This was not reassuring. It describes the experiences that a retired Eau Claire County, WI sherrif's deputy had while in Afghanistan, working to help train their police:
"Perhaps the biggest problem related to his work, Henricks said, was the misleading way in which Afghan men were recruited for police jobs. Recruiters seemed interested only in numbers and routinely lied to the recruits about the length and style of training and about whether they could keep personal belongings, Henricks said. When recruits entered the program and realized they were stuck there for eight weeks, couldn't quit and had to work alongside members of ethnic groups they wouldn't even speak to, it led to hunger strikes, mini riots and all kinds of problems that made effective police training nearly impossible, he said.
It didn't help that recruits know insurgents target the Afghan National Police - more than 800 have been killed - and they can make more money working for the Taliban, who governed the country until being ousted by U.S.-led forces in 2001.
When Henricks explained the problems and told program officials the unethical behavior had to stop, he said he was reassigned to another role. He spent the end of his time in Afghanistan serving as a "shooter," meaning he provided security for convoys."
Afghanistan is not a modern, western society. It's a tribal society, and corrupt practices like bribery are endemic because they're a reflection of its tribal structure. Any work there must begin from those fundamental understandings, or the effort will be built on a lie and will almost certainly fail. Afghanistan's police force will never reach Eau Claire County standards, and it's idiotic to expect that. Thing is, I don't think Ed Henricks falls into this trap. I think he just doesn't see how you're ever going to create a national police force from the practices he describes, and have it be anything except a barrier to the larger Afghan mission's success. I find it hard to argue with that.
In the US police forces are primarily state and local. Why are we trying to build a national police force?
Valid question. This appears to have have been the approach in Iraq as well. It had more than one abortive start there, but appears to be gaining traction now.
It could be that when the threat is severe enough, rather than the limitations of local resources you go with a para-military Carabineri type model that can reinforce up to whatever level and escalate along with the bad guys. But I don't know. Readers?
I'd imagine any local force will by necessity be run by the tribes, making them militias for all intents and purposes. Funneling limited resources to forces completely outside national control is hard to pull the trigger on. That doesn't make it wrong-headed (witness the Anbar Awakening Council), but you have to be very careful. Those resources could very rapidly end up used against you by your enemies. Or at the least hoarded for a rainy day.
That all goes to the overall strategy. I think a lot of people are worried about exactly what we are trying to do in Afghanistan. We've actually gotten very good over the years at pumping up our hosting allies to deal with insurgencies (as in the Philippines etc), but i think we are far too invested in Afghanistan to really go that route. I'm curious what Patreaus is thinking right now. I suspect his best answer doesn't jive well with American politics, and that's WHY we don't hear nearly as much from him as we did in Iraq.
My best guess is that we should be working the tribes in Afghanistan and pumping resources into areas we can work with. Then let them go to war with the recalcitrant regions, while we quietly target and eliminate AQ and high level Taliban. In that case a bigger boot print is the wrong answer. One thing im positive of is that splitting the difference is the worst answer. Trying to control the whole country without the resources violates every rule of war I can think of.