U.S. Troops Train a Different Front Line in Afghanistan

Fort Bragg, N.C.—When word came down to the 82nd Airborne Division paratroopers that they were no longer slated to deploy to Iraq—and would instead be dispatched to Afghanistan to mentor local soldiers and police—there was some grumbling.

"The word trainer was used," says Col. Brian Drinkwine, commander of the 4th Brigade of the 82nd Airborne, with a hint of distaste. Soldiers, he explains, tend to prefer fighting over tutoring other troops. "I cannot say there wasn't some initial disappointment when we learned that's what we would be doing."

That sentiment was short-lived, Drinkwine says, and not just because this training comes with the soldierly consolation that in the course of their work, the paratroopers will have ample opportunities to face a well-trained network of insurgents that is "alarming" in its effectiveness and strength, according to senior Pentagon officials. The 4th Brigade troops are braced for early attacks by enemy forces trying to create casualties and friction between Afghans and their American mentors.

In fact, U.S. officials emphasize that creating more Afghan security forces, particularly police, will be among the most difficult jobs America has yet to undertake in the country. "The single biggest problem we're going to face—I'm going to be very honest with you—is going to be the strengthening of the police," Ambassador Richard Holbrooke told a Washington think tank audience in August. "There is no question."

As the United States embarks on its ninth year of war in Afghanistan, debate rages on about whether to send more combat troops to the region, even as a record number of Americans question whether U.S. forces should be in the country at all. But on one matter, there is rapidly growing agreement among senior officials: that the greatest threat to Afghanistan today is not the Taliban or al Qaeda but, rather, the lack of government legitimacy "at every level." Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, emphasized this point during a recent trip to Capitol Hill. U.S. officials add that if the weak Afghan government is to have a chance of tamping down the violence and curbing corrupt cops and bureaucrats who are regularly shaking down and enraging everyday Afghans, the country will need a more plentiful and professional array of security forces.

This has increasingly raised a paradoxical question among U.S. officials, however, particularly in the wake of widespread fraud during the country's still-contested presidential elections: What happens when the government that U.S. troops are being sent to bolster is considered by many Afghans to be one of their biggest problems?

Rough introduction. On the eve of the 4th Brigade's deployment, Col. John Agoglia has flown in from the U.S. Counterinsurgency Training Center in Kabul to brief several dozen paratroopers at Fort Bragg about what they will face as they prepare to turn their attention from Iraq to Afghanistan. A Brooklyn native who saw his share of street brawling before earning an appointment to West Point as a college freshman, Agoglia paints a sobering and colorful picture of how the Taliban has been expanding its power.

"How do they do it?" he asks. "I'm thinking about The Sopranos. Messages sent to you to let you know that 'While you're at work, I'm watching your f - - - ing family.' That's intimidation," he says. "These guys are good at it."

Agoglia tells the troops, most of whom are on their third or fourth combat deployments, that in the south, where much of the brigade will be based, "The Taliban owns the night." He adds, to the surprise of no one in the room, "We don't."

Countering intimidation is "a whole different thing from going out there and killing Taliban," Agoglia says, pausing as some soldiers pass through the doorway beneath their division motto: "Sleep well tonight, the 82nd is on point." "You're looking at me and saying, 'S - - -, is all that my job?' Well, I don't know who f - - - ing else's job it is."