Agree–a feature and not a bug. That forces me to ask, though: are we really prepared as a country to fund the national security forces in perpetuity for a government comprised of war criminals like Dostum and countless other drug kingpins and their puppets? This isn’t going to be like the typical military assistance funding we dole out. We’ll be providing almost the entire budget of their military. That means almost every bullet fired by national security forces presided over by mass murdering drug lords like Dostum will have our fingerprints on them.

Sounds like a recipe for new insurgencies with serious anti-American proclivities, if you ask me.

Let’s get even more complicated. Won’t we be doing the same thing on the other side of the spectrum if we support the Afghan government reconciling with non-AQ-supportive elements of the Taliban? And remember, reconciliation is the alternative to fighting endlessly.

Insurgencies end when insurgents come to believe that they can accomplish their goals at least as well politically as they can under arms. Or conversely, members of the opposition take up an armed struggle when they cannot make headway politically. In some cases this is because they are genuinely unpopular extremists, and the system will legitimately reject their participation, but in many cases it is because the government merely prevents their participation. When a government is repressive, and the opposition does somehow get access to the political process, they frequently win because in suppressing their political activity the government has become hated and feared.

In Afghanistan, we are seeing a kind of an ugly hybrid. Under international military occupation, they are being led by the hand, at gunpoint if you will, to an election. But the incumbent government is corrupt and uninvested in the rule of law, so they are seeking to manipulate the election in a manner that benefits them and their supporters.

This is the reason that historically, it has been the position of the United States that an election held under occupation was illegitimate on its face…

mikey

Or alternatively, if we’re bankrolling the training of the ANSF then we can help shape their behavior. It’s not as if the only option is delivering weapons and money into the pockets of thugs like Dostum. I’ve seen the institutional effects that U.S.-led professionalism has had in Afghanistan with the police, like stopping them from robbing a group of women of their motorcycle. Just one microcosmic example, and it’s not like your point isn’t a good one, just that there’s more to it than funding them without strings.

I’d correct one point: reconciliation is an alternative. None are pretty, but not all of them are predicated on the idea that we are responsible for what the Afghans do with their own society.

Point taken, but the question stands. And I don’t have an answer.

Sorry to hear from your most recent post that you’ve had a rough day. I’ll just offer a few final thoughts and then bow out of the thread.

First, going back to Dostum, I note that he was actually on our payroll when he killed 2K prisoners via suffocation and head-shots. What our money bought us in that case was not reform, but liability: we were pulled into a cover-up because he was “ours.” I grant that this was not a training situation, but it should still serve as a warning. Regardless of whether the expanding security forces act within the guidelines we try to impose, if we’re payin’ ‘em, they’re ours.

I don’t doubt your personal observation. I would just offer the following contrasting observation from USIP:

Despite the impressive growth in numbers, the expenditure of $10 billion in international police assistance, and the involvement of the United States, the European Union, and multiple donors, the ANP is riddled with corruption and generally unable to protect Afghan citizens, control crime, or deal with the growing insurgency.

…Beyond funding the Taliban, the explosion in Afghan narcotics production fueled widespread corruption in the Afghan government and police. Drug abuse by police officers became increasingly common as did other forms of criminal behavior.

The Afghan drug lords own the Afghan police, via corruption/bribes and by simple addiction. The solution to this situation (provided it’s a given that it’s our responsibility to solve this problem, which it is not) is not to grossly inflate the corrupted institution even further beyond what the Afghan economy can sustain. Training is one thing I think we could provide, but a training exchange program is a far, far different thing than creating a massive institution funded by U.S. taxpayer dollars that is beholden to war criminals and kingpins.

Here’s my worry. We are not going to fix the problems that make Afghan society the basket-case that it is today. The people that make up the Kabul regime will not be the ones that save Afghanistan. Change, if it comes, will have to come from the bottom up. And when and if an Afghan people’s movement for change does get its act together, if we have followed the current strategy, they’ll have to face off against a national security state apparatus provided to the forces of corruption and repression by the People of the United States.

Hope tomorrow is a better day.