Patrick Cockburn: Deaths bring whole Afghan strategy into question
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I was in an office in Kabul this summer being lectured by a mid-ranking official about the successful work of the government. "Completely off the record, what do you really think of this government?" I asked him, not expecting a very interesting reply.
"So long as you promise not to reveal my identity, I can tell you that this government is made up of killers and crooks," answered the official with scarcely a pause. He gave some examples of government-inspired killings and corruption.
In this tradition of carefully calculated treachery, the shooting dead of five British soldiers by an Afghan policeman operating with them is hardly surprising. Afghan leaders have long been notorious for concealing their true loyalties and changing sides. But the potential political consequences are very serious. The US and British strategy to build up the Afghan security forces to as many as 400,000 may prove impossible because the state is too weak and too poor and commands the loyalty of too few Afghans.
The reputation of Afghans for always defeating their enemies is based in part on the speed with which they join the winner. The Taliban advances in the 1990s were notable less for military victories than local warlords defecting to them after receiving a large bribe. In the US war to overthrow the Taliban in 2001, the same process went into reverse as the CIA bought off the same warlords who then sent their men home without a fight.
Nor is this the first time that Western forces have been turned on by their Afghan colleagues. In Kunduz province north of Kabul earlier this summer, a policeman shot eight of his colleagues and turned his police post over to the Taliban. An American military trainer was shot and wounded by one of the men he was training when he drank water in front of them when they were fasting during Ramadan.
The shaky loyalty of the Afghan police and, to a lesser extent, the army to their own government undermines US and British plans to hold the line against the Taliban while a strong local security force is built up. US political leaders speak of a force of 240,000 soldiers and 160,000 police to be trained in the next few years. In reality, though, nobody knows the current size of the Afghan security forces.
The army is supposedly 90,000 strong, but this figure may be grossly over-stated. "My educated guess is that such an army simply does not exist," writes Ann Jones, an American specialist on Afghanistan. "I knew men who repeatedly went through ANA [Afghan National Army] training to get the promised Kalashnikov and the pay. Then they went home for a while and often returned some weeks later to enlist under a different name."
Even so, the reputation of the army among ordinary Afghans is much better than that of the police. Some of these are paid a pittance for a very dangerous job. They are often stationed in vulnerable outposts and checkpoints. Their training is frequently almost non-existent. Before the presidential election in August, policemen being trained by a US security firm who had been receiving eight weeks' training saw this reduced to three weeks, so they could be sent to guard polling stations in southern Afghanistan.
More senior policemen can make money through aiding drug smugglers. General Aminullah Amarkhail, the former head of security at Kabul airport, who was sacked for his success in arresting heroin smugglers, says that the profits are such that jobs are bought and sold for large sums. "You have to pay $10,000 [£6,000] in bribes to get a job as a district police chief," he says, "and up to $150,000 to get a job as chief of police anywhere on the border – because there you can make a lot of money."
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Comments
Logic is a key element for producing a positive outcome. Otherwise, you're just running on luck and has Dirty Harry Callahan would have said to Brown years ago, "You're sh*t out of luck" and would have dispensed with him.
Brown persists repetitively, with the unflagging power of an android, with the same illogical statements about "keeping the streets of Britain safer" by the military remaining in Afghanistan. He adds to that about training and mentoring the police and the Afghan army.
But he never explains who the members of those groups are really loyal to. We know from a blizzard of reports over the years that those guys are not to be trusted - how could anyone tell where their loyalties lie, other than it being to whom they receive their under-the-table money from?
The Karzai government is more like a Karzi Government - Karzai and his band of thieves they have been corrupt and incompetent since their inception...everyone says so.
Yet Brown, with a wisdom matching that of Pooh Bear, formally acknowledges Karzai as the President although the election was a fraud, and with the Opposition refusing to enter into a rerun - why would a second ballot be less fraudulent when there's massive drug money sloshing around for anyone who wants it.
So Britain bases its strategy on reliance upon untrustworthy people who report to a corrupt government - and that makes sense as a strategy?
With a broken political system in Britain, not just a Broken Society, those who could say and do something about so much injustice and bad policy choose not to do so - in same way that Britain rushed off to the Falklands War, the Second Iraq War and this Afghan War. All could have been avoided, should have been avoided.
Hardly any politicians can take any credit from their actions and non-actions in this regard.
To successfully fight insurgents in a country, one needs a reliable local partner who is accepted by the majority of the population, and the population can be clearly separated from the insurgents. This condition is totally absent in present-day Afghanistan. So, the Western forces either have to quit, or to kill as much as they can. I wonder whether the young western soldiers and their family and friends at their homes like that option.
I like Mr. Patrick Cockburn's stories. He has an eye. Help the West to find their exit strategy.
Before I make my point here, I deplore the post which begins" who cares" . What is brainless excrement like this doing in this forum - and others- I thought this was a serious issue ?
If what you say srajul, is correct, as seems likely, what is point of any outside agency being there, each and every one of them is a sitting target, not unlike those cut-out figures in shooting ranges, the UN , health agencies to our service personnel. The regime's sole feature appears to be plain old fashioned cynical treachery. What would you suggest, I'm guessing that you know a lot more of this subject than you do ?
Correction, I meant to say you know more about this subject than I do...
1) There's no North and South Afghanistan, so the Taliban does not have a state supporting them (Pakistan is not a safe haven for the Taliban in the same way that North Vietnam was for the Viet Kong).
2) None of Afghanistan's neighbours are providing it with weapons to attack the Afghan Government (China and North Vietnam provided the Viet Kong with most of their weapons).
3) The Government of Vietnam was not elected by the people and was not supported by them. The people of Afghanistan were able to choose their own Government.
Stop looking for similarities and try focusing on just how different these two situations are.
2) Who cares where they are coming from, they obviously have enough.
3) Did you watch the news recently? The people of Afghanistan did not choose their own government, it chose itself. In the same way as Diem became the 'democratically' elected president of Vietnam, through fraud. Yes he was overthrown in a coup but he was supported despite winning a fraudulent election.
Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Trite I know, but still true.
You are spot on again, and succinct as ever, Diem was American installed, their puppet, and as is usually the case, extremely corrupt, which presumably is why the Yanks loved him so much.
Hitler studied history deeply, but as usual, as with most megalomaniacs, he drew the wrong conclusions, is that why Henry Ford dismissed the study of it as bunk, since the subject is, so subjective ?
But where here is the consideration or even mention of the thousands of "precious lives" or the "irreparable loss" suffered by the Afghanis??? I just see so much ignorant an hypocritical blame of Afghanis with ad hominem such as 'untrustworthy', 'treachourous' etc.
No-one likes to have someone else's cultural values forced on them.
And that is what we are about in Afghansitan.
So what do we expect?
Here's a radical proposal:
Better to make an official and heartfelt apology, (can politicians admit mistakes and genuinely say "sorry?) and THEN give the money spent on policing the country with oxymoronic 'peace forces' (and expensive armaments, helicopters, artillery, bombers, jets, etc.,) to an independent islamic body to help rebuild Afghanistan the way Afghanis want it (in ways that do not nor can be seen to serve western interests)
I don't remember Afghanistan declaring war against the UK, less still Iraq. I remember the UK joining forces with the genocidal Americans (if you're tempted to cry foul of this comment think Vietnam, East Timor or any number of Central/South American states in which the US has murdered millions under 'preventive' wars and 'interventions') in their crusade against Afghanistan and Iraq without provocation from either country. Al Qaeda is a stateless loose network of like minded terrorists, not a country.
Until we (and by this I mean we who comment) drop our imperial view on the World which says we can do as we please in any country that doesn't toe our line we will forever be entangled in unnecessary wars of choice, slaugthering millions in the process and defending our behaviour by demonising those upon whom we tread.
It is we lay people who not only allow this to go on by our political ambivalence and lack of democratic engagement but who are responsible for what goes on in our name. If you have to sympathise with our dead soldiers do so because of the tragedy of their volunteering to pursue imperial agendas on the UK payroll, but remember also that they kill over 50 innocent civilians who DO NOT have a choice for every dead soldier.
Soldiers have no friends anywhere there is conflict. Army training has not ensured they do not allow a situation where ONE man from the indigenous population finds himself armed with firepower to easily kill fifty men, not five.
UK forces training is shown to be appalling when this happens among people known for their fanatical suicides and easily bought loyalty.
Lt Colonels and above take note - the man got on a BIKE and RODE away after killing your men, no doubt you'll find a shoulder to bear the blame stoically.
Learn the lessons and move on - getting to be a real old chestnut now.
Get the training sorted out - - our soldiers are dying for lack of it.
Match Report
The Taleban entertained visitors Team GBR yesterday in what was expcted to be a straight forward victory for the visitors against the minnows, but which ended with Team GBR being routed by the home side.
Gordon Brown's side were already without their star players due to a combination of death, injury and lack of equipment, and started the match on the backfoot. Despite investing billions in the pre-season transfer window, Team GBR were outsmarted by the home side in a tense stadium packed with an intimidating home crowd and only a handful of visiting supporters, mainly British cabinet members.
With a rather disparate side, Taleban's star striker managed to score all five goals with spectacular shots from close range, leaving Team GBR's defence all but, well, dead in their tracks. The first shot came at 10 minutes beating the defender Matthew Telford. The second and third both came at 16 minutes, beating both defender James Major and goalkeeper Darren Chant. Then at 17 minutes, Taleban's hot shooter beat defender Nicholas Webster-Smith. Taleban then put the match beyond the grasp of the visitors, with a strike past defender Steven Boote. During the match, the manager Gordon Brown fielded no fewer than six subsitutes to replace severely injured players.
The fans are now clamouring for the resignation of Team GBR's manager, Gordon Brown, and after such a bitter defeat, who can blame them. After his impressive 5 goal tally, Taleban's star striker is reported to be seeking a transfer to an English league side, with Luton, Rochdale and Bradford showing keen interest in signing him.
The solution is to withdraw. The threat to us comes from people who come from Afghanistan and surrounding countries. The money spent on guarding Afghanistan from the Taliban or anyone else would be better spent guarding our own borders. People can only enter Britain by air, sea or tunnel.
All that is required is to declare certain states "enemy or unfriendly" states so their citizens are "enemy or "unfriendly aliens". All visitors from such countries must have a genuine need to be here, have visas and UK born British sponsors who put up forfeitable bonds of say £10,000 and who will be accountable for them on pain of imprisonment if they disappear or commit any crime. The same bonds and sponsorship should be required for all aliens from friendly countries not on tourist visas (which will be unavailable to those from unfriendly countries).
We had nihilist threats in the early 1900s and a system of border controls was introduced that worked. Every alien visitor must be visited by police or trained soldiers on a regular basis given all should have supplied addresses of UK born British sponsors, all of whom also must have been CRB checked. With computers it should a be a lot easier to keep track of people - the US can supply the handbook and software. It won't cost more than the Afghan war and it is time we started having a can do attitude to border controls. EU citizens and residents will get the same treatment (i.e. their citizens will be treated as aliens) if their nation states don't have the same strong systems in place, otherwise people will just get in through the back door.
It just requires political will, and a bit of organisation. What we have now is a farce with no one keeping track of over staying "visitors" or tourists, failure to deport overstayers, failure to deny National Insurance numbers to foreigners, failure to check on aliens being at their sponsors' or declared residential addresses, and failure to send straight back at port of entry people outside the entry criteria for aliens from dodgy countries.
As a member of the EU how would you reckon, they could do that?
Then there is Ireland, which is another story.
All Irish citizens have freedom of movement in the UK, it's part of another treaty you would have tear up.
Most EU countries ignore any EU laws when their national interest is threatened, so why should we be any different.
Terrorism threats override treaty obligations if other countries allow terrorists free passage to Britain.
ROI has been fairly complicit in not pursuing IRA men over the past few decades... Britain just lacked the political will to pursue IRA sympathisers over the border, and lacked the clout to make the USA deal with them. While IRA violence was limited on mainland Britain, no one here cared enough about Ulster's victims to make life so unpleasant for the Irish Government that it would have to take a harder line - pressure was put on Irish Govts and running across the border became riskier and riskier.
Times have changed and atrocities cause knee jerk reactions that take no account of the niceties of treaties: ROI resistence to implementing the same border controls as the UK in the way I have suggested is not likely to be very strong if nasty things happen. The threat of Islamic violence is strengthened by our presence in Islamic countries. NATO has no business to be in Afghanistan. Once we remove our army of occupation, we have to protect ourselves from the enemy within by deporting anyone who shouldn't be here and making it very hard for people who want to do us mischief to get in... that will apply to all European nations who have their own problems with unwanted visitors from outside the EU. Freedom of movement is wholly dependent on nothing unpleasant happening: just wait and see what happens when, for example, a bomb planted by a UK terrorist hits Paris: Schengen will go out the window in hours, and the borders will be closed, regardless of what EU law says.
Also an Irish citizen or a British subject can enter either country without a passport, it is the law.
I do not need a passport to go to Ireland according to the state.
What pressure was that?
I think you are making this up, as the Irish Government had no say in what the IRA did so no amount of pressure could have changed that.
Talking through your arse, I suspect.
None of your relatives involved here then, which is presumably why you can make such a smug comment.. well done !
most of the western do not know this.
May we please have a translation, are you for the war or against ?