Afghans support the presence of coalition forces

Afghan Warrior ^ | 2005 Jul 22 | Waheed

[Wiz]

As an Afghan I support the US and coalition forces presence in Afghanistan. In the current situation, the US presence is really important for peace and stability. Like me, most Afghan people support the US presence, even though Afghan people have always been against foreign forces and occupiers. But they know that the US and coalition forces are here to help Afghanistan and the Afghan people and they are not here to occupy our country.? After the 1992 civil war between various factions of the Mujahideen, and during the Taliban regime, thousands of people lost their lives. The situation was really bad. Millions of Afghans emigrated to different foreign countries in the world. Our teachers, officers became street vendors. More than 50% of Afghan students were away from their education and they were working to support their families. Personally, I was away from school for 4 years while I was in Pakistan. After the 11 September tragedy, the US-led invasion finally liberated Afghanistan from the Taliban regime and Afghanistan has achieved remarkable progress and success since the fall of the Taliban. As a result, the Bonn agreement, the Loya jirga, presidential election, and establishing a democratic government having a new National Army, new National police, new Afghan currency are the achievements that Afghanistan has made in the last three years. More than 3 millions Afghan refugees have returned home and the repatriation process has continued. As of March 2005, more than Sixty thousand Afghan refugees have returned to their country and they feel really good to return to their country after beign far from their homeland.

[Wiz]

The blog mentions police force is more than 50,000 strong, and Afghan National Army currently has around 32,000 troops. In March, the number of troops in Afghan National Army was around 25,000. In four months, the force expanded with an additional 7,000 troops. However, at this pace, it seems to be unlikely to meet the goal which is to have 70,000 troops until December. At this pace, it is more likely to have this many around the next 22 months at the most. Afghan National Army plans to have around 150,000 but due to financial problems, it is assumed that 70,000 troops will be the most they would have. Rather good or not, the objectives may be met in the next 22 months. Currently, Afghanistan has a total of 82,000 or more within security force including the police, and the Iraq security force has around 171,000 including the police. Iraq has an objective to have around 271,000 within the security force, which now requires less than 100,000 more needed to accomplish the objective. It took about two years to reach 171,000 so it may take another one and a half year to reach the required numbers of security force. However, it will still require another several months for the training to be completed for most. Both Afghanistan and Iraq are likely to meet the goal until the first few months of 2007 at the current pace, but may alter depending on the change of pace.

[Wiz]

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