Report: After brutal police rule, Taliban ‘welcomed as liberators’
Published: July 13, 2009
Updated 4 months ago
In the wilds of Afghanistan, the civilian populace is increasingly turning to the Taliban for aid rather than U.S.-backed police forces, a published report revealed Monday. In some areas of the country, the situation has become so dire that some have begun to see the Taliban movement as ‘liberation’ rather than oppression.
“Afghans across the country complain bitterly about the country’s police, whose junior ranks earn only about $150 a month,” the Associated Press reported. “Police pad their salaries by demanding bribes at checkpoints or kickbacks to investigate complaints, and police in opium poppy-growing regions turn a blind eye to drug smuggling for a cut of the profits, many Afghans complain.”
The wire service continued: “A 2007 International Crisis Group report entitled ‘Reforming Afghanistan’s Police’ found that Afghans often view the police ‘more as a source of fear than of security.’ It said ending corruption was critical if police were to provide a ‘professional, consistent service to citizens.’”
As U.S. and British troops have been battling Taliban forces in Helmand province in one of the largest offensives since the war’s start and as they press further into the territory, more has been revealed about the abuses of government-installed Afghan police forces.
“[Villagers] say the government’s police force was so brutal and corrupt that they welcomed the Taliban as liberators,” noted Reuters.
The Reuters report continued:
“The police would stop people driving on motorcycles, beat them and take their money,” said Mohammad Gul, an elder in the village of Pankela, which British troops have been securing for the past three days after flying in by helicopter.
He pointed to two compounds of neighbors where pre-teen children had been abducted by police to be used for the local practice of “bachabazi,” or sex with pre-pubescent boys.
“If the boys were out in the fields, the police would come and rape them,” he said. “You can go to any police base and you will see these boys. They hold them until they are finished with them and then let the child go.”
“On an average basis, six to 10 police lose their lives [every day] while on duty, providing security for the people,” Afghan interior ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary told reporters.
“Last year we had an average of six police dying every day but this year we have six to 10,” he said, referring to the Afghan solar-based calendar which starts in March. Bashary was unable to give an overall toll for the year.
On Monday morning, the police chief of Jalrez, along with three of his deputies, were killed in a roadside bombing. Four other officers were injured.
With AFP.
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This is inevitable. The police are mercenaries and behave as if they were trained in the USA Their corruption is venal . The Taliban are idealists and their corruption is spiritual. It is not an easy choice to make for a poor farmer as to who is the most trustworthy.
police brutality may be inevitable…. but if you had bothered to read the story you would have seen the “pot-smoking, ragtag, thieving force” attacked the marines and their afghan army partners… and the US military doesnt trust the afghan police force… in fact the story says some of the US forces are basically sacking local police forces and replacing them with better trained people.
“One villager in Aynak, Ghulam Mohammad, who appeared to be in his mid-20s, said that villagers were happy with the Afghan army, but not the police.” well the army is closer to the US army than the police..
ie, your whole point seems to be flat out wrong if you read the story.
“The Taliban are idealists and their corruption is spiritual.”
yeah they just smuggle heroin, other than that, pretty spiritual. pretty pure. well they wanted to build a huge oil pipeline through the coutnry with the help of western infidels… but. well there are a few other things…. aside from those few dozen things, they are pretty spiritual and idealistic.
Perhaps you need to read more. It is well known that the Ayatollahs have blessed the opium and heroin trafficking because they want to poison the infidels. It is a spiritual war. Who is in whose country for CHRISTS SAKE ??
Yeah, they can replace the German trained police force with an American trained Afghan army all they want, training doesn’t take away the element in a persons brain that makes them snatch young boys from a field and rape them. The idea that the American trained forces won’t rape children because Americans trained them is ludicrous, this boils down to internal cultural problems in a country that has had their culture shattered time and time again by foreign army’s.
Of course! Anyone with a brain prefers rabid bats and poisonous snakes to police criminals. Shit Satan you think our Christian army isn’t raping children? Pedophilia is what Xianity is all about! Always has been. Read Julian Augustus’s papers. Xianity has always been evil!