Afghan police 'corrupt, stoned on opium'

Independent:

When I heard the news this morning, I thought "Christ, five in one go..." I was shocked and saddened – but I was not surprised that it had happened. I'm surprised it took this long.

We went out to Helmand to mentor the Afghan National Police without understanding the level they were at. We thought we would be arresting people, helping them to police efficiently. Instead we were literally training them how to point a gun on the ranges, and telling them why you should not stop cars and demand "taxes".

Most of them were corrupt and took drugs, particularly opium. The lads would go into police stations at night and they would be stoned; sometimes they would fire indiscriminately at nothing.

They had no understanding of the basics of what it means to be a policeman. We expected to be teaching adults at a certain level and then realised we would be changing nappies. Give them 20 rounds and they will hit the target once.

The first time I saw them I realised that they had almost no training; some of them had very little ability. Their uniforms were dirty and didn't fit. Their weapon-cleaning was non-existent.

They certainly didn't have a concept of being upstanding members of the community. They had no loyalty, esprit de corps or cameraderie. That should have been incorporated in their training. They did have pride – because of the power and status they felt.

How do you train this band of idiots and turn them into a force to be reckoned with if they have no sense of loyalty, no sense of belonging?

The biggest problem was that we didn't know who we were getting. There were no security checks – they were literally allowed to come into the compound and we had to rely on the local chief of police, who recruited them. We kept a close eye on them because we didn't know or trust them – it was for our own security.

Perhaps half of them genuinely wanted to try to make the community safe: they had the right intention but the attention span of gnats. Twenty would turn up one day, none the next, then 15, then suddenly a new face would appear.

It was difficult just getting them to a basic level, to do things like man a post. They would take drugs, go to sleep, leave their post, have sex with each other. Very few were vigilant or alert.

...

It sounds like they need to be weeding these people out including the chiefs who hired them. That would be one way of instilling discipline. There has to be consequences for unacceptable behavior.

One of the effective ways of dealing with police who are not performing was used by the US in the Philippines insurrection. The offending officers had their pay reduced and their weapon confiscated until they earned the right to get them back. I think that might work in Afghanistan too.