By Steve Hynd
A member of the Afghan security forces has shot dead to U.S. troops and wounded two others. AP says it was an Afghan policeman who carried out the shooting, while they were all on a patrol. Reuters says the US soldiers were shot in their sleep after returning from the patrol and that the attacker was a soldier in the Afghan army. VOA News says the attacker was an officer. Whoever and whatever, he escaped.
The AP version notes that this is hardly the first recent example of "friendly fire". There have been at least five such incidents in the last year, scattered all over the country. By contrast, there have only been three such attacks by local security forces on US troops in Iraq since 2003, and they've all occured in Mosul.
Such attacks are bound to raise questions about just how possible a "they will stand up so we can stand down" exit strategy will be in Afghanistan. General McChrystal has stressed a massive increase in the Afghan security forces - one well beyond fiscal sustainability by Afghanistan alone - as a key part of his counter-insurgency plan. Yet all the indicators are that the security forces are a mirror of the nation and the government - endemically corrupt, with deeply divided loyalties and plagued by illiteracy.
In a new report, the Defense Department's Inspector General is pessimistic.
"Expansion of the ANSF [Afghan National Security Forces] beyond currently approved levels will face major challenges," the 224-page report concludes, listing a major one as "time necessary to develop ethical, competent leaders."
And:
�Systemic� corruption starts at �the highest levels of the Ministry of Defense and general staff,� the report said.
U.S. and NATO trainers �repeatedly expressed their frustration with what they perceived as a pervasive lack of personal and professional responsibility and accountability,� the report said.
The Afghan military has failed to establish �a visible, credible and enforced standard of army and police conduct,� feeding public distrust of the country�s military and police, undermining confidence in the government, the report said.
As James Denselow at The Guardian writes, ethnic rivalry is a deep and abiding problem too.
Patrick Hennessey, a former soldier who spent time leading an operational mentoring and liaison team, training and mentoring the Afghan army, revealed at a recent lecture the challenges facing the Ana, in particular the dangers of trying to turn them into a Nato-esque force. Hennessey told of the small numbers of Pashtun troops fighting in Helmand and how a Tajik-officer-dominated force could be construed as the "Northern Alliance" with new uniforms rather than a national force.
A recent Rand report into the Ana outlined the difficulty in melding of ethnic groups:
Tensions run high among some groups, and their members have little first-hand experience associating with people from other groups. Adapting to such an intense cultural change takes time, and many do not make the transition.
A national identity and unity of purpose are the critical bedrocks of the success or failure of the Ana and by extension the longer-term plans of Isaf for the country. Whereas in Iraq the US disbanded a national army and then used the surge to create the space to reconstitute it from the bottom up, in Afghanistan the initial war was won by choosing one side in a civil war. With continued reports emerging concerning Hamid Karzai's election corruption and questions about his ability to unite the country, the critical question for the western military alliance is whether it is possible build a national army in a deeply divided nation.
Afghan security forces are supposed to contribute 400,000 of the half million troops and para-military police that both doctrine and Gen McChrystal say are needed for any kind of effective counter-insurgency campaign. Yet McChrystal also says the next year will determine success or failure while its clear that Afghan security forces cannot be stood up to strength in that time-frame. So where's the shortfall in that crucual year to come from?
Expect more requests for troop increases if Obama green-lights McChrystal's plan. There's simply no other way to square the force ratio circle.
And if Afghan forces cannot be stood up to required levels - and any minimal level of efficiency - at all?
Then expect McChrystal and the COIN crowd to be asking for even more escalation in a Vietnam-like death of a hundred surges.
The Afghan Security Forces meme was never anything but a pipe dream or a diversion. Forty thousand troops now another 50 in 6 months another 50 thousand after that. Without a draft 150 thousand is probably the most they can do and that won't be enough for a successful occupation.
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