The National Military Academy of Afghanistan
March 28, 2005 9:13 AM   Subscribe

Conceived in 2003 and modeled after West Point, The National Military Academy of Afghanistan began its academic year last week, welcoming its first class of soldiers to pass basic training, after which they'll complete a four-year Academy degree and become commissioned officers. Back in February, a US officer passed on photos of the Academy's opening. "We had kids walk into the Academy with nothing but the clothes they were wearing and open sandals, (no socks). These are good cadets."
posted by jenleigh (36 comments total)
 
I hope you don't mind me using the 'haircut' picture for my desktop. They are so VERY soldierly that I just can't help grinning every time I see them. Utterly charming.
posted by thomcatspike at 10:12 AM on March 28, 2005


Fantastic. Thanks, jenleigh!
posted by NotMyselfRightNow at 10:35 AM on March 28, 2005


I'm happy to see they're appreciating the Afghani custom of shaved heads, beardless faces and US camo fatigues.
posted by Peter H at 10:40 AM on March 28, 2005


New markets open for US arms salesmen.
/kneejerk snark
One would like to see this as being good for the people of Afghanistan, however judging by the US role in training human rights abusers in every corner of the world the outlook is not good. What the US knows about fighting in Afghanistan is not very much in comparison to the seasoned veterans of 30+ years of war, judging by the the Bin Laden Easter Egg hunt fiasco.
So what radical new training are they receiving that is of use to them and doesn't involve using expensive US weaponery?

Ditto Peter H
posted by asok at 10:58 AM on March 28, 2005


I'm happy to see they're appreciating the Afghani custom of shaved heads, beardless faces and US camo fatigues.

It's just like when I left Texas for basic training and the bastards wouldn't let me wear my cowboy boots.

Basic training has nothing to do with what it was like where you came from. Just to opposite, actually.
posted by Cyrano at 11:03 AM on March 28, 2005


I'm happy to see they're appreciating the Afghani custom of shaved heads, beardless faces and US camo fatigues.

The Afghan delegation chose to model itself after West Point—an institution whose code includes shaved heads & fatigues, no matter who you are. This isn't a cultural sensitivity issue.


From the AfghanNews.net article:
A delegation trying to launch the National Military Academy of Afghanistan has been getting a cadet's-eye view of West Point this week - observing classes, eating in the mess hall and watching drills.

"To start the new academy, we needed the help of our friends here," said Maj. Gen. Abdul Razaq, who would be the fledgling academy's commander.

posted by jenleigh at 11:12 AM on March 28, 2005


Good point too, asok.

Hey, did anyone else get a pop-up text warning from the Dept of Defense when they clicked the third link? I had to force quit my browser. I'd appreciate a warning akin to nsfw with that sort of miltary cookie horseshit, thank you.

On preview, Cyrano, there's a difference in that this is our country. Are you saying you wouldn't feel culturally invaded if you went to basic training led by an invading arab army, and they gave you a headscarf or burka?
posted by Peter H at 11:13 AM on March 28, 2005


Are you saying you wouldn't feel culturally invaded if you went to basic training led by an invading arab army, and they gave you a headscarf or burka?

Cultural identity is utterly irrelevant to the goals of basic training in any professional army (which the bearded and scarfed militias of Afghanistan are not, no matter how extensive their combat experience.) It's not about you as an individual anymore. It doesn't matter how they did it in Texas or California or Kabul, it's about how the Army wants it done now, son. Uniformity of appearance is just one part of that. And it must be a fairly important one, since I can't think of a single modern army that doesn't do the same (including Arab armies.) I'm operating under the assumption that the future of Afghanistan's security would be better off with a standing professional army rather than a myriad of often hostile militias, but your assumption might be different.
posted by Cyrano at 11:37 AM on March 28, 2005


it's about how the Army wants it done now, son.

I'm sorry, I don't speak English. Can you rephrase?

What if the custom of your invading army was to shave your nutsack, wear assless chaps, and cover everyone in blackface? It's how it's done by your invading Shaved Balls Vaudeville Army (the SBV of A), and it makes everyone the same, so who cares if it makes you look like a jackass to your friends family? I mean, it doesn't matter if the hair on your balls actually matters religiously to those around you, it's how they do things, right?

Are you really going to tell me when the SBV of A occupies your country you'll be fine with them taking a razor to your bits because that's how it's done?

Said tongue in cheek, but as an American I often find it appalling how we steamroll culture like we're a walmart landing on a indigenous rainforest.
posted by Peter H at 11:57 AM on March 28, 2005


Said tongue in cheek, but as an American I often find it appalling how we steamroll culture like we're a walmart landing on a indigenous rainforest.

Cyrano's right. The army is the army. If there was one time that conformity and indoctrination is need it's in the military. Also, most, if not all, armed forces in the world demand conformity to a clean cut look. Hence, this is not about wal-martizing the world. It's about doing things the way they should be done to get the proper result.

If the Afghans themselves what to change the uniform, look or discipline regimen then they should be free do so. That aside, I just don't see the need or the utility make the Afghan army anything other than a modern, western fighting force.
posted by Bag Man at 12:19 PM on March 28, 2005


People, please: "assless chaps" is redundant.

/irrelevant
posted by scratch at 12:29 PM on March 28, 2005


Look, I'm not Islamic, nor am I conservative, but if you read through my link you'll see that Muslim society views the shaving of a beard as everything from Godless, forbidden, dehumanizing, even to changing a man into a (socially viewed) hermaphrodite (is that what makes a good soldier?), to preventing them from a religious position of any authority, etc. I'm interpreting this as a lifelong harm to this person's social standing, but at the very least it's temporarily very rude.

Is it so difficult to conceive that we are a society that, Schiavo aside, is not determined by emphatic religious code? Flip the script, so to speak. Beard shaving is forbidden.

People are hungry and the army is money and food. I see this very little unlike a woman in America forced into lapdancing to pay bills.

Sure, it's degrading but it's how we do it. (on preview, ha! my asspologies.)
posted by Peter H at 12:34 PM on March 28, 2005


Kabul was a grim, monastic place in the days of the Taliban; today it's a chaotic gathering point for every kind of prospector and carpetbagger. Foreign bidders vying for billions of dollars of telecoms, irrigation and construction contracts have sparked a property boom that has forced up rental prices in the Afghan capital to match those in London, Tokyo and Manhattan. Four years ago, the Ministry of Vice and Virtue in Kabul was a tool of the Taliban inquisition, a drab office building where heretics were locked up for such crimes as humming a popular love song. Now it's owned by an American entrepreneur who hopes its bitter associations won't scare away his new friends.

Outside Kabul, Afghanistan is bleaker, its provinces more inaccessible and lawless, than it was under the Taliban. If anyone leaves town, they do so in convoys. Afghanistan is a place where it is easy for people to disappear and perilous for anyone to investigate their fate. Even a seasoned aid agency such as Médécins Sans Frontières was forced to quit after five staff members were murdered last June. Only the 17,000-strong US forces, with their all-terrain Humvees and Apache attack helicopters, have the run of the land, and they have used the haze of fear and uncertainty that has engulfed the country to advance a draconian phase in the war against terror. Afghanistan has become the new Guantánamo Bay.


'One huge US jail'

According to a United Nations report, Afghan living standards are the sixth worst in the world, ahead of only five basket cases in sub-Saharan Africa. Almost every statistic is bad. Average life expectancy is 44.5 years compared with 60.8 in neighboring Pakistan and 70.1 in Iran. Gross domestic product per capita is $190 compared with $408 in Pakistan and $1,652 in Iran. Infant mortality is also higher than the toll in any of Afghanistan's neighbors, and the literacy rate is only 28.7 percent. One in four Afghans is unemployed. Corruption is rife. Discredited warlords remain in control of vast regions. The government's writ runs very thin outside of the capital, and a low-level insurgency grinds on. Perhaps most serious of all for Afghanistan's long-term prospects, the country is now the world's largest producer of opium.

'The fragile nation could easily tumble back into chaos," said the authors of the UN report, and in provincial towns there is a growing nostalgia for the Taliban, who at least provided a modicum of law and order...

What Afghanistan needs from the West is 20 years of steady, unrelenting aid and support. But given the industrialized world's attention span and America's all-absorbing distraction in Iraq, it is unlikely to get it.


Afghanistan, the poor stepsister to Iraq

A just-released United Nations report attempts to answer such questions. In its survey National Human Development Report: Security With a Human Face, the U.N. concludes that while the U.S.-led coalition successfully ended the oppressive rule of Taliban religious zealots, inadequate attention has been paid to confronting the inherent socio-economic and cultural difficulties undermining Afghan society.

According to the report's authors, "human security" and "human development," rather than military force and diplomacy alone, are key to resolving Afghanistan's complex problems.

And those problems are staggering. Although the country's gross domestic product increased in 2003 by 16 per cent and should increase annually by 10 to 12 per cent over the next decade, that growth is unevenly shared. Half the population is classified as poor and 20 per cent of rural Afghans are undernourished. Afghanistan's poorest 30 per cent receive just 9 per cent of national income. Average annual income is only $190 dollars (U.S.) with 25 per cent of the labour force unemployed.

Although more than 54 per cent of school-age children are now in school, many areas still have no schools and adult literacy is only 28.7 per cent. Few girls attend school at all.

Inadequate health care remains a serious problem. One of every 15 women dies giving birth. Twenty per cent of children never reach their fifth birthday, 80 per cent perishing from preventable diseases. Recent immunization programs against measles, whooping cough and other childhood diseases are improving the situation. However, during recent unusually cold weather, more than 600 people have died, including children suffering from malnutrition, lack of proper shelter and medical care.

In the words of the report's authors, "Our team found the overwhelming majority of people hold a sense of pessimism and fear that reconstruction is bypassing them."


Afghanistan's bitter reality

posted by y2karl at 12:48 PM on March 28, 2005


Of all things to start a discussion about, you choose... shaved heads?
Come on.

For a start, many Afghans voluntarily go beardless and the shaving of heads tends to be more a sign of a scalp infestation than of a hermaphrodite. So while your cultural sensitivity would, I'm sure be appreciated, I doubt the soldiers were particularly offended.

On preview: thank you for the links y2karl
(... do you have to quote quite so much of them though?!)
posted by pots at 1:07 PM on March 28, 2005


if you read through my link you'll see that Muslim society views the shaving of a beard as everything from Godless, forbidden, dehumanizing, even to changing a man into a (socially viewed) hermaphrodite (is that what makes a good soldier?), to preventing them from a religious position of any authority, etc. I'm interpreting this as a lifelong harm to this person's social standing, but at the very least it's temporarily very rude.

The requirements for beard in Afghanistan was one that was imposed by the Taliban. I seem to recall that after they fled there was a lot of beard shaving going on. I'm sure there's still some residual social effects, but you're casting waaay to far a net to include all of Muslim society. I lived in Saudi Arabia, as strict a Muslim society as you're going to find anymore, and while facial hair was common I saw clean shaven faces as much as I saw full-on beards.

What if the custom of your invading army was to shave your nutsack, wear assless chaps, and cover everyone in blackface?

If I joined the French Foreign Legion I wouldn't be pissed that I had to speak French, so if I joined the SBV of A then I wouldn't have much right to complain if I was an adult and knew what I was getting into. Throwing "invading army" in there makes it sound like these are conscripts rather than volunteers (some of whom might actually be there because they want to be and not just for the free vittles.)

Also, most, if not all, armed forces in the world demand conformity to a clean cut look. Hence, this is not about wal-martizing the world. It's about doing things the way they should be done to get the proper result.

Right. Uniform regulations regarding hairstyles relax somewhat once you clear basic training in the US military (with some allowances for branch of service and job duties.) I'm sure the Afghani army will have it's own regulations different from others once the soldiers get out of basic training. Emphasis on once the soldiers get out of basic training.
posted by Cyrano at 1:14 PM on March 28, 2005


Ha, (enjoying the conversation, btw - as well as pots' point)

I'll admit to being anti American Military Invasion, so any kind of thing I perceive as tar and feathering the defeated into resembling us is visually and culturally offensive to me, and I assume the rest of the world perceiving us as a threat. Simpler?
posted by Peter H at 1:16 PM on March 28, 2005


Throwing "invading army" in there makes it sound like these are conscripts rather than volunteers

But Cyrano, we are the Invaders. And we are the Army.
posted by Peter H at 1:19 PM on March 28, 2005


Karl H. Marx on a bicycle. I think it's safe to say that if you don't want a real short haircut, or to be ordered to march around for no obvious reason, or to be real damn tired for weeks on end,

then you shouldn't join the fuckin' army. Of anywhere.

Also, they've been known to hurt people and break stuff.

Similarly, I'd advise young men who feel strongly about keeping their beards and hair to avoid entering a monastic order, and for people who don't look good in black to stay out of the Catholic ministry.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 1:26 PM on March 28, 2005


Ha, xe-no-phobe n (1915) : one unduly fearful of what is foreign and esp. of people of foreign origin.

Your name and comments are a joke or an act, right?
posted by Peter H at 1:31 PM on March 28, 2005


But Cyrano, we are the Invaders. And we are the Army.

Yeeesss, now please explain how that's even relevant in this case when the only people that the "invading army" is imposing itself on are people who volunteered to be trained by it?
posted by Cyrano at 1:33 PM on March 28, 2005


Well sure, it's not an army assembled by force. But I assume it is a paying or feeding job for desperate people. All I am arguing is that, if you view the world and all of the world's output (ie. art, literature, language, etc) it fucks with the cultural ecosystem (and our continually crumbling reputation in the world) for us to impose Western aesthetics. Do you disagree with any of that? We have our own toilets to piss in, really.

(I'm appreciating your points, btw, just not agreeing with them)
posted by Peter H at 1:43 PM on March 28, 2005


Your name and comments are a joke or an act, right?

See Use of Weapons by Iain M. Banks. Or google for it.

I suppose I should have picked "GCU Sweet and Full of Grace", or "GSV Bora Horza Gobuchul," but dammit I liked Xeny.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 2:04 PM on March 28, 2005


For comparison: Soldiers of the Afghan Army during the Soviet era. There are also some memorable photos in Artyom Borovik's The Hidden War, a series of articles about the Soviet occupation from the point of view of a Russian journalist then fully immersed in the ideals of the Socialist revolution. For the record, if you want to be especially cynical, the Russians also felt that they were bringing modern civilization to Afghanistan, and there were plenty of Afghans in those days who bought into the concept as well.

You have to remember (or learn if you weren't around) that before the 1979 Iranian revolution, Islamic fundamentalism was a minority force throughout the Muslim world. Urban women wore dresses and jewelry. Pre-revolutionary Afghanistan was the same way, with secular academics (educated at the Russian-built Kabul University, or in Moscow) forming the core of the government and business class.

It's also worth noting that the beginning of the revolt -- the war in which we became involved -- was tied specifically to a national edict ordering the education of women, which caused riots in rural districts. To an Afghan farmer, there's not much difference between socialism and capitalism. It's quite true that we exploited that moral anger, which has now come back to haunt us.

So what radical new training are they receiving that is of use to them and doesn't involve using expensive US weaponery?

Secular nationalism is probably the single most important thing, since this army is supposed to be multi-ethnic and divorced from the authority of regional warlords. But combined arms doctrine is going to be important. They can keep fighting like guerrillas but it would probably remain a stalemate. They might have some expertise developed in high-tech surveillance and recon, but there will probably be a small air force mostly using helicopters. (They'll need to know evasive tactics, since the Afghans were taught well by us and Pakistan how to kill the Russian whirlybirds.) If the army is to be effective, as well, it will have to instill a meritocracy, something notoriously lacking in Arab and Muslim militaries.
posted by dhartung at 2:52 PM on March 28, 2005


Listen, this is their academy. They even chose to make it resemble the USMA, they chose! As in, the guys in charge of building the academy (Afghans!) toured around quite a few countries and observed their military academies to train the officer corps and they chose the West Point model (as a USNAer, I can't see why). We did not impose this on them at all. As for desperates looking for a job, first of all, the Academy is trained to to produce foot soldiers but a highly trained officer corps. It's the type of stuff they screen people for. They probably had enough people attempt entrance that they could take the pick of the litter come admissions time.

I mean, I just don't see how the US comes into this at all other than we were the model the Afghan generals used to create their military academy.
posted by Lord Chancellor at 3:33 PM on March 28, 2005


Er, the first 'to' in the fifth line, that should be a 'not' instead.
posted by Lord Chancellor at 3:38 PM on March 28, 2005


All I am arguing is that, if you view the world and all of the world's output (ie. art, literature, language, etc) it fucks with the cultural ecosystem (and our continually crumbling reputation in the world) for us to impose Western aesthetics.

Thanks for the civil response, Peter H. It's becoming increasinly rare, well, pretty much anywhere.

My point is just that the basic training of the military pretty much takes the same form everywhere. I will be fully willing to admit my error if someone can prove otherwise, but I'd be willing to bet that basic training in Syria or Egypt, insofar as uniformity of appearance goes, is not that much different from what you would find in the US, even though the norms of such armies are probably quite different once the soldiers join regular units.
posted by Cyrano at 5:37 PM on March 28, 2005


No big deal here. One of the basic tenets of military training - this is basic training - right - is discipline. The individual must be reduced to the same as everyone else. Do as I fucking say and do it NOW. Only when the individual has been drilled into a team and is able to instantly efficiently carry out an order from a superor officer can the recruit pass on from the basic stage and a little individuality creep back in.
The noobs then get the treatment. No discipline, no army - just a rabble.
posted by adamvasco at 7:00 PM on March 28, 2005


So, uh, are we transmitting our traditions of handing out candy to the German kids and our reputation for being decent to prisoners that induced Germans in WWII to fight their way West to surrender to us rather than the Soviets?

Or are we transmitting our traditions of an official policy of torture and a military justice system that sweeps deaths of at least 17 Afghan POWs at the hands of US troops, under the rug?

Who represents the American military today? Hugh Thompson or Lieutenant William Calley?
posted by orthogonality at 4:58 AM on March 29, 2005


Technology Returns to Afghanistan
posted by dhoyt at 6:19 AM on March 29, 2005


So this means there'll be professional soldiers protecting the opium growing and distribution?
posted by nofundy at 6:53 AM on March 29, 2005


Well, I don't think the idea of a professional officer corps that is loyal to the nation vice regional militias is a bad thing . . . I mean, what did you want? Hopefully, the opium trade will be shut down, but it certainly won't be under the current system.

I really don't see how this news is bad news.
posted by Lord Chancellor at 7:22 AM on March 29, 2005


Wait, so Americans are to teach Afghans about "secular nationalism"?
That's hilarious.
posted by mr.marx at 8:27 AM on March 29, 2005


First of all, it's more secularly nationalist than they have now, and second, if the Afghans chose Sandhurst, or Royal Military College, Canada, or National Military Academy, Japan for the basis of their Academy design, they would have had representatives from those countries to assist. I guess the people at West Point were just suppose to refuse?
posted by Lord Chancellor at 8:56 AM on March 29, 2005


> about that opium thing...
posted by pots at 11:27 AM on March 29, 2005


Thanks for trying to give me some answers, dhartung, but I must echo mr.marx's sentiment and add that if promoting 'secular nationalism' were an aim, military academies are not neccessarily the best way to go about it. The military should only be a small part of such a project, not that I have heard that there is any such project to heal fractuous Afghanistan, or Iraq for that matter.
In point of fact Afghanistan has been home to a wide variety of religious and ethnic groups in memoriam, the idea that the US would have to be the one to teach them to get along seems somewhat arrogant.
Lord Chancellor - good point, but I must say that if all decisions at government level were made based on the real costs and benefits then we would be living in a different world. The decision to model the academy on the US model may have been completely free, or it could have been influenced by some 'third party' lobyists. We will not likely know, ever.
Where is the money coming from?
posted by asok at 3:51 AM on March 30, 2005


Reports also make it clear that the decision to set up new US military bases was made during Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's visit to Kabul last December. Subsequently, Afghan President Hamid Karzai accepted the Pentagon diktat. Not that Karzai had a choice: US intelligence is of the view that he will not be able to hold on to his throne beyond June unless the US Army can speed up training of a large number of Afghan army recruits and protect Kabul. Even today, the inner core of Karzai's security is run by the US State Department with personnel provided by private US contractors.

On February 23, according to the official Bakhter News Agency, 196 American military instructors arrived in Kabul. These instructors are scheduled to be in Afghanistan until the end of 2006. According to General H Head, commander of the US Phoenix Joint Working Force, the objective of the team is to expedite the educational and training programs of Afghan army personnel. The plan to protect Karzai and the new-found "democracy" in Afghanistan rests on the creation of a well-trained 70,000-man Afghan National Army (ANA) by the end of 2006. As of now, 20,000 ANA personnel help out 17,000-plus US troops and some 5,000-plus North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) troops currently based in Afghanistan...

In addition, on February 28, in a move to bring a large number of militiamen into the ANA quickly, Karzai appointed General Abdur Rashid Dostum, a regional Uzbek-Afghan warlord of disrepute, as his personal military chief of staff. The list of what is wrong with Dostum is too long for this article, but he is important to Karzai and the Pentagon.

Dostum has at least 30,000 militiamen, members of his Jumbush-e-Milli, under him. A quick change of their uniforms would increase the ANA by 30,000 at a minimal cost. Moreover, Dostum's men do not need military training (what they do need is some understanding of and respect for law and order). Another important factor that comes into play with this union is the Pentagon-Karzai plan to counter the other major north Afghan ethnic grouping, the Tajik-Afghans...

These developments, particularly setting up bases in Manas and Qarshi Hanabad, are not an attempt by the US to find an exit strategy for Afghanistan, but the opposite: establishing a military presence.


US scatters bases to control Eurasia

In the 1980s Gen Dostum backed the invading forces of the Soviet Union against the Mujahedeen rebels. He then played a prominent role in the civil war that destroyed much of the capital Kabul and left thousands dead. In 2001, while helping the United States, his militias were accused of suffocating hundreds of Taleban prisoners to death by locking them inside shipping containers.

Concern over Dostum appointment

Well, as long as we get our bases, hey ? Say, with all those bases, one can certainly say technology is coming to Afghanistan--cluster bombs and all.

...Afghan President Hamid Karzai accepted the Pentagon diktat.

And the Uzbek warlord Dostum and his 30,000 troops--so, they are going to the national Military Academy of Afghanistan, too?

Yeah, right...

Ah, smell the spread of democracy.
posted by y2karl at 4:18 PM on March 30, 2005


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