The welcoming of former Afghan local forces is currently being called for in many places. Dr Thomas Sarholz, a retired colonel in the German Armed Forces, however, does not believe in indiscriminate aid: “As far as the local forces are concerned, I have a different approach than the one usually propagated in the media. His observation: “The fact that all these local forces now want to come to us does not surprise me; after all, they had gained a fairly accurate insight into our standard of living. Inwardly, these people despise us, which of course they will never admit for understandable reasons. After all, they want to achieve something: Germany as a stronghold of prosperity.”
Sarholz was himself sent to Afghanistan as a soldier in the German Armed Forces: In 2005 and 2006, he was commander of Camp Warehouse in Kabul, the largest international camp at the time, with about 2400 soldiers from more than 20 nations. In this capacity, he also had local staff. “These young men knew exactly the situation in the society around them. Selflessness was the last thing that drove these people to work for us. These romantic-idealising ideas are unknown there or meet with complete incomprehension.Life is much too hard to deal with such talk of people living in prosperity,” he emphasised in a letter to the editor of the German daily FAZ.
The local staff were paid generously by Afghan standards and, according to Sarholz, treated well. They took part in the “excellent” lunch rations as a matter of course. “They were usually given clothes, shoes and so on by the soldiers of the German contingent when they changed contingents. I signed dozens of so-called ” take-away certificates” so that these gifts were not taken away from them when they were checked at the guard post.”
For the retired colonel it is clear: “So it was worth working for us”. Clearly, this did not go unnoticed by the Afghan staff’s social environment. What you have to know is: “An Afghan defines himself exclusively by his family or tribal affiliation, individualism is unknown. If they belonged to strong clans, “they also benefited from this and protected these people.
If the local forces were members of weaker groups, other locals also benefited from their deployment. Even the Taliban could profit from this. For here “protection money was due in order not to be killed. In addition, information had to be provided. The Taliban or similar groups were thus informed in detail about our numbers, equipment, possibly even our intentions.”
The German Armed Forces also had to cope with this. “My two German soldiers who supported me in running the camp were instructed accordingly and warned to be careful when passing on information.”
With regard to the question whether there were also Afghan forces with more respect and less contempt for the foreign troops, Sarholz concludes: “I don’t want to deny that there may be exceptions.Only: I did not personally notice them. But perhaps I was and still am ignorant. With the latter, however, I am in good company when I look at the coverage of the collapse of the Western-sponsored political order in Afghanistan.”
https://exxpress.at/afghanistan-veteran-warnt-vor-aufnahme-der-ortskraefte-viele-verachten-uns/