Losing Afghanistan

"This is what winning looks like" is a shocking and revealing documentary from 2013 about the dismal state of the Afghan National Army. Yes, that would be the guys supposed to defend Afghanistan against the Taliban, the sectarian Islamic-fundamentalist movement overthrown by the United States in 2001. Of course, the Taliban never went anywhere, simply regrouping and counter-attacking. Today, the situation has deteriorated even further. With the US leaving, the Taliban are slowly but steadfastly taking over all of Aghanistan, the government army simply collapsing as the enemy advances.

The documentary follows a group of American Marines who are trying to act as advisors to the Afghan army and police doing various operations in the southern part of the country. This was after Obama had decided to "Afghanize" the conflict, giving the native army the main responsibility for fighting the Taliban. The Afghan army turns out to be incompetent, corrupted and heavily infiltrated by its Taliban enemies. The PBs or police bases are even worse!

The army recruits are young, inexperienced, or downright criminal. Their main activity seems to be stealing money from Western donors, "protection" rackets, and kidnapping people as a way to "solve" various clan feuds. Many soldiers are stoned. Soldiers and commanders frequently go AWOL. Sometimes they actually return, as if nothing. The military bases have no fuel, no staff with technical know-how, and many of the men can´t read or write. (The fuel is stolen by people in the army and sold on the black market.) The Afghan police abduct children (known as child-boys) and use them as sex slaves. The police commanders don´t give a damn, claiming the kids are there voluntarily! 

The "national" army is dominated by ethnic groups from the north of Afghanistan (presumably Tajiks). Only a few percent of the soldiers are Pashtuns, the dominant ethnic group in the southern part of the country. By contrast, the Taliban are ethnically Pashtun, giving them a certain advantage. The collaboration between the national army and the self-defense militias at village level in the south is shaky, due to the fact that the villagers are Pashtuns and don´t want to bet too strongly on any side in the conflict. The villagers probably coldly calculate that the Americans (and Tajiks) will leave sooner or later, while the Taliban will remain indefinitely. One soldier half-jokingly remarks that the village militia even *looks* Taliban! (The men in the Pashtun village have large beards, as do the Taliban, while the army soldiers are clean-shaven or have shorter beards.) Actual Taliban arrested and handed over to the courts frequently walk, using their connections and/or money.

"This is what winning looks like" ends with the reporter saying that if the Taliban ever comes back, half of the guys featured in the documentary will join them, while the other half will simply vanish...

Judging by recent events, this seems to be a correct assessment.