Thursday, December 02, 2010

AFGHAN POLICE TRAINING

Few times have I ever thought of the media being prophetic but...0n 60 Minutes, Anderson Cooper did a program on the training of Afghan police. A couple of days ago, one of the Afghan trainees turned his weapon on his American trainers, killing six Americans. Prophetic?

The Sixty Minutes program explored the utter futility of what we are attempting to do. I actually felt sorry for am American General and believe me, "me feeling sorry for a general" is no small thing. (Generals as a rule get where they are through politics. It doesn't mean they are not good military men, just that, like most politics, they are "yes sir , yes sir three bags full;" and, in the case of this general, wanting to tell the
truth while appearing to be loyal to his mission. On the same program was the former Number two guy for the United Nations who said things like, "impossible to train illiterate policemen in the next year or two", maybe a hundred years. He got fired for probably saying, "the police are the most corrupt institution in the country." Here is part of his comment, "who are the police, they are illiterate villagers...how can you teach someone to read and write in six weeks, plus be a policemen."

And, of course, the very danger that Anderson Cooper pointed out, i. e., loyalty of the trainees cost six young Americans their lives. Stories of the trainees returning to the Taliban are rampant. A film shot by one of the American soldiers actually showed them doing drugs. We are literally attempting to train Afghan policemen in impossible circumstances. Some of the American trainers were National Guard, good soldiers who, under impossible circumstances, were attempting to do the task at hand. Six Americans are now dead, shot by police recruits.

The utter sadness and totally unacceptable to me is to give American soldiers missions that are impossible and at grave risk to their very lives. When are we going to wake up to the fact that what we are attempting can't be done?

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