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NEWNATIONS BULLETIN 16 NOVEMBER 2009
Monthly reports on finance, business, trade,
economics, & political analysis
NEWNATIONS BULLETIN 16 NOVEMBER 2009
THE AFGHAN NATIONAL ARMY: SOLUTION OR PROBLEM?
The world is waiting, but not for much longer we are told, for President Obama to decide on his troop dispositions for Afghanistan, whilst advice has been pouring over him from all directions. It was like a breath of fresh air to read the comments of the former Danish PM, now Secretary General of Nato, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, as he laid it out objectively, that quite simply, the presence of US and NATO troops was not about the secondary issue of attempting to create a democracy.
It is simply that: "we can't allow Afghanistan to once again become a safe haven for terrorists. Therefore we must succeed".
That continuing the western presence should pivot on the degree of democracy ignores why they were sent, or indeed why they are still there!
Like Iraq, the secondary concept was transferred on to Afghanistan when there too, the primary objects of that invasion had manifestly failed, That was nothing less than to kill or capture Osama bin Laden, to put al Qaeda permanently out of business - and to shut down the narcotics market.
The west is there now, not as the tabloids would have it for the benefit of the Afghan people, but really as Nato’s Secretary General insists, to prevent any recurrence of international terrorists once again using this untamed country as a base. If the Taliban as presently constituted, regain power in Afghanistan, this must be considered as at least likely.
There is a generally held view that to enable the allies to pull out, the key is to build up the Afghan Army and Police Force. Give them the means, goes the mantra, and let them deal with their own insurrection. Having since the invasion delivered 94 monthly reports on this divided nation, we now challenge that assumption.
Our mid-November report analyses the Afghan army as it is now, eight years since it was created. Anybody who after reading this, thinks that without fundamental restructuring, that simply recruiting more young Afghans, equipping them with modern weaponry and training them with western instructors, will solve the problems of defeating, or even containing the Taliban, now active in 33 out of 34 provinces, must be a bedazzled optimist. The US president must surely have been informed of what we outline here. No wonder he is taking his time to try to get it right.
It can be seen that the structure of this army is deeply flawed, its reliance in every formation on US ‘mentors,’ who take all the important decisions, inevitably leads, as can be seen, to render the Afghan officers, not even in real terms a parallel command structure, ineffective, demotivated and cynical.
The question and complications of recruiting for this army, where tribal consciousness is so much more significant than any idea of Afghan nationhood, is examined. We observe that hostility between Tajik and Pashtun networks and individuals, has grown increasingly strong, also that inevitably in such a country where senior appointments are politicised by an infamously corrupt government, it results in junior appointments stemming from them being equally tarnished.
Our harsh judgment is that unless there is the political will to enforce a major change in direction to address the many flaws perceived in the present ANA described in this study, it is unlikely that any plan to 'Afghanise' the conflict will succeed.
Also published on our blog: GEOPOLEMICS where readers comments are invited
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