These attacks on NATO troops by infiltrators — or fanatics — has been increasing over the last year and spiked in August. Hence, the additional steps taken to thoroughly vet candidates for the police force.
The U.S. military has suspended training of some Afghan forces while the Americans review the process of vetting new recruits following a spike in deadly attacks on international troops last month, officials said Sunday.
There have been 34 attacks by Afghan police or soldiers on their international allies so far this year — at least 12 in August alone. The members of the Afghan security forces have killed 45 international troops, putting intense strain on the relationship. The attacks have complicated a key pillar in the plan for the U.S.-led coalition to withdraw by the end of 2014 — training Afghan forces to take the lead in securing their own country.
Lt. Col. Todd Harrell, a spokesman for U.S. special operations forces in Afghanistan, said the Americans have halted training for at least a month of about 1,000 trainees of the Afghan Local Police (ALP), a government-backed militia that is under the authority of the national police but operates independently. He said the Americans are redoing background checks on the Afghans.
“The training of the ALP recruits has been paused while we go through this re-vetting process to take a look at this process to see if there’s anything that we can improve,” Harrell said. “It may take a month. It may take two months. We don’t know.”
As it stands right now, our boys are sitting ducks. Aside from being more aware of the possibility of attack, there isn’t much else we’ve been doing prior to this action. It is tempting to want to disarm the Afghans when they come in close proximity to NATO troops but such a lack of trust shown in recruits would probably be devastating for morale.
And it isn’t likely that this will stop the attacks. There are other motivations for these murders besides the attacker being inspired, or part of, the Taliban. The vein of extremism that runs through Afghan society creates fanatics that will kill for any number of reasons, not the least of which is the simple idea that infidels are in their country.
But for the sake of the troops, we should hope that NATO will do a better job of keeping the enemy from infiltrating the forces we are training to take over security when we are gone.
The ‘gans aren’t helping. “Why don’t you just bring them home tomorrow morning?”
The epistemic closure common to both liberals and (ex-liberal) neocons and the resultant nation-building folly: the belief that there is a meaningful distinction between “Afghan” and “Taliban.”
Sounds to me like a mutiny in the US troops caused this policy, um, adjustment.
“folly: the belief that there is a meaningful distinction between “Afghan” and “Taliban.”
I’d add there’s no meaningful difference for our “infidel” purposes between “Taliban” and “Saudi”, or “Pakistani”, or even “Iranian”, “Turk”, “Egyptian”, “Libyan”, “Yemeni”, “Iraqi”, “Syrian”, “Gazan”, etc. In short, any Muslim of any stripe who actually takes his Islam seriously, that is, believes Sharia should be the guiding law, whether Shiite or Sunni, is a religious fascist, a fanatic, an enemy of us.
Lest anyone forgets (or was unaware), under the compasionate “Islam is a Religion of Peace” of GWB, fascist, brutal, terroristic Sharia Law was permanently enshrined within the Constitutions of both Iraq and Afghanistan…
A ridiculous whitewash–how do you do remotely effective background checks in a 12th century tribal, largely illiterate society where duplicity and corruption are the norm? You may as well put on a blindfold and use a dartboard.
Years ago, as a retired and somewhat bored firearms instructor I thought about doing training overseas as a contractor. Normal hazards are one thing–getting shot in the back by one of my “students” is another. You’d have to be either incredibly brave and dedicated or clueless to do it today.
Well said, Tom Casey.
That whole area is a cauldron of quicksand. We’ve persevered long enough. Right now it’s a deadly game of Whack-a-Mole. Our Military should be preparing right now to leave just as soon as we can remove our expensive equipment.
Leave the buildings where they are, airlifting and trucking out via treacherous Pakistan is too expensive and troublesome, but remove the electrical wiring and fixtures.
These Muslims, of all of their complex factions and militancy’s…….. deserve each other for mutual butchering.
Wait, what? Our esteemed military leadership, to include the head honcho in Afghanistan, General Allen, tell us all this “green-on-blue” mayhem is the result of personal squabbles between US troops and their Afghan “brothers-in-arms”, as well as the trials of Ramadan (fasting and all that is very stressful, don’t ya know). The blood of our murdered GIs is on his hands. And how do you vet people who have no paper trail (not too many birth certificates, school records, etc., up in those tribal valleys)? We must leave that hellhole now.
Here’s a solution: bring our troops out of Afghanistan, FOREVER.
Let the people of Afghanistan fight their own war.
We can’t help people who don’t want to be helped.