More Afghan Soldiers Deserting the Army
September 21st, 2011
Gee, I can’t imagine why.
There comes a time in all wars when young men choose to lay down their arms rather than continuing to fight their own countrymen or even soldiers of other countries. A new study reveals that at least one of seven Afghan soldiers are walking away from the job, and the number keeps ticking upward.
Some Afghan officials point to the vulnerability of a long-standing Afghan policy that prohibits the punishment of deserters, and plans are underway to rewrite the rulebook on that one. NATO’s efforts to build a healthy military for Afghanistan’s eventual self governing points only to the fact that most Afghans are unimpressed by NATO’s presence in the region, and they are even less enamored that an outside occupying army should be training them on how best to kill their own countrymen.
NATO is quick to blame leaders of the “coalition” forces with corruption, lax training, poor living conditions, lack of pay—in other words the typical complaints one finds in any work environment.
What surprises is that NATO commanders seem mystified by the growing trend of desertion. Could it be that with each passing day (and there have by now been quite a few, Afghans are less and less enamored of choosing any side in the war, regardless of pay and working conditions? Maybe, just maybe, enough is verging on too much?
Any honest appraisal of the occupation and war effort in Afghanistan must lead to the conclusion that no one is winning the war, and the only ones who are benefiting, and they are doing handsomely, are those involved in the drug trade. Opium is the major crop in the country, and the Taliban had gone a long way to eradicating the poppy fields prior to the U.S. 2001 smackdown. That the drug trade is flourishing again points only to one inescapable conclusion. The U.S., no matter its other successes or failures in the region, has provided drug traffickers a much more effective and streamlined grow-to-ship operation, and the CIA has earned a fortune matching buyers to sellers on the global drug market.
That would appear to be what our sons and daughters are really dying for in Afghanistan. It’s the kind of national patriotism that chokes me up right here. And of course, the longer we can keep this thing going in Afghanistan, the more money…oh, skip it.
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i like this. The way I look at war is, it will always be a part of history. Think of all the wars or should i say battles in the 1700′s, 1800′s even way before these times. We will always be at war with some country. And they will always use scapegoats as to why we are at war. But they never actually speak the truth like you have in this article.
You made a very good point here. War is really very tiring since, as you’ve pointed out, no one wins and only those you’ve mentioned are the winners here. I bet these soldiers realized this and opened their eyes to the real situation.