Afghan Shooting
Yesterday’s shooting of two US soldiers outside a prison in Kabul is illustrative of several problems with the strategy being employed.
First is the obvious one: The guy was apparently an Afghan soldier, which means he was one of the guys we’re supposed to be training to take over from NATO when we leave. In Iraq, the US has all but quit training Iraqis because of the not uncommon, or incorrect, belief that they are basically training their opponents. The same may be true in Afghanistan. At the least, this is going to make it far harder for US and NATO troops to trust and work closely with Afghan troops.
The second point is more subtle, but probably even more important in what it says about NATO’s presence to Afghans:
Pul-e-Charkhi is a huge prison complex built in the 1970s on the outskirts of the capital.
The vast and run-down jail is infamous for disappearances and torture during the Communist era.
It is now used to house common criminals and al-Qaeda and Taleban suspects.
Much like Bagram and Abu Ghraib, the US has a tendency to use facilities with unsavoury reputations for purposes not dissimilar from the ones the old and hated regimes used them for. Not only the prisons, but housing US troops and commanders in Saddam’s palaces in Iraq give the impression of trading one oppressor or occupier for another.
A good way to encourage resistance, don’t you think?
