The recent remarks by Gen John Allen that Ramadan contributed to the rise in attacks by Afghan Soldiers on allied troops — despite the fact Ramadan has occurred yearly in the decade long war — inspired Andrew Boston, author of The Legacy of Jihad, to look a little deeper.  Boston cited an unclassified report dated 12 May 2011 by a “red team” of American analysts.

In an odd twist, just yesterday the Stars and Stripes noted this very report was rejected by the military and its author, Jeffrey Bordin, was blacklisted — yet it is now being used to guide some parts of the American conduct in Afghanistan.

The report goes into a long investigation of the tension between US and Afghan military members, including multiple references to “near-fratricides” — in which Afghans (most often) or US troops (occasionally) threatened each other with loaded weapons: 

The ANA at FOB [redacted] drew down on US Soldiers a few times…

An ANA locked and loaded on a US civilian contractor because he had accidentally bumped into him…A US Soldier then locked and loaded against the ANA…

The ANA drew their weapons on a US Soldier after the ANA tried to get him to move…they actually locked and loaded an RPG to threaten the convoy…

We [the ANA] once loaded and charged our weapons because we got tired of the US Soldiers calling us ‘mother f–ers…’

Not once is in any of those instances does someone express a concern that a Koran was mishandled or that Muhammad was impugned.  In fact, the opposite is true:  In one instance, a homeowner pulled out a Koran and “put it in the ANA’s face” to stop a home search.  The ANA then pulled their weapons on the US forces to stop the search because “the Koran outranks orders.”  That story was recounted by the Afghans.

The report lists four “tiers” of “grievances” the ANSF has toward US troops, covering 9 pages.  Issues of religion didn’t even rate the top three “tiers.”  Fourth tier grievances included US soldiers not fasting during Ramadan, entering mosques, and a second-hand story about a US soldier dropping a Koran.  That hardly supports the political undertone by some critics that insensitivity toward Islam is responsible for the attacks.

By contrast, religious issues were a “second tier” issue for US troops with regard to the Afghans (ranked below drug use and betrayal):

Their loyalty is to their religion…

They listened to local mullahs and were pretty radical…

There is more than one way to read this report, of course.  Boston read it as a whitewash of the Islamic motivation behind the attacks on US forces by Afghan troops.  For example, the report says a “large minority” of the Afghan military forces can be classified as “radical,” and even went so far as to say

It seems extremely inappropriate, unethical, and outright naïve to try to build ‘trusted’ relations among ANSF members with such extremist religious beliefs…

On the other hand, one could also view the report to say that religion isn’t at all the underlying motivation for Afghans turning their weapons on US forces.  Of course, that paints just as poor a picture, or perhaps a worse one, as it makes the Afghans out to be little more than armed thugs who cannot control their tempers (armed, by the way, with US-supplied weapons) — including “crime bosses” in leadership positions.  Based on the quotes in the report, that seemed to be the consensus of some US troops who were interviewed:

[The ANA stole] .50 CAL rounds that they would empty for the brass.  We confront them and they act all offended saying “we are Muslims, we do not steal…”  They just hide behind the cultural and religious s–t.

These guys are not soldiers; they are a ragtag bunch of thugs and civilians dressed in uniforms.

The ANA use culture and religion as a shield to hide their incompetence.

Another interesting takeaway was the comparison between Afghanistan and Iraq.  While several US troops had low opinions of their experiences in Iraq, those experiences apparently shined bright in comparison to Afghanistan.  Given the turmoil even Iraq is undergoing right now, such assessments may not bode well for the future stability of Afghanistan.

Incidentally, there wasn’t a single insinuation that American Christianity was the cause of any strife in Afghanistan — despite Michael Weinstein’s claims to the contrary.