Guest Authors

A lot of the Afghan soldiers and police are not the best members of Afghan society to begin with, which is the case in a lot of militaries. They're given crap training with no real cutoff standards, then sent out to combat units. Their advisors can neither reward them for good behavior, nor punish them for bad behavior; there is no accountability. Huge numbers of US officers will bitch about this in private or anonymously, but when it comes time to stand up in public, will polish this disgraceful turd of a system we stood up in the first place. We built this army without any of the mechanisms of responsibility and accountability built into Afghan society, and are now trying to pretend it's something other than what it is. Yeah, we're eating soup with a knife, and the guys responsible for silverware acquisition get promotions and good OERs.

Become energy independent and tell the muslim countries one wrong move in our direction and you're gone...from above. Let them rot in their own filth and insanity. They won't change...At this point who cares. Just keep them out of our country because they do not assimilate...they bring their hate and evil customs with them. We've wasted too many men trying to help them... Some people can't be helped. Leave them to their own devices. None of them are trustworthy.

As in your last dispatch Michael, "Afghanistan; Cut losses", I feel this is just another of the things that plague our warriors. Whether it be political correctness from the brass, or working with the ANSF, it always seems our peoples' hands are tied one way or another, preventing them from doing the job they were sent there to do. In the Crisis of Trust questionnaire, the ANSF certainly did not get too good of a review by our troops on the ground. We've done enough nation rebuilding.

If our troops were allowed to conduct the war as they seem fit, we would've had them all home already, but no, we have to hold the ANSF's hands, be nice to Karzai, and maintain a high level of political correctness.
I have this image in my mind of George Patton and what he would do or say regarding this whole fiasco, at least he had the balls to tell it like it is.
Be safe on your trip to Norway, bring along extra long BVDs!

Well, they don't respect us. They don't fear us. For the most part they probably don't trust us. Expecting a stone age tribal culture to play by our rules is insanity. We need to initiate a change of paradigm. If one of them kills one of ours, we bomb a city out of existence. They need to fear us. Get out and respond with the same protocols that won WWII. Present day ROE are designed to get our guys killed... period. It is adhering to and comforting the enemy, and that is treason. Our military is being run by ... Well, you get the idea.

@ Bob Guy - I' agree with many of your conclusions. The tribal mentality is not compatible with what we're trying to do over there. I don't believe the concept of "nation" in on their radar, and our attempts to implant it are doomed to failure.