Vastly Corrupt Afghan Cops Await US Trainers

Obama's plan to train cops faces tough challenge

By Ambreen Ali, Newser User

Posted Apr 9, 2009 8:30 AM CDT

(Newser) – The 4,000 troops President Obama is sending to train Afghanistan's police and army will run straight into a formidable wall of corruption that undermines national security at every turn, American soldiers tell the New York Times. Cops pilfer gas, judges take money, top officials profit from the drug trade, and many jobs are sold—giving the clear-but-brutal Taliban more credibility than the ineffectual and greedy government.

The cycle is self-perpetuating and deeply ingrained, the soldiers say, citing abuses of power and graft that in turn rob civil authorities of the resources needed to fund their missions. “This is the reason no one accepts the rule of law,” says a provincial police chief, “because the government is not going by the rule of law.”

[Images (3)]

[Quotes (2)]

US soldiers stand guard near the site of an explosion in the outskirts of Kabul last month. Many troops say Afghanistan's corruption is strengthening the Taliban there. (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)

An Afghan police officer walks near the bloodstains following a suicide attack in Lashkar Gah the provincial capital of Helmand province, south of Kabul, earlier today. (AP Photo/Abdul Khaleq)

Afghan soldiers stand guard following an ambush by the Taliban militants on a police patrol in Panjwai district of Kandahar province, south of Kabul. (AP Photo/Allauddin Khan)

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It really breaks your heart, to think that what you are doing is probably not going to turn out to be a hill of beans.
- US First Sgt. John Strain,
who trains Ghazni police

I’d like to break down his door, stomp on his chest, point my 9-millimeter at his head and say, ‘Stop what you are doing!’
- A US Guardsman on a corrupt, high-ranking Afghan official

« Prev« Prev | Next »Next » Slideshow

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Vastly Corrupt Afghan Cops Await US Trainers