From Military.com:
“Afghanistan Loses 42,000 Troops
in Crackdown on 'Ghost Soldiers' “
Attacks are increasing while the
strength of Afghan security forces decreases. Schools are closing amid the
violence, and no girls are being enrolled in many districts. Efforts to root
out Afghan government corruption have either stalled, or never got off the
ground. The bleak description of Afghanistan's status nearly 18 years after the
U.S. invaded following the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks came in the latest
quarterly report to Congress released Thursday by the Office of the Special
Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR). The 270-page report
states that 6,445 enemy-initiated attacks, or EIAs, occurred between March 1
and May 31, a 9% increase over the previous quarter. More than half of the
attacks were in five of Afghanistan's 34 provinces -- Helmand, Badghis, Faryab,
Herat and Farah. At the same time, the number of Afghan troops and police on
the books fell significantly, the report found, likely the result of the
elimination of so-called "ghost" soldiers from the records. Previous
SIGAR reports have cited the practice by corrupt Afghan commanders of listing
non-existent troops or police on their rosters to draw their salaries, which
are paid by the U.S. The report states that the number of Afghan National
Security and Defense Forces (ANSDF), which includes both troops and police,
fell by nearly 42,000 between March and May, compared to the same period last
year. It cites data from the U.S.-led coalition to attribute much of the
decline to the ANSDF's switch to counting only troops validated as existing by
biometrics, rather than relying on the numbers reported by field commanders. "The
change was part of an effort by the United States and its partners to reduce
opportunities for corrupt ANSDF officials to report 'ghost' soldiers and police
on personnel rolls in order to pocket the salaries," the report states. The
lengthy report paints an overall bleak picture of the prospects for Afghanistan
in establishing a stable democracy and open society. "The Afghan
government cannot survive financially or militarily without continued external
assistance, and with those donor funds comes the dual risk of losing money to
corruption, as well as contributing to fostering corruption by distorting the
economy," John Sopko, the head of SIGAR, said in a statement included in
the report. American officials have repeatedly cited the opening of schools and
the enrollment of girls, who were barred from school under Taliban rule, as
signs of progress since the U.S. intervention. However, the SIGAR report states
that schools are closing amid attacks by the Taliban and the ISIS offshoot
known as Islamic State-Khorasan Province, or ISIS-K. Citing data from the
United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the report found that schools were
attacked 192 times in 2018, up from 68 in 2017, and more than 1,000 schools had
shut down in 2018 during the ongoing conflict. "High levels of school
closures continued in 2019," the report states. In addition, "girls'
education lags across much of southern Afghanistan," where there were
seven provinces in which no girls were enrolled in 50% of the districts, the
report found. "Nearly 2.6 million girls are out of school in Afghanistan,
according to the Afghan government," it adds. The report came amid
continuing efforts by Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S special representative for
Afghanistan reconciliation, to broker a peace deal with the Taliban, and calls
from the White House and several of the Democratic presidential contenders for
an end to the U.S. presence in Afghanistan. "We're working on negotiating
a deal right now, as you probably have heard, and you know, at some point, we
want to get out as quickly as we can," President Donald Trump said in an
interview on C-Span Wednesday. As is often the case with SIGAR reports, the
dire situation painted by Sopko was at odds with the limited progress described
by the Defense Department last month in one of its required periodic
assessments to Congress. "The injection of new military capabilities and
operational authorities" by Army Gen. Scott Miller, commander of U.S.
Forces Afghanistan and the NATO Resolute Support Mission, "has restored
the coalition's tactical initiative and put heavy pressure on the
Taliban," the Pentagon report said. "The objective of the operational
design is to bring the Taliban to the bargaining table and to provide strong
incentives for them to engage in meaningful negotiations with the U.S. and
Afghan governments," it added. The report was released July 12, a day
after Army Gen. Mark Milley testified before the Senate Armed Services
Committee at his confirmation hearing to become the next chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff. In his remarks, he said of the increasing calls for
withdrawal, "I think pulling out prematurely would be a strategic
mistake." Milley was confirmed as the 20th chairman of the Joint Chiefs on
July 25.
^ This was exactly what happened
when the US left South Vietnam in 1973 and why the North Vietnamese were able
to take over in 1975. The US and our Allies (Australia, New Zealand, Thailand
and South Korea) were really the only thing keeping the unstable South
Vietnamese Government going and when our militaries left it was an easy spiral
down into chaos in South Vietnam. The North Vietnamese took over and reunited
the country while sending thousands upon thousands of South Vietnamese to
re-education camps and forced labor for decades. The main difference in
Afghanistan is that the Taliban has already ruled there with an iron-fist so
the ordinary Afghanis know what to expect when the US leaves and the Taliban
return to power (I don’t think the current, unstable Afghani Government can do
much of anything to stop that from happening.) You would think the current Afghani
Government, the Afghani Military and even ordinary Afghanis would be doing
everything they could to make sure that didn’t happen. Unfortunately the level
of corruption and greed at every level over there is too great so once the US
leaves Afghanistan the Taliban will simply come in and rule things again - with their violence and death. Of course if
the Taliban allow terrorists to stage their attacks on the outside world from
Afghanistan the US and the rest of the world will be back to how it was in 2001
and the 18 year war would have been for nothing. ^
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.