like i said above- all they had to do is change their name and karzai would accept!
"local police" sounds very nice and im glad this all worked out!
like i said above- all they had to do is change their name and karzai would accept!
"local police" sounds very nice and im glad this all worked out!
So are these new local police forces part of, an adjunct to, totally separate from or a replacement for the ANP?
The new local police force will operate separately from the ANP but will still fall under the authority of the country’s Interior Ministry.
Reminds me of a little anecdote from one of the OIF books (Fiasco, Imperial Life..., or some other book)...Originally Posted by subrosa
LinkSometime in 2003, it occurred to the CPA proconsul Paul Bremer that however much the Kurds had aided the toppling of the Ba'ath and any American-led effort to rebuild Iraq, they were not going to be allowed to maintain a standing "sectarian" militia of their own. This meant that the peshmerga, the well-armed and well-trained Kurdish army, would have to go. Bremer appointed a consultant from the RAND Corporation to negotiate its disbandment with Masour Barzani of the Kurdistan Regional Government in Irbil.
"Look, we'll let you have mountain rangers, a rapid reaction force and a counterterrorism strike force, but no Kurdish army," said the RAND consultant, proceeding to explain the problems of martial division in a federated democracy to a man who'd helped hold together the only democratic polity Iraq had ever known up to then.
Keep in mind that the peshmerga were for twelve years, along with the U.S. and British fighter jets patrolling the No Fly Zone, the only line of defense between the Kurds and Saddam's forces of genocide. After a few seconds' deliberation, Barzani agreed. Hand-shakes and wiped brows all around. But just as the RAND consultant was boarding the plane that would shuttle him back to the Green Zone, it occurred to him to ask what the Kurdish translation of "mountain rangers, rapid reaction force and counterrorism strike force" might be. With a wry grin on his face, Barzani replied: "peshmerga."
Some questions about this local police plan:
1) How are we going to prevent these "local police" from simply becoming the militia of whoever is the strongest powerbroker in whatever area they are operating in? I doubt the Ministry of Interior is really going to be keeping a tight leash on things considering the state it's in. Who is going to set the left and right lateral limits for these units and then supervise them to make sure they are adhering to their boundaries? For that matter, who is going to do the initial vetting to prevent the police from becoming filled with Taliban sympathizers from the start, thus invalidating the whole process?
2) The ANP is already notorious for its poor behavior, corruption, and tendency to abuse the general population. These local police seem even less accountable than the ANP--they will belong to a 'looser' institution and they will receive no training.
3) I am by no means an expert on the ANP, but I got the sense that most of the units were already local to begin with. After 5 minutes on Google I found the 2006 DoS IG's Assessment of Afghanistan Police which is quoted below. So how will these local police be different than the local police that already exist (or did circa 2006)?:
I really do hope this works. Any plan for trying to solve the police problem--or really any problem--in Afghanistan is going to have lots of negatives associated with it. In this instance, though, I am not convinced the potential positives outweigh those negatives...Although the Tashkil calls for recruiting officers in all five ANP regional areas, the assessment team was unable to verify their presence in the regions. Based on interviews with the RTC commanders, mentors, and police district chiefs, almost all recruiting occurs at the police district level.In effect, police are recruited locally to serve locally.
The MoI lacks a national assignment system for graduates of the training centers and the police academy. Presently, graduates of the RTCs return to the province from which they were recruited. According to a MoI official, this assignment system promotes corruption. The official said the corruption is systemic and is related to tribal relationships and local or provincial loyalties. Some MoI officials suggest that the only way to fight corruption of this nature is by adhering to a national recruiting and assignment system. Because Afghans are subject to strong tribal influences, officials believe the best method to ensure police loyalty to the central government is to minimize the provincial/ethnic allegiance by assigning them to provinces other than their own.
The MoI intends at some point to improve the assignment process and assign graduates to provinces other than their home areas. The Minister of Interior has appointed himself champion of nationalizing the ANP and has started a recruiting campaign based on national service.
Several Afghan trainees interviewed at the RTCs said they would be willing to move from their province. Those who thought otherwise, however, expressed a more realistic view. For example, one RTC deputy commander said many policemen would be unwilling to move. He recalled that 60 policemen from other provinces had been assigned to serve in his province, but only two arrived for work. Police prefer to serve in their own province because of ethnic affiliations, travel difficulties, and problems sending pay home to families. Young policemen are reluctant to work in a different province than their own because locals do not accept them due to ethnic, religious, and language differences. In Bamiyan province, for example, many local recruits only speak a language unique to their area, making assignment outside the region
And further Googling yields this, from a USIP report on Afghanistan's Police:
Surely the folks pulling the strings cannot have forgotten about this initiative altogether. So what is different about the 'local police' in 2010 that will help them avoid the fate of the ANPA 2006-2008?The Afghan National Police Auxiliary
In late 2006, the United States authorized the creation of the Afghan National Police Auxiliary, a quick-fix effort to help address the growing Taliban insurgency in southern Afghanistan. Under this plan, provincial governors could recruit 11,271 men from 124 high-risk districts in 21 provinces into the ANPA, a militia force intended to reinforce the ANP. The purpose of the ANPA was to man checkpoints and perform community policing functions, freeing the ANP for counterinsurgency operations. Recruits received five days of classroom instruction on the Afghan constitution, ethics, and police techniques and five days of weapons training. Each recruit was then given an AK-47 assault rifle, a standard ANP uniform, a $70 dollar monthly salary, and a one-year contract. Since ANPA members were locally recruited, they were vulnerable to factional control and manipulation. Despite initial assertions that ANPA recruits would be thoroughly vetted, many were thought to be Taliban agents and nearly all were members of forces loyal to provincial power brokers.
The creation of the ANPA was widely criticized for reversing the effects of the 2005 Disband Illegally Armed Groups program, which disarmed and demobilized gangs that served local power brokers by reconstituting and legitimizing tribal militias and groups loyal to powerful warlords. The ANPA was also challenged by regular ANP officers, who questioned why the ANPA received the same salary and wore the same uniform as professional police- men but had far less training and did not owe allegiance to the national government. Some 8,300 ANPA members received training by July 2007, but incompetence and ineffetiveness of the force resulted in its being disbanded in May 2008.
That's a million dollar question right there, and an example of the enigma wrapped in a riddle, that is this place.1) How are we going to prevent these "local police" from simply becoming the militia of whoever is the strongest powerbroker in whatever area they are operating in? I doubt the Ministry of Interior is really going to be keeping a tight leash on things considering the state it's in. Who is going to set the left and right lateral limits for these units and then supervise them to make sure they are adhering to their boundaries? For that matter, who is going to do the initial vetting to prevent the police from becoming filled with Taliban sympathizers from the start, thus invalidating the whole process?
I'd like to know the answer to that question myself. What is this rush to put in Policeman when maybe you need Soldiers first?
JarodParker- that is so funny and how clever! in some places words count more than actions.
this whole initiative is based upon the underlying assumption that the villagers do not want taliban insurgents in their villages.
FP, 27 Oct 11: Afghan Local Police: When the Solution Becomes the Problem
...The ALP was launched last year by the Afghan government to recruit local units to defend remote, insecure areas of the country against insurgent threats and attacks. Recruits are nominated by a local shura council, then vetted by Afghan intelligence and trained for up to three weeks by U.S. forces. General David Petraeus, the former ISAF Commander in Afghanistan, touts the ALP as successfully thwarting the insurgency.
But this narrative is very different from the one Refugees International discovered on a recent visit to the country. In May, we traveled to Afghanistan to conduct an assessment of the humanitarian situation in the country, in light of the increasing displacement caused by conflict. During the course of our 16-day mission, we conducted over 50 interviews with displaced Afghans, local organizations, UN officials, aid workers, human rights researchers, government officials, security analysts, and journalists in Kabul, Herat, Mazar-e-Sharif, and surrounding areas. To our surprise, the rapid rollout of the ALP program was widely criticized by Afghans and humanitarian actors. Almost every single one of our interviewees highlighted the growth of the ALP and the simultaneous rise of other pro-government militias as their top concern for the security of civilians and stability in the country, particularly in the north.
Many told stories of ALP forces using their newly gained power and guns - furnished by the U.S. - to harass, intimidate, and perpetrate crimes against the very civilians they were recruited, trained, and paid to protect. Some even reported that powerful warlords were pressuring local leaders to formalize pre-existing militias into the ALP - often around tribal, ethnic or political lines - to avenge personal disputes or strengthen their influence....
I need to read the article in depth, but I am already curious just how well these ALP start-ups were supervised
RAND 18 Sep 12: Locals Rule: Historical Lessons for Creating Local Defense Forces for Afghanistan and Beyond
Local defense forces have played a key role in counterinsurgencies throughout the 20th century. With the recent development of the Afghan Local Police (ALP) as a major part of the U.S.-led counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan, lessons learned from earlier efforts to build local defense have become increasingly salient. This study examines eight cases of local defense forces used in the context of counterinsurgency in Indochina, Algeria, South Vietnam, Oman, El Salvador, Southern Lebanon, Afghanistan, and Iraq. It covers an extensive time period (from 1945 to the present) and geographic scope, as well as a wide range of intervening countries and regimes, including the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Israel, and the Soviet Union. The authors compare the lessons learned from these eight cases and apply them to the current development of the ALP, in order to outline potential challenges and to suggest a way forward that takes into account the historical experience.
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