Weed-Smoking Afghan Police 'Get the Giggles' on Patrol
As though yesterday's leaked military documents didn't paint a bleak enough picture of our Afghanistan adventure, meet the stoner cops of the Arghandab province—members of an Afghan police force receiving a $27 billion international investment.
Smoking weed is good for some things, like eating a whole pint of ice cream, or listening to that one Pat Metheny record. What it is not good for, is patrolling Afghanistan, the way these policemen are supposed to. Not that it stops them!
"I wouldn't say I feel threatened. But they act silly, just like anybody who smokes weed. They just act ridiculous. It's hard to get them to focus. They won't stay quiet. They've just got the giggles," says Sergeant Ryan Gloyer, talking to al Jazeera's Clayton Swisher.
(This isn't the first time the readiness of the Afghan National Police has come into question. And it's not the last—some of the documents in the Wikileaks cache tell similarly depressing stories. But can you blame them, when most ANP cops are making less than Taliban fighters?)
In any event, the ANP in Arghandab are "key to a forthcoming operation to go to 7-11 and buy Mounds bars." No, wait—they're key to a forthcoming operation "to deny the Taliban sanctuary." So, that's reassuring.
