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Soldiers: Let’s Unmasked the real Militia – Villagers or Professionals Recruits?

A Militia is an organization of citizens prepared to provide defence, emergency, or paramilitary service, or those engaged in such activity. Militias can be government sanctioned or independent organizations. The legality of such organizations varies by country, as does the role they have played in the founding of different countries. Militias, being composed of civilians rather than professional soldiers, vary in their military training and have historically been found inadequate to their appointed task of defending their country against foreign attack. Recently Gen. David H. Petraeus has met sharp resistance from President Hamid Karzai to an American plan to assist Afghan villagers in fighting the Taliban on their own. The idea of recruiting villagers into local defence programs is a key part of the U.S. military strategy in Afghanistan, and Karzai’s stance poses an early challenge to Petraeus as he tries to fashion a collaborative relationship with the Afghan leader. Senior U.S. officials say that the United States would like to expand the program to about two dozen sites across Afghanistan, double the current number, and are hoping to overcome Karzai’s concerns. But the issue is delicate to many who fear that such experiments could lead Afghanistan further into warlordism and out-of-control militias.

Warlordism plagues many weak and failed states, and the parochial and often brutal rule of warlords deprives countries of the chance for lasting security and economic growth. This situation is not new; warlordism has arisen across history in a variety of geographical locations. In some of these cases, societies have managed to eradicate warlordism, paving the way for stable governance structures to emerge. Afghanistan in fact is prone to such especially with the expansion of militia drawn from villagers. However the reality is also tells us that the country cannot at this time have a sufficient armed force to rely on. Notably Karzai said his government would abolish private militias and warlordism and integrate into the national mainstream former fighters who surrender their arms. He stated: “Afghanistan needs to have institutions, the rule of law, that’s what we will do.” Moreover “Warlordism, and private militias will not be tolerated at all, they will have to go away.”

And yet you have the United States approach of empowering militias to supplement the insufficient armed forces of Afghanistan. The detritus of tribal war litters the road that leads into this quiet mountain hamlet in eastern Afghanistan. The charred bodies of vehicles and the skeletal remains of destroyed houses fill the desert that flanks the road. Most of the shops in the main bazaar are shuttered, and some residents have packed up and left. This is the glimpse if warlordism consumes this fledgling country and yet the same can be said for disorder. Afghanistan is at a cross roads and it has to thread lightly lest it stumbles back in into the darkness that it is still emerging from.

July 21, 2010 - Posted by windowmelodies | News | Afghanistan, Gen. David H. Petraeus, Militia, President Hamid Karzai, Warlordism