Afghanistan: Police training
A June 26, 2007 video from Jason Motlagh for World Politics Review shows the difficulties for Afghanistan’s domestic security forces. It’s about 4 minutes long.
The training program takes three years, and has been seriously underfunded. Police work, as one of the interviewees on this video assert, means that you are out and about on the street–not waiting in a fortress. The exposure is greater; the weapons, pay, and support have been much less.
Some hopeful signs in the past month:
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police have been training Afghanistan’s police force, and they have committed to building a state-of-the-art police training academy.
The EU is funding continued police support with a Euro 200 million allocation and expand a police-training initiative sponsored by Germany. This operation has also been opened up to partners in ASEAN states.
However, the challenge continues.