Afghan Army: Corrupt, Untrained, Underpaid, Illiterate

From Defence of the Realm:

The Sunday Times laments the poor state
of the Afghan security forces, with a long piece headed: "Corrupt, untrained, underpaid, illiterate: the forces waiting to take over." This is by no means the first article to draw attention to the parlous state of the forces, on which the Coalition exit plan entirely depends.

In fact – as you might expect – the problem is very far from new. In 1900, Afghan ruler Abdur Rahman was recalling the state of the army he had inherited from his predecessor, noting that it was "defective in certain respects" ...

Read more ....

My Comment: Defence of the Realm is one of my favorite blogs .... a must read everyday.But there was something in his title for his post that got me thinking.

Corrupt, untrained, underpaid, illiterate .... while he refers this to the Afghan Army, one can also say the same thing about the Taliban. They are also corrupt (some may disagree with this point .... but accepting bribes has also been there way of doing business), untrained, most are probably not paid, and illiterate .... but they are winning this war.

The question that then needs to be asked is .... what is the difference between a Taliban soldier and an Afghan soldier. They are the same people .... from different tribal affiliations (maybe) .... but they look at Afghanistan as their country. They worship the same God, and they .... like everyone else in Afghanistan .... has suffered greatly in the past 30 years. They have the same education .... or lack of. While they may differ in dialects and language .... this has not stopped them from doing business with each other for centuries.

So .... why are the Taliban a far more effective fighting force even with having limits on supplies and resources. Why is their dedication to win far greater than what their Afghan counterparts on the other side may have. Why in this civil war they are the ones who are winning, and we are the ones who are losing. Questions .... questions .... questions.

My answer ..... maybe it is because of us.

More on this at a later time.