Hastily trained Afghan teens to stand guard for Canadians

[kilekaldar]

Okay, let's dispell some media created misinformation here.

-The ANP auxiliary was foisted on us by the GoA when we asked for ANSF to secure the roads we're building through the Op Medusa AO.

-The ANP auxiliary is, to my knowledge, in NO WAY recruited, trained or payed by NATO or us.

-The ANP auxiliary have been in place for 2 weeks now and have shown themselves to be completely useless. We are actively trying to replace them with a more competant force. They are not wanted there by anyone on the ground.

-For a good media article on the performance of the ANP Auxiliary see
"A typical Afghan mess ruins Canadians' day"
JANE ARMSTRONG
From Thursday's Globe and Mail

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20061018.wxafghan19/BNStory/Afghanistan/home

There's already a thread on this article here http://forums.army.ca/forums/threads/52044.0.html

 

[1feral1]

Using the word 'teen', is just a media ploy to grab readers. Typical pisss weak media tactic.

However, I will say that I would have zero competance in these moblie, portable fleshy HESCOs.

Regards,

Wes

 

[Teflon]

http://www.blogger.com/publish-comment.do?blogID=9558836&postID=116112227654348886&r=ok

Posted a comment on this one linked above.

My post below

Teflon said...
Having read your piece I just want to rehash the fact that these "teens" (I don't know the ages of them as this activity started after my return to Canada) are hired or enlisted by the Afghan athorities, train by them (possibly with supervision of the NATO pers that are part of the Embedded Training Teams) They are paid and controlled by the Afghan Government or Provincial Goveners. The CF's envolment comes in due to the fact they are being placed in some areas in Canada's area of operation and therefore take it upon themseleves to monitor their doings and with a hope of 1. keeping them alive and 2. Since they are there, improving their performance so that they do assist in the stablization and security of the area.

Another point I would to bring up as it has been a problem in Canada and the CF for decades - often seen during our "peace keeping" in the former Yugoslavia. We in Canada (and some in the CF) have dificulty looking at an thing with anything but the Canadian perspective, overlaying our cultural values over the scene at hand - in this case "teens enlisted to fight in buffer zone!" well here in Canada you say something to that effect and everyone thinks of pimply-faced 16 years olds running around with guys getting shot up when they should be in school learning something, well in Afghanistan alot of 16 year olds already have a wife maybe a kid or two and either farms his little dirt patch or works for another on his, Manhood is reach at different ages in different cultures. Besides, We (Canada) send teens into battle over there. I had some 19 year olds serving in my platoon over there, hell I trained some of them and others to go over also and because it's what they wanted to do, they did well.

A last point on army.ca, keep in mind that it is a privately owned site (not an official CF site) for those that share a personal or proffesonal interest in the military and calls countless posters members, every type of person from interested civis, cadets, and retired or currently serving members of both the CF and numerous forces of other nations, so yes in that large crowd there will be a few overcharged "throat punchers" but the vast magority are quite well read and polite.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

Colin P,
Do a search.  There is a thread on that topic.

My Google fu must be weak a search did not turn up anything

 

[bilton090]

Yet I'm told throat-punching is considered socially unacceptable, whilst vilifying and slandering Canadian soldiers seems to be not only socially acceptable, but encouraged in Canada.
         CRAP X 1000 vilifying & slandering Canadian soldiers !
          Eugene Plawiuk is a member of the Edmonton Science Fiction & Comic Arts Society , he must have smoked a big one !, & forgot where he was writing in.

  P.S: The children in the picture are in Palestinian.