'Ghosts' don’t fight: Afghan troop strength is constantly exaggerated by the US & allies

Thank you, Col. Christian Juneau. He’s the deputy commander of Canadian troops serving on the battlefields of Afghanistan’s Kandahar province, and this week he’s brought a measure of truth to a subject the West’s political, diplomatic and military masters have treated mainly with the crudest forms of propaganda.

Juneau was explaining how Taliban gunmen have managed to re-assert themselves in districts they were sent running from only last year by NATO and US forces.

“The Afghan security forces were supposed to look after this piece of ground,'' Col. Juneau told Canadian Press after he and his men clawed Zhari district into their control for a second time.

So what happened?

Col. Juneau continued: "I think what we have done is we have over-estimated their capacity at that point in time and when the fighting season came back this spring, the bad guys had the opportunity to regain some of the ground.''

Over-estimated the Afghan National Army and Police? You bet, Col. Juneau, though as an officer and a gentleman, you’ve politely understated the degree of error, exaggeration and outright deception committed by your higher-ups in the US-led international “mission” to Afghanistan.

From the White House down to the lowliest foreign embassy in Kabul, this has been a process of lying on a military-industrial scale – Western officials deceiving themselves and the public about how many troops and cops have been trained and equipped to enable the Karzai regime to defend itself and the Afghan citizenry they claim to represent. (And thereby enabling the Canadians, Brits, Dutch and all the other foreign military contingents to head home.)

Forget the Taliban as a moving target – consider how the Afghan regime and its foreign “friends” have shifted and massaged their army-building objectives, year to year:

In 2002, the US-installed interim leader, Hamid Karzai, announces that a 50,000-man Afghan National Army will be created. Later that year, he raises the goal to 70,000. Yet by the end of 2003, only 9,000 recruits have been pressed through rudimentary training by US personnel – and half of these have deserted.

When challenged about the shortfall, US Gen. Peter Pace proclaims that the ANA will achieve 12,500 men in arms by the summer of 2004. But that claim looks doomed by the convening of the Berlin Conference in April, 2004, when evidence shows that only 5,721 troops have been fully trained with another 3,056 recruits on the way.

Enter Donald Rumsfeld. In August, 2004 the US Defense Secretary insists Pace was right: the ANA has reached 13,000 strong. The US Embassy raises that to 13,500 one month later.

By January 2005, another American official, Major Mark McCann, claims further progress – 17,800 soldiers trained, with 3,400 more in the system.

In August, 2005, the U.N.’s Secretary General, Kofi Annan, chimes in with an estimated troop level of 24,000. The Bush administration, just one month later in Sept. 2005, is even more upbeat, with Brig. Gen. James Champion claiming 26,000 ANA soldiers "on duty."

By January, 2006, the Bush administration's count is 26,900 men, and by January of this year, the Pentagon’s top trainer, Maj. Gen Robert Durbin, declares: “Currently 36,000 strong, the ANA is on its way to an end state of 70,000 combat and combat support soldiers skilled in counterinsurgency operations.”

Which, as officers like Col. Juneau can attest, was utter nonsense. On the ground in Afghanistan, it was widely agreed in February, 2007 that the Afghan National Army numbered perhaps 22,000 men - some 14,000 less than the Bush administration's generals were claiming. Six years after his installation, Hamid Karzai still has fewer than a third of the force he and his allies regard as minimally capable of defending his regime.

But mere facts such as these have not tempered, much less stopped, the propaganda. Witness Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his reassurances that Afghan forces are becoming better able to meet their security challenges.

If the West’s leaders are groping for answers as to why Afghanistan, the “good war”, has gone so wrong, perhaps they should start right here. Lying about strength reveals only weakness.

Coming up on skyreporter, who's responsible for the Afghan Army's sorry predicament, who's made millions from it - and why the West's political leaders want to cover up the evidence.