The Afghan military are a walking disaster, according to our military. They're "puny" and ineffectual. But that's off the record. If we could just stay in there with more American troops, everything would surely improve. I think that's what we're supposed to believe.
Ann Jones has been following the relationship between US forces and the Afghan military.
When I visited bases and training grounds in July, I heard some American trainers describe their Afghan trainees in the same racist terms once applied to African slaves in the U.S.: lazy, irresponsible, stupid, childish, and so on. That's how Afghan resistance, avoidance, and sabotage look to American eyes. The Taliban fight for something they believe -- that their country should be freed from foreign occupation. "Our" Afghans try to get by.
Yet one amazing thing happens to ANA trainees who stick it out for the whole 10 weeks of basic training. Their slight bodies begin to fill out a little. They gain more energy and better spirits -- all because for the first time in their lives they have enough nutritious food to eat.
Better nutrition notwithstanding -- Senator Levin, Senator McCain -- "our" Afghans are never going to fight for an American cause, with or without American troops, the way we imagine they should. They're never going to fight with the energy of the Taliban for a national government that we installed against Afghan wishes, then more recently set up to steal another election, and now seem about to ratify in office, despite incontrovertible evidence of flagrant fraud. Why should they? Even if the U.S. could win their minds, their hearts are not in it.
One small warning: Don't take the insecurity of the Afghan security forces as an argument for sending yet more American troops to Afghanistan. Aggressive Americans (now numbering 68,000) are likely to be even less successful than reluctant Afghan forces. Afghans want peace, but the kharaji (foreign) troops (100,000, if you include U.S. allies in NATO) bring death and destruction wherever they go. Think instead about what you might have won -- and could still win -- had you spent all those military billions on food.
Okay. It was embarrassing to be defeated by the NorthVietnamese and to be thwarted by millions of Iraqi "insurgents." It's embarrassing that we installed corrupt governments in both Iraq and Afghanistan and that violence continue in both countries. It's worse than embarrassing to imagine withdrawing from Afghanistan now and "turning it over to the Taliban." But in each case we behaved with criminal stupidity. Are we surprised that, once again, we "face defeat"? Are we, finally, embarrassed enough to put an end to our militarism?
