$6 Billion Later, Afghan Cops Aren't Ready to Serve

[unhappycamper]

$6 Billion Later, Afghan Cops Aren't Ready to Serve
Saturday 20 March 2010
by: T. Christian Miller, Mark Hosenball and Ron Moreau | ProPublica and Newsweek

Mohammad Moqim watches in despair as his men struggle with their AK-47 automatic rifles, doing their best to hit man-size targets 50 meters away. A few of the police trainees lying prone in the mud are decent shots, but the rest shoot clumsily, and fumble as they try to reload their weapons. The Afghan National Police (ANP) captain sighs as he dismisses one group of trainees and orders 25 more to take their places on the firing line. "We are still at zero," says Captain Moqim, 35, an eight-year veteran of the force. "They don't listen, are undisciplined, and will never be real policemen."

Poor marksmanship is the least of it. Worse, crooked Afghan cops supply much of the ammunition used by the Taliban, according to Saleh Mohammed, an insurgent commander in Helmand province. The bullets and rocket-propelled grenades sold by the cops are cheaper and of better quality than the ammo at local markets, he says. It's easy for local cops to concoct credible excuses for using so much ammunition, especially because their supervisors try to avoid areas where the Taliban are active. Mohammed says local police sometimes even stage fake firefights so that if higher-ups question their outsize orders for ammo, villagers will say they've heard fighting.

America has spent more than $6 billion since 2002 in an effort to create an effective Afghan police force, buying weapons, building police academies, and hiring defense contractors to train the recruits—but the program has been a disaster. More than $322 million worth of invoices for police training were approved even though the funds were poorly accounted for, according to a government audit, and fewer than 12 percent of the country's police units are capable of operating on their own. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, the State Department's top representative in the region, has publicly called the Afghan police "an inadequate organization, riddled with corruption." During the Obama administration's review of Afghanistan policy last year, "this issue received more attention than any other except for the question of U.S. troop levels," Holbrooke later told NEWSWEEK. "We drilled down deep into this."

The worst of it is that the police are central to Washington's plans for getting out of Afghanistan. The U.S.-backed government in Kabul will never have popular support if it can't keep people safe in their own homes and streets. Yet in a United Nations poll last fall, more than half the Afghan respondents said the police are corrupt. Police commanders have been implicated in drug trafficking, and when U.S. Marines moved into the town of Aynak last summer, villagers accused the local police force of extortion, assault, and rape.

The public's distrust of the cops is palpable in the former insurgent stronghold of Marja. Village elders welcomed the U.S. Marines who recently drove out the Taliban, but told the Americans flatly they don't want the ANP to return. "The people of Marja will tell you that one of their greatest fears was the police coming back," says Lt. Gen. William Caldwell, who took over in November as chief of the U.S. program to expand and improve Afghanistan's security forces. "You constantly hear these stories about who was worse: the Afghan police that were there or the Taliban." The success of America's counterinsurgency strategy depends on the cops, who have greater contact with local communities than the Army does. "This is not about seizing land or holding terrain; it's about the people," says Caldwell. "You have to have a police force that the people accept, believe in, and trust."


Rest of article at: http://www.truthout.org/6-billion-later-afghan-cops-aren%27t-ready-serve57891

[notadmblnd]

1. And they want to give Blackwater/Xe another billion dollars?

what the hell they been doing the past 7 years?

[Mari333]

2. knr what a clusterfuck of epic proportions

and thats the BIG BLACK HOLE WHERE ALL OUR MONEY GOES

and people complain about a public option...


why the hell isnt anyone screaming about this nightmare ????


what chickenhawk unrec'd this???? come on people, this is where your tax dollars are being sucked into...all your complaining about your money being spent unwisely and you unrec??

cowards

OBAMA LOOKING GOOD WITH TIGHT ABS IS NOT AS IMPORTANT AS THIS ILLEGAL UNWINNABLE MURDEROUS OCCUPATION HELLO IF THIS WAS BUSH YOU WOULD BE SCREAMING

[Fumesucker]

4. Because it's Obama's war now..

The Republicans are unlikely to complain because they started the war and the Dems are now silent because Obama must not be criticized lest the Reps take advantage.

[Mari333]

5. it amazes me, it disgusts me...whats the difference????

a child with their guts blown out on the side of the goddamned road or a soldier whose legs have been blown off is still the same goddamned atrocity!!!

did I ever tell you I detest the 101st keyboard warriors who sit in their basements and send other peoples kids to illegal wars??

they are the lowest of the low. I dont care who is in office. people who support this need to enlist or send their own kids.

[Fumesucker]

7. DU was about 90 to 95% anti war until Obama got elected..

It's much closer to 50% now..

It may be a crappy little war but it's the only one we've got.

[Mari333]

8. reality check ...

we are killing people for nothing.

that 50 percent for this occupation have no soul.

[NeedleCast]

3. They never will be, no matter how much money and time we throw at this

It's simply a different culture and no amount of trying to make it into a western culture is going to change that, short of population decimiation or brutal boot-on-neck tactics.

[Mari333]

6. k

[Mari333]

9. k

[Mari333]

10. k