This U.S. experiment gives villagers AK-47s and a three-week training course and encourages them to protect their neighborhoods from the Taliban. The experiment, being replicated around the country, is the latest and most ambitious U.S. effort to build grass-roots opposition to the insurgency in rural areas where U.S. troops and Afghan security forces are spread thin. ...
But some U.S. officials remain skeptical that the gunmen can be controlled or that they will be embraced by a wary Afghan government, which is nominally in charge of them. What is happening in Baghlan province points to some of the risks involved.
The story highlights that the local defense force commander discussed in the story is not liked by locals and that it essentially represents US forces taking sides in local quarrels and that they won't be controllable by the central government.
Local defense forces are a standard part of a successful counter-insurgency. They have limits to what they can do and are not a replacement for regular troops or real paramilitary police. Yes, they can even go bad. In time, they will need to be reined in and possibly disbanded, in part.
But worrying about a future problem when a current problem needs to be solved is foolish. Yes, we may need to adjust the current program or address specific problems, but have no doubt we need a local defense force program.
We have 3,000 under arms now and hope to expand it to 30,000, with maybe 15,000 in place by the spring fighting season. When the Taliban are beaten, the local defense forces could be a problem. But right now the Taliban are the problem and the local police program is a vital tool to combat them,
One problem at a time, eh?
UPDATE: General Petraeus defends the Afghan Local Police program. Sheesh, people. Yes, there could be problems down the road. But we're not down that road yet, eh? This program is COIN 101, for God's sake! Get a freaking grip and leave the man alone. Fighting the war is bad enough without swatting at idiots who buzz around pretending they know what they are talking about.
