by Eric Martin In an effort to cobble together a plausible number of boots on the ground to match thegrandiose mish-mosh strategy of multi-decade counterinsurgency, counterterrorism and nation building in Afghanistan, US forces are, again, relying on the ability to raise, outfit and train highly motivated, disciplined and effective indigenous fighting force.  In addition to making up for the lack of US troops necessary for the tasks at hand, the emergence of a new national army is supposed to provide the US with the ability to begin withdrawing troops.   Then President bush famously explained the formula by saying, "When they stand up, we stand down."  The long and arduous process in both Iraq and Afghanistan has been more notable for setbacks than advancements.  Aside from the ever-present logistical difficulties in creating new armies, almost ex nihilo in foreign cultures that we barely understand, let alone have the ability to shape, in Afghanistan we have a hard time discerning friendly from hostile Afghans, and even when we manage to not arm and train the enemy, many Afghan recruits are not really interested in putting their lives on the line to defend a corrupt and ineffectual government.  Must be a cultural thing. This is certainly an extreme case of security-force-building gone wrong: Five British soldiers have been shot dead after a rogue Afghan policeman turned a heavy machinegun against a British training team inside a checkpoint in Helmand Province. The soldiers, three from the Grenadier Guards and two from the Royal Military Police, died in the village of Shin Kalay in Nad-e’Ali district of Helmand Province yesterday afternoon. Six British soldiers were injured in the same incident, several of them seriously. Two Afghan policemen, including the commander of the checkpost, were also injured before their assailant managed to escape. But the picture isn't exactly rosy outside of these gruesome incidents.  Colonel Lawrence Sellini's assessment of the Afghan army does not ring of optimism: On May 21, 2002, U.S. Army Gen. Tommy Franks, commander of U.S. Central Command, said to reporters, "I am pleased that our forces have begun training the Afghan National Army." Franks also stated that training the Afghan army will "certainly be one of our more important projects in the days, weeks (and) months ahead, because the national army of Afghanistan is going to be an essential element of their long-term security." On Sept. 21, 2006, U.S. Marine Corps Gen. James Jones, now President Barack Obama's national security adviser, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, "By far, the Afghan National Army is the most successful pillar of our reconstruction efforts to date." According to U.S. Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal's Aug. 30 recommendations for a new strategy in Afghanistan, one of the four main pillars to accomplish the mission and defeat the insurgency is to increase the size and accelerate the growth of the Afghan National Security Force and radically enhance partnership at every level to improve effectiveness and prepare them to take the lead in security operations. After almost eight years of effort, the Kabul Military Training Center reports that the Afghan National Army now numbers between 88,000 and 92,000 soldiers. McChrystal admits that after eight years of recruitment and training, the Afghan National Army and the Afghan National Police are not sufficiently effective to take ownership of Afghanistan's security. He said, "The Afghan National Army must accelerate growth to the target strength of 134,000 by fall 2010, with the institutional flexibility to continue that growth to a new target ceiling of 240,000." Even Franks in 2002 did not delude himself into thinking that training and integrating a force comprised of tribal and factional members into an Afghan National Army would be easy. In her superbly written article "Meet the Afghan Army," first published by TomDispatch, Ann Jones provides personal and direct observations on this subject... Based on years of experience in Afghanistan, Jones said she believes there is little trust among these units composed of various tribal factions and that "these impoverished men in a country without work have joined the Afghan National Army for what they can get out of it (and keep or sell) -- and that doesn't include democracy or glory." She notes that many recruits do not return for duty after their 10-week basic training and others "re-enlist" under a different name to get an additional 10 weeks' pay. Some may be Taliban gaining valuable insight into tactics, techniques and procedures Compared to unwittingly providing training and arms to Taliban fighters, the payment of reconstruction dollars might not appear like such a great crime.  Still, these incidents serve as, occasionally tragic, reminders of just how out of our element we are. Steve Hynd has more, including this from Peter Galbraith: "The process of police training and recruiting has been very rushed. Normally the police get an eight-week training course. That is actually very short and there isn't a lot of vetting of police before they are hired. "And actually, in recent months, they shortened the training programme from eight weeks to five weeks because they wanted to get more police boots on the ground in advance of the elections. So there was a real rush to recruit an additional 10,000, particularly in the south, particularly in Kandahar and Helmand provinces. "So it is not totally surprising that people were recruited who may have had Taliban sympathies or were infiltrated into the police by the Taliban although I don't know yet whether in this particular episode that is exactly what happened." The undermining of the legitimacy of the Afghan government because of the "chaos" surrounding the election had also "created opportunities for the Taliban," he said, sending his condolences to the families of those killed in the incident. Looks like a promising endeavor, worth a trillion dollars or more and another ten years.