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Back to the Future: U.S. to Arm Afghan Militias

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Then-U.S. Rep. Charlie Wilson of “Charlie Wilson’s War” helped raise billions to put weapons in the hands of the mujahedeen, an experiment that didn’t work out so well for his homeland.

Because it worked out so well the last time, the U.S. plans to arm Afghan militias in an effort to police the country. The Pentagon is presenting this plan—and the media are reporting it—as a spinoff of a successful strategy from Iraq, not a revival of the secret war that gave rise to Osama bin Laden and the Taliban.

New York Times:

The formation of Afghan militias comes on the heels of a similar undertaking in Iraq, where 100,000 Sunni gunmen, many of them former insurgents, have been placed on the government payroll. The Awakening Councils, as they are known, are credited by American officials as one of the main catalysts behind the steep reduction in violence there.

But the plan is causing deep unease among many Afghans, who fear that Pashtun-dominated militias could get out of control, terrorize local populations and turn against the government. The Afghan government, aided by the Americans, has carried out several ambitious campaigns since 2001 to disarm militants and gather up their guns. A proposal to field local militias was defeated in the Afghan Senate in the fall.

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TAGS: afghanistan awakening bin laden government insurgents iraq media militants pentagon sunni taliban war weapons

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By KDelphi, December 27, 2008 at 3:40 am #

namer—I think that the Taliban is a RESULT of our “frickin interference” there and elsewhere!

I suppose that you think that they “hate us for our friddom” too

Iran/Contra/Sandanistas. North/South Korea.
binLaden/Taliban/Soviets. Sunni/Shi’a.
India/Pakistan.Tsars. Monarchs. dictators.
Slavs/Serbs.

We constantly arm both sidew, and when it gets too costly, play, “Lets you and him fight”.

They hate us for our friddom.

It never has worked, and, it will not work now.

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By namer, December 25, 2008 at 11:02 pm #

So much criticism of US policy in Afghanistan here, but none of y’all has a frickin’ clue how else to keep the Taliban from taking over the country once again.
What’s worse, I bet none of you think that nightmare scenario would be worse than what’s happening now.

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By Agent Provocateur, December 25, 2008 at 2:35 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)

By mike112769, December 24 at 2:46 am #
Americans hate history so much, most won’t notice that we’ve been down this road before.

Yea, our own government trained and armed Bin Laden. Then supposedly, Bin Laden, while hiding in a cave, masterminded the complete takeover of our airspace over America flying 4 jumbo jets over some of the most heavily militarized installations while 3 of these jumbo jets hit their target causing the complete collapse of 3 skyscrapers and a wall on the penta-con. And, by a miracle, one plane of the four was filled with martyr’s who rose up to the occasion, let’s roll, and saved the White House.

Anyhow, most people do not know that in Afghanistan, the Northern Alliance completely routed the Taliban and had them scurrying in fear for their lives from Kabul. And then what did we do to the Northern Alliance? We betrayed them, to set up our very own little puppet.

Look, we need to arm all these miscreants so that when another ter-er-er-ist incident happens in America, the government will have someone to blame it on and the American idiots will once again get patriotic tears in their eyes, wag the flag and have a national group hug and full of patriotic feelings for Amerika ... again.

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By Fellowdigger, December 24, 2008 at 9:48 pm #

This story is so hard to believe. We will just go back and forth arming different sects until everyone is well armed for a full scale middle-east war—of course it brings memories back of the 80’s and the soviets - but at the same time we were building an empire in Iraq and secretly supplying the Iranians through the Israelis sending the money down to south america - which eventually set up the first Iraqi war and then this one - what a freak show

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By dihey, December 24, 2008 at 6:28 pm #

After January 20 this will become Obama’s war. Unless he ends this military occupation soon it will wreck his presidency just as much as Vietnam wrecked the presidency of LBJ and Iraq wrecked that of Bush II. “Winning hearts and minds” in a country that is beginning to detest us has as much chance as a snowball in hell.

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By Blackspeare, December 24, 2008 at 6:13 pm #

Back to the Future?——or maybe Ahead to the Past is the better phrase. In any event the US with additional troop assignment and an increasing internal militia presence is gearing up for the Afghan elections next year. The Afghans have always hated outsiders and the more there are the more they hate. The election, if not rigged, should prove interesting.

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By jackpine savage, December 24, 2008 at 12:37 pm #

Sure, it will work again because Afghanistan is just like Iraq…everybody’s brown and most of them pray to Allah.

The insurgency structure that we may have broken with the Awakening (nice word for paying off) was no older than the occupation that spawned it. Afghan tribes have been around a long time, and the nation (such as it is) is effectively organized around the tribal structure.

They’ll take the money and possibly, sort of do what they’re asked while the money flows…but cash is not going to buy their love. It won’t work, mostly because they are likely to use the money to fight other tribes/groups.

And they’re making good money right now, picking off the supply convoys. We don’t hear much about that in the news, do we? But it’s happening regularly: torching 50 fuel tankers, stealing $13M worth of helicopter engines. It’s so bad that the DoD feels that it might have to build a rail line from Europe through Russia and the Caucuses to protect the supplies.

Good luck with all that Obama. It may be a “good” war, but that doesn’t mean that you’ll win it.

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By mike112769, December 24, 2008 at 7:46 am #

Americans hate history so much, most won’t notice that we’ve been down this road before.

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By KDelphi, December 24, 2008 at 1:55 am #

“Charlie Wilson’s war” didnt work out so well for Afghanistan, either! You could also call it “
Reagan’s war”.

This just sounds like a disaster waiting to get worse.How long do we think that we can buy peoples’ loyalty?

Where are these 30,000 more troops going to come from? Is Patreus staying on? What does Gates say?

To anyone who was around under Reagan, it just sounds like same/same. Afghanis already know that all the uS cares about is money.

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