Letters from the field

Two observations on the current state of Afghanistan - both from guys who actually wear the "boots on the ground" we keep hearing about.

One from FRI:

The United States and her allies have spent billions in Afghanistan and have very little to show for it. Afghanistan is currently in a death spiral not because of a lack of aid funds but rather how those funds have been spent and allocated. Every indication we see on the ground is that more money will be thrown into the same failed programs currently being implemented; another demonstration that we have failed to learn any meaningful lessons.

The reason these programs won’t work is that they are off the shelf solutions designed to make the lives of bureaucrats and contracting officers easy rather than bringing assistance to the Afghans. The Department of State has spent 2.5 BILLION bringing in police trainers, jail guard trainers, and lawyers to train the judges. Now what the hell does anyone at DynCorp or PAE know about Afghan police or Afghan jurisprudence? Nothing of course but that is not why they win these large lucrative contracts it is because they already have large lucrative contracts and therefore know how to work with DS contracting officers to make their lives easier. What is the return on our investment? After the large scale jail break in Kandahar last summer investigators discovered there were over 100 illegal cell phones in the hands of inmates. When we capture important Taliban leaders and send them to the main Afghan jail at Pul-i-Charki they are often back home before the soldiers who delivered them. The Afghan police are unreliable and prone to preying on the population. The current Afghan government is more of a problem than a solution. It is being out-governed by the Taliban in the many districts under Taliban control. Who “built capacity” with these Taliban? How many billions of dollars were spent teaching the Taliban to administer justice and civil control so effectively?

That's one.

The other is from Vampire 06:

..let me...highlight a couple of things I think we could do to close the deal.

Roads, we need more of them. A lot more! This is the cornerstone to building Afghanistan and the government. The Romans were successful not because of military technology, it helped, but because they built an extensive road network. Many of which still exist today and are in better shape than roads in Afghanistan.

Without roads the Afghans don’t really need a centralized government. That’s a broad statement but I’ll qualify it here in a minute. The tribe pretty much provides what they need. The tribe protects them, settles disputes and enforces laws. They’re more than capable of doing this and have been for the last several centuries. They fulfill the basic governmental requirements common defense, law and order.

The tribes though can’t build and maintain roads. Now, you need a centralized government to construct, maintain and protect the roads. You get an influx of money as people work on the roads and they quit getting paid to blow us up and it stimulates a demand for goods and services.

[snip]

You probably won’t hear any of this from the higher ups. They’ll tell you we need more combat troops, but we can’t even support the ones we already have here. They should tell you to send engineers and logisticians, but that’s not too sexy.

Now, I'm thousands of miles from the scene - and ignorant to boot - but I'm getting the vibe that "just add troops" isn't going to get this particular problem solved.

I'm also thinking that the current F#&ked-up state of the economy is going to dictate that any massive road building projects aren't going to be overseas - I'm thinking our options are not looking good.

You figure we add troops to make the Taliban lay low long enough for us to declare victory and pull out? I mean, that kind of manuver will have a handy precedent in about, say 16 months...