Should all Afghan troops and police now be treated with suspicion?

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-20138614

Two more of our troops killed by these cowedly rabble turn-coats, how much more are we expected to accept before those in power admit that not one Afghan can be fully trusted?

[emmie]

tough one this, as there are obviously some who can be trusted, but there does seem a number who can't be, and our soldiers are dying at the hands of so called friends, which should be enough reason for our withdrawal of all troops from Afghanistan. It is a no win situation

[Zeuhl]

As our entire (only!) strategy is to develop Afghan military capability before we leave ...

... writing off every Afghan soldier/policeman as a potential 'cowardly rabble turncoat' rather puts us in a bind doesn't it?

[emmie]

it does, but it's not in the manual is it, to have the coalition trained policeman, soldier turn around and shoot you in the back.

[EcclesCake]

What an utterly ridiculous statement "before those in power admit that not one Afghan can be fully trusted?"

Truly and unbelievably ridiculous.

Let's take a swipe at Guildford for being a middle-class enclave. Equally meaningless and inaccurate.

[emmie]

You have been there, you have said so, lived with the people. we however have not, and can only go on the fact that yet again our soldiers have been killed by someone they would have considered an ally.

[Barmaid]

it doesn't say he was a policeman. It says he was wearing a local police uniform. There are two possible conclusions to be drawn from that.

[Zeuhl]

<it's not in the manual is it>

I agree em, but one would have hoped that our glorious leaders (or at least the specialist advisors) would have known that there is no manual for any foreign armies in Afghanistan. It's a tribal 'Wild West', and relying on anything different is plain stoopid.

And the western-oriented notion that we have been invited in by a legitimate national government to help them fight nasty insurgents is just as naive - it's tribal, all sides are ugly and we are piggy in the middle.

[emmie]

it's not war though is it, at least not a war in the nature of WW2, it's a guerilla offensive, and they know that they only have to play a waiting game, we will withdraw whether it's tomorrow, or end of 2014. At the loss of many service personnel, and many many Afghanis.

[jake-the-peg]

//at least not a war in the nature of WW2//

Well it's not dissimilar to the French resistance.

It's a very clever tactic - It's mildly effective in attacking the Western forces, but it's incredibly effective in driving fear and suspicion between the soldiers and the Afghans they're trying to train, it drives fear in the population if they think that the Taliban has infiltrated the local police.

It makes it very difficult to recruit locals into the forces because it slows it down while checks happen and stops genuine applicants for fear that they'll be targeted next.

And without an effective force when the western powers try to leave they'll be overrun like the Americans fleeing the fall of Vietnam

Last helicopter out stuff

Oh it also increases the call from people in the west to withdraw troops immediately and to distrust the Afghan forces.

The Taliban will be very pleased with you AOG!

[emmie]

In WW2 there are varying figures, but somewhere around 60 to 90 million dead, that was a world war, this is as i said more of a guerilla offensive, and though not to be taken lightly, all the coalition troops are on a hiding to nothing being there.

[emmie]

so who exactly are we at war with, the Afghan people, The Taleban, who?

[Zeuhl]

<who exactly are we at war with>

one grouping of Afghans is fighting another grouping for control of their country.

we have sided with the least unattractive.

[pdq1]

If we have trained up over 300,000 Afghan troops why are we still there. It stinks of face saving by the politicians to stay there until 2014.

[LazyGun]

The usual over the top hyperbole from AoG. "Not one Afghan can be fully trusted". Way to right off a whole nation.

And of course they are fighting a guerilla action - they are not going to line up somewhere on an open field to be mown down by Americans and their western allies.

Its was probably a fooldhardy enterprise going in originally, but to persist in staying there now is not likely to achieve very much.

[sp1814]

Vietnam II - The Sequel

Western governments trying to impose a process in a place they absolutely don't understand.

No defined exit strategy.

No winners...apart from Haliburton and the various private 'security agencies' with their faces in the trough whilst soldiers die all around them.

Iraq and Afghanistan are more about Western governments securing lucrative oil franchises and securing distribution channels through per-approved regime change.

It has nothing to do with defeating the Taleban (that will never happen - they are a nebulous organisation...not an army in the traditional sense).

The blood of these soldiers seeps all the way to the boardrooms of multinational oil corporations.

We are collectively looking in the wron direction.

[sp1814]

AOG

'Not one Afghan can be fully trusted'?

Is that like saying because of Jimmy Saville and Gary Glittler and Pete Townsend that not one elderly gentleman can be trusted around kids?

Don't you think that your statement may be a little 'broad stroke'?