Not good. This guy has been dead on about Iraq from 2006 on. For him to say Afghanistan is unraveling because we aren’t training the troops is bad.
A recent piece on training Iraqi troops to simply remember their weapon serial number and write their name and rank, because they are illiterate, casts doubt on all such ‘training success’ in Iraq or Afganistan. Just beyond bronze age tribal people with a 1400 year old updated ‘Moon God’ are not good candidates for ‘modernity’ or new, non-tribal political ideas. It seems to be additionally worse in Afganistan simply due to the size of the country and its geography, as history says it has always been. All the mineral riches rumored to be in Afganistan are there because no one has even built a road to get them out. NATO cannot build and maintain and hold a road for supply purposes now. It barely holds Kabul.
Rethink...reminds one of a visionary holding onto his valise of gold, diamonds, rare earths, oil and gas bonds, locked to his wrist...as the ship sinks. Russians had the same vision. The West, NATO, and the US in particular, will have to pay what might be considered an infinite price for holding on to Afganistan. No one has ever done it who has tried it. Obama is not even an Alexander. Can we borrow enough money to maintain the effort? Our credit, world-wide seems to have run out. Our Muslim enemies repeatedly point this out. As many state with increasing frequency, “the issue is in doubt”.