Showcase Afghan army mission turns into embarrassment

[Better Believe It]

Showcase Afghan army mission turns into embarrassment
Operation to flush out Taliban east of Kabul results in high soldier death count
By Rod Nordland
August 12, 2010

KABUL, Afghanistan — An ambitious military operation that Afghan officials had expected to be a sign of their growing military capacity instead turned into an embarrassment, with Taliban fighters battering an Afghan battalion in a remote eastern area until NATO sent in French and American 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.

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

The operation began when the Afghan Army sent a battalion of about 300 men from the First Brigade, 201st Army Corps, into a village called Bad Pakh, in Laghman Province, which is adjacent to the troubled border province of Kunar. Their operation, which began on the night of Aug. 3, was to flush out Taliban in a rugged area where they had long held sway. First, using the Afghan Army’s own helicopters, a detachment was inserted behind Taliban lines, while the main part of the battalion attacked from the front.

But, according to a high-ranking official of the Afghan Ministry of Defense, the plan was betrayed; Taliban forces were waiting with an ambush against the main body of troops. Then the airborne detachment was cut off when bad weather grounded its helicopters, the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press.

In the confusion, the 201st Army Corps commanders lost contact with the battalion. The battalion’s Third Company — 100 men — took particularly heavy casualties, the official said, although he did not have a number. He said many of the company were killed, captured or missing, and as of Wednesday at least, the status of the rest of the battalion remained unclear.

An official of the Red Crescent in the area said that casualties were very heavy on the government side and that the Taliban had destroyed 35 Ford Ranger trucks, the standard Afghan Army transport vehicle, which typically carry six or more soldiers each.

Officially, the spokesman for the Ministry of Defense, Maj. Gen. Muhammed Zahair Azimi, said that there were only seven dead and 14 wounded and that the number taken prisoner was unknown.

Government forces now have the Taliban surrounded, General Azimi said.

Read the full article at:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38682303/ns/world_news-the_new_york_times

"The Taliban is surrounded" Sure they are. BBI

[Nikki Stone1]

1. kick

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[Forkboy]

2. K&R

Sadly

[JohnyCanuck]

3. Can't imagine this news would give you a warm, fuzzy feeling...

if you were a NATO soldier having to go on an operation with the Afghan army. I'd think you'd be on pins and needles wondering if someone had already spilled the beans to let the Taliban know you were coming and by what route, so that you might be heading into a similar ambush situation, or at least face a stiffer fight because they had a heads up you were on the way. If you were lucky, the Taliban might take the tip off as reason to get out of Dodge until the heat was off. But then you've wasted all that time and energy to engage an enemy that has melted into the surrounding countryside leaving you nothing to shoot at.

Meet the Afghan Army
Is It a Figment of Washington's Imagination?
By Ann Jones

snip

Their American trainers spoke of "upper body strength deficiency" and prescribed pushups because their trainees buckle under the backpacks filled with 50 pounds of equipment and ammo they are expected to carry. All this material must seem absurd to men whose fathers and brothers, wearing only the old cotton shirts and baggy pants of everyday life and carrying battered Russian Kalashnikov rifles, defeated the Red Army two decades ago. American trainers marvel that, freed from heavy equipment and uniforms, Afghan soldiers can run through the mountains all day -- as the Taliban guerrillas in fact do with great effect -- but the U.S. military is determined to train them for another style of war.

Still, the new recruits turn out for training in the blistering heat in this stony desert landscape wearing, beneath their heavy uniforms, the smart red, green, and black warm-up outfits intended to encourage them to engage in off-duty exercise. American trainers recognize that recruits regularly wear all their gear at once for fear somebody will steal anything left behind in the barracks, but they take this overdressing as a sign of how much Afghans love the military. My own reading, based on my observations of Afghan life during the years I've spent in that country, is this: It's a sign of how little they trust one another, or the Americans who gave them the snazzy suits. I think it also indicates the obvious: that these impoverished men in a country without work have joined the Afghan National Army for what they can get out of it (and keep or sell) -- and that doesn't include democracy or glory.

In the current policy debate about the Afghan War in Washington, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin wants the Afghans to defend their country. Senator John McCain, the top Republican on the committee, agrees but says they need even more help from even more Americans. The common ground -- the sacred territory President Obama gropes for -- is that, whatever else happens, the U.S. must speed up the training of "the Afghan security forces."

American military planners and policymakers already proceed as if, with sufficient training, Afghans can be transformed into scale-model, wind-up American Marines. That is not going to happen. Not now. Not ever. No matter how many of our leaders concur that it must happen -- and ever faster.

snip

My educated guess is that such an army simply does not exist. It may well be true that Afghan men have gone through some version of "Basic Warrior Training" 90,000 times or more. When I was teaching in Afghanistan from 2002 to 2006, I knew men who repeatedly went through ANA training to get the promised Kalashnikov and the pay. Then they went home for a while and often returned some weeks later to enlist again under a different name.

In a country where 40% of men are unemployed, joining the ANA for 10 weeks is the best game in town. It relieves the poverty of many families every time the man of the family goes back to basic training, but it's a needlessly complicated way to unintentionally deliver such minimal humanitarian aid. Some of these circulating soldiers are aging former mujahidin -- the Islamist fundamentalists the U.S. once paid to fight the Soviets -- and many are undoubtedly Taliban.

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175128/ann_jones_meet_the_afghan_army

[Better Believe It]

4. Sounds a bit like the NLF in Vietnam