Afghan Soldiers Smoking Pot is Not News

by Una M. · 2009-12-25 03:20:00 UTC
Topics:

A video of Afghan National Army (ANA) soldiers smoking hashish and goofing around to the great aggravation of their American trainers is getting plenty of blogosphere attention. In it, one American soldier says, "I think if they introduced drug testing to the Afghan army we would lose probably three-quarters to maybe 80, 85 percent of the army."

This isn't shocking --or even news-- to anyone at all familiar with Afghanistan. Afghans grow cannabis and smoke it to relax. Certainly not all Afghans smoke, but many do at least occasionally, and it's something most people shrug at, even if they don't personally partake.

Yet, the pot-smoking ANA video is being framed as a scandal. Afghan Soldiers Caught on Video Getting High!

The Huffington Post covered the story. So did Danger Room. Russian state media has an odd fixation with drug use in Afghanistan, so Russia Today (RT) got in on the reefer action by interviewing my friend David Axe, who spent six weeks reporting from the country this fall.

Undoubtedly familiar with RT's tricky editing, David wrote a blog post spelling out his views in advance of the interview.

"I’m a little disappointed that so many reporters have latched onto the drug issue, as though that were one of the major impediments to building a U.S.-style Afghan military," he wrote. "It’s easy to call Afghan soldiers lazy or incompetent, especially when you’re basing your judgment on selective quotations from a pissed-off Marine Corps instructor. But that’s not really fair."

David went on to list some of the ANA's far more damaging challenges; pervasive illiteracy among soldiers (a consequence of a devastated education system), poor leadership, nepotism and corruption, equipment shortages, and poor pay.

"But I challenge you to find a more tough-minded soldier than an Afghan, or one more hardened to cold, hunger and pain," he wrote. "In Baraki Barak I spoke with one member of the Afghan security forces who has been walking around for months with several bullets lodged in his back. His army had not provided for his ongoing medical care, so he just lived with the pain."

Chuckling about Afghan soldiers being lazy potheads reeks of condescension, and elevating the hashish issue to MAJOR PROBLEM status when it's pretty far down the list of things hurting the ANA's performance is intellectually lazy sensationalism. And do we really want to export our marijuana panic to Afghanistan?

[Photo: David Axe]

Una M.
PREVIOUS STORY:
2009 Most Wanted List: Congo
NEXT STORY:
A letter from Bettina Siegel, "Pink Slime" petition creator

COMMENTS (5)

    Comment Policy

    · All fields are required to comment.

    [X]

    Comments on Change.org are meant for further exploration and evaluation of the campaign on Change.org. To that end, we welcome constructive comments. However, we reserve the right to delete comments which, as determined solely in our discretion: (1) are offensive, abusive, or off-topic; (2) include content solely intended to personally attack the campaign creator, (3) are designed to subvert or hijack comment threads rather than contribute to them; and/or (4) violate our terms of service and/or privacy policy. Repeat offenders may be permanently removed from the site at our discretion. Please also be advised that: (A) we do not actively curate and/or monitor in any manner whatsoever the comments made on the Change.org platform, and (B) the creator of each campaign on Change.org may remove any comment at her/his/its discretion.