Like with the Shiite-dominated govt. of Iraq, we're leaning on one side of an Afghan civil war

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from Gareth Porter: http://www.australia.to/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=16875:politics-tajik-grip-on-afghan-army-signals-new-ethnic-war&catid=88:in-depth&Itemid=303


Tajik Grip on Afghan Army Signals New Ethnic War

Nov 28 (IPS) - Contrary to the official portrayal of the Afghan National Army (ANA) as ethnically balanced, the latest data from U.S. sources reveal that the Tajik minority now accounts for far more of its troops than the Pashtuns, the country's largest ethnic group.

The massive shift in the ethnic composition of ANA troops in recent years is leading to another civil war between the Pashtuns and a Tajik-led anti-Pashtun ethnic coalition similar to the one that followed the fall of the Soviet-supported regime in 1992, according to some observers.

Tajik domination of the ANA feeds Pashtun resentment over the control of the country's security institutions by their ethnic rivals, while Tajiks increasingly regard the Pashtun population as aligned with the Taliban.

The leadership of the army has been primarily Tajik since the ANA was organized in 2002, and Tajiks have been overrepresented in the officer corps from the beginning. But the original troop composition of the ANA was relatively well-balanced ethnically.

Gen. Karl Eikenberry, then chief of the Office of Military Cooperation-Afghanistan, issued guidelines in 2003 to ensure ethnic balance in the ANA, according to Chris Mason, who was a member of the Afghanistan Inter-agency Operations Group from 2003 to 2005. Eikenberry acted after then Defence Minister Marshall Mohammed

The latest report of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction, issued Oct. 30, shows that Tajiks, which represent 25 percent of the population, now account for 41 percent of all ANA troops who have been trained, and that only 30 percent of the ANA trainees are now Pashtuns . . .


read more: http://www.australia.to/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=16875:politics-tajik-grip-on-afghan-army-signals-new-ethnic-war&catid=88:in-depth&Itemid=303

[ck4829]

1. Our country's going to pull a Magellan if we do that