.html?id=070328023525.jf7s0ouv&cat=null

BRITISH DEFEAT AT MAIWAND:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Maiwand

US/AFGHAN TROOPS BACK AT TORA BORA:
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=31529

Taliban tactics, are they effective?

March 21 was Nawroz - the Afghan New Year
So, the Taliban are kicking off this Spring with some brutal tactics. They cut off the head of an Afghan truck driver in Zabul, along the main road from Kabul to Kandahar. The poor dude was one of hundreds of Afghans trying to make a buck by running supplies in these ancient “jingle trucks” to and from U.S. and NATO bases. Long supply lines plagued every army in Afghanistan since the time of Alexander. Unlike Iraq, U.S. forces do not provide convoy escorts for the jingle trucks as they make their long journey from the nearest deep water port in Karachi – where much of our supplies are offloaded. These guys travel along major routes and into the remote valleys where our troops have forward operating bases, (FOBs). Last week, insurgents in the Nuristan/Kunar region cut the ears and noses off three drivers supplying a US base. And apparently, the driver of an Italian journalist was beheaded in Helmand.
What does all this brutality mean? It has shock value in the Western press. It must also leave an impression on average Afghans. Educated Afghans – like those I know from Kabul – consider these acts just as barbaric as we do. Others, in the uneducated illiterate population may see this as just punishment for those assisting the infidels – just punishment carried out by holy warriors – a concept quite far from Western comprehension.
Italian journalist Daniele Mastrogiacomo gave Agence France Press and interesting glimpse into the insurgency when he described the warrior monks who held him captive.
He told of a near obsession with their weapons, “using them, cleaning them, revering them."
The insurgents, or Taliban, who captured him spent two hours a day cleaning their weapons. US infantry are also experts handling weapons, and I’ve seen some obsessive cleaners among them. But they are also addicted to Western trappings – Ipods, video games, DVDs and Internet chats with family back home. Getting their tour done and going home alive and in one piece is the focus.
Mastrogiacomo said the Taliban are between 20 and 25 years old, poor young boys, without culture or human, sexual, emotional or romantic experience. They are always on the move, only visit their families once in 40 days – but most of all have no salary, they live to fight for their cause. That’s powerful, when US troops fight to keep themselves and their buddies safe for their yearlong tour so they can go home.

Link to Story on Mastrogiacomo's release/ prisoner exchange
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/22/world/europe/22italy.html?em&ex=1174708800&en=6c5876ab328111c4&ei=5087%0A