mei 2010

Geen Nederlandse politie-trainers naar Afghanistan

door Sietse Bosgra

Groenlinks heeft samen met D66 voorgesteld een Nederlandse missie naar Afghanistan te sturen om daar de politie op te leiden. Bij de Partij van de Arbeid blijken daarover aarzelingen te bestaan, de Nederlandse regering onderzoekt de mogelijkheden. Er is echter alle reden om kritisch tegen dit project aan te kijken.

Het voornaamste bezwaar tegen dit plan is dat de Afghaanse politie in de eerste plaats een onderdeel is van de oorlogsvoering en een verlengstuk van het leger. "Van een constructief politieoptreden in Uruzgan is geen sprake. Je kunt daar nog helemaal niet van een politiemacht spreken. Het is er oorlog, er wordt nog altijd hard gevochten." aldus de Nederlander Paul Meijers, hoofd van het opleidingsprogramma van de Europese politie-missie in Afghanistan (EUPOL). Volgens kolonel Meijers sterft een onnodig hoog aantal politiemensen door een gebrekkige uitrusting, maar vooral ook omdat de agenten worden ingezet bij militaire operaties. "De agenten doen het werk van de militairen." Dit wordt in hetzelfde artikel bevestigd door een woordvoerder van het Nederlandse Ministerie van Defensie: "De politie-missie heeft van het begin af aan primair een focus op militaire taken" Zie citaat (3).

De door Nederland uitgezonden politie-trainers zullen onderdeel gaan uitmaken van EUPOL, de gezamenlijke politie-opleiding van de Europese Unie in Afghanistan. EUPOL heeft formeel tot taak 'civiele politie' op te leiden, maar in de praktijk is EUPOL betrokken bij de opleiding van politie voor oorlogstaken. Maar ook als de Nederlandse politie-trainers alleen civiele politie zonder counterinsugency-taken zouden opleiden dient deze uitzending afgewezen te worden. Immers, ze zullen dan andere trainers vrijmaken voor oorlogstaken.

Dat er mogelijk militairen mee moeten ter bescherming van de politie-trainers, bewijst dat de politie opgeleid wordt om te werken in levensgevaarlijk oorlogsgebied. Kennelijk moeten zij zichzelf na hun opleiding maar zonder militaire bescherming zien te redden.

Waarom moeten er overigens militairen mee met de voorgestelde 50 nieuwe politiemensen. Er zijn nu al 19 Nederlandse politie-trainers in Afghanistan werkzaam, worden die ook beschermd door Nederlandse militairen? Was het plan om die na de Nederlandse terugtrekking in Afghanistan achter te laten?

Overigens, waarom moet de Afghaanse civiele politie in eigen land opgeleid worden? Duitsland, heeft van de Europese landen het grootste contingent politie-trainers in Afghanistan, maar met het oog op de snel verslechterende veiligheidssituatie in Afghanistan pleiten de sociaal-democratische partij SPD en de Duitse politievakbond GdP er onlangs voor de Afghaanse politie gedeeltelijk in Duitsland op te leiden. De Afghaanse minister Atmar, die over de politie-training gaat, opperde dat de Duitse opleiding van politie-officieren mogelijk naar Jordanië en Turkije overgeplaatst kan worden. De CSU-politcus Schünemann, die dit bij Atmar aankaartte zei dit voorstel te steunen. Zie: SPD-Vorstoß zu Afghanistan driftet ins Leere, Handelsblatt, 18.02.2010.

In de onderstaande tekst wordt op de volgende onderwerpen nader ingegaan:
  1. De oorlogstaak van de Afghaanse politie
  2. De leiding van de politie-training werd van Duitsland en de EU afgenomen, nu heeft Amerika de leiding
  3. De rol van EUPOL in de Afghaanse oorlog
  4. De missie in Afghanistan als Amerikaans project, de NAVO-bondgenoten spelen een ondergeschikte rol
  5. De controverse tussen Europa en Amerika en het beleid van Obama

In de tekst wordt verwezen naar citaten (1) t/m (25)

A) De oorlogstaak van de Afghaanse politie

Uit talloze artikelen blijkt dat de Afghaanse politie door de Amerikanen op grote schaal in de oorlog wordt ingezet. De Europese landen hebben zich hier tevergeefs tegen verzet. Tekenend is dat raketwerpers (Rocket-propelled grenade systems) tot de bewapening van de politie behoren. De belangrijke rol van de Afghaanse politie in de oorlogvoering is in vele artikelen beschreven, zie bijgaande citaten (3) t/m (13).

Nick Grono, vice-voorzitter van de International Crisis Group op de International Police Commissioners’ Conference, in Den Haag, 16 Juni 2009:

The police bear the brunt of the counter insurgency. In Afghanistan, inadequately trained police are often being asked to do war fighting against the Taliban as an auxiliary security force. Too often they are on the frontlines of the war, despite not having the training, equipment or backup. So, in 2008, some 1.200 Afghan police were killed, about three times the number of Afghan soldiers. The emphasis for police needs to be on fighting crime, not war fighting against the insurgency. It is counter-productive to treat police as an auxiliary fighting unit in battling the insurgency. citaat (5)

Robert M. Perito, senior program officer van het United States Institute of Peace:

Police are assigned in small numbers to isolated posts without backup and are targeted by the insurgents. Afghan National Police (ANP) officers were also used inappropriately as a fighting force against heavily armed insurgents. As one Afghan police officer was quoted as saying "Firing rockets is not the job of police officers." ANP officers accompanied coalition and Afghan National Army (ANA) patrols and were expected to operate as "little soldiers".
 
The cost of using police in a combat role for which they were never intended was extremely high. A Canadian officer characterized the Afghan police as "canon fodder" in the fight against the Taliban because they were placed in vulnerable positions without proper training, equipment or force protection. The Obama administration’s strategy for the Afghan police is to increase numbers, enlarge the "train and equip" program, and engage the police in the fight against the Taliban. European donors view U.S. efforts to militarize the Afghan police as a mistake and counter to Washington’s professed intention to promote democracy and the rule of law. citaat (9)

- This may also be a reaction to the startling admission by U.S. Lt. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, who oversees the training effort, that barely 25% of the current Afghan National Police (ANP) on duty had received formal police training. This statement raises the question of what happened to the tens of thousands of police that have supposedly graduated from one of the country's eight US-sponsored regional training centers. The ANP's annual desertion rate, estimated to be somewhere between 50% and 75% (a significant number of which defect to the Taliban), is one answer. The other may be that many of those police never existed. They are "ghost police", part of the numbers game in Afghanistan perpetuated by ANP commanders to pilfer salaries and donor agencies and private contractors to demonstrate progress to impatient governments at home. citaat (10)

- Lieutenant General William Caldwell said the 67-percent "attrition rate" [natuurlijk verloop] among police recruits was "far too high". 3 maart 2010.

- Crooked Afghan cops supply much of the ammunition used by the Taliban, according to Saleh Mohammed, an insurgent commander in Helmand province. The bullets and rocket-propelled grenades sold by the cops are cheaper and of better quality than the ammo at local markets. citaat (13)

Voor informatie over de Duitse ervaringen met het opleiden van de Afghaanse politie zie ook
"German Trainers Describe Pitiful State of Afghan Police", Der Spiegel, 7 april 2010,
of verkort in "Trainers klagen over Afghaanse politie", Nederlands Dagblad 9 april 2010.

B) De leiding van de politie-training werd van Duitsland en de EU afgenomen, nu heeft Amerika de leiding

Op het gebied van de opleiding en inzet van de Afghaanse politie is er sprake van een langdurige controverse tussen de Europeanen en de Verenigde Staten. Het Afghanistan-beleid van de Amerikanen is geheel gericht op een militaire overwinning op de Taliban, en in hun ogen is de politie daarbij slechts een nuttig hulpmiddel. Ze zijn daarom gefocust op een snelle en korte training van de (goedkope) politiemacht.

De Europese landen zien een veel bredere taak voor de politie. Zij denken niet aan een snel opgeleide massale para-militaire politiemacht, maar aan een civiele politie die dankzij een goede opleiding kan bijdragen aan de opbouw van een goed bestuursapparaat.

In 2002 werd afgesproken dat de Amerikanen in Afghanistan de verantwoordelijkheid op zich namen voor de opleiding van het Afghaanse leger, Duitsland werd verantwoordelijk voor de opbouw van de nieuwe Afghaanse politiemacht. Duitsland stuurde hiervoor 40 politie-trainers naar Afghanistan. "Germany has concentrated its efforts primarily to restore the National Police Academy (NPA) in Kabul, where police officer candidates go through a three year professional training programme."

Maar de Duitse aanpak werd met name door de Verenigde Staten steeds meer gekritiseerd als "too academic, too long and ill-suited to Afghan circumstances". In 2007 werd op voorstel van de NATO de Duitse politie-opleiding overgedragen aan de Europese Unie die onder de aanduiding EUPOL aan de slag ging. Maar de controverse over de doelstelling van de training tussen de Amerikanen en de Europeanen duurde voort en leidde tot "strained relations with NATO". citaat (23) EUPOL beschikt op het ogenblik over 290 trainers.

De Amerikanen begonnen al in 2003 parallel aan de Europese politie-opleiding met een eigen massale opleiding van "ordinary police soldiers (the Afghan term) and noncommissioned officers through a network of training centers in Kabul and at seven other locations around the country." Hiervoor wordt naast Amerikaanse militairen en mariniers sinds 2004 de Amerikaanse private military company Dyncorp ingeschakel. Tienduizenden Afghaanse jongeren werden aanvankelijk enkele dagen, later enkele weken "drilled in counterinsurgency tactics that will help defeat the Taliban". Na die korte opleiding kregen ze een uniform, een insigne en een wapen om de strijd met de taliban aan te gaan.

De Amerikanen hebben zich vanaf het begin niets aangetrokken van de afspraak dat Duitsland en na 2007 EUPOL de leiding hadden over de opleiding van de Afghaanse politie: "In 2007 the U.S. military officially assumed responsibility for training the police force." (pdf)

- Currently, the EU has the nominal lead for police training, even though the US contributes the vast bulk of the resources. And they both have a different philosophy of policing – be it counter-insurgency or community focused. citaat (5)

- Afghan National Police are often reassigned from their training courses to provide immediate assistance with the counterinsurgency effort, thus delaying the completion of their training. (GAO Report (pdf), 5 November 2009)

- Since its inception, the international Afghan National Security Forces training effort has been characterized by multiple initiatives adopting sometimes divergent approaches, with a general trend toward greater unity of effort, and a stronger U.S. leadership role, over time. citaat (24)

Zie verder citaten (9) t/m (21)

C) De rol van EUPOL in de Afghaanse oorlog

Er zijn ernstige aanwijzingen dat EUPOL op het ogenblik niet alleen voor civiele politietaken opleidt, maar ook betrokken is bij de opleiding van politie-eenheden die ingezet worden in "counter terrorism". Blijkbaar heeft EUPOL zich aan moeten passen aan de oorlogsvisie van de Amerikanen en de NAVO.
Zo meldt de officiële publicatie "EUPOL, Serving Afghanistan" van 7 april 2009 dat EUPOL bij een grootschalige politie-training 800 police officers in de volgende onderwerpen opleidde: "responding terrorist incidents, antiterrorism awareness, check-point policing, intelligence-led policing and community policing". Ook bij de anti-crime opleiding "the topics included anti-terrorism".
In Tarin Kowt in Uruzgan werd vorig jaar een Provincial Training Center (PTC) voor de politie-opleiding geopend . De Defensiekrant van het Nederlandse Ministerie van Defensie (5 maart 2009) berichtte dat daar niet alleen wordt samengewerkt met EUPOL maar ook met de door Amerika geleide coalitie-strijdkrachten: "Op het PTC geven acht instructeurs les, met steun van de Coalition Forces en EUPOL."

Bovendien vindt de politie-opleiding van EUPOL grotendeels plaats via Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRT). Er bestaan in totaal 26 PRT's, volgens de NAVO "EUPOL has international teams at PRTs in 18 provinces."

Maar deze PRT's zijn civiel-militaire instellingen, die onder de militaire NAVO-missie vallen:
"According to NATO, the primary tasks of PRTs are:

Op 28-4-2010 riep de secretaris-generaal van de NAVO Rasmussen de Europese ministers van Buitenlandse Zaken op om bij het trainen van politieagenten in Afghanistan de samenwerking met de NAVO verder te versterken. Tijdens dat overleg zei minister Middelkoop het 'leidend' te vinden wat de NAVO in dit geval wil.

Voor verdere citaten zie (20) t/m (23)

D. De missie in Afghanistan is een Amerikaans project, de NAVO-bondgenoten spelen een ondergeschikte rol.

De oorlog in Afghanistan is opgezet door de regering-Bush, bij de besluitvorming werden de NAVO-landen gepasseerd. Washington ging er eenvoudigweg vanuit dat de NAVO-landen de door Amerika opgezette en geleide oorlog militair zouden steunen.

Ook het besluit van Obama in 2009 om de oorlogsinspanning verder op te voeren door 30.000 extra troepen in te zetten was opnieuw een eenzijdig Amerikaanse beslissing zonder ruggespraak met de NAVO-bondgenoten. Ook nu rekende Washington erop dat zij de Amerikaanse beslissing klakkeloos zouden steunen door eveneens extra troepen te zenden.

Vanouds hebben de Verenigde Staten de leiding over de NAVO. Thans hebben zij daarnaast in Afghanistande de leiding over zowel de Amerikaanse militaire Operation Enduring Freedom als de NAVO-strijdmacht ISAF. Ook alle opleidingen van het Afghaanse leger (ANA) en de Afghaanse politie (ANP) staan sinds het aantreden van Obama onder Amerikaans bevel.

De bevelvoering in Afghanistan is geheel in handen van volgende Amerikaanse militairen:

Zie de citaten uit de "Rapporten voor het Amerikaanse Congres" van de "Congressional Research Service" uit 2009 en 2010: citaten (23), (24) en (25).

- The Bush Administration's decision to bypass the (NATO) alliance (na 9/11 over Afghanistan) reignited a simmering debate over its future. citaat (23)

- The U.S. government plays a significant leadership role in both ISAF and NATO as a whole, and thus helps shape NATO and ISAF strategy and approaches. citaat (24)

- Among European officials, there is a growing concern that Europe is being taken for granted and losing importance in American eyes compared with the rise of a newly truculent China. When the Europeans can’t provide much to help America solve global security problems, he doesn’t want to spend too much time on it." New York Times, 2-2-2010

- The conflict in Afghanistan calls for greater leadership role for the new US administration in the transatlantic relationship, NATO allies would like to be seen as ‘partners’ who are consulted and not constantly browbeaten in meeting US demands. citaat (23)

E) De controverse tussen Europa en Amerika, de rol van Obama

Vanaf het begin van de oorlog in Afghanistan bestaan er tussen Amerika en de Europese NAVO-landen transatlantic differences over de gewenste aanpak De Europeanen denken vooral in termen van stabilization and reconstruction. De Amerikanen, ook Obama, denken vooral aan het voeren van een oorlog die met militaire middelen gewonnen moet worden.

De (Amerikaans-Europese) NAVO en de NAVO-missie in Afghanistan ISAF waren door deze controverse jarenlang intern verdeeld. Toen president Bush in 2005 voorstelde ISAF en de Amerikaanse militaire Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) in een organisatie samen te voegen om tezamen counter-insurgency operaties uit te voeren, werd het plan door Duitsland, Engeland, Frankrijk en andere Europese landen geblokkeerd. Zij wilden de ISAF handhaven als een 'stabilisatie macht' die zich inzet voor vredeshandhaving en wederopbouw, en de oorlogvoering overlaten aan de OEF. Zie citaat (23) en de New York Times 14 september 2005.

Maar in 2008 gingen de NAVO en de NAVO-missie ISAF voor de Amerikaanse druk door de knieën: "ISAF, in October 2008, issued a classified Joint Campaign Plan (JCP). Importantly, the JCP framed ISAF’s mission in counterinsurgency (COIN) terms. (...) ISAF officials considered the use of COIN terminology a breakthrough, following years of NATO preference for framing the effort in Afghanistan in terms of stability operations." citaat (24)

Hoewel de NAVO en ISAF blijkbaar in 2008 door de knieën zijn gegaan blijven de Europese NAVO-landen zich verzetten tegen de eenzijdig-militaristische aanpak van de Amerikanen. Maar in het praktijk wordt in Afghanistan nog steeds de Amerikaanse lijn gevolgd. Publiekelijk tonen de Amerikanen soms een zeker begrip voor de Europese wensen, in de Amerikaanse media en in de officiële documenten over het Amerikaanse Afghanistan beleid is daarvan niets terug te vinden. Zie citaten (23), (24) en (25).

President Obama trekt zich nog minder dan zijn voorganger Bush aan van de Europese opvattingen over de oorlog in Afghanistan. Ten aanzien van de Afghaanse politie-opleiding nam president Obama een aantal maatregelen die in strijd zijn met de Europese opvattingen. Zo besloot hij tot een grotere inzet van de politie in de oorlog. De para-militaire Afghaanse politiemacht zal versneld worden uitgebreid van 100.000 man nu naar 134.000 man in 2011. Met het oog op de politie-opleiding stuurde hij duizenden extra militaire trainers naar Afghanistan.

- (Van de 30.000 extra militairen) about 5,000 of these will be trainers, which might bring the total number of U.S. trainers in Afghanistan to over 15,000 (6,000 as of January 2009, plus 4,000 announced in March 2009, plus 5,000 announced in December 2009. citaat (25)

- The Obama Administration stated that Afghanistan needed to be given a higher priority than it was during the Bush Administration. citaat (25)

- In his December 3, 2009, speech at the West Point Military Academy President Obama identified several objectives in Afghanistan and Pakistan: (1) disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda; (2) deny al Qaeda a safe haven; (3) reverse the Taliban’s momentum and deny it the ability to overthrow the government; and (4) strengthen the capacity of the Afghan security forces and government to better protect and serve population centers. citaat (24)

Dat Obama voor de oorlogvoering vooral politieagenten wil inzetten blijkt uit het feit dat hij zelfs meer geld uittrekt voor de politie-strijdmacht dan voor het Afghaanse leger: The Afghan police and army are slated to receive $11.6 billion to fund their operations for 2011, with just over half going to the police. (Newsweek, 16-4-2010)

Daarnaast besloot hij in maart 2010 om de politie-opleiding terug te brengen van acht naar zes weken. De Europese landen menen juist, dat die acht weken al veel te kort zijn om op een verantwoorde manier politieagenten op te leiden.

Obama besloot in de herfst van 2009 om het State Department (het Amerikaanse ministerie van buitenlandse zaken) te ontheffen van de verantwoordelijkheid voor de opleiding van de politie en die aan het Defense Department toe te wijzen. Het gevolg zal zijn een verdere militarisering van de politie, want volgens Newsweek (19-3-2010) bestond er nog steeds een tegenstelling tussen beide ministeries "After the Defense Department took a role in overseeing that work [de opleiding van de politie] in 2005, it squabbled constantly with State over whether the training should emphasize police work or counterinsurgency." citaat (14) En inderdaad wijzigde het U.S. Defense Department de opleiding van de politie vervolgens "to add more counterinsurgency skills".

- The U.S. decision to give a leading role in its police programmes to the Department of Defence has further blurred the distinction between the military and police. Emphasis must shift from using the police to fight the insurgency to using it to fight crime and reinforce law and order. citaat (4)

- The State Department has overseen police training since 2004 when U.S.-based DynCorp, which works in hot spots around the world, won the Afghan contract. (...) Last year the Pentagon pushed to take over the contract to emphasize counterinsurgency skills over civilian law enforcement. (Huffington Post, 15-3-10)

- DynCorp’s contract in Afghanistan (to train the Afghan National Police) was to end in January 2009 as part of a plan by the U.S. Defense Department to change the training course to add more counterinsurgency skills. (...)The Defense Department was aiming to find a contractor to develop a paramilitary training program—more heavily aimed at creating a force that could fight the Taliban. citaat (18)

Obama is er ook op gericht meer greep te krijgen op het Europese opleidingsprogramma voor de politie. Begin 2010 bracht de regering-Obama zowel de (Amerikaanse) opleiding van het Afghaanse leger als de Europese en Amerikaanse politie-opleidingen onder in een nieuwe structuur, de National Training Mission—Afghanistan (NTM-A). Om de eenheid te bevorderen staan al deze opleidingen voortaan onder bevel van een enkele (Amerikaanse) militaire commandant, U.S. Maj. Gen. William Caldwell. Ook de Europese politie-opleiders vallen voortaan onder "the military command structure"van de NTM-A citaat (9)

- The NATO Training Mission for Afghanistan (NTM-A), which was announced at the Strasbourg-Kehl Summit last April, will bring together the various training programs for both the Afghan National Army and the Police and will be led by a single commander. citaat (14)


 

Afkortingen:
ANP: Afghan National Police
ANA: Afghanistan National Army
ISAF: International Security Assistance Force, de NATO strijdmacht
OEF: de Amerikaanse Operation Enduring Freedom
COIN: counterinsurgency
MOI: Afghaans ministerie van binnenlandse zaken (dat gaat over de politie)
EUPOL: European Police Training Mission
NTM-A: NATO Training Mission for Afghanistan


 

Citaten (1) t/m (25):

1) "Nederlandse politiemissie naar Afghanistan zinloos
aldus Generaal-majoor b.d. A.J. van Vuren in het Brabants Dagblad van 30 april 2010:

Zelfs het sturen van politie-opleiders zonder militaire bescherming is niet zonder risico's. Afghaanse politierekruten hebben zich al eens tegen hun buitenlandse instructeurs gekeerd en hen vermoord. Het meesturen van militairen is echter nog gevaarlijker omdat er buiten de veilige locaties volop kans is op aanslagen.
Een politiemissie helpt, gegeven de algemene situatie in Afghanistan, de gewone Afghaan amper.
Het werkelijke probleem is het corrupte en inefficiënte regime van president Karzai. Daarom gaat de situatie in Afghanistan achteruit in plaats van vooruit.
De Amerikaanse bevelhebber generaal McChrystal vroeg zich vorig jaar nota bene af of de opstandelingen wel verslagen kunnen worden. Het zegt ook veel dat er per politieman maar liefst vijf militairen mee moeten om hem te beschermen.
Zolang het regime van Karzai geen orde op zaken stelt - en daar ziet het niet naar uit - zijn politiemissies, al dan niet vergezeld van militairen, boter aan de galg. De voorspelde internationale verontwaardiging over onze aanstaande terugtrekking uit Uruzgan is trouwens, voor zover die er was, alweer weggeëbd. Ook daarom is het niet nodig een nieuw avontuur te beginnen. Het is dan ook verstandiger geen politiemissie naar Afghanistan te sturen.

2) Onderzoek: Politiemissie naar Afghanistan zinloos
Elsevier 29 april 2010

Bij een eventuele politiemissie naar Afghanistan zullen zich zoveel problemen voordoen, dat een dergelijke operatie nagenoeg zinloos is. De culturele verschillen zijn te groot. Dat blijkt uit onderzoek van wetenschapper Henk Sollie, schrijft De Telegraaf van 8 mei 2010. Henk Sollie, docent en onderzoeker aan de Technische Universiteit Twente, onderzocht missies van de Koninklijke Marechaussee en de Nederlandse politie in ondermeer Afghanistan, en concludeert dat er van het opleiden van agenten in crisisgebieden vaak weinig terecht komt. Dat heeft volgens de TU-onderzoeker te maken met de heersende stammencultuur, het analfabetisme en het totaal ontbreken van enig besef van democratie. Volgens Sollie ontbreekt het aan een gedegen voorbereiding, aan heldere doelstellingen en is een te weinig oog voor de culturele omgeving waarin de agenten moeten worden opgeleid.

3) Schurken in uniform
Door: Eva Ludemann, De Pers, 23-9-2009

'Het duurt nog minimaal tien à vijftien jaar voor de Afghaanse politie op eigen benen kan staan’, zegt de Nederlander Paul Meijers, hoofd van het opleidingsprogramma van de Europese, Politiemissie in Afghanistan (EUPOL) en chef van de afdeling trainingen aan de politieacademie in Kabul. ‘En van een constructief politieoptreden in Uruzgan is geen sprake. Je kunt daar nog helemaal niet van een politiemacht spreken. Het is er oorlog, er wordt nog altijd hard gevochten. Onze primaire taak is het in leven houden van de agenten, ze opleiden komt op de tweede plaats. Dat geldt voor heel Afghanistan.’
De Nederlandse bijdrage aan EUPOL is aanzienlijk: alleen Duitsland levert meer politietrainers, 44 man. De EUPOL missie loopt tot half juni 2010.
Maar voor welke taken worden de politieagenten eigenlijk getraind? Het mandaat van de civiele ANP is onduidelijk. Bij hun afzwaaien zweren de rekruten terrorisme te bestrijden, niet misdaad. ‘De politiemissie heeft van het begin af aan primair een focus op militaire taken’, zegt een woordvoerder van het ministerie van Defensie. Het Afghaanse leger kon het beschermen van de veiligheid nog niet alleen aan.’
Vooral de Amerikanen zetten de mannen van de ANP vaak in als paramilitairen, als ondersteuning aan de frontlinie bij de bestrijding van veronderstelde opstandelingen of terroristen. Ook in de nieuwe Afghanistan-plannen van president Obama wordt ANP structureel de ‘Afghaanse Nationale Veiligheidstroepen’ genoemd, waaronder ook het Afghaanse leger valt. De ‘nieuwe’ Amerikaanse strategie voor de Afghaanse veiligheidstroepen: ‘ze zó ontwikkelen dat ze de strijd tegen de opstandelingen en tegen terrorisme kunnen leiden’.
‘De agenten doen het werk van de militairen’, zegt Meijers. ‘Het Afghaanse leger komt maar moeilijk op gang, dus worden de civiele agenten ingezet. Maar die zijn nóg slechter opgeleid en uitgerust, soms hebben ze niet eens munitie.De trainingen voor civiele politiemacht duren kort. Een gewone agent krijgt een opleiding van acht weken, officieren vier-en-een-halve maand. Ze worden onderwezen in het burgerlijk recht, wetten, mensenrechten, maar ook in praktische zaken als hoe op te treden op controleposten, het informatie vergaren en verrichten van politieonderzoek.
Het grootste obstakel waar de politietrainers tegen oplopen is de corruptie. Anders dan het Afghaanse leger (ANA) is de politiemacht niet direct na de val van de taliban in 2001, maar pas twee jaar later opgericht. Tegen die tijd hadden de krijgsheren op wie de Amerikanen leunden om de taliban en Al-Qaida aan te pakken, hun politieke posities al verzekerd. Ze bezetten hoge functies binnen het ministerie van Binnenlandse Zaken en benoemden hun maatjes op strategische posten binnen de nieuwe politie. In Kabul, maar ook in 34 provincies en 400 districten. Hun milities kregen uniformen, wapens en wat training. Zie daar de Afghaanse politie'
‘Er loopt een fiks aantal foute personen rond bij de ANP', zegt Meijers. ‘Er zitten gewapende groepen bij de politiemacht, waarvan niemand weet waartoe ze behoren. Ondanks hun gevaarlijke werk krijgen politiemensen zo’n laag salaris – 110 dollar per maand – dat zij er niet van kunnen rondkomen en zich genoodzaakt zien al dan niet legaal hun inkomen veilig te stellen.'

'De Afghanen zijn banger voor de politie dan voor de taliban.’
Wie naar de politietrainers in het veld luistert, houdt zijn hart vast. ‘Het is hier zo gevaarlijk dat de opleidingen uitsluitend binnen de muren van Kamp Holland kunnen worden gegeven’ zegt Hagen, beleidsmedewerker van de politie Haaglanden en sinds begin dit jaar politietrainer.
De aantallen opgeleide agenten en officieren stijgen gestaag, maar het sterftecijfer is hoog. Volgens chef Trainingen in Kabul Meijers worden per week gemiddeld veertig agenten gedood door opstandelingen, die de regering willen ondermijnen. Vorig jaar werden 1800 agenten gedood, vergeleken met 568 Afghaanse militairen. Ook ‘verdwijnen’ veel politiemensen. Ze komen niet meer opdagen, soms met tientallen of zelfs honderd tegelijk, bijvoorbeeld als dat hun krijgsheer, tevens de lokale politiechef, beter uitkomt.
‘Het gaat niet goed’, zegt ook Ahmed Ziad Langary van het Afghan International Human Rights Committee. ‘De prioriteit ligt bij de kwantiteit, niet de kwaliteit.’ Het zijn volgens Langary politieke beslissingen, die te maken hebben met de exitstrategie van de coalitietroepen. Mede om die reden richtten de Amerikanen in 2006 de Afghan National Auxiliary Police (ANAP) op. Die hulppolitie zou de ANP versterken, zeiden de Amerikanen en later ook de ministers in hun antwoord op Kamervragen. Maar mensenrechtenorganisaties en politieexperts spreken die bewering tegen. Meijers: ‘De troepen van de ANAP zijn al helemaal niet aan te sturen. Niemand heeft er nog controle over en ze zijn nog slechter opgeleid. Het zijn gewoon milities.’ In maart riepen de Amerikanen nóg een hulppolitie in het leven: de Afghan Police Protection Forces, bestaand uit anti-talibanmilities. Dit tot wanhoop van politietrainers als Meijers en Hagen, mensenrechtenorganisaties én de Afghaanse burger. Want, zoals Karl Eikenberry, de Amerikaanse ambassadeur in Afghanistan onlangs zei: ‘Beter tien goede dan honderd corrupte agenten. En tien foute agenten richten meer schade aan dan één taliban-extremist.’

4) Rapporten van de International Crisis Group

30-8-07: It is counter-productive to treat police as an auxiliary fighting unit in battling the insurgency, as has been happening with increasing frequency in the troubled south. Afghanistan, like any other democracy, requires police service more than police force.
The U.S. decision to give a leading role in its police programmes to the (U.S) Department of Defence has further blurred the distinction between the military and police.

Aanbeveling ICG maart 2009: Emphasis must shift from using the police to fight the insurgency to using it to fight crime and reinforce law and order.

5) Policing in Conflict States – Lessons from Afghanistan
Speech by Nick Grono, Deputy President of the International Crisis Group, speach to International Police Commissioners’ Conference in The Hague, 16 June 2009.

The police also bear the brunt of the counter insurgency. In Afghanistan, inadequately trained police are often being asked to do war fighting against the Taliban as an auxiliary security force. Too often they are on the frontlines of the war, despite not having the training, equipment or backup. So, in 2008, some 1200 Afghan police were killed, about three times the number of Afghan soldiers. Currently, the EU has the nominal lead for police training, even though the US contributes the vast bulk of the resources. And they both have a different philosophy of policing – be it counter-insurgency or community focused.
The emphasis for police needs to be on fighting crime, not war fighting against the insurgency. It is counter-productive to treat police as an auxiliary fighting unit in battling the insurgency.

6) Ineffective, Unprofessional, and Corrupt: The Afghan National Police
Foreign Policy Research Institute, June 2009, by Andrew Legon
Legon is a research analyst for a joint project of the Royal United Services Institute (London) and the Foreign Policy Research Institute on Afghan National Police Reform

It was therefore positive that Obama stressed the centrality of the Afghan National Police (ANP) to the war effort.
America’s involvement with the ANP began in 2003. To date roughly $6.2 billion has been provided to train and equip it, but it is still widely perceived that the police are, in the words of U.S. Special Representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke, "the weak link in the security chain," lagging years behind development of the Afghan National Army.
It is little wonder, then, that the ANP is regularly deemed ineffective, a problem exacerbated by its members’ role as quasi-soldiers rather than civilian police officers. The ANP has the immense challenge of switching between policing duties and supporting full-scale military operations with very little notice.
Closely related to the issue of training, the curriculum of which has been criticized as overly militaristic, is the question of what precisely the police are being trained for. As mentioned above, the ANP are little more than a supplement to the ANA, ill-equipped and poorly trained for the paramilitary role they have been assigned. It is clear that the new Af-Pak strategy fails to reorient the utility of the police. In Obama’s strategic plan, the ANP are often subsumed within the term "Afghan National Security Forces," a semantic maneuver blurring the distinction between the police and military. Coupled with the strategy’s objective to develop these forces so that they can "lead the counterinsurgency and counterterrorism fight," it is apparent that Obama intends to continue his predecessor’s use of the ANP as a paramilitary force. In short, the new strategy continues the U.S. approach of concentrating on the recruitment, training and equipping of a police force that is misused to fight the growing insurgency confronting Afghanistan, rather than to stabilize and secure Afghan society.

7 ) The Afghan Police Force (pdf)
The Long War Journal, February 2009

Police development in Afghanistan has been hindered by lack of institutional reform, widespread corruption, insufficient US military trainers and advisors.
US and ISAF Police Mentoring Teams train and mentor Afghan National Police units. Each Police Mentor Team is composed primarily of military members who provide training support, maintenance, logistics, and administrative coaching to encourage professionalism, and who serve as liaisons with international forces as required. Full Police Mentor Team manning would require 2,375 total military personnel. Approximately 1,200 US Marines have been conducting Afghan National Police training missions in nine districts in Regional Command-South and RC-West.

8) Associated Press 22-3-09

Afghan police, who have less training and fewer weapons than Afghan and international soldiers, often bear the brunt of insurgent attacks. "We need to devise programs which improve the Afghan government's capability to defend itself and that means considerably strengthening the Afghan national army and the Afghan national police," Holbrooke said during a debate on the Afghan war in Brussels.

9) "Afghanistans Police, the Weak Link in Security Sector Reform" (pdf)
Special Report of the United States Institute of Peace, August 2009, by Robert M. Perito, is a senior program officer in the Institute’s Center for Post-Conflict Peace and Stability Operations.

The European Union has replaced Germany as the lead partner for police reform, but the United States has the largest police program, which is directed by the U.S. military. Putting soldiers in charge of police training has led to militarization of the ANP and its use as a counterinsurgency force.
In 2009 the European role in Afghan police assistance was complicated by the creation of the NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan which offered the promise of NATO military protection for European police but required that they serve in a military command structure.
Using improperly trained, equipped, and supported ANP patrol men as "little soldiers" has resulted in the police suffering three times as many casualties as the Afghan National Army. Police are assigned in small numbers to isolated posts without backup and are targeted by the insurgents.
Afghan National Police (ANP) officers were also used inappropriately as a fighting force against heavily armed insurgents. As one Afghan police officer was quoted as saying "Firing rockets is not the job of police officers." ANP officers accompanied coalition and ANA pratrols and were expected to operate as "little soldiers".
The cost of using police in a combat role for which they were never intended was extremely high. Police combat losses during 2008 was three times larger than those of the Afghan National Army.... A Canadian officer characterized the Afghan police as "canon fodder" in the fight against the Taliban because they were placed in vunerable positions without proper training, equipment or force protection.
The Obama administration’s strategy for the Afghan police is to increase numbers, enlarge the "train and equip" program, and engage the police in the fight against the Taliban. European donors view U.S. efforts to militarize the Afghan police as a mistake and counter to Washington’s professed intention to promote democracy and the rule of law.

10) The Illusion of Police Reform
Centre for International Governance Innovation, 29 March 2010

At a time when Afghanistan needs good police more than ever, the NATO Training Mission for Afghanistan, responsible for building up the Afghan National Security Forces, has taken the surprising step of cutting the length of basic training from eight to six weeks. I suppose this step is not that surprising considering the extraordinary pressure on the mission to increase the size of the police from its current force total of roughly 92,000 to 110,000 by the end of October and 160,000 by 2014. This may also be a reaction to the startling admission by Lt. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, who oversees the training effort, that barely 25% of the current Afghan National Police (ANP) on duty had received formal police training. This statement raises the question of what happened to the tens of thousands of police that have supposedly graduated from one of the country's eight US-sponsored regional training centers. The ANP's annual desertion rate, estimated to be somewhere between 50% and 75% (a significant number of which defect to the Taliban), is one answer. The other may be that many of those police never existed. They are "ghost police", part of the numbers game in Afghanistan perpetuated by ANP commanders to pilfer salaries and donor agencies and private contractors to demonstrate progress to impatient governments at home.

11) Military Training of Afghan National Police Mired in Contract Dispute
The Huffington Post Investigating Fund, 22 februari 2010

As the war in Afghanistan intensifies, a contract dispute in Washington is interfering with the Obama administration’s plan to rebuild the Afghan national police into a military force with skills to fight the Taliban. Last fall, administration officials shifted oversight of police training from the State Department to the Defense Department.
But as the Taliban stepped up its attacks on recruits, U.S. military leaders pushed to include more counterinsurgency and tactical training.
An eventual withdrawal of U.S. troops depends in part on the new strategy for Afghan police training. The shift to military training for the police was expected to take place as more than 30,000 additional U.S. troops are deployed.

12) Policing Afghanistan: How Afghan Police Training Became a Train Wreck
The Huffington Post 23-4-2010, by Pratap Chatterjee, freelance journalist and editor at CorpWatch

The Pentagon faces a tough choice: Should it award a new contract to Xe or to DynCorp ? This billion-dollar contract will be the linchpin of a training program for the Afghan National Police, who are theoretically to be drilled in counterinsurgency tactics that will help defeat the Taliban and bring security to impoverished, war-torn Afghanistan. The program is also considered a crucial component of the Obama administration’s plan for turning the war around. Some people in the U.S. government (and many outside it) believe that this task should not be assigned to private contractors in the first place.
By early 2009 only 5% of the country's police units are considered capable of operating on their own. Even this may be an illusion as an estimated 25% of police recruits quit every year -- and that's not just among the bad performers. The drop-out rate for the 2,500 strong elite ANCOP is an astronomical 65%, making any training efforts a Sisyphean undertaking.
"A prevalent view, even among some international police, is that Afghanistan is unready for civilian policing and holds that the police must remain a military force while insecurity lasts," writes Tonita Murray, a former director general of the Canadian Police College, who worked as an advisor to the Afghan Ministry of Interior in 2005. "If such a view were to prevail, only military solutions for security sector reform would be considered, and Afghanistan would be caught in a vicious circle of using force against force without employing other approaches to secure stability and peace."
If the Pentagon does not dramatically alter the current training scheme, it doesn’t look good for either governance or peace in Afghanistan. Yet the likelihood remains low indeed that Pentagon officials will take the advice of a chorus of police experts offering critical commentary on the mess that is the police training program there.

13)The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight
Newsweek, 19 maart 2010

Crooked Afghan cops supply much of the ammunition used by the Taliban, according to Saleh Mohammed, an insurgent commander in Helmand province. The bullets and rocket-propelled grenades sold by the cops are cheaper and of better quality than the ammo at local markets, he says. It's easy for local cops to concoct credible excuses for using so much ammunition, especially because their supervisors try to avoid areas where the Taliban are active. Mohammed says local police sometimes even stage fake firefights so that if higher-ups question their outsize orders for ammo, villagers will say they've heard fighting.
Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, the State Department's top representative in the region, has publicly called the Afghan police "an inadequate organization, riddled with corruption." During the Obama administration's review of Afghanistan policy last year, "this issue received more attention than any other except for the question of U.S. troop levels," Holbrooke later told NEWSWEEK. "We drilled down deep into this."
More than a year after Barack Obama took office, the president is still discovering how bad things are. At a March 12 briefing on Afghanistan with his senior advisers, he asked whether the police will be ready when America's scheduled drawdown begins in July 2011, according to a senior official who was in the room. "It's inconceivable, but in fact for eight years we weren't training the police," replied Caldwell, taking part in the meeting via video link from Afghanistan. "We just never trained them before. All we did was give them a uniform." The president looked stunned. "Eight years," he said. "And we didn't train police? It's mind-boggling." The room was silent.
After the Defense Department took a role in overseeing that work (to build an Afghan police force) in 2005, it squabbled constantly with State over whether the training should emphasize police work or counterinsurgency.
The fact is that no one is quite sure how many Afghan police there really are. The Americans are only now in the process of trying to create a database that will positively identify and track recruits. Without such data, it's more than difficult to catch "ghost" troops who exist only as names on the payroll, not to mention possible Taliban infiltrators.
Under orders from the American military commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, control of police training is being shifted from the State Department to the military.

14) NATO Best Positioned For Police Training In Afghanistan
The Heritage Foundation: The Foundry, January 29th, 2010

It is more than two years since the European Union undertook to train Afghanistan’s police force and the mission is scheduled to end this June. Before the EU thinks about reapproving the mission, someone should suggest diverting these resources to the NATO Training Mission instead. The training of the Afghan National Police is an essential part of Gen. McChrystal’s counterinsurgency strategy for Afghanistan and critical to the future of the country.
The NATO Training Mission for Afghanistan, which was announced at the Strasbourg-Kehl Summit last April, will bring together the various training programs for both the Afghan National Army and the Police and will be led by a single commander. This unity of command will benefit Afghans far more than the EU’s disparate and separate efforts.

15) German Military and Police Blast Merkel's Afghanistan Plan
"Der Spiegel" Online International, 28 January 2010

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has emphasized the need for a new "strategic direction" in Afghanistan. But many German officials question Berlin's plan to slightly boost the number of troops and police trainers in the war-torn country. "We are training fighters for the Taliban," said one police spokesman. Both Germany's police unions and military association are skeptical of Merkel's new Afghanistan formula.
"The plans are utopian," said Konrad Freiberg, head of the German police union GdP. "As German police officers, we don't want to become part of a civil war." In an interview with the daily Münchner Merkur, he also appeared to call into question the very efficacy of the police training program. "We have to look at things realistically," he said. "Afghanistan needs a police force that can secure areas against Taliban fighters. In some cases, they will have to use heavy weaponry in their fight against the terrorists. We are not talking about ... crime scene investigators who collect finger prints. We are talking about paramilitary units. That is something that we cannot provide -- nor do we want to provide training on the job."
Rainer Wendt, head of the competing police union, called the German Police Union (DPolG), agreed with his colleague's assessment. "The incoming Afghan police officers receive just a brief crash course from us," he told the daily Stuttgarter Nachrichten. "We would already consider it a success if the future security personnel wouldn't bash people on the head, cut off the hands of thieves and stone women."
He also voiced concern that many of those trained by German police might join the Taliban once their instruction is complete. "We are training fighters for the Taliban," Wendt said. "We should be concerned that many of the Afghan police candidates don't even join the force after their training course. Instead, they go directly to the Taliban. They pay twice as much." Afghan police officers earn $100 per month, according to the German Foreign Ministry.

New York Times 22 april 2010: Mrs. Merkel did not mention that Germany’s efforts to train the Afghan police have been criticized by the United States and other allies because the training program was considered too academic, too long and ill-suited to Afghan circumstances. Germany has since handed over the training program to the European Union.

Voor informatie over de Duitse ervaringen met het opleiden van de Afghaanse politie zie ook German Trainers Describe Pitiful State of Afghan Police, Der Spiegel, 7 april 2010.

16) Afghanistan Security: U.S. Programs to Further Reform Ministry of Interior And National Police Challenged by Lack of Military Personnel and Afghan Cooperation.
U.S.Government Accountability Office, Report to the Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives , March 9, 2009

U.S. efforts to help Afghanistan reform the MOI (Afghan Ministry of Interior waar de politie onder valt) and Afghan National Police (ANP) are directed by (het Amerikaanse ministerie van) Defense through CSTC-A, which is also charged with training the Afghan National Army. In June 2008, a Defense official testified that ANP combat losses during 2007 were roughly three times more than those of the Afghan National Army. CSTC-A has previously obtained military personnel for the FDD program (politieopleiding in de districten) and ANP training by redirecting such personnel from resources intended for its Afghan National Army training program. An embedded police mentor team accompanies the unit when it returns to its home district. According to CSTC-A officials, a standard police mentor team includes two civilian police mentors, four military support personnel, and six military security personnel. While State (het State Department) provides the civilian police mentors, CSTC-A is responsible for providing the 10 military support and security personnel.

17) Program aims to rebuild Afghan police force, repair its image
Washington Post, 12 maart 2010

A key element of the effort is Afghan Interior Minister Hanif Atmar's plan to send up to 3,000 top police officers each year to Jordan and Turkey for nine months of instruction. The program is designed to make up for a critical shortage of about 500 NATO police trainers and a scarcity of training bases for police. Afghan officials also hope that the prospect of a diploma from a foreign police-training center will lure higher-quality recruits and burnish the police's poor reputation among the Afghan people.

18) Afghan Police in Sore Need of Trainers
The Huffington Post Investigative Fund, 8 April 2010

DynCorp’s contract in Afghanistan (to train the Afghan National Police) was to end in January as part of a plan by the U.S. Defense Department to change the training course to add more counterinsurgency skills.
The Defense Department was aiming to find a contractor to develop a paramilitary training program—more heavily aimed at creating a force that could fight the Taliban.

19) SHAPING AFGHAN NATIONAL SECURITY FORCES: WHAT IT WILL TAKE TO IMPLEMENT PRESIDENT OBAMA'S NEW STRATEGY (pdf)
Center for Strategic and International Studies, 10 december 2009

The US did not take the police training effort seriously for at least five critical years during the rise of the insurgency. It attempted to export responsibility. The training effort was turned over to an underresourced and terribly managed German effort that focused on training European-style police officers for a country that that had very different needs and resources. When the US finally did react, the program was effectively transferred to an underresourced, US-run, State Department system that was over-dependent on contract support and also sought to create conventional police that could not survive in the emerging insurgency. It was not until 2007 that that police began to get effective paramilitary training from the US military.

20) The Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Afghanistan: Role model for civil-military relations? (pdf)
Peter Runge, Senior Program Officer for Development Policy and Humanitarian Aid, Association of German Development NGOs (VENRO), October 2009

Since 2003, 26 so-called Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs), currently under the authority of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), have been established in Afghanistan. Thus, PRTs can be seen as a "civilian-military annex to a military force, and are oriented towards a nation-building role as part of both military strategy and political aims"
In general, PRTs comprise between 50 and 300 military and civilian personnel in order to improve the security situation and facilitate the reconstruction process. The proportion of non-military staff in PRTs is generally low—around five to ten percent.
According to NATO, the primary tasks of PRTs are:

Probably, differences between the US and the German PRT model are the most striking. While the US-led PRTs, for instance, exert military command over subordinated development agencies like USAID, the German PRTs have strictly separated the three pillars of gevelopening, foreign and security policy.

21) EUPOL - Serving Afghanistan April 2009 (pdf)

EUPOL started on Sunday 29th March at the Afghan National Police Academy an intensive training of Afghan National Police. the trainees were taught on responding terrorist incidents, antiterrorism awareness, check-point policing, intelligence-led policing and community policing.(E)

22) Kees Klompenhouwer
Klompenhouwer is the EU Civilian Operations Commander and Director of the Civilian Planning and Conduct Capability (CPCC) at the Council of the European Union

Mr. Klompenhouwer told MEPs on Monday EUPOL is "taking the lead" in police reform in the country and "the coordination between EUPOL, the United States and NATO has greatly improved over the last year", he added. Europa Nu, 26 januari 2010

Kees Klompenhouwer, the EU’s civilian operations commander: "Problems in building cooperation with NATO’s military force is a major problem hampering efforts to embed EU police training units at the ‘provincial reconstruction teams’ run by NATO in Afghanistan’s main regional centres. It affects cooperation at local level, because cooperation in theatre, in fact, has to be done […] without a political green light, so we are always operating in a sort of gray zone just hoping that our political authorities will not disapprove of the practical cooperation that is being carried out at the local level," Europolitics 26 januari 2010

23) NATO in Afghanistan: A Test of the Transatlantic Alliance
Congressional Research Service, Report for Congress, December 3, 2009

- The Bush Administration's decision (na 9/11 over Afghanistan) to bypass the (NATO) alliance reignited a simmering debate over its future,

- The mission of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in Afghanistan is seen by many as a test of the alliance’s political will and military capabilities.

- NATO’s mission in Afghanistan also continues to test to U.S. leadership of the alliance.

- The ultimate outcome of NATO’s effort to stabilize Afghanistan and U.S. leadership of that effort may well affect the cohesiveness of the alliance and Washington’s ability to shape NATO’s future.

- More than winning the war in the largest out of area military operation, for NATO emerging successful is also about retaining its relevance in the post-Cold War world.

- The conflict in Afghanistan calls for greater leadership role for the new US administration in the transatlantic relationship, NATO allies would like to be seen as ‘partners’ who are consulted and not constantly browbeaten in meeting US demands.

- ISAF is headed by U.S. Army General Stanley McChrystal. U.S. Navy Admiral James Stavridis, provides strategic command and control.

- There are two major international military coalitions – the US led Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) and the NATO mission ISAF. The attempt to merge the ISAF and OEF by the Bush Administration under one command has been resisted by NATO allies mainly due to the differing perceptions on the nature of the two operations and conflicting national agendas. Britain, Germany, and France were the principal allies opposing the US proposition to merge the commands, intending to preserve ISAF as a stabilization force as opposed to a combat force that fights insurgency/terrorism.

- In May 2007, the EU accepted a request by NATO to take the lead in training Afghanistan’s police. The European police (EUPOL) training mission began in June 2007 with an initial mandate of three years. The effort has faltered thus far for several reasons, including delays in recruiting qualified personnel and strained relations with NATO.

24) "War in Afghanistan: Strategy, Military Operations, and Issues for Congress" (pdf)
Congressional Research Service, Report for Congress, February 25, 2010

- In his December 3, 2009, speech at the Military Academy President Obama identified several objectives in Afghanistan and Pakistan: (1) disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda; (2) deny al Qaeda a safe haven; (3) reverse the Taliban’s momentum and deny it the ability to overthrow the government; and (4) strengthen the capacity of the Afghan security forces and government to better protect and serve population centers. To accomplish this, President Obama ordered the deployment of an additional 30,000 troops to the region, which will bring the U.S. total to almost 100,000 troops.

- The U.S. government plays a significant leadership role in both ISAF and NATO as a whole, and thus helps shape NATO and ISAF strategy and approaches.

- ISAF, in October 2008, issued a classified Joint Campaign Plan (JCP). Importantly, the JCP framed ISAF’s mission in counterinsurgency (COIN) terms—the mission includes defeating an "insurgency" and the basic approach follows the COIN logic of "shape, clear, hold, build." ISAF officials considered the use of COIN terminology a breakthrough, following years of NATO preference for framing the effort in Afghanistan in terms of stability operations.

- Since its inception, the international ANSF training effort has been characterized by multiple initiatives adopting sometimes divergent approaches, with a general trend toward greater unity of effort, and a stronger U.S. leadership role, over time.

- According to ANP officials, the ANP are being developed as a paramilitary force to contribute to the counterinsurgency effort by joining the ANA in COIN operations and by protecting the population after the ANA "clear"'.

- In keeping with his intent to improve operational coordination, General McChrystal has consolidated the U.S. and NATO training mission under a single NATO command: NationalTraining Mission—Afghanistan (NTM-A)

- As Afghan National Police (ANP) capabilities grow, the ANP may increasingly assume responsibility for some missions now performed by the Afghan National Army (ANA).

- Most NATO observers suggest that "Afghanistan" is a critical test for the Alliance, including its ability to conduct major out-of-area missions, and its relevance to 21st century security challenges, and many have argued that failure in Afghanistan could spell the end of the Alliance. In January 2008, the Afghanistan Study Group argued, "A failure of the NATO mission in Afghanistan would also damage the future prospects of the organization itself.

25) Afghanistan: Post-Taliban Governance, Security, and U.S. Policy (pdf)
Congressional Research Service, Report for Congress, 25 maart 2010

- The Obama Administration’s policy reviews in 2009 formally narrowed U.S. goals to preventing Al Qaeda from reestablishing a base in Afghanistan—although the policy tools announced, including the military strategy, continue and in some ways expand, a nation-building goal.

- The December 1, 2009, speech by President Obama stated U.S. goals as (1) to deny Al Qaeda a safe haven [in Afghanistan]; and (2) to reverse the Taliban’s momentum and deny it the ability to overthrow the government. The statement appeared to back the August 30, 2009, recommendations of Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s (top overall commander in Afghanistan) to undertake a fully resourced counter-insurgency mission.

- The large majority of U.S. troops in Afghanistan are under NATO/ISAF command. The remainder are part of the post-September 11 anti-terrorism mission Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF). There are also Special Operations Forces in Afghanistan under a separate command. Gen. Stanley McChrystal is commander of NATO/ISAF (COMISAF) and U.S. Forces Afghanistan (USFORA).

- Violence increased from mid-2006. The increase in violence took U.S. commanders and officials by surprise. Afghanistan is in a "downward spiral."

- The Obama Administration stated that Afghanistan needed to be given a higher priority than it was during the Bush Administration.

- About 5,000 of these will be trainers, which might bring the total number of U.S. trainers in Afghanistan to over 15,000 (6,000 as of January 2009, plus 4,000 announced in March 2009, plus 5,000 announced in December 2009).

- The U.S. training role had been organized by the "Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan" (CSTC-A). As of early 2010, CSTC-A has been integrated into the NATO Training Mission—Afghanistan (NTM-A). NTM-A is commanded by U.S. Maj. Gen. William Caldwell.

-U.S. and Afghan officials believe that building up a credible and capable national police force is at least as important to combating the Taliban insurgency as building the ANA.

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