Talk:Afghan Army/Archive 1

Archive 1

alot of new info

If anyone has time to add the info from the links I have addded please do, it is new info on ANA/military structe/Order of Battle chart and a picture to go along with it and future goals, sorry for bad spelling. http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2011/05/afghan_national_army_4.php http://www.longwarjournal.org/multimedia/afghanistan_ANA.JPG http://www.longwarjournal.org/multimedia/ANSF%20OOBpage4-ANA.pdf Prisonbreak12345 (talk) 22:13, 9 May 2011 (UTC)

Third Corp

Geoff, out of interest do you know that the third Corp is definately planned and not yet operational? I know that plans for the ANA in 2002 called for Corps in the North, Centre (209) and South (205) respectively and I haven't seen any reference to a third Corps being operational, but given the poor quality of media coming out of Afghanistan, I'm not sure.

I'm not privvy to any special information, but the wording as it was struck me as unnecessarily vague. I would posit that the lack of information about a third corps is reasonably good evidence that it is not yet operational. Given that the total force strength is only 30,000, if there is a third corps it would be largely notional and not fully manned. I agree that it's very possible that it exists and the media reporting has simply been insufficient, but I'd prefer to err on the side of giving out-of-date information rather than misleading information. Geoff NoNick 15:38, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Ok, I'll have a look around and see what I can find about it. --RaiderAspect 02:59, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

Good work! Geoff NoNick 17:40, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

All Five Corps (201, 203, 205, 207 and 209) are somewhat operational with the 209th being the smallest as it only is currently fielding on a single Brigade. While I'm over here I'll probably start expanding on the Afghan and ANA Articles. --Sandman02 18:00, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

too many pictures

i am going to remove a few of these pictures. there are simply too many. Kingturtle 13:42, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

1880

no the army was formed in 2002 by America, the 1880 army under the Monarchy was something else a differnt unit alltogether diffirent uniform,HQ etc you cant call them the same army. Afghanistan had northern alliance and Taliban two armies in the country,There is no National Afghan Army before —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.151.33.148 (talk) 18:26, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

SVG?

I made a SVG of the emblem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Afghan_National_Army_emblem.svg I'm not shure if it's needed but compared to the raster version it looks cleaner in my opinion. Jrabbit05 02:23, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Text copied from http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/afghanistan/army.htm

Much of the History section seems to be directly copied from http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/afghanistan/army.htm - is this a copyright vio? I got rid of some of the text, and replaced it with a data table, with specific data points sourced from that page. -- SilverStar_talk 06:48, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

1880?

The article says the army existed since 1800s. How is that possible given all the regime changes in the past century? --Voidvector 18:06, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Which pictures should be used?

According to User:PH4crew's personal views no picture that includes someone who may be non-Afghan should be used here, neither should pictures of Afghan National Army soldiers involved in the War in Afghanistan (2001–present), or something like that, he's not very consistent. Which policy should we have? We need to discuss this, what is this article about? Can we use pictures of ANA troops together with Western troops? I think we should, ANA is being helped and trained by Western forces and there's no reason to hide that fact. Please provide your opinions. Manxruler 15:51, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

I think the intro to this article says a lot of what should be included, also when it comes to images:

Afghan National Army (ANA) is the army of Afghanistan that is being trained by the coalition forces to ultimately take the lead in land-based military operations. Since 2002, multi-billion US dollars worth military equipment, facilities, and other form of aid was provided to the Military of Afghanistan.

Manxruler 16:07, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

I can't claim to be particularly current on the subject having been unable to find User:PH4crew's opinions, but I'm inclined to agree that photos should not be ruled out solely because they also contain soldiers from other armies. Taking the question from a different angle, I'd suggest that the photos should focus on people and operations, rather than equipment (lines of tanks and humvees, i.e.). Even though the only photo of Afghan operations currently in the article also shows an American soldier, I would use it all the same. I can think of no reason to disguise the fact that the ANA operates in cooperation with other militaries. Geoff NoNick 06:38, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Afghan National Army existed since at least 1880s, not since 2001. Perhaps it existed since 1747 when the nation was created. You view ANA as if it started for the first time in history in 2001. I am aware that the new ANA army is being trained by US-NATO soldiers, you may write a specific section mentioning this with photos of both ANA and US-NATO troops. Do you not remember that during the 1970s and 80s the Afghan army was trained and equipped by Soviet Union? To add photos of Afghan and western troops everywhere in the article makes the article looks silly. Besides, there are too many photos already, the longer the article gets the more photos to be added.--PH4crew 14:20, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Most of the photos in the article are placed in a gallery, so they don't clutter at all. And you did remove several pictures with ONLY Afghan soldiers in them, strangely enough. The article isn't about the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan army, then it would have specified at such. Past armies belong to a History section in the article, this is an article about the current Afghan National Army. Other articles about currently active armies focus on the army as it is today, and so should this. Manxruler 18:22, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Oh, and I don't think that images of anonymous-looking barracks are the most useful for this article. Far away from the quality of the removed images. Manxruler 18:29, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

I totally agree with you on most of the things you pointed-out, but always remember that we are in the process of constructing this article. The article needs to be gradually expanded, and the barrack images are just there to attract someone to edit a section about the construction projects involved with creating this new army. The fighting or action images look better in a section that is about battles or actions. I think the photo gallery should display all the different things sbout ANA, i.e. soldiers, uniforms, equipments, barracks, etc. There are also a variety of images in the external links section in Wikimedia:Commons. I like images in articles that are sharp, clean and tells a story, and as time passes by we will come across better ones.--PH4crew 02:24, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Well, I don't think two barrack pictures are necessary, people will write things wothout images inspiring them to do so. One picture is more than enough, if there has to be any. When it comes to soldiers and uniforms you removed a very close-up image of two ANA soldiers and a picture of ANA troops on BMP. The last image also showed what kind of climate conditions the army is up against on a regular basis. Manxruler 08:39, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Again, this article covers the entire army network of Afghanistan, a nation with 30 million people, which is more than the population of the entire continent of Australia or is 10% of the population of the United States. The article is not about the current war situation in Afghanistan, also, the building of the ANA is not related to the current war in that country but part of larger plan to rebuild the nation as a whole, under the orders from the United Nations, which Afghanistan has been part of since the 1940's when it first began. The images you are trying to add do not go with this article, people in army uniform posing for camera is not suppose to be in an article when there are images that shows army soldiers without looking at the camera. Out of all the images you picked the one with people posing and staring at the camera? Avoid doing that in the future, some people would not want their face being shown online to people.--PH4crew 10:18, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

I didn't download the image. Its no business of mine to make considerations like that. Wikipedia is full of such images and there are several like that left right now. Decisions on which pictures should be used on Wikipedia (considerations of whether people might not want their picture on-line etc.) belongs to a bigger, more principal discussion than this. Please calm down, making order-like statements leads nowhere Manxruler 11:28, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

And I didn't particularly search out that image, it was added a while ago and you removed it. Manxruler 11:30, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

How about this for a training picture?

Here's a nice picture. Manxruler 01:21, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Never mind. There are enough images here as it is. Manxruler 02:48, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

Ha, just get that one video of them (almost) doing jumping jacks or the one vid that shows a guy trying to fire his RPG and he figured he could fix a misfire by throwing an armed rocket at the ground (FACEPALM*)...that'd sum up Afghan army training.

Gallery

There are plenty of images spread throughout the article, making the gallery somewhat redundant. If people want to see more pics, that's what the Commons category link is for. I removed 5 that are already there and will remove the remaining 3 after migrating them to Commons. --BrokenSphere^{Msg me} 07:09, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Ethnic composition of the ANA

Afghanistan is a country of minorities (see Demography of Afghanistan) and so we should mention the ethnic make up of the ANA. For example, according to this article on the ANA, 70% of the battalion commanders are Tajiks. On the other hand, the Taliban are mostly Pashtuns.

That information is based on the initial stages when US military invaded Afghanistan in late 2001. According to this report, the Pashtuns are majority in the Afghan Army..."More so than in Iraq, the Afghan army is designed to reflect the country's ethnic balance. U.S. and Afghan commanders say the army's ethnic makeup generally matches the national population — about 42% Pashtun, 27% Tajik, 9% each Hazara and Uzbek, and numerous smaller groups". According a 2004 US Defense Dept. report], the Afghan Army from the start has been made up of many different ethnic backgrounds: Pashtun, Uzbek, Turkic and Tajik, among others.--KleeroyJ (talk) 04:59, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

More on this issue:

[[1]]

Image copyright problem with File:BM-14 02.jpg

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• That there is a non-free use rationale on the image's description page for the use in this article.
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This is an automated notice by FairuseBot. For assistance on the image use policy, see Wikipedia:Media copyright questions. --15:47, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Leopard 1

As you can read here [2] and here [3] will the ANA receive Leopard 1 tanks.--84.161.88.211 (talk) 07:46, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

They cannot maintain the T-54/55s they currently have, Long War Journal says, and the mechanised (1) and tank battalions (1) (total of 2) in 3rd Brigade, 201st Corps (Afghanistan), are being used as infantry, so any future acquisition of far more complex Western tanks is a bit irrelevant right now. Buckshot06 (talk) 10:23, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Order of Battle

I wonder if we might do better is we had an Order of Battle chart, rather than trying to give the information in the narrative. I did this as a rough idea. Paul, in Saudi (talk) 01:33, 4 November 2009 (UTC)

Identified Units of the Afghan National Army

201st Corps (Pol-e-Charkhi)

111th Capital Division (Kabul)

3rd Brigade (Mech) (Pol-e-Charkhi)

201st Commando Battalion

203rd Corps (Gardez)

2nd Brigade

205th Corps (Kandahar)

U/I Brigade

U/I Brigade

3rd Brigade

U/I Brigade

U/I Commando Battalion

U/I Garrison

U/I Garrison

U/I Garrison

207th Corps (Herat)

1st Brigade (Herat)

2nd Brigade (Farah)

U/I Commando Battalion

”Elements” at Shindand

209th Corps (Mazari Sharif)

1st Brigade (Mazar-i-Sharif)

2nd Brigade (Kunduz)

Paul, if you're still around, we have (a) a nearly full orbat, thanks to http://www.longwarjournal.com, and (b) a template on how it might look, see Russian Ground Forces#Dispositions. Contact me if you want help putting it together. Buckshot06 (talk) 10:26, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Dari/Farsi version of the name

In Afghanistan, both in Pashto and Dari, the word Ordu (اردو) is used for Army.. The official term for "National Army" is "اردوی ملی" not "ارتش ملی".. Not only that, even in media they use "اردوی ملی" when referring to Afghan National Army.. The following link will prove that.. (Ketabtoon (talk) 02:17, 31 December 2009 (UTC))

Merge

On the talk page of Military of Afghanistan, I proposed that we merge that article into this one. ANA does not apply only to the Ground Forces, the names of the other service branches: Afghan National Army Air Corps and Afghan National Army Commando Battalion clearly suggest that the Afghan National Army is the full name of the Afghan Armed Forces. RM (Be my friend)

• Oppose - The military of Afghanistan should cover the nation's military from 1747 when the nation was born. The new Afghan National Army was created in 2002. The Afghan Air Force was a separate branch in the past. The Afghan National Army Air Corps will probably be made a separate branch again once its size gets big, so then we have to start all over again.--Jrkso (talk) 13:19, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

The Afghan National Army is the full name of the military, and the name of the Air Corps tells you its just a branch. The ANA Air Corps is already big: It has 40 aircraft, and still growing. We can cover all that in the article, since all we do is just call the title by its official name, or in "Military history of Afghanistan". Take the People's Liberation Army for example.--RM (Be my friend) 15:47, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose - same argument as Jrkso. 'Afghan National Army' is merely the name it has right now for the ground based branch. Does not cover air forces as Air Force, neither does it cover the militias that have been very important in Afghan history. Buckshot06 (talk) 08:48, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

• But the militias are technically not Afghan soldiers, but paramilitary forces. And the air force is part of the army: The Afghan National Army Air Corps suggests that this is just the aviation branch of the army, just like the United States Army Air Corps was during WWII.--RM (Be my friend) 15:17, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

Funding

Funding for the ANA is entirely missing. Neither Afghan numbers nor international donations are included. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.138.253.96 (talk) 07:45, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

2010 Afghan Army updates

The current manning goals for the Afghan National Army are to have a force of 134,000 by October 2010, and a force of 171,600 by October, 2011. As of his interview with us on June 1, 2010, General Patton was able to state that the ANA had 125,694 men and women on its roster.

The attrition rate for the Army has been reduced from 3% per month in November, 2009, to 1.2% per month as of May 2010.

Canadian Maj. Gen. Mike Ward, deputy commander-Police, NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan, recently briefed bloggers on the current state of the ANP. Long term staffing goals are having 120,000 police by March of 2011 and 134,000 police by October 2011.

Pay has been boosted for the Army and the police. Their base pay is $165 a month, with it increasing to $230 in an area with moderate security issues and to $240 in those provinces where there is heavy fighting. LINK 95% of the Army and 70% of the police are paid by electronic funds transfer. Colonel Thomas Umberg

The Afghan National Army Air Corps (ANAAC)is growing and is running many of its own missions. LINK It currently operates about 52 fixed and rotary wing aircraft and has a force of over 3,000 soldiers.

ChuckSimmins (talk) 00:19, 7 June 2010 (UTC)Chuck Simmins

• http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2011/05/afghan_national_army_4.php

Afghan Army in the 60's

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/05/27/once_upon_a_time_in_afghanistan?page=0,23

Read and enjoy —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.201.145.140 (talk) 00:37, 14 June 2010 (UTC)

Current size of ANA

Size of the Army is Disputed and General Caldwell's numbers alone are not acceptable

A U.S. Army officer at General Caldwell's headquarters in Kabul has been assigned to maintain this page using numbers which are disputed by top civilian experts. Wikipedia is not/not intended to be a source of propaganda created by the U.S. Army regarding its Vietnamization program in Afghanistan, and this will not/not be tolerated by the academic commmunity, which has studied the ANA independently for more than a decade.

It is patently obvious that with an annual desertion rate of 25 percent, and a reenlistment rate no better than 60%, that the ANA is losing more than 40 percent of the total force annually. At a force size 180,000 men, this would mean that the first 72,000 new soldiers each year would go to replace annual losses. At no time in its history has the program created this many soldiers in one year.

Furhermore, the training drop-out rate is 30 percent. This would require more than 110,000 new recruits each year to get 72,000 replacement troops out the end of the KMTC pipeline, and in no year since 2002 has the ANA recruited more than half that number.

Again, the civilian expert community will NOT ALLOW this page to be used for progaganda purposes. The ANA does not have, and has never had, more than 100,000 men present for duty. Incredibly, NATO is not even counting the men itself -- it is allowing the Afghan officers to do this. Everyone who has ever studied the history of the Afghan military knows that the deliberate over-reporting of men present is the primary source of income of Afghan army officers. The rations for the ghost soldiers are sold on the local market, and the income derived from these sales has traditionally been the sinecure of the ANA officer corps. Indeed, a significant number of ANA officers have been cashiered for this offence in the past decade, and many of them have not understood what they did wrong even when it was explained to them.

There is not the slightest mathematical possibility that the ANA has 180,000 men present for duty. A classified U.S. Army study conducted in 2005 by the Center for Army Lesson Learned (CALL) in fact demonstrated that the size can never grow over 100,000 men.

Again, Wikipedia is not/not a propaganda site for the U.S. military to propagandize the U.S. public, which is illegal. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bhokara (talk • contribs) 07:28, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

This all reads as a personal analysis. We need reliable sources. Materialscientist (talk) 07:36, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

This is NOT/NOT personal analysis. This has been published in the U.S. Army's own "Military Review" magazine: http://usacac.army.mil/CAC2/MilitaryReview/Archives/English/MilitaryReview_20091231_art004.pdf Furthermore the size of the Afghan National Army has been disputed by other top independent groups, such as the International Crisis Group (ICG), as well as by U.S. government intelligence analysts at the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and research (INR). Your personal opinion does n0t render this factual material inaccurate.

Look, I know nothing about this topic, but I can tell that your link is from 2009 (and it was attempted to be used for data of 2010-2011). On the other hand, this page is recent; it does not contradict your source, but says the numbers grew from 2009. Countering DoD needs strong sources, you haven't presented them yet. Materialscientist (talk) 07:48, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

It is quite clear you know nothing about this topic. I, however, have studied this subject as a U.S. government diplomat and academic analyst for more than a decade. The article I cited shows a MATHEMATICAL FORMULA used to compute the size of the ANA, and contains a reference to a US Army classified study which proved the statement that the ANA cannot ever exceed 100,000 men, because at that point, the number of annual losses and the number of possible annual force increase are equalized. Furthermore, a more recent propaganda statement issued by the U.S. Army itself to propagate its own falsehoods does not trump a peer-reviewed academic journal which proves the press release to be false. It is perfectly clear that the U.S. Army has hijacked this entry and, in using it to propagandize the American people, is immediatley deleting ALL edits from the script approved by General Caldwell in Kabul. This entry has been refered for editorial review. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bhokara (talk • contribs) 08:07, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Disputed is fine, formula is fine, but the formula assumes the rates don't change with years, for which I see no reference. Materialscientist (talk) 08:48, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

General's Caldwell's staff has deleted "disputed" entries three times in 30 days. U.S. Army press releases as sources to support U.S. Army press releases are not adequate referencing, nor are planted stories in Afghan news media operated by the U.S. Army for distributing press releases. Why is the Army allowed to cite its own press releases as "sources"? Two words: Pentagon Papers. There is ample published evidence that the desertion rate and training drop-out rates have INCREASED in the last 12 months, and the counting method (ANA officers whose livlihoods depend on the numbers reported) is completely illegitimate and discredited. All discussion of this, using Wikipedia rules, is immediately deleted by General Caldwell's staff, and does does even remain posted long enough for review.Bhokara (talk) 09:06, 4 January 2012 (UTC)Bhokara

Make that FOUR times in the last 30 days. This entire entry has been hijacked by the U.S. Army for propaganda purposes. Bhokara (talk) 09:12, 4 January 2012 (UTC)Bhokara

Frankly, I (and probably most editors here) don't care, 100,000 or 164,000. If valid comments were deleted, bring the evidence and we'll restore them. Unsourced claims of conspiracy theories only discredits yourself as an editor. Materialscientist (talk) 09:14, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Who do think is deleting them, Peter Pan? They will be re-entered within 10 minutes and copied here. You will see they have been immediately deleted. I believe you can use tracing software to identify the deletions and trace it to US military addresses in Kabul. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bhokara (talk • contribs) 09:24, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

HERE IS THE EDIT INDICATING A DISPUTE, POSTED AT 4:27 AM EDT:

The Afghan National Army (ANA) is the main branch of the military of Afghanistan and is responsible for land-based military operations or ground warfare to defend the nation against foreign military incursions. It is under the Ministry of Defense in Kabul and is assembled by NATO states. The Kabul Military Training Center and the National Military Academy of Afghanistan serve as the main compounds for training the new army. The Afghan Defense University (ADF), after completion, will serve as the primary educational institution for the army as well as the Afghan Air Force. The ANA is divided into six regional Corps. The size of the Afghan National Army is disputed by experts. The U.S. Army, using internal sources, claims as current manpower of "about 180,000 active troops" as of December 2011.[1][2] However, civilian experts dispute this number, citing published information on desertion and recruting rates, estimating the maximum troop strength at 100,000. [3]The current Chief of Staff of the Afghan National Army is Lt. Gen. Sher Mohammad Karimi.

This will have been deleted within the hour. Bhokara (talk) 09:29, 4 January 2012 (UTC) Bhokara

THIS IS THE EDITED TEXT FROM THE FACT BOX, POSTED AT 4:35 AM EDT:

Active

1709 (current form: 2002)

Country

Afghanistan

Size

Disputed. 100,000 to 180,000 (Dec. 2011)[1][2][3

This will also have been deleted within the hour. 09:35, 4 January 2012 (UTC) Bhokara — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bhokara (talk • contribs)

The two content instances you describe, ""will have been (will be?) deleted within the hour" - then restored within seconds, and the user who has removed the sourced content will be warned - and if they continue to do so, lose their editing privileges. If you were explaining something totally different, please ignore this post. Thank you, -- MST☆R ^{(Happy New Year!)} 09:48, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

BY 4:42 AM EDT, BOTH OF THESE ENTRIES INDICATING DISPUTED SIZE HAD BEEN DELETED, THIS TIME FOR THE FIFTH TIME.

NOTHING HAS BEEN DONE TO RESTORE THEM. A USER HAS DELETED THE EDITS SO FAR *** FOUR TIMES TODAY ALONE ****, ALL WITHIN 5 MINUTES OF POSTING THEM. THIS INDIVIDUAL IS UNQUESTIONABLY WORKING FOR GENERAL CALDWELL WITHIN THE ANA PROGRAM. NOTHING IS BEING DONE WHATSOEVER TO RESTORE THE EDITS OR STOP THIS INDIVIDUAL DEDICATED TO PREVENTING ANY EDITING OF THIS ARTICLE. Bhokara (talk) 13:29, 4 January 2012 (UTC) Bhokara

-

Bhokara (talk) 09:44, 4 January 2012 (UTC) Bhokara

Six Members of Congress from Northern California and Northern Virginia Asked to Open Investigation of U.S. Army use of Wikipedia for Propagandizing

Six members of the U.S. Congress have been asked by letters from constituents in Northern California and Northern Virginia to open a congressional investigation into illegal misuse of this Wikipedia page by General Caldwell's staff in Kabul for purposes of propagandizing the American people, which is illegal under U.S. law. The immediate deletion of all text and dissent from the script approved by General Caldwell for this entry has been documented using tracing software and has been prepared for Congressional investigators. It is recommended that this page be printed out and delivered to the office of the JAG in Kabul in order to enable them to prepare for congressional investigation. They may wish to refer to the instance in which General Caldwell sought the assistance of the PsyOps element in Kabul to affect the thinking of a visiting Congressional Delegation, which was published in the media and cited in the constituents' complaints. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bhokara (talk • contribs) 09:21, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

They haven't without a reliable source. -- MST☆R ^{(Happy New Year!)} 09:28, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Don't worry, U.S. government officials and senior tenured academics at highly respected universities in the United States are standing by to testify. Can you say "career-ender?" Bhokara (talk) 09:31, 4 January 2012 (UTC) Bhokara

No, I don't need to. Why? -- MST☆R ^{(Happy New Year!)} 09:36, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

If not you, some other young Captain there at KMTC will.

General Caldwell uses PysOps on Congress: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/another-runaway-general-army-deploys-psy-ops-on-u-s-senators-20110223

Size of ANA disputed: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/canadas-quest-to-turn-afghanistans-army-of-phantoms-into-fighters/article2271703/

Size of ANA cannot mathematically exceed 100,000: U.S. Army "Military Review" December 2009 "Afghanistan and the Vietnam Template" http://usacac.army.mil/CAC2/MilitaryReview/Archives/English/MilitaryReview_20091231_art004.pdf

Now, who do you suppose is deleting all changes to this page, and deleting these references? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bhokara (talk • contribs) 09:42, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

The first source [4] is unreliable on such matters (and contains rather dubious claims I must say, read the discussion below it, for example). The [5] second source is vague on exact numbers, but it roughly agrees with the DoD source and contradicts to the third source [6] on the impossibility of exceeding 100,000 (it says the rates are positive, though not as high as needed). Materialscientist (talk) 10:02, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

User:Bhokara is using 2009 source, at that point there were only 100,000 but since then 80,000 more were added. They will continue to enlist new soldiers until the total number reaches at least 240,000. After that we may begin to see a separate number start building for the reserves. The current 180,000 numbers is accurate because each soldier[7] and police is registered using very modern biometrics, including being profiled, photographed, fingerprinted, iris recognition, and etc.[8] [9] [10] [11] [12] The Afghan Ministry of Defense reports the same 180,000 number.--119.73.3.81 (talk) 11:31, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

13:35, 4 January 2012 (UTC)13:35, 4 January 2012 (UTC)13:35, 4 January 2012 (UTC)13:35, 4 January 2012 (UTC)13:35, 4 January 2012 (UTC)~

ALL FALSE. The only source who sought to discredit the Rolling Stone article was General Caldwell himself. The story was accurate and well-sourced, including one of the army officers who was ordered to participate in the illegal activity.

THE DATE OF THE ARTICLE IS NOT THE ISSUE. This is the standard CENTCOM line: "Yes those were problems, but in the last 15 minutes we've put corrections in place."

The issue is simple mathematics and a simple mathematical formula. Using US Army press releases as sourcing TO SUBSTANTIATE OTHER US Army press releases is totally bogus and contrary to all Wikipedia protocols against biased single-sourcing. A tenured Professor at the Naval Postgraduate School and a retired Diplomat and academic are at least as credible a source as an Army press release about its own success.

13:35, 4 January 2012 (UTC)13:35, 4 January 2012 (UTC)13:35, 4 January 2012 (UTC)13:35, 4 January 2012 (UTC)13:35, 4 January 2012 (UTC)Bhokara (talk)

FIFTH EFFORT AT EDIT ATTEMPTED AT 8:39 am EDT

At 8:39 am EDT another effort was made to edit this article, which has been hijacked by the US Army in Kabul to prevent any edits from being made to this page whatsoever.

This is the edit which was posted:

The size of the Afghan National Army is disputed by experts. The U.S. Army, using internal sources, claims as current manpower of "about 180,000 active troops" as of December 2011.[1][2] However, civilian experts dispute this number, citing published information on desertion and recruting rates, estimating the maximum troop strength at 100,000. [3] - - - - - WITHIN FIVE MINUTES, THIS EDIT WILL HAVE BEEN REMOVED AGAIN. THE U.S. ARMY HAS TAKEN CONTROL OF WIKIPEDIA. - - Bhokara (talk) 13:41, 4 January 2012 (UTC) Bhokara - - - CHANGED BACK (EDITS REMOVED) BY 8:54 AM EDT. Bhokara (talk) 13:57, 4 January 2012 (UTC) Bhokara _ _ _

WHY THE JOHNSON-MASON REFERENCE IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN U.S. ARMY PRESS RELEASES USED AS SOURCES

The 2009 article provides a mathematical format for calculating the size of the ANA.

USING ONLY OFFICIAL U.S. ARMY-PROVIDED STATISTICS FOR THE ANA, HERE IS THE APPLICATION OF THE FORMULA IN THE ARTICLE WHICH PROVES THE NUMBER PROVIDED BY U.S. ARMY PRESS RELEASE IS INACCURATE:

USING A NOTIONAL FORCE SIZE OF 173,000 men:

MONTHLY GAINS:

6244 recruits per month on average, Nov. 2010 to Oct. 2011 (Source: NTM-A brief)

5120 qualified recruits per month (18% screened out, Source: Major General Day)
Duration of basic training: 8 weeks (1.8 months)
Attrition rate: 16% in training (Source: Crisis Group interview, Brig. General Simon Levey, director, ANA training, CSTC-A, Kabul, 18 December 2009) 

Attrition during training: 820 5,120 recruits - 820 washouts = 4,300 graduates per month

TOTAL MONTHLY FORCE GAINS:

4,300 graduates 

MONTHLY LOSSES:

Force size: 173,000 (end of October, source NTM-A brief)

Attrition rate: 2.675% monthly attrition (NTM-A brief)
173,000 personnel x  34.2% annual attrition = 4930 monthly losses
The force grew by 29,000 in 2008, according to Brookings. 
29,000 divided by 12 = 2,417 average growth per month in 2008
Those soldiers became eligible to re-enlist during the last 12 months
Average monthly retention, Nov. 2010 to Oct. 2011 – 57% 
2,417 eligible x 57% re-enlisting = 1,378 re-enlist
2,417 eligible - 1,378 re-enlist = 1039 retention losses per month

TOTAL MONTHLY FORCE LOSSES: 4930 monthly losses + 1039 retention losses = 5,969 overall losses

If the ANA actually had 173,000 men, using entirely U.S. Army statistics from its own briefings and internal reports, the ANA would be shrinking by almost 6,000 men a month.

Bhokara (talk) 14:30, 4 January 2012 (UTC) Bhokara

Edit warring

Over troop numbers? As of 2011 it was "In Afghanistan, the United States and NATO have spent billions of dollars training Afghan security forces, increasing the size of the Afghan National Army (ANA) from 97000 to 144000" according to this source. Stalemate: Why We Can't Win the War on Terror and What We Should Do Insteadpp 108 Darkness Shines (talk) 15:47, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for that. It is available here but annoyingly I can't look at the list of references given in the book. If you've got a paper copy can you let us know what it is? (ref 9 Chapter 5). The real issue though is whether official figures can be relied on or not. SmartSE (talk) 16:25, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

In late 2009, U.S. President Barak Obama ordered 30,000 additional U.S. soldiers sent to Afghanistan (the 2010 surge) so that the Afghan army training could be made more faster and this was completed and now these 30,000 are leaving. This is why the number of Afghan soldiers increased so rapidly to 180,000 between 2010 and 2011. In the meantime, the US also increased basic salary, provided better facilities and weapons to Afghans. The only problem was that more northern (minority Afghan groups) were enlisting but the US wanted to keep the ethnic make up of the army in line with the ethnic make up of the country. The ones leaving were ethnic Pashtuns from the south and east of the country due to intimidation by Taliban militants, but now that problem is slowly being resolved with the Taliban (who are mostly Pashtuns) being offered money and jobs in the military and police.--119.73.13.158 (talk) 17:06, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

No, the surge did not change the percentage of fill of KMTC billets. It also did not increase the number of recruits each month, or decrease the desertion rate of 34.5% between October 2010 and September 2011. All the numbers used above are U.S. Army numbers, obtained from NTC-A own powerpoint briefings. These show that the ANA is actually shrinking in size, not increasing. The U.S. Army wants it both ways: It says: "Trust our numbers, but don't trust them when they're computed using a simple formula to calculate monthly gains/losses which proves we're lying." Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!!! _____

I propose the manpower size entry be changed to reflect the fact that respected civilian academics and State Department analysts dispute the official U.S. Army numbers. Wikipedia is not designed to be a sole-source propaganda page which uses only U.S. Army press releases as sources to back up U.S. Army claims about U.S. Army successes made by the U.S. Army personnel responsible for the program under scrutiny. The simple fact is that civilian scholars and academics, and civilian government analysts, dispute the 180,000 number. Bhokara (talk) Bhokara ______ — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bhokara (talk • contribs) 17:30, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

We currently say that the number could be a lot lower, but we don't have a suitable source to say that "civilian scholars and academics, and civilian government analysts, dispute the 180,000 number" - if one exists then please let us know. The 2009 source might be able to be used in some form, but not for this and as we've discussed we can't use our own calculations to work it out. Whilst looking for sources I cam across this from the BBC in March 2011 which confirms high attrition rates and suggests the numbers may be wrong: "Afghan army has current force level - in theory - of 150,000" (my emphasis). SmartSE (talk) 17:43, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

SmartSe, you asked in the edit summary "why is it important where the journalist is?" Since only one person is claiming that the 180,000 given by Muhammad Zahir Azimi is actually 100,000 I figured it should be important to explain who in particular is claiming this. Also, the editor who is arguing here (Bhokara/Khiva/IP) is editing from Turky, and that suggests he may be Graeme Smith, the editor of that news article. By you putting the numbers in the infobox as "100,000[1] - 180,000 (Dec. 2011)[2]", with the ridiculously huge gap, is basically trying to say that the Afghan Ministry of Defense is a liar.

---

“However, the ministry [of defense] and AMF {Afghan Military Forces] commanders had an interest in overstating the number of troops under their command, as they could claim more resources from the central government to feed, house and remunerate them... a large proportion of the AMF personnel on the payroll of the Defence Ministry were in fact ‘ghost soldiers’.” Mark Sedra. “Afghanistan and the Folly of Apolitical Demilitarisation.” Journal “Conflict, Security & Development ,” Volume 11, Issue 4. London: Taylor & Francis, 2011. Page 9.

Bhokara (talk) 20:49, 4 January 2012 (UTC) Bhokara

---

You're using an "educated guess" by an unknown person (WP:OR) vs. the Afghan Ministry of Defense spokesman (Mohammad Zahir Azimi). The news article by that guy who is in Turkey doesn't explain who made the educated guess.--119.73.9.142 (talk) 20:12, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Well it's been published by a large newspaper, so regardless of who made the educated guess we can include it - it is not OR. Whether that makes Azimi a liar or not doesn't matter. I see no reason to think that Bhokara is Graeme Smith and frankly its irrelevant. I think I've worked out what the discrepancy is due to anyway based on the source below - it makes more sense to explain there. SmartSE (talk) 20:43, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

My, the U.S. Army is following all this very closely! Couldn't they find you a better job, Lieutenant? You know, you took an oath to uphold the Constitution, which includes the First Amendment. And yet here you are, trying to prevent anyone from disagreeing with your boss at NMTC-A. You think we don't know you're posting using a USG router in Islamabad? What did Caldwell promise you to get to do this? Company command? A walks-on-water OER? I guess honor in the Army is bought pretty cheap these days. Bhokara (talk) 20:32, 4 January 2012 (UTC) Bhokara

Please be civil Bhokara - that isn't going to get us anywhere. SmartSE (talk) 20:43, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

---

Quid pro quo. I saw what he wrote about me. Bhokara (talk) 21:05, 4 January 2012 (UTC) Bhokara

---

One exists. Here you go:

Foreign Policy Magazine: "Transition to Nowhere: The Limits of "Afghanization" By Professor Thomas Johnson and Matthew DuPee, Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey California, March 22, 2011

http://afpak.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/03/22/transition_to_nowhere_the_limits_of_afghanization

How many scholars do you need? That's three so far. Bhokara (talk) 19:13, 4 January 2012 (UTC) Bhokara

Thanks for that. I think the best way to solve this is to create a section on the size of the army. Then we can do away with the crappy looking table we have at the moment and actually discuss the figures properly. The Foreign Policy Magazine article (which having being written by researchers is far more 'reliable' than any news report) seems to indicate both 180k and 100k could be correct: "senior U.S. Government analysts ... believe that the number of ANA "present for duty" was much smaller - between 40 and 60 percent." 180*0.4 and 180*0.6 = 72-108,000 which agrees with the G+M's "intelligent guess". Essentially, we need to phrase the wording so that we report the official "trained and equipped" number, but then explain why not all of them are "present for duty". This published last year in Conflict, Security & Development is a good source for discussing the problem of ghost soldiers. We still can't say something general like "scholars disagree" but it gets the point across to the reader. SmartSE (talk) 20:43, 4 January 2012 (UTC)

---

I think a section on the size of the ANA is a great idea. That way we can bring in the Military Review formula for gains/losses, and discuss the Afghan Army tradition of ghost soldiers and the fallacy of having ANA officers doing the counting:

“However, the ministry [of defense] and AMF {Afghan Military Forces] commanders had an interest in overstating the number of troops under their command, as they could claim more resources from the central government to feed, house and remunerate them... a large proportion of the AMF personnel on the payroll of the Defence Ministry were in fact ‘ghost soldiers’.” Mark Sedra. “Afghanistan and the Folly of Apolitical Demilitarisation.” Journal “Conflict, Security & Development ,” Volume 11, Issue 4. London: Taylor & Francis, 2011. Page 9.

Bhokara (talk) 20:52, 4 January 2012 (UTC) Bhokara

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Afghanistan National Army NOT Afghan National Army

Official name in Farsi dari and in Pashtu is "Afghanistan National Army" Farsi اردوی ملی افغانستان Pashtu د افغانستان ملی اردو, Now how it can be called Afghan National Army? sources: 1- Afghanistan MOD website calls the army as "Afghanistan National Army": http://mod.gov.af/fa/page/1269 --SarzaminMa (talk) 03:42, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Merge proposal to NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan

Any move of content to NATO Training Mission - Afghanistan is not warranted. Much of the material is dated to before November 2009, when NTM-A was established, the material is relevant to an evaluation of the ANA's operational status, and is well referenced. Moving content to another article risks creating a WP:POVFORK. Buckshot06 (talk) 09:16, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

I disagree with Buckshot06. All the relevant text relating to "NATO training of ANA" should go to NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan, an article that exclusively deals with that subject. This article would then summerize that info in the history section. Secondly, just because something is well referenced doesn't mean we must keep it. And, to keep the article basic and neutral, I suggest this: for each negative referenced point about ANA there needs to be one positive referenced point.--Fareed30 (talk) 16:35, 3 July 2013 (UTC)

I'm sorry to say Fareed30 that you misunderstand WP:NPOV. I quote: '..neutrality means carefully and critically analyzing a variety of reliable sources and then attempting to convey to the reader the information contained in them fairly, proportionately, and as far as possible without bias."

This means reporting what is in the sources. It does not mean saying 'x is negative' and then trying to balance it with 'y is positive'. Take a look at Military of the Democratic Republic of the Congo for an example of a WP:Featured Article that paints a reasonably balanced picture of the appalling horrors of the DRC's military history since 1960. We report what the sources say - 'neutral' does not mean trying to decide whether we think a reported piece of information is negative or positive. Now, NTM-A is not about 'NATO training of the Afghan Army'; instead it is about a specific military formation/organisation, NATO Training Mission Afghanistan, established in November 2009. We would be incorrect to place any material before November 2009 in that article. Regards Buckshot06 (talk) 02:04, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

• The "Training and current challenges" section is misleading because it is reporting on the 2008-2009 events, that was before NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan began, a time when large number of illiterate Afghan men were joining the force. That is not considered "current" because today (2013) those problems (illiteracy, high drug use, sleeping on the job, and stealing equipment) have rapidly declined if not vanished. Today, the ANA is praised because it is trained by the best of the best (NATO) and the section you created should emphasize on that. The only challenge the ANA seems to have now is equipement shortage and lack of heavy weapons to defend the country against an invading country, and that is not something to worry about right now.--Fareed30 (talk) 04:57, 4 July 2013 (UTC)
• We would not be incorrect to place any material before November 2009 in NATO Training Mission Afghanistan because that info would be needed to help readers understand why the NATO Training program was created.--Fareed30 (talk) 06:43, 4 July 2013 (UTC)

Rank Structure

There should be a rank structure article, similar to the rank structure subtopic in the Afghan National Police entry. I would love to help, by I can't find a verified picture of what the ranks look like. There have been many changes, it would be nice to see the current ranks and rank structure. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.145.245.210 (talk) 17:30, 14 August 2013 (UTC)

Discussion of issues

For a debate back and forth on the issues facing the ANA, see Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive808#User:Buckshot06 Buckshot06 (talk) 07:56, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Afghan National Army

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Afghan National Army's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "Urban":

• From 1979 Herat uprising: Urban, Mark (1990). War in Afghanistan. London: Palgrave MacMillan. p. 30. ISBN 0-333-51477-7.
• From Civil war in Afghanistan (1989–92): Urban, Mark (1992-04-28). "Afghanistan: power struggle". PBS. Retrieved 2007-07-27. {{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT⚡ 02:05, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

Should this article keep the same language format for unit designations?

For some reason English is used for some unit designations while Pashto is used for others, i.e. division is used in the article for divisions, while "kandak" is used for battalions. Should we use the English terms for unit designation all the way through, or Pashto terms all the way through? I ran into this discrepancy on the part of US military officials constantly while in Afghanistan and I couldn't get anyone to explain why they used the term kandak instead of battalion when all other unit designations used the English equivelants. 139.139.3.68 (talk) 07:37, 12 June 2014 (UTC)

Who Wrote This?

It looks like somebody's research paper. There should be attribution to avoid accusations of bias. Genepoz (talk) 07:30, 19 November 2015 (UTC)

@Genepoz: You can check the Page history to see who wrote it. Vanjagenije (talk) 17:21, 14 January 2016 (UTC)

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National Army of Afghanistan ?

Dear Shxahxh, I have reverted your undiscussed move, with the sole explanation in the edit summary of "Better". While exact translation may produce differing versions, WP:COMMONNAME prioritises English references, and the overwhelming term used in English is "Afghan National Army" (thanks to the US DOD). Might you kindly explain why you believe 'National Army of Afghanistan' is better? Kind regards Buckshot06 (talk) 16:41, 18 January 2019 (UTC)

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