The Afghan military collapse? Corruption a big issue

[empedocles]

' . . . How the Afghan military came to disintegrate first became apparent not last week but months ago in an accumulation of losses that started even before President Biden’s announcement that the United States would withdraw by Sept. 11. . . . '

It began with individual outposts in rural areas where starving and ammunition-depleted soldiers and police units were surrounded by Taliban fighters and promised safe passage if they surrendered and left behind their equipment, slowly giving the insurgents more and more control of roads, then entire districts. As positions collapsed, the complaint was almost always the same: There was no air support or they had run out of supplies and food.


https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/13/world/asia/afghanistan-rapid-military-collapse.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage

[Dream Girl]

1. This is why the Afghan military is just "melting away".

[Wounded Bear]

2. The original Afghan gov't was installed by the Bush Cabal...

we should be surprised it is corrupt?

[dalton99a]

3. Corrupt Afghan officials should not be given asylum in the U.S.

At a minimum, investigate their Swiss bank accounts

But even before that, the systemic weaknesses of the Afghan security forces — which on paper numbered somewhere around 300,000 people, but in recent days have totaled around just one-sixth of that, according to U.S. officials — were apparent. These shortfalls can be traced to numerous issues that sprung from the West’s insistence on building a fully modern military with all the logistical and supply complexities one requires, and which has proved unsustainable without the United States and its NATO allies.

Soldiers and policemen have expressed ever-deeper resentment of the Afghan leadership. Officials often turned a blind eye to what was happening, knowing full well that the Afghan forces’ real manpower count was far lower than what was on the books, skewed by corruption and secrecy that they quietly accepted.

“We are drowning in corruption,” said Abdul Haleem, 38, a police officer on the Kandahar frontline earlier this month. His special operations unit was at half strength — 15 out of 30 people — and several of his comrades who remained on the front were there because their villages had been captured.

“How are we supposed to defeat the Taliban with this amount of ammunition?” he said. The heavy machine gun, for which his unit had very few bullets, broke later that night.

[empedocles]

4. Absolutely. Some perspective on corruption.

The top 10 most corrupt nations, according to the 2018 U.S. News and World Report rankings, are:

Nigeria
Colombia
Pakistan
Iran
Mexico
Ghana
Angola
Russia
Kenya
Guatemala

On the other hand, the least corrupt countries are New Zealand, Denmark, Norway, Switzerland, and Finland.