Most of the recruits are rural villagers who have never been inside a classroom. Roughly 15 percent test positive for drugs, primarily hashish. Few know how to use a toothbrush or drive, and nearly 90 percent are illiterate.
Since January 2007, upwards of 2,000 police have been killed in action—more than twice the figure for Afghan Army soldiers. U.S. officers say as many as half the police casualties were a result of firearms accidents and traffic collisions.
70,000 or so Afghans trained under the program since its inception, only about 30,000 remain on the force, according to State and Defense officials.
The whole article is very interesting. A good read if you have the time.
Full Story at Newsweek – HERE
I picture the training going something like this:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vx57Bo9l–8[/youtube]
Comments
10 responses to “Newsweek – Failure of the Afghan National Police”
Only 15%? I would have expected a lot more than that.
Yea that does seem extremely low. I bet the percentage is higher in any given highschool in the U.S.
I was over there a number of years ago. The ANA and ANP would come to our place for training occasionally. We’d search them in like everyone else and we found A LOT of hash.
I’m going back over fairly soon and I’m not really enthused. They were turds last time and I imagine they’re still turds. I read “The Osama Bin Ladin I Know” in college and found that Osama was infuriated by the Afghans because they believed that working more than six hours a day would kill a man. Their work ethic hadn’t changed when I was there in 04. I doubt it’s any better in ’10.
Thank you for serving DC. It’s gotta be frustrating dealing with guys that just don’t care at all. Hopefully from every one of those groups there will be at least a few good guys that will excel, and break away from their cultural norms.
Well if this classic video of the ANA trying to do jumping jacks is any indication or their prospects…………
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdggP7rw0mg
LOL that’s amazing
You have no idea how much hash these guys smoked. Every combat operation they went out on they would be baked. 15%? More like 90% And a large number were/are Taliban agents/sympathizers and would commit acts of treason both large and small on a regular basis. They would desert their posts and run at the drop of a hat. We all hated the ANP, and the ANA was only slightly better. At least the ANA only shot each other, unlike the ANP, who shot at us many a time, but like it shows in the video, none of them can shoot for shit. So that was good for us. Man, the stories I could tell if there was no such thing as OPSEC…
Damn, that sounds frustrating!
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