You can’t train an army that doesn’t exist except to collect a paycheck. Also, you may be mistaken about how this training thing works. The Afghan army does not answer to the US trainers. Nor does the US set standards or take attendance of regular Afghan forces. They can only train people who are willing to show up and take their responsibilities seriously.
Given that a lot of people have mentioned the catastrophic situation with women’s rights in Afghanistan, which is likely to continue getting more catastrophic in the near future, it’s interesting to get a perspective from the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA).
RAWA is an indigenous feminism and human rights organization founded in Kabul in 1977, which has been fighting for women’s rights, secularism, democracy and social justice ever since. Here’s their view on the US/NATO occupation and the recent pullout.
Understand something. I don’t think this was a war that needed to happen on this scope and scale, and certainly should not have continued to happen for 20 years. For that, I blame American senior leadership, civilian and military. But now that someone has finally decided to step up, own it and put an end to it, people who have an axe to grind, are calling the decision a moral failure. Well isn’t that convenient.
…can you be crystal clear here: are you generalizing here, or is this your honestly held opinion about every soldier in the Afghanistan Army? Do you think that Ameican soldiers who are working for a paycheck exist as well? Is that a bad thing? And to what extent does propaganda motivate US soldiers to fight, and do you think that is a good thing?
What does this even mean?
Understand something. I don’t have an axe to grind. I’m just calling it as I see it. This is a thread in IMHO, and I’m expressing my opinion.
I work with veterans every day. My son is in active service, state-side, at least for now.
It’s been my experience that the overwhelming majority choose to serve for reasons that go beyond a paycheck. I also think that the circumstances under which one serves (peace vs war) has a tremendous influence on one’s perspective about why they’re doing it. If I’m wrong, there are people on this message board who served and they will correct me if I’m wrong. Perhaps that’s even a question worthy of its own thread.
Your opinion is wrong.
C’mon. You had to know that was coming. 
I don’t know of any widespread issue of US soldiers enlisting, never reporting for duty, and forwarding half of their paycheck to the sergeant who marks them off as “Present”, as was largely the case in the ANA.
…do you accept that what you are providing here is anecdotal evidence, and that the evidence you have provided that the Afghanistan Army was “only serving for the paycheck” is substantially weaker than your anecdotal evidence?
There are about a thousand other issues that the Afghan soldiers had to deal with that US soldiers don’t. But that really isn’t material to my point.
My personal opinion is that people who are not in the military should be loathe to speak to their “experience” with what members of the military think. And even people who are in the military should refrain from presenting their personal views on service as being anything close to representative of the wider force.
I’ll simply note that in my experience, there was a lot of angst over government shutdowns that threatened pay (even if it was just a matter of delay which a number of banking and aid organizations rogered up to cover with interest free loans on demand to servicemembers if delays actually arose), although having a functioning military “justice” system (that could be used to punish people failing to follow orders, with or without pay) certainly helped remind people they couldn’t just stay home.
Anyway, this is all apples to footballs. You can’t compare a US soldier who ends up in someone else’s country and would probably like to get home and away, to someone who already is home, and would Iike to stay there. There’s a very different set of choices facing Afghan soldiers, with or without pay, which was kind of the point of the blog post I linked to way upthread.
Agreed. And another twenty years, another trillion dollars, and another thousand lives wouldn’t change anything.
He said nothing that backs up what you said.
I stand corrected, it was a Plywood Army:
Yes, Kunce’s story is anecdotal evidence of a ineffective fighting force. But who do you believe? Someone with first hand experience who is a professional in the field or some bureaucrat who may not have ever stepped foot in the country? Its not like we are ever going to see a peer-reviewed study on the dedication of the enlisted Afghan soldier.
It isn’t as though there isn’t a history of our political and military leaders lying to the country about a war in some far off land while the front line soldiers were saying, “This is not winnable. The government we are tying to support is riddled with corruption.” Fool me once… Well, shame on me and all of us for not demanding an earlier exit. Whether or not you believe that the U.S. has morally failed Afghanistan, it pretty clear to me that the U.S,. has morally failed its own people. Again.
…it seems apparent that your opinion that the people of Afghanistan are cowards and the soldiers are just working for a paycheck have been entirely formed by the opinions of veteran US soldiers. Thanks for citing yet another one, but I don’t think that it proves any of your points. If we aren’t hearing from the people of Afghanistan, then we are only hearing one side of the story. And that side (and in the case of this particular cite, a former Intelligence Officer hawking a book) isn’t particularly convincing.
Nobody has argued that the Afghan Army (on its own, with no air or logistics support) was an effective fighting force.
You’re right. Let’s wait to hear what the side that negotiated a surrender with the Taliban, sold it’s weapons and went home has to say.
Given our understanding of Afghanistan’s tribal and war torn history, I can completely appreciate why things ended up exactly as they have. Poorly educated, poor and religiously oppressed people who are offered foreign money and training to fight for a cause they don’t actually believe in are going to behave exactly as they have. Add systemic corruption, leadership vacuum, lack of accountability, lack of trust or cultural connection to a foreign transient military force – a successful outcome would have been a miracle.
It should be telling that the loudest and most progressive Afghan voices we hear are those of women who are trying to drag themselves and their country out of oppressive theocratic middle ages into the modern world where people are not controlled by threat of violence and ancient tribal custom. Equally telling are the latest reports in which the Taliban is telling women to stay home “for their own safety”.
Whatever the motives of the ANA may have been before it capitulated to the Taliban, you cannot argue that protecting the interests of Afghan women and children (the future of progress in Afghan society) was their top priority. For too many, their priority was much more short sighted than that. After 20 years of training and economic support, those who seized the opportunities offered for change are desperately trying to get themselves and their families on planes to escape what they know is coming.
The list of mistakes in long and those of western coalition policy & military involvement of 20 years is not least among them. But let’s not pretend like the ANA has not been given ample opportunity to succeed nor therefore share the blame for this outcome.
As I read this, I can’t help but draw a mental connection to the École Polytechnique massacre and wonder what your thoughts must be on that.
Personally, I don’t know how you’re able to draw the conclusions you’ve drawn about what must or must not be motivating Afghan security forces.
Draw this connection out for me. I’m not sure I understand what you’re getting at.
I mean, do you fall into the camp that would cast some level of blame or criticism on the men who survived the massacre on the basis that “protecting the interests of… women… was [not] their top priority.”
You’re asking me to draw some parallels between average citizens caught in a horrible situation and an ostensibly trained and equipped military force?
…and it becomes more and more obvious that you don’t want to hear any other version of what happened, except for the narrative you have chosen to believe. Well we are in IMHO, and you are entitled to your HO. And I’ll leave that there.
No, I’m wondering if you’ve distinguished the fact that the men in the massacre were ordinary citizens where as the men of the ANA were (allegedly) a trained fighting force. Because there might be a bit more gray there than you realize, or have been willing to grant, if that’s your distinction.
ETA: But, there is also a lot to unpack in terms of how we empathize and sympathize (or don’t) with victims or the oppressed and perhaps masculinity as well. Who we consider deserving of our sympathy, and who we will heap scorn on for not living up to some standard that we have adjudged ourselves the arbiters of.