The Afghan National Army is an amazing and fast-improving fighting force…I know most of the senior leadership…some are not qualified but many are US and, or British-trained professional soldiers…they, the US & ISAF trainers and the civilian contractor trainers have moved the ANA from a rabble to an emerging world-class army…They’re not now and likely never will be as good as US & British troops, but they’re already better than the majority of International Security Assistance Force (ISAF…a subset of NATO) troops…These men represent a major success in stabilizing this volatile region…Yes, some of the senior leaders are still corrupt and inept but Defense Minister Abdul Wardak and his top staff generals are weeding out the dead wood and bringing in dynamic new corps, brigade & battalion commanders. Our trainers are building a whole new generation of company-grade officers and for the first time in Afghan history, building a professional NCO corps. Much remains to be done in professionalizing this force, but what has been done is staggeringly good.

The Interior Ministry with its multiple ‘police forces,’ is still an awful mess…We got started on that ministry’s development late in the game but we’re making some headway in reducing internal corruption and training those forces…We all knew what the problems were but until about two years ago there just wasn’t enough money or enough staff to tackle both Defense and Interior…our leaders had to make very difficult choices…but we’re on our way now.

My friends who are now in Herat, Farah, Helmand and Kandahar provinces tell me that nearly all of the US-trained ANA troops are aggressive, dedicated and brave fighters…the train-up thus far is a story that all Americans should be proud of…still lots of problems to overcome…I’m not a PollyAnna…but if we do get more troops and more equipment in the contested areas and we continue to develop the ANA and ANP the Taliban & al Qaeda are going to be in for some very unpleasant times.

This war is winnable…we are winning, but not as quickly or as emphatically as we could or should. I look forward to reading the entire series of articles.

There is nothing we say or do will change things for the better with regard to Pakistan.

There have been two attacks, in two days, on NATO resupply through Pakistan.

See this link:

http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/holnus/…00812081771.htm

This happened in Peshawar, a provincial capital and _right_next_to_the_Pakistan_Army_XI_Corps_Headquarters.

If this is not a message from the Pakistan Army and ISI — pushing back on the USA for the heat we generated over Mumbai — then I don’t know what is.

America and NATO can only make the bad changes in Pakistan less severe and lasting.

And, in America’s case, because our ultimate means of doing so is drastic and final, we won’t go there until things have gotten far, far worse than they are already.

I repeat, Pakistan already is what we feared a nuclear-armed Iran would become.

The policing and humanitarian work is great and needed, but the main purpose of the mission was to find and destroy Al Qaeda and anyone else who would give aid and santuary to them.
Sadly there just aren’t enough troops vs the amount of area that needs to be controlled.

Repeated requests for more Nato troops have so far fallen on deaf ears. Aside from a handful of the bigger Nato guns (France, Britain, Canada, Norway, Austraia and a few others) most Nato troop contributions average less than 1,000, with some countries sending as few as a couple of hundred.
Worse yet, some of these allied troops have strict orders from their government not to actively seek and engage the enemy but rather to only fight back if they are attacked first.

With a larger allied force, areas that are taken by troops can be held onto while yet more troops can continue to push the enemy into a smaller area where they will be more concentrated and can be killed in much larger numbers.
I say to our allied politicians “send more troops, lift their restrictions on them, and these brave men will crush the enemy quicker than a mullah can say allah ackbar!”