(This blog was first posted on Get The Gouge on Jan 6th)

I said this in 2006 when I first got to Afghanistan. Too many Generals and State Dept. yukkity yucks were in Kabul whispering into the ears of the leaders in the Afghanistan government. They were telling them things like habeas corpus and illegal search and seizure, and other protections that we as a matured country have. They are influencing these Afghan leaders to implement the same concepts in a country that is maybe 2 weeks out of the stone age. What third-world country do you know that has a completely separate police and army? Not many, if any. They have a paramilitary, which is a force that protects the borders and the country from outsides and protects the people on the inside from themselves. A budding country that is just learning how to stand up and take its first steps as a free democratic society is not capable of running the 100yd dash a day later.

Yet this is what is happening in Afghanistan as the “great minds” of US civilian and military leadership try to shove 200+ years of government and democratic progression down the throats of these leaders who are eager to mimic our country as it makes them feel and look better.

If you read , www.stuff.co.nz/4797288a12.html you will see that the ICG is saying that the Afghan National Police (ANP) is not working on crime busting, but is instead conducting military actions and that is keeping them from moving forward. I don’t know who the International Crisis Group (ICG) is, but I think they are bumbling idiots that are licking the windows of the buses they ride to work every day and they have probably NEVER spent a day downrange living, eating and surviving with the ANP. If they had, they would know that ANP are still being trained in basic tactics….survival tactics. See the ANP are being slaughtered by numbers that most outside of Afghanistan never know. It is kind of difficult to conduct neighborhood crime watch and bust pick-pockets when every time you are on the road you are being blown up by IEDs or attacked in complex RPG-initiated ambushes.

The country has to have basic security in place before it can afford to spend its resources on D.A.R.E. programs and community watch groups. Until they have security in place and things stable enough for the military to handle everything, the police will continue to be an integral part of the government security forces machine. This is why someone needs to go into the Ministry of Defense and Ministry of Interior of Afghanistan and start kicking butt and taking names. We need to stand this child up, teach it to walk without falling down, teach it to feel safe walking, and then teach it to run before we try to put it in a race. This will not happen overnight, and in fact it will take a generation of Afghans before this type of stability is probably in place.

Don’t take my word for it, just sit back and watch……………

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