It’s no secret that the Afghans are in a bit of a quandary: they don’t want foreign troops on their soil, but they’re pretty sure that if coalition forces leave as they’re planning to do in 2014, that bad things will happen. Maybe not “crossing the streams” bad, but still bad.
In this AP article, Taj Ayubi is quoted as saying, “Most people in Afghanistan are strongly in favor of the U.S. presence in Afghanistan,” in reference to potential agreements that would have US forces operating in Afghanistan in some capacity in 2024. In another article detailing the current sentiment of Afghans regarding the current state of the ANSF and its capability to protect Afghanistan without foreign help, it’s evident that the average Afghan citizen is well, concerned.
“If America leaves our country, the situation will get worse,” said Khaidad Mahmand, a 28-year-old mobile phone seller in Jalalabad. “The Taliban are strong and if the Americans leave, they will get stronger. In a very short period of time, the Taliban will come in and take over the government. Unfortunately, our Afghan forces don’t have the capability to handle the situation.”
Well, that doesn’t sound so bad. Sure, no one wants the Taliban to be in charge, but at least someone would be in charge. Others aren’t as…positive.
“There are lots of disputes among the people and all those disputes will rise up and everybody will take revenge and kill each other. Basically a civil war will start,” said Hayatullah Tawhidy, a 38-year-old shopkeeper in the eastern city of Jalalabad.
“We are not happy with American forces in our country,” he added. “But we don’t know what will happen when they leave.”
So it’s either the Taliban or civil war. What could possibly go wrong? I realize that these are a couple of shopkeepers, and if the reporter was doing a really solid job, they would have taken the time to get the opinion of an expert who will, in measured tones of academia, reassure us, and those shopkeepers, that all is well.
“Even people who have senior positions in the government or own large businesses in Afghanistan are either leaving the country or transferring assets abroad,” said Ahmad Khalid Majidyar, a researcher at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington who instructs U.S. military officers about terrorism and Afghan culture and politics.
Oh. Right. That kind of expert. The kind the US government relies on to train folks as to what they should expect in Afghanistan. Theoretically, someone who knows what they’re talking about, or the government thinks so. For purposes of this argument, I’m going to go with their answer on this.
Fortunately for Mr. Mahmand, LTG William B. “Obi Wan” Caldwell is here to reassure the Afghan people:
Lt. Gen. William B. Caldwell, who is in charge of training Afghan security forces, says the army and police are performing better than the Afghan people think. He insists that the Afghan security forces will meet President Hamid Karzai’s goal of taking the lead from coalition forces by the end of 2014.
“People’s perception of the Afghan forces is two years old,” he said.
Despite the fact that even Caldwell isn’t strong enough with the force to spring his Jedi mind trick on the entire country of Afghanistan, what he’s missing in that statement is a key misconception by ISAF’s Information Operations/Public Affairs Office: it’s not about the truth. It’s about perception.
I’m sure that Caldwell has a mass of Power Point briefings, spreadsheets, and field reports that show the burgeoning numbers of ANSF around Afghanistan, but what he’s not seeming to understand is that the people here still perceive the ANSF as ineffective at best.
That’s at best…at their worst, particularly the ANP, the ANSF are seen as uniformed criminals, mainly because they do things people kind of expect criminals to do: extort money, seize property, and generally raise chaos. When the guy in the uniform is the one shaking you down for money, for that Afghan citizen it’s not so much about what they think, it’s about how much that ANP is stealing this time.
Regardless of how much data Caldwell has to the contrary, the Afghan people see the ANSF as incapable of protecting them once the Americans leave. Maybe they need to just stop thinking so much. Maybe they need to learn how to use Power Point.
Maybe NTM-A needs to start hiring actual Jedi.
This post was written by...
Dan Smock – author of 15 posts on Registan.net.
Having spent time in Iraq as part of Uncle Sam's 9/11 World Tour as an infantry and civil affairs officer, Dan Smock is currently employed in Afghanistan as a civilian. His day job is way cooler than he deserves, and while he wants (desperately) to believe in the ISAF mission, he's pretty certain that all we're doing is lapping the drain. However, there are bright spots here, and he tries to find them when he can. He regularly blogs at It's Always Sunny in Kabul. You can reach him my email here.
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The ANA is a moving force.
At least one in seven Afghan soldiers walked off the job during the first six months of this year, a worsening trend at a time when Afghan and U.S. officials are trying to shift the burden of fighting the Taliban to Afghan security forces.
Between January and June, 24,590 soldiers walked off the job, compared with 11,423 who left in the same period last year, according to NATO statistics. In June alone, more than 5,000 soldiers deserted, nearly 3 percent of the force.
Meeting the handover target in four years requires 141,000 new recruits to be found within a year – more than the current size of the Afghan army. There are fears that the Taliban are taking the opportunity to enlist insurgents into the ranks.
Responsibilities are being transferred to the ANA, but there are concerns that the Afghan troops were making deals with the Taliban in areas around their bases in order to try to keep the peace.
”People will deny that the Afghans are making deals with the Talibs,” one source said. ”The Afghan National Army making deals with the Talibs is inevitable. It really isn’t the desired solution, but it is an Afghan solution.”
General Caldwell caveats his “take the lead in 2014″.
“I’m very confident that the Afghans can in fact take the lead for security by December 2014 — there’s no question they can do it,” Caldwell said.
“But it will require two things in order to make sure that happens. One is the international community has to remain committed to this mission. “If we start a precipitous withdrawal of monetary and trainer support, that could impede that ability. Caldwell has indicated that several thousand international trainers could be needed to support the mission until at least 2020.
“And the second thing is the Afghan government has to be committed to this. Right now they are, but if for some reason they waver and they don’t continue to do what they’re doing then that would call into question whether we can make it happen.”
The current annual budget includes $12.8 billion to grow, train, and equip Afghanistan’s army and its national police force. According to Brookings the ANA has only one kandak (battalion) capable of independent operations.
I agree, it is all about perceptions.
Yet I disagree that the entire Afghan population perceives their countries security forces so negatively. According to the Asia Foundation’s “Afghanistan in 2010: A Survey of the Afghan People” – one of the broadest public opinion polls in the country and the Foundation’s sixth annual survey – the Afghan public’s assessment of the Afghan National Police and Army is mostly positive. Further, while security and performance concerns remain, fewer respondents of the Foundation’s survey think the Afghan National Police is unprofessional or poorly trained or that it needs the support of foreign troops to operate.
http://asiafoundation.org/publications/pdf/797
So a survey that interviewed 6,467 people in a country of 28 million, conducted 23% of its surveys in the Central/Kabul region, and 14% of its surveys in Kabul province itself (the next nearest closest percentage was 7% in Herat), should be classified as “one of the broadest public opinion polls in the country?”
The survey reportedly asked 70 questions. In a single survey. The issue with this is that it’s too broad, covers too much ground, and takes too much time to complete per person being surveyed. As a means to collect information, a 70 question survey is a deeply flawed instrument, as it covers too many topics to adequately demonstrate a specific set of data.
Additional notes on methodology: they indicate they would use a Kish grid in order to determine who would be asked the questions. This works well in an environment where both men and women are allowed to speak equally. This is not the case in many areas in Afghanistan, and conducting a survey using Western methodologies without taking into consideration the realities on the ground would cause the results to be suspect.
Finally, according to the survey, 138 of the sample points had to be adjusted to replaced due to “instability and frequent fighting in some provinces.” This accounted for 65% of replacements, or 16% of substitutions. This was up from 2009, when only 102 sampling points had to be adjusted or replaced for the same reason. This means that security overall had deteriorated from the previous year’s survey, and would have shifted the surveyors into relatively more secure areas.
Only 9% of respondents had experienced any insurgent/militant actions in the last year, another indication that survey responses were collected in relatively secure areas. Unfortunately, that’s also flawed, since what ISAF often classifies as “insurgent” activity can often be attributed to other non-militant/insurgent actions, mainly criminal. Same result: less stability, but it’s not a terrible precise response.
So the survey focused too many questions across an extremely small sample for a national-level survey, focusing that sample even further into the Central/Kabul area of Afghanistan, which is generally more secure than the rest of Afghanistan. With apologies to the Asia Foundation and the really shiny report they put together, the methodology for this survey is so deeply flawed that any conclusions drawn from the survey should be suspect.
I would submit that the “Afghan public” has not been represented by this survey, and should not be used as an indicator of progress.
American officers deployed as mentors in Afghanistan’s main military hospital discovered a shocking secret last year: Injured soldiers were routinely dying of simple infections and even starving to death as some corrupt doctors and nurses demanded bribes for food and the most basic of care.
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Yet the patient neglect continued for months after U.S. officials discovered it, as Afghan officials rebuffed American pressure to take action, multiple documents and testimonies viewed by The Wall Street Journal show.
The way senior Afghan officials tolerated such deadly graft shows just how deeply rooted corruption has become in President Hamid Karzai’s administration, as well as the limits of Washington’s ability to rein it in. American advisers have since forced an improvement in conditions at the hospital.
Afghan policeman Ali Noor Hazrat had been admitted to Dawood hospital after being injured in a Taliban rocket attack on a police convoy last fall. Initially patched up by American doctors, he spent his last days starving there while his brother Sher sold off what little land the poor farming family had in order to bribe nurses and doctors for care and food, the brother said in an interview. In photos, Ali’s flesh hangs off his frail, boney frame, his eyes heavy with pain. He died on Dec. 27, Afghan government documents show.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904480904576496703389391710.html?mod=djemITP_h
“I’m very confident that the Afghans can in fact take the lead for security by December 2014 — there’s no question they can do it,” Caldwell said
Yeah Bro its Progress
Anyone care to venture an opinion as to why the wounded Afghan soldier or policeman should be subject to a level of treatment that is inferior to that of a member of a Nato force?
The issue is this: in many cases (as indicated in the article) NATO/ISAF did provide initial care, but once that ANA individual was turned over to their own medical personnel, the level of care plummeted dramatically. This is Afghans treating Afghans, and doing so poorly.
From the article: Afghan policeman Ali Noor Hazrat had been admitted to Dawood hospital after being injured in a Taliban rocket attack on a police convoy last fall. Initially patched up by American doctors, he spent his last days starving there while his brother Sher sold off what little land the poor farming family had in order to bribe nurses and doctors for care and food, the brother said in an interview. In photos, Ali’s flesh hangs off his frail, boney frame, his eyes heavy with pain. He died on Dec. 27, Afghan government documents show.
Yes, I understood that, Dan. The issue is: why isn’t NATO/ISAF continuing to provide the care instead of handing their Afghan colleagues over to such a system?
Why should US taxpayers, many of whom lack medical care, finance Afghan medical care?
One could ask, why should Afghans be asked to fight and die in a war on behalf of American taxpayers?
Catch-22 says they have a right to do anything we can’t stop them from doing
General Caldwell has been working on the perception angle, taking cues from his former mentor General Petraeus.
Recall that General Petraeus headed the Iraq Security Transition Command, as a major general, Jun 2004–Sep 2005. After he had been in charge of training the Iraqi Army for three months, he famously wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post which was published in September 2004.
During a crucial time in the presidential campaign, when Kerry said Iraq was headed south, Petraeus’s piece was a rosy prediction of things to come. “Six battalions of the Iraqi regular army and the Iraqi Intervention Force are now conducting operations. . .Within the next 60 days, six more regular army and six additional Intervention Force battalions will become operational. . . Nine more regular army battalions will complete training in January.”
Nope. In September 2005, a year later, General Casey told Congress that Iraq had only one capable battalion (but look at who had the last laugh).
This year, Caldwell couldn’t snare the WaPo so he settled for the Chicago Tribune, February 15, 2011.
“A little known but potentially decisive story developing in Afghanistan is the ‘surge of Afghans,’ that is, how Afghan men and women have swelled the ranks of the Afghan National Security Forces to levels more than double the U.S. surge. The surge of Afghans is the remarkable story of the tremendous growth of the Afghan National Security Force, a story will only continue as the army and police grow by an additional 35,000 by the end of October..” (Like Iraq in 2005, Afghanistan has one capable battalion. Some surge.)
Controlling perception — it’s called Strategic Communication:
“Focused United States Government efforts to understand and engage key audiences to create, strengthen, or preserve conditions favorable for the advancement of United States Government interests, policies, and objectives through the use of coordinated programs, plans, themes, messages, and products synchronized with the actions of all instruments of national power.” –DOD Dictionary
So how do we get our senior officers / leaders to change this? From what I can see, from what I have heard directly from a fair number of 2-star and up GOs, we (coalition forces, ANSF, etc) will prevail. Never is “why” or “how” articulated. I am left with the assumption that our current strategy (for want of a better word here) is successful and will continue to be so. All real-world indicators seem to point in other directions though.
Are our senior leaders this out of touch with reality? Or are they playing us? In his deepest most secret meetings with the inner cabal of his most trusted advisors and hangers-on does LTG Caldwell admit that our actions are often counterproductive and that his public pronouncements are just so much bullshit? Or does he really believe the line of crap he has been spilling?
And how does a lowly staff officer ascertain the difference?
It’s a “can-do” attitude which is organic to the US military. Every accomplishment and every person is always an exceptional success. That’s the reality. You’ve seen it.
At some point LTG Caldwell and company are political constructions that have to perpetuate the myth of success. It’s a thankless job that fine Americans like Caldwell and company are doing. Unfortunately, in such a politically-charged environment, anyone who stands up in uniform and says “this is lapping the drain” has assured that the career express has just moved onto a siding. The current line of communication seems to be: “Well, it’s better than it was under the Taliban,” which, honestly, isn’t setting the bar all that high.
As to how to “ascertain the difference,” as to motives, etc… unless you’re Carnac, good luck. As to truth, etc… numbers that are being pitched a certain way, if they are, tend to unravel pretty quickly. My own interaction with NTM-A PAO has been to get a pretty rapid “bait-and-switch”: “Yeah, ANA has its issues, but look at this great ANP video.” Both crucial components for ANSF, but, not seeing how a video about one informs the other.
Caldwell is on the way out. Yes, it is time to shine up the image, promote himself, and get the hell out of Dodge City.
Since I actually work with Caldwell’s Heroes every day I have some idea of how this is playing out, with or without the Super Jedis, none of whom I have seen.
Reality wise, it is not an issue at all of whether this data point is right, or that data point is wrong. It is also not super critical what the population is seeing in 2011 either. This is a process with about twenty four to thirty six months to assume final “hand over strong” status.
I have actually seen this situation before. In 1986, after a shorter time in country, with a more vicious war, and better aid programs and training, the Soviet LTG Caldwell, was saying the same things.
The end of the last ANSF organization was chaotic and relatively quick. The Soviet Version collapsed in slow motion without very much fighting. They essentially lost when several Commanders ie. Dostum switched sides to the Mujahadeen of the first Jihad. The major battles were fought on the Jalalabad road, and were inconclusive. After the desertion of more key Commanders, that was it for Soviet version.
This is probably what will happen this time if it ever goes that far. Pakistani elements are now entering the fray at an accelerated pace, and beginning to tip the balance . The mission this year has been to restock, rearm, and move where possible, expanding very slowly.
We are now in the final countdown on the Surge. The political situation in Kabul is frozen solid now until the departure of HKarzai. No one is moving one way or the other. Only the Islamic Emirate forces have a clear strategy at this time. There is no leadership at the moment in Kabul and that is the key and the reason for the drift we are seeing all the time.
All discussion of the end game will now have to wait until the gestation of NATO withdrawal which is now in full gear as Europe faces bankruptcy and the US tilts in double dip.
Whatever Caldwell did or did not do will hardly matter as the next episodes are going to played after 2014 or at the negotiating table-whichever comes first. The strength and will of the ANSF is not that important anymore.
The Pakistanis hold the best cards and they will determine when this goes into over drive and not Caldwell’s Heroes. This year has been a strategic draw, with slight advantage to ISAF. Next year, once again, we play for position and that is all. Caldwell is irrelevant in the end.
Thank you.
It’s all an illusion, particularly the part about the US controlling events.
But I don’t see the US leaving, ever.
Keep America safe.
The Russians had more sense.