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View Full Version : Afgans fair weather friends


paraclete
Jul 15, 2010, 07:28 PM
Interviews reveal Australian soldiers feel their Afghan army allies are 'dodgy' | News.com.au (http://www.news.com.au/national/interviews-reveal-australian-soldiers-feel-their-afghan-army-allies-are-dodgy/story-e6frfkvr-1225892506953)

Here is an aspect of Afghanistan we seldom see. The men on the ground don't know who to trust and they are referring to the troops they train. I know that we should see the case of Afghans going nuts and killing NATO/US soldiers as isolated cases but perhaps it isn't as isolated as we think. What might happen if the insurgents actually succeed in an attack?

tomder55
Jul 16, 2010, 02:34 AM
But it is an isolated case;that is just the facts. It is difficult to prevent infiltration when training people to fight an insurgency... that is not really news.

The bigger issue is that most of the trainees are not Pashtun .They are generally Tajik from areas controlled by the Northern Alliance.

Unfortunately ,this effort has it's own poison pill... a date certain for withdrawal . That is going to get more troops killed than any incident of infiltration.

paraclete
Jul 16, 2010, 04:57 AM
But it is an isolated case;that is just the facts. It is difficult to prevent infiltration when training people to fight an insurgency ...that is not really news.

The bigger issue is that most of the trainees are not Pashtun .They are generally Tajik from areas controlled by the Northern Alliance.

Unfortunately ,this effort has it's own poison pill ...a date certain for withdrawal . That is going to get more troops killed than any incident of infiltration.

Isolated in the sense it hasn't happened very often, but it has happened.
Increasingly this is a bad idea

tomder55
Jul 16, 2010, 06:47 AM
Yeah if you are looking for a reason to leave then a single instance of infiltration is as good as any.

paraclete
Jul 16, 2010, 03:12 PM
yeah if you are looking for a reason to leave then a single instance of infiltration is as good as any.

Come on Tom its not a single instance, though they may not occur frequently it is more than once, which indicates it might be a Taliban strategy