We're told that a major (or perhaps the major) focus of American involvement in Afghanistan right now is training Afghan troops to take the place of American troops who can then leave. Today, however, AP reveals how that's going, at least how it was going in late 2009:
As one of the deadliest battles of the war in Afghanistan raged, Afghan soldiers ran, hid and even stole personal items from the American troops fighting and dying at a remote outpost.
In interviews conducted after the attack, the Latvians told the U.S. investigators that the Afghan soldiers lacked "discipline, motivation and initiative."
But "the U.S. has spent billions of dollars since 2001 training and equipping the Afghan army and police" to produce those soldiers lacking "discipline, motivation and initiative." And who were they fighting, the opposition who killed 8 and wounded 22 American soldiers? Why, simply another group of Afghan soldiers on whom quite likely no money at all had been spent on training, and yet who were clearly filled with "discipline, motivation and initiative."
Why? Because those Afghans were fighting for something they believe in - expelling foreign occupying forces from their country, as opposed to the Afghan soldiers fighting (or not fighting) with the foreign occupiers, who were there because they were being paid, and probably in spite of their opposition to foreign occupation.
Further evidence of the same "problem" (problem for American forces) can be found in today's New York Times, where we learn that "Taliban infiltration in the Afghan National Security Forces." At least, that's what the U.S. government wants us to believe. The real story, however, is further down in the article:
But while the Taliban often takes credit for these attacks, NATO officials say the majority of the episodes stem from disagreements and arguments that escalate into violence.
“These incidents are exacerbated by austere battlefield conditions, combat stress, fatigue and cultural misunderstandings,” Colonel Simons said.
What the U.S. government doesn't want us to understand is that, while they use the term "Taliban" as a catch-all phrase to describe forces fighting the U.S. occupation of Afghanistan, and simultaneously try to make it synonymous in the minds of Americans with "Al Qaeda," not only are the Taliban and Al Qaeda not the same thing, but many and probably most of those fighting the Americans are not really "Taliban" at all, but simply Afghans opposed to the foreign occupation of their country. "Colonel Simons" admission suggests that the majority of such "fragging" deaths have nothing to do with "infiltration" at all, much less "Taliban," but simply come from Afghans who were induced by money to join the government forces but came to realize that they hated the occupation more than they loved the money, and were willing to commit what are almost universally suicide missions to express that opposition. A far cry from the "trained" forces who could be seen "curled up in a fetal position" during the Keating attack.
The conclusion could not be simpler: U.S. out of Afghanistan!