US-General in Afghanistan: Alles besser am Hindukusch

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Fast wirkt es, als habe das Pentagon dem Eindruck des Interviews mit dem ISAF-Kommandeur vor ein paar Tagen etwas entgegensetzen wollen: Während der oberste Chef der internationalen Truppen am Hindukusch, General Joseph Dunford, einen eher düsteren Ausblick verkündete und vor allem fürchterliche Verlustzahlen der afghanischen Sicherheitskräfte meldete, zeichnet sein Stellvertreter ein deutlich optimistischeres Bild. Der Chef des ISAF Joint Command (IJC), US-Generalleutnant Mark Milley, hatte in einer Videoschalte mit Journalisten im US-Verteidigungsministerium weitgehend Positives zu berichten.

Das ganze Transkript des Gesprächs mit Milley hier; ein paar Auszüge:

  First of all, with the security forces, we in fact have almost 350,000 uniformed police or army and — and multiple different types of police and army that are out there fighting the fight and carrying the — carrying the load every single day. And, in addition to that, not only do they have the numbers, or they have capacity, but this army is capable.

So they’ve gone from zero to 350,000 in — in a relatively short amount of time. And they are capable at the tactical level, every day, day in and day out, and they’re proving it over and over and over again in this summer’s fighting season, the first summer that they’ve really and legitimately been in the lead.

I’ve been here now for about four, going on five months. I’ve gone through the pre-Ramadan part of the fighting season where the enemy laid out their objectives. Things toned down a bit during Ramadan. They picked back up.

But, for the most part, this army and this police force have been very, very effective in combat against the insurgents every single day. And I think that’s a — an important story to be told across the board.

Have there been one or two outposts that have been overrun? Yes. But you’re talking about 3,000 or 4,000 outposts that are in the country.

So the bottom line is, the Afghans have successfully defended the majority of the population of this country. If you looked at where they — population lives, you got Kabul, Kandahar, Mazar-e-Sharif, Herat, Jalalabad, Ghazni — you know all of the major urban areas.
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So the bottom line is, that’s a huge change. That’s a significant condition change that has occurred, really in the last few years over here, and it’s culminating right now.