18 SEPTEMBER 2022 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL human rights abusers and criminals. Police advisers often faced a moral dilemma: whether to partner with corrupt and abusive yet militarily effective police officials who had the support of the local population, or to refuse and risk rising instability, the loss of support for the U.S. intervention and the reduction of its ability to disrupt terrorist cells. Today, earthquakes, flash flooding, ongoing economic instability and rising malnutrition have all led to a humanitarian crisis. Additionally, the latest report on Afghanistan from the United Nations Security Council contains alarming details on the activities of terrorist groups now enjoying the Taliban’s protection. “Afghanistan has reverted to the state it was in before Sept. 11, 2001, when it hosted Osama bin Laden,” Foreign Policy wrote on July 27. Since the Taliban takeover last year, there have been repeated reports of al-Qaida fighters crossing the Pakistan border into Afghanistan, the BBC said, Reconstruction (SIGAR) released its 12th Lessons Learned report. Titled “Police in Conflict: Lessons from U.S. and International Police Assistance Efforts in Afghanistan,” the June 1 report explores the reasons behind the U.S. inability to create an effective police force in Afghanistan, with crucial insights for future efforts elsewhere. The findings “highlight the difficulty of fighting a heavily armed insurgency while trying to develop indigenous law enforcement and civilian policing capabilities,” the report says. As the Talibanled insurgency gained inroads in 2004 and violence escalated, the U.S. and the international community decided to transition from a civilian-led to a military-led police assistance mission. As a result, the Afghan police force’s focus became fighting insurgents rather than stopping criminals and gangsters—many of whom were members of or affiliated with the Afghan government. This shift empowered warlords– turned–police chiefs who, despite being tactically proficient in fighting, were also The Foreign Service’s competitive advantage is its knowledge of foreign countries and peoples, a knowledge gained from living abroad and communicating in foreign languages. Ours is a unique and vital contribution to America’s foreign policy. Experts with substantive knowledge are needed to help clarify U.S. foreign policy goals, but FSOs are needed to carry out those plans. … FSOs are responsible for reporting on developments overseas, but a Foreign Service corps that is poorly trained to use the local language can keep busy doing bureaucratic tasks and never effectively report on social, political or business activities. —Foreign Service Officer Robert Griffiths in a Speaking Out article titled “Preserve Language Pay Incentives” in the September 1997 FSJ. 25 Years Ago The Cornerstone of the Foreign Service: Its Professionals’ Language Skills including some at the top of the U.S.’ most wanted list. On the morning of July 31, a U.S. drone strike killed al-Qaida leader and key 9/11 plotter Ayman al-Zawahri in the heart of Kabul, where he was staying in a safe house believed to belong to the acting Taliban interior minister. No other deaths were reported in the attack. Zawahri, who assumed al-Qaida leadership after the death of bin Laden in 2011, was also suspected of playing a role in the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya. Back in Washington, the U.S. government’s review of Afghanistan is not without conflict. In a June 22 letter to Congress, the Secretary of State and the USAID Administrator, SIGAR Director John Sopko reported that the agencies’ officials were not cooperating with his office’s probe. “Historically, State and USAID officials have honored my office’s requests,” the letter says. “Inexplicably, this long track record of cooperation seems to have abruptly ended. Agency officials now appear to have adopted a premeditated position of obstruction.” State Department spokesperson Ned Price responded that SIGAR “did not request input from the State Department” when drafting a May report on the military’s collapse, “nor did they afford us an opportunity to review the draft before it was finalized.” However, a series of emails between the department and Sopko’s team, released by SIGAR, do not support these claims. In response to a direct request from SIGAR on Nov. 29, 2021, for AFSA’s assistance in reaching Foreign Service officers for the purpose of voluntary interviews, AFSA emailed members on Jan. 13 informing them of the request and including the appropriate SIGAR contact information.
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