Afghan army still rife with problems but more ready for Canadian handoff
Published Wednesday October 15th, 2008
NAKONEY, Afghanistan - Canada's military exit strategy from Afghanistan sprawls on tarps spread out over the desert dust just outside this village southwest of Kandahar.
Some clean their weapons; some sip sweet, apple-flavoured tea by garbage-fuelled fires. A few wrestle playfully like wolf cubs and at the far end of the camp, some toss around a borrowed football in spirals that are wobbly at best.
Throwing the unfamiliar, oddly shaped ball may baffle the soldiers of the Afghan National Army, but they are quickly learning to take a handoff.
In 2011, Canada plans to withdraw its combat troops and leave this murky conflict to Afghan government troops.
Six days patrolling a Taliban stronghold with these former farmers, taxi drivers and labourers revealed plenty of weaknesses - field discipline that can resemble six-year-olds playing hockey, logistics problems that force them to consider enemy caches as resupply opportunities, and a life so harsh that even these tough men last only a few years.
But during Operation Array earlier this month, the ANA also showed the stirrings of what may become Afghanistan's most functional and trusted national institution. Here, men from a warlord culture are learning to transfer their loyalties to a nation, and each other.
"We are brothers," said Sgt. John Mohammed, a three-year veteran who says he joined the army because he liked the vehicles and thought the uniforms looked snappy. The comrades squatting beside him include a Hazara, a Tajik, a Pashtun, an Uzbek and a Turkman, but something larger has brought them together.
"There are not any differences between us," Mohammed said through a translator.
"You have (soldiers) from different tribes, but we live in the same place. It's the same army, it's the same country."
Although its Canadian mentors will remain for a while, the battalion, or kandak, involved in Array is now considered able to plan and execute its own operations - the first in the 62,000-strong ANA to achieve that rating. Two other kandaks are close, for a total of about 1,500 men.
Its soldiers now all wear uniforms, boots and body armour, although they have a knack for wearing them in their own ways. Its rifles are a mix of old AK-47s, Canadian C-7s and U.S. M-16s, but everybody has one.
American Humvees are beginning to replace pickup trucks for transport. The ANA recently completed its first artillery mission, firing flares in support of British troops - no small feat for an army whose soldiers are still mostly illiterate and innumerate.
And no one doubts their courage.
"I know they will shoot us," said Lieut. Hamoun, who goes by one name. "But this is my country."
Still, while the Afghans are fielding better soldiers, they haven't yet mastered the art of keeping them fed, watered, armed and healthy.
"When they run out of something, that's when they want to go back and replenish it," said Col. Joseph Shipley, who commands the Canadian mentorship program for the ANA.
Shipley adds that the speed of the army's growth has outpaced its administrative skill. The ANA was only 40,000 strong a couple years ago and the problem is compounded by the constant adoption of new equipment.
That has led to scenes such as those on Array, when tug-of-wars developed over large Taliban caches of arms and medical supplies. NATO wanted them for intelligence purposes; the ANA wanted to use them.
As well, Canadian officers expressed frustration at how the Afghans sometimes lost focus, bunching up when they got bored or found something instead of maintaining their positions. Once, at the sight of water pouring out of an irrigation pipe, some Afghans dropped their weapons, stripped off their armour and shirts and splashed about like schoolboys.
"Sometimes, it's just poor field discipline," sighs Shipley.
But sometimes, it's a different attitude toward risk, a sense that their fate depends on God, not a manual of field procedures.
"The Afghan culture is based very much on the idea of Inshallah, God willing," said Shipley.
"We want to take a lot more protective postures when we're out there because we believe that a lot of our fate is in our own hands and that we can take steps to protect ourselves. A lot of the things that we try to impart as basic soldier discipline, they'll shrug their shoulders at.
"And a lot of it comes back to the Inshallah attitude."
High turnover is also an issue. Studies suggest that only about one-third of Afghan soldiers re-enlist after three years but Hamoun says the real figure is more like 10 per cent.
The living conditions are hard, and soldiers are deliberately posted to regions far from home. It promotes ethnic mixing, but it separates men from their families in a country where travel is difficult.
The pay, too, is poor. Hamoun said it's tough to feed his family on $200 a month.
"This is a big issue and a big problem," he said.
Still, the Afghan army is a success with those for whom it counts the most - the Afghan people.
On Array, its soldiers chatted easily with old men puffing water pipes outside mud-walled compounds. A little boy emerged from a darkened doorway and walked right past a group of Canadians to offer a pomegranate to an ANA soldier.
ANA soldiers are proud of their rapport with local civilians, and say it gives them a real advantage.
"I know who's a good guy and who's a bad guy," said Mohammed. "I can tell from the clothes, from the language. The Canadian guy doesn't know."
Afghans accord ANA officers the authority they once granted tribal leaders, said Maj. Steve Nolan, who commands one of the Canadian mentoring teams.
"When we walk downtown, the people come up to the kandak commander and say, 'I have a problem'," he said.
But will they be able to carry the ball after 2011?
They'll probably still need some blockers to help them through, said Shipley.
"It takes years to develop the institutional framework to sustain itself," he said. "They won't be able to stand up on their own, but they'll be a lot better than they are now."
Nolan works as closely with the Afghans as anyone, and his optimism is cautious but real.
"Right now, they're on a bicycle with training wheels, but two years ago they were on a tricycle," he said.
More News
Search Articles
More CE Network Sites & Partners:
