Afghanistan - Systemic Homicide Threat

Via the New York Times.

KABUL, Afghanistan — American and other coalition forces here are being killed in increasing numbers by the very Afghan soldiers they fight alongside and train, in attacks motivated by deep-seated animosity between the supposedly allied forces, according to American and Afghan officers and a classified coalition report obtained by The New York Times.

A decade into the war in Afghanistan, the report makes clear that these killings have become the most visible symptom of a far deeper ailment plaguing the war effort: the contempt each side holds for the other, never mind the Taliban. The ill will and mistrust run deep among civilians and militaries on both sides, raising questions about what future role the United States and its allies can expect to play in Afghanistan.

Selected quotes follow.

“The sense of hatred is growing rapidly,” said an Afghan Army colonel. He described his troops as “thieves, liars and drug addicts,” but also said that the Americans were “rude, arrogant bullies who use foul language.”
“There are pervasive feelings of animosity and distrust A.N.S.F. personnel have towards U.S. forces,” the report said, using military’s abbreviation for Afghan security forces. The list of Afghan complaints against the Americans ran the gamut from the killing of civilians to urinating in public and cursing.

“U.S. soldiers don’t listen, they are too arrogant,” said one of the Afghan soldiers surveyed, according to the report. “They get upset due to their casualties, so they take it out on civilians during their searches,” said another.

“U.S. soldiers’ perceptions of A.N.A. members were extremely negative across categories,” the report found, using the initials for the Afghan National Army. Those categories included “trustworthiness on patrol,” “honesty and integrity,” and “drug abuse.” The Americans also voiced suspicions about the Afghans being in league with the Taliban, a problem well documented among the Afghan police.

“They are stoned all the time; some even while on patrol with us,” one soldier was quoted as saying. Another said, “They are pretty much gutless in combat; we do most of the fighting.”

From my second-hand knowledge of the situation, this article is a very balanced accounting of the issue. The sooner we leave that country the better.

What a mess. It'll be nice when we can pull out and let them start hating us as an independent nation, like Iraq.

I'm starting to come around to the position that our efforts in Afghanistan are counterproductive as well, but I'm not sure what the sell to the American public will be to get us out.

If we go with the whole "we got Osama" angle and declare the mission accomplished, the parallels with the Iraq War are all too obvious and the eventual downward spiral for Afghanistan into civil war and a Taliban resurgence would be hard to paint as a "victory". Seeing as our presence there has and continues to make us unpopular, our leaving will almost necessarily result in it becoming a haven for folks who wish us harm again. This doesn't make it terribly different from Iraq or Somalia, but neither of them were bought by the American people as the reason for our intervention. Bush may have tried to sell Iraq as the "central front in the war on terror", but aside from a few turdheads, just about no one believed it.

The question becomes whether there's anything we can do to prevent all that from happening, Paleocon. America has a hard-on for doing whatever it takes to keep soldiers from "dying in vain," but if an effort is futile then that's just flag talk for sacrificing more lives before accepting the inevitable.

Maybe we can slip out quietly once we're openly at war with Iran.

LobsterMobster wrote:

The question becomes whether there's anything we can do to prevent all that from happening, Paleocon. America has a hard-on for doing whatever it takes to keep soldiers from "dying in vain," but if an effort is futile then that's just flag talk for sacrificing more lives before accepting the inevitable.

Maybe we can slip out quietly once we're openly at war with Iran.

I think the only two US presidents to successfully pull our dicks out of the meat grinder were Ronald Reagan (after the US Marine Base bombing in Lebanon) and Bill Clinton (after the Blackhawk Down fiasco). No one else has ever had the courage to do so when anything was on the line. Nixon pulled out of Vietnam, but by then his career was over anyway.

I was listening to an NPR segment the other day talking about how the realities in Afghanistan are changing so rapidly that he doubts the US can keep up. As he put it, attitudes are changing daily and the Taliban is now a legitimate political party who is properly participating in the political process. He described the Taliban as now being a bunch of middle aged guys who have gotten sick of a decade of fighting and just want to go home to their families. He seemed to imply that it was time for the US to just step away and let the country govern itself because there is absolutely no point for us to be there now. To which, I agree. When the people we're supposed to be "helping" hate and kill us maybe we're not really helping them. Ya know?

Kehama wrote:

I was listening to an NPR segment the other day talking about how the realities in Afghanistan are changing so rapidly that he doubts the US can keep up. As he put it, attitudes are changing daily and the Taliban is now a legitimate political party who is properly participating in the political process. He described the Taliban as now being a bunch of middle aged guys who have gotten sick of a decade of fighting and just want to go home to their families. He seemed to imply that it was time for the US to just step away and let the country govern itself because there is absolutely no point for us to be there now. To which, I agree. When the people we're supposed to be "helping" hate and kill us maybe we're not really helping them. Ya know?

Though true enough, the process of disengaging from conflict is always more complicated than that. It is far harder to stop a war than to start one.

I think the only two US presidents to successfully pull our dicks out of the meat grinder were Ronald Reagan (after the US Marine Base bombing in Lebanon) and Bill Clinton (after the Blackhawk Down fiasco).

I am pretty sure that Clinton's commitment in Somalia was hamstrung by Congress; the pullout was inevitable after the attack, but the attack only succeeded because the heavier forces that would have dealt with it more easily were not allowed to be sent to Somalia. I could be remembering incorrectly, though. I do remember him being attacked by Republicans for the commitment of forces, however.

Oh, and Reagan happily involved us in a covert war in Central America where our forces were supporting death squads and the like. I don't think he's a good example of moral courage in this regard either; Iran Contra stands against that idea.

Kehama wrote:

I was listening to an NPR segment the other day talking about how the realities in Afghanistan are changing so rapidly that he doubts the US can keep up. As he put it, attitudes are changing daily and the Taliban is now a legitimate political party who is properly participating in the political process. He described the Taliban as now being a bunch of middle aged guys who have gotten sick of a decade of fighting and just want to go home to their families. He seemed to imply that it was time for the US to just step away and let the country govern itself because there is absolutely no point for us to be there now. To which, I agree. When the people we're supposed to be "helping" hate and kill us maybe we're not really helping them. Ya know?

And just because they want to elect a government that hates us doesn't mean it's not a real government. Well, at least not to most people. Santorum seems to feel otherwise and I know that a lot of people get uncomfortable when you bring up Hamas.

Also wasnt there just an incident with the French?

I know comparisons with Vietnam are often frowned upon, but this is a case where there are some real similarities to the relation of U.S. troops at the ARVN in the Vietnam War. The ARVN were badly-led, lousy soldiers whom the U.S. troops looked down upon, and the U.S. kept pouring troops in to take up the slack. You had U.S. forces fighting for years without a clear definition of what achievable victory would mean, and growing frustrations led to more and more problems with the local populace.

Get the hell out. Now. If you don't have a definition of "win", you can't win.

Didn't Afghanistan have democratic elections? Don't they have a government that represents the voting populations' wishes? Have they stated a desire to have us leave?

"Greeted as liberators"

Oh sorry, that was a different war.

Anyone else feel like we owe every single member of our armed forces a huge apology?

LobsterMobster wrote:

And just because they want to elect a government that hates us doesn't mean it's not a real government. Well, at least not to most people. Santorum seems to feel otherwise and I know that a lot of people get uncomfortable when you bring up Hamas.

Exactly. We just went in saying we wanted to establish a democracy, like we always do. It seems to show how disingenuous we are with that once a country has elections and we say "Well... yeah. We wanted you to have democracy but not if you were going to elect those guys." It just seems very imperial of us to smash apart a country on the other side of the world and then tell them we know how to put it back together better than they do. Especially since 95% of the people in the US probably couldn't point out where Afghanistan is on the map and know absolutely nothing about their culture.

ranalin wrote:

Also wasnt there just an incident with the French?

Going off the top of my head, 4 or 5 French soldiers were just killed by Afghan soldiers and now the French are considering ending their commitment to Afghanistan early.

A big part of the problem is that it's not like there's a strong Afghan national identity; Afghanistan is the nation it is because that's where it was most convenient to draw up the borders when European nations were divvying up the world. Regional and tribal identities are significantly more important than being "Afghani", so our attempt to build a strong nation is pretty much guaranteed to fail.

MilkmanDanimal wrote:

A big part of the problem is that it's not like there's a strong Afghan national identity; Afghanistan is the nation it is because that's where it was most convenient to draw up the borders when European nations were divvying up the world. Regional and tribal identities are significantly more important than being "Afghani", so our attempt to build a strong nation is pretty much guaranteed to fail.

Minor nitpick: Afghani is a language and a currency. Otherwise it's always Afghan.

Anyone else feel like we owe every single member of our armed forces a huge apology?

We owe them a lot more than that, and of course the Republicans are trying hard to welsh on that debt.

I've worked at a NATO HQ in Brunssum. Primary operation is ISAF and read and heard lots about the ongoing operations.
This is unfortunately nothing new and is an ongoing problem. Thing is, we have no business in there at all anymore.
And that is my personal opinion. The government does not want us there really, they want the money
we bring.
Druglords have built great new well guarded mansions. Drugs production is thriving. And yes, we are
also doing a lot of good things in there. But that's not what we went in for. It's such a hoax.

Anyway. Will leave you with this nice cartoon, that the Political Advisor to that HQ, put up for the rest to see:
IMAGE(http://img46.imageshack.us/img46/5113/afgkarzai.jpg)

IMAGE(http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s149/MilkmanDanimal/Vizzini.jpg)' alt='IMAGE(IMAGE(http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s149/MilkmanDanimal/Vizzini.jpg))' />

Ha!

Sparhawk wrote:

Image of Karzai not helping

The only thing the artist got wrong with that cartoon is that the soldiers should be pushing the rope.

And Karzai should have a knife.