Also see: AmeriKan Justice Arrives in Afghanistan
I guess they will need to do more than watch television, huh?
"US overestimating ability of Afghan military, report says; Finding takes aim at prime element of war strategy" by Anne Flaherty, Associated Press | June 29, 2010
WASHINGTON — The United States has often overestimated the ability of Afghan military and police units to fight on their own, jeopardizing the strategy to win the war and bring troops home, according to an independent report released yesterday.
We call them LIES around here!
The investigation is the first objective look at the rating system the military has used for the past five years to judge the effectiveness of Afghan troops. Its findings contradict upbeat assessments recently provided by senior military commanders overseeing the war.
The capability of Afghan forces is considered the single biggest indicator of whether the war is going well and is seen as the linchpin in the US strategy....
Silly me, I thought it was the number of dead people (or lack thereof).
The United States has spent $27 billion on the effort — about half of the money it has poured into rebuilding Afghanistan. But the program has been hobbled by a shortage of trainers and available Afghans, and by spikes in violence....
I'm SURE GLAD you had $27 BILLION dollars to WASTE, American taxpayers!
Related: The OverBearing Government of Afghanistan
Karzai officials accused of derailing corruption inquiries
That is WHERE IT WENT, yeah!
In a written response, NATO says it has made significant progress in both training Afghan forces and measuring their effectiveness in recent months.
Pfffft!
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Thus the need for this agenda-pushing PoS:
"NATO retools its effort to train country’s police; Adds incentives to attract a higher quality of recruits" by Joby Warrick, Washington Post | July 4, 2010
WASHINGTON — The alliance is shaking up existing training programs and adding new incentives in an attempt to turn around what has been one of the biggest, most enduring disappointments of the nearly nine-year-old war: the inability to transform the country’s 90,000 police officers into a professional force capable of assuming control of local security....
But significant progress!
A crucial step is helping ensure that police officers get the money that is owed them.
You mean they HAVEN'T BEEN PAID?
WHERE is all the F***ING MONEY GOING!!
Instead of being paid by their commanders — who often pocket some cash — officers receive their paychecks directly through ATM cards or bank credits sent to their cellphones. Because many officers are illiterate, “some of these guys never even realized how much they were supposed to be paid,’’ said Marine Colonel Gregory T. Breazile, spokesman for NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan....
Many police officers quit because of fear, Taliban intimidation, or because they could make more money elsewhere, said a defense official who studied the attrition trends.
Oh, like our soldiers who join Blackwater after discharge!
NATO and Afghan officials acknowledge that fixing the country’s policing problems could take years, partly because police units are by nature decentralized.
After we have BEEN THERE YEARS!
The officials also acknowledge the difficulty of rooting out corruption, a time-honored tradition in many districts where officers feel compelled to find ways to supplement wages that average $200 a month.
WHEREVER WESTERN GOVERNMENTS are to be FOUND!!!
The widespread practice of extracting fees and bribes has so undermined support for police that some districts seem to prefer having no police at all.
Methinks the illiterate Afghan is ON TO SOMETHING!
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