First afghan army test fail

[Formaldehyde]

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.

A million highly-trained troops to fight a handful of insurgents who "are illiterate, don't know basic things like how to drive, how to aim a rifle, etc..."? Hmm.

Troops in Afghanistan outnumber Taliban 12-1

The Taliban rebels are estimated to number no more than 25,000. Ljubomir Stojadinovic, a military analyst and guerrilla warfare expert from Serbia, said that although McChrystal's reinforcements would lift the ratio to 20-1 or more, they would prove counterproductive.

 

[Takhisis]

Not really.

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

If you read the article to the end, you'll see that the Taliban still manage to kill government and US troops by ambushing them and forcing them to run into traps… if they can force the situation described in this thread's OP then there must be some difference between them.

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.

But it's not the same scenario.

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.

Yeah… so bak to square one. It doesn't seem like the Afghan troops are as good as American/NATO troops.

 

[storealex]

But it's not the same scenario.

No Iraq was worse. Besides, there's many comparable factors, from the people we fight to the way we fight them. Im not saying one can copy one scenario to the other, but these two are so similar on so many levels, that it would be foolish not to compare them.

Yeah… so bak to square one. It doesn't seem like the Afghan troops are as good as American/NATO troops.

Neither are the Iraqis.

A growing Afghan army, with better traning (Three months) with NATO support would be able to defeat the Taliban. Buy off the remaining warlords for now and let the army continue it's growth to 300.000 and we can go home. This would be enough to win, and it is far far less than Oerdin is suggesting.
Unfortunately, even this would be more than is being done. NATO countries don't supply enough instructers, the army isn't growing as fast as it should, the soldiers training is too short, we're fighting Taliban, as well as local warlords and druglords and we have been wasting valuable time fighting this war the wrong way; For years it was a minor operation, while all the troops were busy in Iraq. For years US troops burned the opium fields and drove the farmers and druglords into the hands of Taliban.

Let's acknowledge the war for what it is, admit it's failures and it's huge challenges, but let's not overdramatize and suggest far out sollutions such as a million troops, trained for a year in America...

 

[cav scout]

We want to keep our bases in Pakistan to keep an eye on Afghanistan (Unocal pipeline)

What bases are you talking about?

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Oh, and I spent a year training the Afghan National Army so feel free to ask me anything guys.

 

[Takhisis]

OK, are these people seriously incapable of shooting two bullets at the same spot?

 

[Skwink]

It is a little more than that, look at how America is doing over there. It takes more then shooting a gun.

 

[Takhisis]

Well, yes, but I'm asking a punctual question from the guy who was actually there.

 

[Oerdin]

A million highly-trained troops to fight a handful of insurgents who "are illiterate, don't know basic things like how to drive, how to aim a rifle, etc..."? Hmm.

Troops in Afghanistan outnumber Taliban 12-1

The problem isn't out numbering them. The problem is protecting all the major cities and all the little villages from insurgents while still having enough soldiers left over to actually search out Taliban and fight them.

 

[Ayn Rand]

The problem isn't out numbering them. The problem is protecting all the major cities and all the little villages from insurgents while still having enough soldiers left over to actually search out Taliban and fight them.

I'm not sure I agree with this - I think we could win this war with 10,000 men, provided they were given the freedom to do what they needed for victory.

The reason America keeps sending more men and equipment into Afghanistan is because it is trying to avoid fighting a war. It's a refusal to recognise what is actually happening and to develop the consistent principles of action necessary to deal with it.

So even a million men will not be enough to compensate for a strategy based on intellectual evasion.

 

[Bugfatty300]

If you read the article to the end, you'll see that the Taliban still manage to kill government and US troops by ambushing them and forcing them to run into traps… if they can force the situation described in this thread's OP then there must be some difference between them.

Mostly because the Taliban enjoy certain advantages such as being dug in and defending. And of course they are driven by drooling-at-the-mouth religious fanaticism which probably makes them more potent than they otherwise would be. I don't think it means they're better trained or skilled than Afghan soldiers per se.

 

[Patroklos]

OK, are these people seriously incapable of shooting two bullets at the same spot?

I have no doubt in my mind that you are incapable of this outside of HALO or MW2 as well.

In any case, why is it news that an brand new army participating in independant ops for the first time with little experiance has a poor showing? Its like making fun of your kid for sucking the first time you put him on the ball field.

Also, the metric for failure used is ridiculous. 10 killed out of a battalion is supposed to be a route? thats like 1% casualties. That type of metric is still ridiculous to apply to Western forces, but to apply them to essentially a third world army is patently ridiculous.

 

[bathsheba666]

Question:

If the taliban can control the country with only 36000,
why does the glorious west (or afghan army) need 1 million to do it ?

 

[Frank Drebin]

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

the afghan army, the taliban, what the hell is the difference anyway?

 

[dosed150]

Question:

If the taliban can control the country with only 36000,
why does the glorious west (or afghan army) need 1 million to do it ?

the taliban dont control the country, their just stopping anyone else from controlling the country, when they did control the country they had a lot more than 36,000 troops

 

[Tiepolo]

What bases are you talking about?

---------------------------------

Oh, and I spent a year training the Afghan National Army so feel free to ask me anything guys.

Eh it's wikipedia, but it'll have to do.

After 9/11, Pakistan, led by General Pervez Musharraf, reversed course under pressure from the United States and joined the "War on Terror" as a US ally. Having failed to convince the Taliban to hand over bin Laden and other members of Al Qaeda, Pakistan provided the U.S. a number of military airports and bases for its attack on Afghanistan, along with other logistical support

and map

Spoiler :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistan_–_United_States_relations

But this was 2001ish (the quote) so I don't know if we're still using their facilities

 

[cav scout]

OK, are these people seriously incapable of shooting two bullets at the same spot?

If by "same spot" you mean shooting a tight enough shot group at 50 meters to properly zero... my experience 3 years ago was 90% of them could not (or would not).

The reasons were many and excedingly frustrating. The two main reasons were the quality of the training and culture.

I don't have the time to get into how messed up the training was. But it basically boils down to woefully insufficient resources and the policy of quantity over quality taken to a ridiculous extreme (back when I was there the only metric that mattered was warm bodies in a uniform).

Culturally... well education is basically non-existant over there. Just explaining the concept of lining up the rear and front sights was too much for many of them to wrap their minds around. Oh and there is actually a cultural belief that you don't really have to aim, if God wills your bullets to strike someone then they will- inshallah.

 

[Formaldehyde]

It is a little more than that, look at how America is doing over there. It takes more then shooting a gun.

Yes. It takes overwhelming force resulting in much "collateral damage" so no sacred American lives are lost. When relatively equal forces combat each other there are obviously going to be more casualties. Occasionally, the Taliban are even going to "win" a battle or two when they manage to properly stage an attack. But we are so enamoured with the notion that the "good guys" rarely die or get captured in combat nowadays that it is immediately labelled a "fail".

The problem isn't out numbering them. The problem is protecting all the major cities and all the little villages from insurgents while still having enough soldiers left over to actually search out Taliban and fight them.

Why is it that no American or NATO general has called for a million troops to be deployed to Afghanistan to combat 20,000 Taliban?

 

[Tee Kay]

I'm not sure I agree with this - I think we could win this war with 10,000 men, provided they were given the freedom to do what they needed for victory.

I guess we can always do what Genghis Khan did and raze the entire damn country.

 

[Nobody]

I got a great idea for a movie.

Tom cruise (or Kevin Costner) is a american army solider who is sent to train the afghan army. But is captured by the Taliban and taken to a cave to meet bin laden. While there he learns bin ladens culture and customs, and learns to respect the Taliban and al Qaeda, while finding a beautiful afgan wife. He decides to become a simple heroin farmer, and live with his wife in the afgan way.

Then he sees american marines murdering a village of afgan civilians, and decides to join al Qaeda. He goes through some big ritual to become a terrorists, and then as he is training, the afgan army back up by the same evil marines, launch a huge invasion of his area. Killing loads of taliban, and surrendering people, including his wife. Osama blows himself up, killing a bunch of marines and afgani soldiers.

You then learn that tom cruise was actually once a guard at Guantanamo bay before he was sent to afganistan, and he tourted the brother of his wife, and now regrets it more than anything. The commander of his guard unit was the sadistic Lieutenant James Venom.

Venom is now a general living in Washington, working at the pentagon. he was the one who ordered the attack on osama's simple heroin farm, which killed tom cruies wife and his Father figure (osama).

Venoms daughter (played by the girl from juno) works at the local mall, Six months after the army raid in the mountains, tom is now at the mall, and its time for revenge. He kidnaps venoms daughter and holds her hostage in the mall, with a bomb vest on. He is planning to blow up himself and venoms daughter (as well as 100s of others) in revenge for the raid that killed his wife. This raid brings the war in afganistan to an end.

Venoms daughter talks to him, and we find out his wife was pregant with a daughter of his own at the time. He is almost about to let the hostages go, when General venom orders the FBI to go into the buliding to get him. He blows himself, venoms daughter, other civillians and the fbi hostage rescue team to bits.

 

[ParkCungHee]

What bases are you talking about?

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Oh, and I spent a year training the Afghan National Army so feel free to ask me anything guys.

What primarily motivates the recruits in the Afghan Army?