I generally despise the sound-bite talking heads on television and their bought-and-paid-for opinions clothed as information, but Fox had Ralph Peters on this morning and he absolutely frickin' nailed the flaws in Obama's approach to the Afghan war, and clearly had more to say that was totally on the right track as well.
On one of my trips home from SW Asia, I was talking to an Army Major who had been working with the Afghan army. Although this was a couple of years ago, the problems he was talking about are cultural, haven't been fixed, and probably can't be fixed without financially supporting and closely mentoring the Afghan population for two or three generations. Basically anything that is built will get stripped for scrap, or blown up and then sold for scrap (if it interferes with the traditional source of income of the nearest village, for instance if you try to build a bridge when the local make their dough by charging toll at the nearest ford). The national police and the army can certainly recruit, however the native leadership believes it is their right to skim off all the pay and food allowances instead of giving it to the soldiers, so they desert after two months and go back to their own villages. Training the Afghan army basically just ensures the standard of training of local bandits will improve over time as the deserters join them, while the army will remain at about the same level since few if any of the privates will have more than a month or two's experience.
Peters also noted that of course the Pakistani and Afghan governments thought the idea was cool, because it means both of them get a lot more money. He further noted that the Paki government was incredibly corrupt and I assume he ran out of time before he could add that it has no realistic control over Waziristan and the tribal regions at all, and is totally co-opted and hamstrung in dealing with radical Islamists.
