Nothing Much Changes in War

This is an abiding truth about war: Career officers see war as an opportunity for glory, promotion and medals. Contractors see an opportunity to make shitloads of money. The soldiers see bullets, blood, sand (or mud) and death.

It is time for us to stop letting the careerists run this war as an opportunity for personal glory and rows of shiny medals. The idea is to hand the country over to the Afghan government.

We must stop treating the Afghans like children. They are not. It is their country and for better or worse, they should start taking responsibility for it. There is little reason not to begin turning over responsibility now.

That is exactly correct.[1] If the Karzai government is indeed so rife with corruption and is so inept that they fall after we leave, then we tried and it sucks to be them. The Taliban is not the NVA, they are not going to roll into Kabul riding T-55 tanks. If they win, it will be for the same reasons that they took control of the country in the 1990s.

Let me be clear on this: My operating premise is that every word spoken by Ft. Fumble, Centcom and the ISAF regarding the Afghan War is a lie, including the words "and" and "the", unless proven otherwise. In that regard, at least, there is not much of a difference between MAVC and IASF.

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[1] You should also read Col. Sellin's original piece for comments both on the severely bloated command structure of ISAF as well as the over-reliance on PowerPoint.

(H/T)