A Battle-proven Model from an Experiment in Afghan Indigenous Chaplain Training
by Chaplain (CPT) Eric A. Eliason, Small Wars Journal
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As new Afghan and Iraqi armies come online in their deeply religious countries, their soldiers will naturally begin to seek chaplain support. Religious leadership in Islamic countries is much more valued and enjoys far more influence than in the West. So the issue of training Iraqi and Afghan chaplaincies is orders of magnitude more important than might be the case for other Armies—particularly in a conflict that has such complex religious dimensions.
This need for indigenous chaplains presents a thorny challenge to coalition efforts. If we take a role in setting up indigenous chaplaincies, the risk is serious for giving offense or appearing to meddle in religious affairs not our own and hereby set back our own efforts. However, if we are not involved in fostering chaplaincies for these new armies, then a wily enemy will surely find a way to infiltrate their radical religious leaders and ideas into the armies we are training and co-opt them to subversive ends.
So, we find ourselves on the horns of a dilemma that will not go away and will likely get worse if we do nothing. As to how we might find our way through this difficult issue, I offer in this article lessons learned from an experiment in indigenous chaplain training that took place in Afghanistan in 2004. I believe that refined and expanded, it might serve as a model for future projects to be undertaken on a larger scale that will help ensure the Afghan and Iraqi security forces remain protectors of liberty and not devolve into enemies of it.
