Taliban infiltrating Afghan forces

Partisan

Active member
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-11464175

I'm absolutely gobsmacked that this apprently has not been considered!!

I'm going to believe that it is a journalistic hype story to an already known problem - if it isn't then we need to let Tom & Jerry take over NATO and retire some seriously overpaid General Staff.

So let's assume that we (NATO / Coalition forces) are on our game - what kind of checks are we conducting? Afghanistan was never known for its meticulous record keeping and filing. Are we disqualifying due to political affiliations - as we did in Iraq qith B'athists? Or are we working on tribal grounds - I would really like some insight from non talking heads.
 
This is not news, it has been known since we began to recruit for the army and police in Afghanistan. The problem is as you say, that there are no files we can rely on. We work on the tribal level and we are forced to rely on the information we receive from primarily the elderly in the community about whether an applicant poses a security risk or not. It is totally impossible to screen applicants in a country like Afghanistan. With the large number that must be trained over the next few years, it is a calculated risk we have to take.
 
This I understand, but what follow up is being conducted?

I feel that this is media hype for what is already known and understood - but I as a taxpayer would like to be reassured that the somebodyb is doing more than putting warm bodies into vacant slots - just because they have taken our salt.
 
No, but I did hope that we in the sophisticated "West" had a follow up plan, not a one shot death or glory strategy. But then I live to be disappointed
 
Sophisticated West? Is this a joke?

I dont want to throw you some of my anti-Western propaganda... As the minimum dose is barely beyond two tons... But seriously, the West have a sophisticated technology, but from a civilization standpoint, we are not poor, we are living in a big dark misery.

We cant afford the fidelity of the Afghan people. They dont like us, we dont like them. End of story.

But the people handling things over there understood the old saying ; "you cant buy an Afghan's fidelity, but you can rent it."

Buy and rent... All related to money and material aspects. That's all we have to offer. It's a thing we understand very quick when we study some phenomenons like immigration. People dont come in our countries for it's political system... But for comfort, material comfort. Our system is corrupt, and a lot of people know it.

Take the Western forces, take out their high tech weapons and give them the same level of resources as their enemies... And then, we would get wasted. If it was a battle of will, we would have lost a long time ago...

I dont think that it's a calculated risk. There is no risk. We wont win hearts and minds in a country like Afghanistan. We cant offer them equality, and without equality, they HAVE to oppose us. It's in their best interest.

The Afghan soldier will always feel closer to the Taliban than to the Western soldier. At least one of them can call him "brother" without sounding hypocritical.

I think we should pull out of Afghanistan, there is nothing to do there... We wont turn it into a rich Western like democracy... Not in a million years.
 
To be totally frank, what files are you looking for? How many Afghan people can write there name let alone a CV? And a CV can easily be forged. And do you actually suppose that Afghan government, which has been around since like 2001, would have some ok files on every person on the country? I'm not surprised this could happen, actually I would be more surprised if this wasn't happening. I think the media is making it sound worse than it is because I reckon our forces are probably doing a rather good job out there.
 
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