Saturday, June 11, 2005
The reality on the ground: training ANA and Iraqi troopsThis is one of the most disturbing articles
I've read in a while. The title is misleading; this article is not so
much about the "differences" between US and Iraqi soldiers as it is
about how we are mired in a screwed up quagmire that is only getting
worse: 12:56:10 AM | "I know the party line. You know, the Department of Defense, the U.S. Army, five-star generals, four-star generals, President Bush, Donald Rumsfeld: the Iraqis will be ready in whatever time period," said 1st Lt. Kenrick Cato, 34, of Long Island, N.Y., the executive officer of McGovern's company, who sold his share in a database firm to join the military full-time after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. "But from the ground, I can say with certainty they won't be ready before I leave. And I know I'll be back in Iraq, probably in three or four years. And I don't think they'll be ready then." "We don't want to take
responsibility; we don't want it," said Amar Mana, 27, an Iraqi private
whose forehead was grazed by a bullet during an insurgent attack in
November. "Here, no way. The way the situation is, we wouldn't be ready
to take responsibility for a thousand years." According to S, Afghanistan is a kleptocracy. Everyone steals and cheats, from the top down. An ANA general stole 90% of the equipment given to his group by the US, selling it on the black market. Apparently this happens every single day. Soldiers come to my husband asking for equipment they were issued the day before, demanding replacements because they'd "lost" the original issues, even though they'd sold it all in the market. Even Karzai has a reputation for thievery. On top of it there is, as you'd expect, a passive-aggressive resistance to anything the US soldiers order the ANA to do. The ANA refuse to do missions, or do them incorrectly. Sometimes directly out of spite. So far my husband's kandak (platoon) has a desertion rate of over 25%. He talked about the unbelievable amount of money that has been poured into Afghanistan by the international community and how little there is to show for it: there is no infrastructure to speak of. The country is still horribly broken. It seems much of the culture is broken too. After decades of making do during occupation and war, the country is left with a criminal mentality, one that is based on getting what you can get while you can. It's tragic. None of the troops serving in S's kandak can read or write. Therefore there are no contracts, no way to track who is in the military and who is not (none of the men have birth certificates, let alone IDs), and no consequences if they desert. There are no taxes in Afghanistan and therefore no money is going to the government except through international aid. Karzai has given top positions to war lords and drug runners in a stated attempt to passify them. Opium production is up 90% since the invasion. Greed and corruption are rampant, and violence is on the rise. We've been in Afghanistan for four years. S thinks we'll be there twenty more before we see a change. And then there's Iraq. The rumors in Afghanistan are that Iraq is getting worse because the insurgents now think they can actually win. All of this adds up to a frightening future, one of endless occupation in two countries. We can't recruit enough "volunteer" soldiers, so we're forcing many "volunteers" like S to stay involuntarily. It's all so wrong. I corrected the link to the story. It was taken off of MSN's site, but it's still available on the Post's. 
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"Yellow is not our color"Read what Dr. Omed has to say about those magnetic yellow ribbons. 12:22:10 AM | I hate those ribbons more than I should. It's not healthy to carry around anger for something so meaningless. And they are meaningless. Hopelessly meaningless.
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The ever-growing disconnectTwenty-eight soldiers have died in Iraq this month. Five in Afghanistan. And yet look at our major news outlets right now and tell me how buried the stories of these deaths are: The New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times, Chicago Tribune, USA Today, CNN, ABC News... Can you find them? Anywhere? 12:01:10 AM | And don't tell me this is "old news." Please, not that excuse again. Positively shameful.
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Last update: 8/24/05; 8:18:00 PM .
