First afghan army test fail

[Rhymes]

Afghan army mission turns to rout
ROD NORDLAND, KABUL
August 14, 2010


AN AMBITIOUS military operation that Afghan officials had expected to be a sign of their growing military capacity has turned into an embarrassment.

Taliban fighters battered an Afghan battalion in a remote eastern area until NATO sent in French and US rescue teams.
The fighting has continued so intensely for the past week that the Red Cross has been unable to reach the battlefield to remove the dead and wounded.
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The operation, east of Kabul, was not co-ordinated in advance with NATO forces. The Afghans called for help after 10 of their soldiers were killed and perhaps twice as many captured at the beginning of the operation nine days ago.

''There are a lot of lessons to be learnt here,'' said a senior US military official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. ''How they started that and why they started that.''

The Afghan National Army now has 134,000 soldiers, and on Wednesday the new US commander, General David Petraeus, complimented the Afghans on reaching that target three months ahead of schedule.

But the Afghan National Army runs relatively few operations on its own, particularly large-scale ones.

General Petraeus, who took command of the Afghan mission last month, is expected to use a series of interviews next week to say the US military needs time to complete its work in the country............ STORY CONTINUED

Link: http://www.theage.com.au/world/afghan-army-mission-turns-to-rout-20100813-12361.html

I guess this will refuel the "should troops stay in Afghanistan" ol' debate.

 

[Agarwaen]

It is just one operation, but it can tell that the Afghan Army is not fully prepared to battle Taleban on its own.

 

[Merkinball]

The fighting has continued so intensely for the past week that the Red Cross has been unable to reach the battlefield to remove the dead and wounded. - Article

It's a good thing the Israeli's aren't participating. The UN would have a collective anuerysm.

 

[Godwynn]

How'd the French battalion do?

 

[amadeus]

Why exactly are we fighting the Taliban again?

 

[Kozmos]

They paradroped the white flags.

 

[Leonel]

Why exactly are we fighting the Taliban again?

Something to do with them hosting Osama and not giving him up for some date we were told to never forget but I forgot?

 

[Bugfatty300]

I've heard that NATO is having a lot of trouble teaching the Afghans even basic stuff such as aiming their rifles.

 

[Takhisis]

I guess this will refuel the "should troops stay in Afghanistan" ol' oil debate.

Fixed it for ya.

Something to do with them hosting Osama and not giving him up for some date we were told to never forget but I forgot?

Yeah, why aren't US folks prosecuted for arming and financing mny of these terrorist groups in the first palce? oh right, it was to fight damn Commies, so it's OK.

I've heard that NATO is having a lot of trouble teaching the Afghans even basic stuff such as aiming their rifles.

Strangely enough, the Afghans serving warlords -Taliban and otherwise- would appear to have rather better skills. Do the Afghans want to fight? Are they even capable of it, even if they wanted? After so many years of failures, those questions should be (re)asked.

 

[Oerdin]

134,000 virtually untrained soldiers is useless they need around 1 million and they need to send those soldiers to the US for around a year of intense training starting with the very basics. Most Afghans and Afghan soldiers are illiterate, don't know basic things like how to drive, how to aim a rifle, etc... They need at least a year of basic schooling just before they even start the military training just so they can understand the military training and tactics plus the US has kept the Afghan Army as basically a light infantry organization but it's going to need artillery, aircraft, tanks, and the whole nine yards if it wants to be effective.

 

[Takhisis]

So the answer to 'are they capable of fighting even if they wanted to?' is No.

 

[Merkinball]

I've heard that NATO is having a lot of trouble teaching the Afghans even basic stuff such as aiming their rifles.

Yet, Al Queda recruits from the same group of people, and they do just fine?

 

[Bugfatty300]

Strangely enough, the Afghans serving warlords -Taliban and otherwise- would appear to have rather better skills.

Not really.

http://atwar.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/04/02/the-weakness-of-taliban-marksmanship/

 

[Tiepolo]

Why exactly are we fighting the Taliban again?

Because we screwed up years ago funding the muhajadeen through pakistan to kick Gorbachev out and and when the Russians left the whole country was a messy hellhole of warlords. Taliban comes in offering order, and Pakistan decides they want to use the Taliban to gain control in Afghanistan. We want to keep our bases in Pakistan to keep an eye on Afghanistan (Unocal pipeline) so we ignore Pakistan using Taliban and Al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan to train Kashmiri resistance fighters. Right now it is the country's fear that if we leave, the Taliban will gain control and once again greatly threaten peace in the middle east, they've already made it 40 miles outside of Islamabad and threatened Pakistan, a nuclear armed country. One fear is that the taliban, if they gain control of nuclear weapons, will use these weapons. Also we've been trying to stop Al Qaeda who have been working and training Taliban fighters (Abu Zubayda the senior al Qaeda starting operating in Peshawar and taking foreign recruits and sending them into Afghanistan, ripe for this sort of behind the doors training). Pakistan supports this because their fighters are trained and Musharraf greatly favored Afghan Pashtuns who he associated with the Taliban and we discovered in talks with Musharraf (under clinton) that we could not tackle the Taliban through Pakistan, but if we were to impose harsh sanctions, we would lose all diplomatic ties to the country and we would have lost access to Afghanistan.

When Bush took office he and Condi completely ignored the growing issue of Pakistan's relations with the Taliban (Condi declaring the Taliban a dead issue as the Taliban launched their northern offensive) and decided to focus on improving relations with Musharraf, by ignoring his ties to afganistan and al Qaeda (al Qaeda to the taliban, taliban to Pakistan, al Qaeda gets an umbrella of protection so long as we ignore Pakistan). This lead to report after report in the summer leading up to september 11 of the growing threat of al Qaeda who we were now effectively ignoring. Each report, delivered with increasing senses of urgency, died in bureaucratic meetings bogged down in technicalities. Other countries began warning of the imminence of an attack in the UN and the U.S continued to waffle on the issue until September 11. Bush responded, despite the U.S military's reluctance, by invading. And now we're still there, stuck on the idea of defeating the Taliban, flip flopping with Pakistan, and restoring democracy.

It's all a load of imperialist bs if you ask me.

 

[storealex]

134,000 virtually untrained soldiers is useless they need around 1 million and they need to send those soldiers to the US for around a year of intense training starting with the very basics. Most Afghans and Afghan soldiers are illiterate, don't know basic things like how to drive, how to aim a rifle, etc... They need at least a year of basic schooling just before they even start the military training just so they can understand the military training and tactics plus the US has kept the Afghan Army as basically a light infantry organization but it's going to need artillery, aircraft, tanks, and the whole nine yards if it wants to be effective.

You don't have to send the Afghans abroad to teach them basic soldier skills. In fact, that would only be a logistical mess. Neither do you need to give them a full year of training before you send them into battle. Not even the US do that with all it's troops. Three months is sufficient, remember you don't have to make them as good as Western troops, that's not going to happen anyway, they just have to be better than Taliban. Neither do you need a million troops, where exactly do you get that number from? Finally, they don't need aircraft and tanks. Most ISAF contributers don't even use tanks. It's not a regular war, and light infantry with armorered vehicles is the best (and most realistic) option for ANA. Aircover can and will be supplied by NATO.

In short, yes the Afghan army need better and more training, as well as better equipment and more men, but please, let's not over dramatize this even further.

 

[innonimatu]

Strangely enough, the Afghans serving warlords -Taliban and otherwise- would appear to have rather better skills. Do the Afghans want to fight? Are they even capable of it, even if they wanted? After so many years of failures, those questions should be (re)asked.

If the afghan army were considered successful, the occupier would no longer have any reason to keep its troops occupying the country. So the press must be informed, routinely, that the afghans, despite the "best efforts" of NATO , are seemingly eternally unable to fight... the other afghans, as you noticed!

A "kingmaker" can only remain as such for so long as instability continues. The US's goal in Afghanistan and in the Middle East is to remain that kingmaker, the outside power with the ability to support any group of its choosing and demand obedience in return. So long as the Persian Gulf states reliably supply oil and allow indefinite military occupation, so long as Afghanistan remains a viable plantform to meddle into Central Asia if/when necessary, and so long as these states remain weak, the strategy is working.

The outside power only has to make sure, of course, that whatever puppet government it puts in place remains weak and dependent on the outside power. So if they get too uppity they can be swapped for some other. And that, politically, its sudden replacement is acceptable (hence the propaganda stressing that Karzai's election was a fraud, even though he still is the current puppet - it makes it politically acceptable for the "international community" to replace him at will).

 

[Oerdin]

You don't have to send the Afghans abroad to teach them basic soldier skills. In fact, that would only be a logistical mess. Neither do you need to give them a full year of training before you send them into battle. Not even the US do that with all it's troops. Three months is sufficient, remember you don't have to make them as good as Western troops, that's not going to happen anyway, they just have to be better than Taliban. Neither do you need a million troops, where exactly do you get that number from? Finally, they don't need aircraft and tanks. Most ISAF contributers don't even use tanks. It's not a regular war, and light infantry with armorered vehicles is the best (and most realistic) option for ANA. Aircover can and will be supplied by NATO.

In short, yes the Afghan army need better and more training, as well as better equipment and more men, but please, let's not over dramatize this even further.

I'm estimating a million troops if the government wants to provide security for the whole country (in effect occupy the whole country) and still have spare troops to send out on search and destroy missions to fight the Taliban. You want to pacify a country? Then you're going to need lots of troops. The biggest part of counter insurgency is you have to convince average people the government can protect them and that it can beat the insurgents. You need troops every where if you want to do that. 134,000 won't cut it. It needs to be at least the size the South Vietnamese Army was with similar capabilities.

 

[Aegis]

Yet, Al Queda recruits from the same group of people, and they do just fine?

Perhaps it is because the Al Qaeda recruits are fanatical so they take their training seriously, while these soldiers don't give a rat's flying ass because they only wanted a pay check.

 

[Tiepolo]

Perhaps it is because the Al Qaeda recruits are fanatical so they take their training seriously, while these soldiers don't give a rat's flying ass because they only wanted a pay check.

I wouldn't say not giving a rat's ass as anti-taliban sentiment in Afghanistan is pretty fierce, but definitely not as driven as al Qaeda

 

[storealex]

I'm estimating a million troops if the government wants to provide security for the whole country

So that's how you got that number. Very well.

You want to pacify a country? Then you're going to need lots of troops. The biggest part of counter insurgency is you have to convince average people the government can protect them and that it can beat the insurgents. You need troops every where if you want to do that. 134,000 won't cut it.

First of all, I have already said that there's not enough troops, so please don't use the "134.000 wont cut it" argument.
Secondly, you do not need a million troops to pacify a country like Afghanistan. Iraq, with it's much larger population, was pacified by far less. Today the Iragi army is at 200.000 and is capable of keeping the peace most of the time.

It needs to be at least the size the South Vietnamese Army was with similar capabilities.

Vietnam was so different is dosn't even makes sense to compare it to Afghanistan. North Vietnam was a real country with a real army of hundreds of thousands. Taliban has 36.000 semi organised fighters.