Afghan Taliban, Afghan Local Police...Difference?
Out with the old, in with the new. Fresh blood, with inventive perceptions and clever interventions. NATO has realized some success in its search for senior Taliban commanders, isolating them and taking them out of commission. And in their place come new Taliban commanders, young and brash and confident. And totally without compassion. Young men who have known only combat and brutal confrontation with foreign enemies.
If they started out with some element of human kindness in their bones, it somehow drained away through the years of exposure to bloody warfare. Or perhaps the brutality bespeaks a genetic endowment allowed free reign in a lawless society where tribal resentments and clan pride and honour and the crass enablement of enriching oneself became an integral part of life's experience.
Western intelligence officials along with their Afghan counterparts have identified this new breed of Taliban warriors, militants who have replaced the killed or captured older commanders. The young recruits have been taught the fine points of jihad by Pakistani fanatics, themselves trained and expert in the use of modern weaponry paired with the immortal words of the Koran.
These new commanders are ruthless killers. They will not turn back at signs of danger to themselves. And they exact the most balefully sinister punishments on their enemies through torture and death. And to teach their own troops the benefits of obeying commands to the nth degree, punishment for those who do not, serves as a warning to those who waver.
Link that to the emergence of Afghan militias, trained and armed by the U.S. to act as local protectors from the Taliban, of towns and villages where the Afghan National Police and the Army do not extend their purview. Those local militias have learned the joys inherent in preying on the local people, beating and robbing them and sometimes killing them as well.
The local militias, trained and armed by U.S. troops in Kandahar, where a U.S. troop surge has taken over from Canada, with the idea that these men know the territory, know the inhabitants, have a tribal rapport with them, interact easily with them for they are all regional Afghans, have turned into violence-prone gangs under no one's control and direction but their own.
Their vicious predation on the rural populations, as they present in the guise of Afghan Local Police, but behaving much like morally demented criminals, (which is what they are), have posed a dilemma to those upon whom they prey, and those who trained them to serve and protect, alike. "If there were no Americans in the area, these people would steal our turbans", said one farmer of the local police.
And here is Hamid Karzai, speaking out yet again, on his opinion of NATO, as 'invaders' and 'occupiers', urging foreign powers to remove their troops from Afghanistan, even as he anticipates that they will remain and continue to assist him in his tenuous hold on power.
If they started out with some element of human kindness in their bones, it somehow drained away through the years of exposure to bloody warfare. Or perhaps the brutality bespeaks a genetic endowment allowed free reign in a lawless society where tribal resentments and clan pride and honour and the crass enablement of enriching oneself became an integral part of life's experience.
Western intelligence officials along with their Afghan counterparts have identified this new breed of Taliban warriors, militants who have replaced the killed or captured older commanders. The young recruits have been taught the fine points of jihad by Pakistani fanatics, themselves trained and expert in the use of modern weaponry paired with the immortal words of the Koran.
These new commanders are ruthless killers. They will not turn back at signs of danger to themselves. And they exact the most balefully sinister punishments on their enemies through torture and death. And to teach their own troops the benefits of obeying commands to the nth degree, punishment for those who do not, serves as a warning to those who waver.
Link that to the emergence of Afghan militias, trained and armed by the U.S. to act as local protectors from the Taliban, of towns and villages where the Afghan National Police and the Army do not extend their purview. Those local militias have learned the joys inherent in preying on the local people, beating and robbing them and sometimes killing them as well.
The local militias, trained and armed by U.S. troops in Kandahar, where a U.S. troop surge has taken over from Canada, with the idea that these men know the territory, know the inhabitants, have a tribal rapport with them, interact easily with them for they are all regional Afghans, have turned into violence-prone gangs under no one's control and direction but their own.
Their vicious predation on the rural populations, as they present in the guise of Afghan Local Police, but behaving much like morally demented criminals, (which is what they are), have posed a dilemma to those upon whom they prey, and those who trained them to serve and protect, alike. "If there were no Americans in the area, these people would steal our turbans", said one farmer of the local police.
And here is Hamid Karzai, speaking out yet again, on his opinion of NATO, as 'invaders' and 'occupiers', urging foreign powers to remove their troops from Afghanistan, even as he anticipates that they will remain and continue to assist him in his tenuous hold on power.
Labels: Afghanistan, Conflict, Crisis Politics, NATO
posted by Pieface | 7:39 PM
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