Now the West has gone: Afghan troops left battling the Taliban
Mike McEvoy is a former British soldier and director of Tell Spring Not to Come This Year - about the Afghan army's efforts to hold off the Taliban after the withdrawal of Nato forces.
Here he writes for ITV News about his experience embedded with the country's fledgling troops - and argues that handing the military the job of rebuilding the country has led, in some instances, to disaster.
"Kabul bey zar bashad, bey barf nay."
“May Kabul be without gold, rather than without snow”, goes the Afghan proverb in Dari.
For today at least, it would seem there’s little to worry about on that front. The air hitting our faces is ice-cold as we speed along the Jalalabad road, into the white-capped mountains on patrol with the Afghan National Army out of the country’s capital city.
The Afghan soldiers I ride with don’t seem to mind it. The winter has been surprisingly mild this year by normal standards. Major Samim, the patrol commander, has been in the army for eight years now. He’s seen and worked with mentors and advisers from Britain, France, the US, Portugal… even the odd Mongolian.
But today, as has been the case for some time now, it’s just him and his Afghan soldiers out checking the roads, his foreign counterparts a distant memory.
When I spoke to him on patrol he seemed confident about the state of the Afghan forces and their ability to fight. And I don’t think it’s all merely rhetoric for the camera either. What I’ve observed over the last few days both on patrol and at the Kabul Military Training Centre is in many ways impressive, given the fact that the army in its current form is still a fledgling institution in a nation still suffering the effects of over three decades of war that shows no sign of abating. But then this is Kabul, and Samim knows he’s comparatively lucky to have been posted here.
Back on base, I chance upon Sergeant Major Qadir, an old friend from my time down in Helmand province. We first got to know each other when I was deployed as a British officer advising Afghan forces in 2012, but then met several times again when I returned as a civilian to co-direct and film the recently completed documentary Tell Spring Not to Come This Year, which looks at the war from the perspective of the Afghan soldiers left behind to fight NATO’s unfinished war.
He’s on leave in Kabul, having only recently returned from Helmand where a large-scale army offensive is ongoing. Unsurprisingly, he does not share Major Samim’s optimism concerning the security situation.
Warning: The below trailer for Tell Spring Not to Come This Year features scenes some may find distressing.
In the area where the majority of British troops had been based, the major towns of Lashkar Gah and Gereshk may be more or less secure, but today you only need to drive for ten minutes outside of the towns before you find yourself in areas where the only government is the Taliban.
Yet the problem is perhaps not so much that the Afghan army is a weak force. True, institutional corruption is a huge issue, the supply chain doesn’t always work and ethnic divisions are still pervasive. But when it comes to the fight, they have the bullets and beans (though not always the bandages) they need and in general, they are more than capable. Morale is not great in some of the tougher postings, but it’s not at rock bottom either, which is surprising given the circumstances.
Moreover the problem is that the army, as was the case with the NATO intervention, simply isn’t the right institution to deal with the root causes of the conflict. The militarisation (and consequently, simplification) of state building, aid and development has led in some cases to catastrophic results.
Helmand is a case in point. One of the greatest drivers of conflict in the South is access to water and land disputes. Armies are trained to fight. They are not agricultural scientists or experts in local dispute resolution.
In many cases, therefore, the insurgency is less a cause of Afghanistan’s internal conflicts than it is a symptom.
The newly-formed Afghan army, built very much in the image of NATO armies, likely has no more chance of defeating the Taliban outright than did Western troops. Without civilian engagement to tackle the underlying political, economic and social problems, the Afghan forces are merely treading water, holding at bay and increasingly emboldened insurgency.
Perhaps we would have done well to heed another well-known Afghan Pashtun proverb.
"Kor kalay pa zor na kegi."
“Community cannot be created by force.”