Advisor Training

Yesterday I spent all day out. It was a good day. In the afternoon Jeff had to meet with some minister so I hung back and chatted with the Afghans cops that I work with. They are young - 26 is probably their average age. They are very smart and friendly. Our translator had left already so I had to communicate directly. Their english is pretty good in general. They talked about the various parts of Afghanistan. Some parts are green and beautiful, some are a desert. And some are trouble, like Kandahar.

Last night I was having a discussion with someone. We were talking about why America is here nation building. Neither of us could come up with a good reason. We agreed that we are doing good things here. We are making the country a better place and vaulting it into the present. However it comes at great cost to Americans, both in terms of dollars and human lives. There is just no strategic interest for America that justifies the expense. Iraq, because it sits in the heart of the worlds oil supply, has a very clear strategic interest. And because it has oil, we have a clear exit strategy because they can fund their progress after we pull out.

Today and tomorrow I'm in mentor training. It's more or less boring since I've been working with Afghans for a while already. There were two interesting lectures. One was on the history of Afghanistan. That was excellent. We could have spent all day on that. The second talk was given by a guy from the embassy. That talk was more interesting.

He talked about the state departments issues. In case you haven't been following, Karzai has been giving the international community the shaft since the incredibly corrupt election a few months ago. He kicked all the international people off the 'independent' election committee (and replaced them with personal appointees). He repealed the guarantees of female representation in the legislature. And enacted several other similarly corrupt, backwards and insulting acts. This in spite of the fact America is investing over $100 billion per year to stabilize his country (and increase his personal fortune). We spent $300 million alone on his massively fraudulent election. Anyway, it's no secret how I feel. This money would be better spent funding science and growth in America. The only thing the embassy guy said about Karzai was that he's playing chicken with the U.S. because he thinks we need him more than he needs us. Regarding American politics, he may be right.

I mostly kept my mouth shut. But what surprised me was the hostility that came from all the other officers in the room. Nearly ever officer that spoke, from majors to colonels, expressed obvious disgust at this whole situation. Topics ranged from the obvious government corruption, to the negotiations with the taliban for amnesty, and to the unsustainable government we are building. For example, the one question I asked was: if all goes well and we start to pull out of country, who's going to fund the government after we leave? That is, we're building up this government and military. We're employees and raising salaries. However they don't have any kind of income tax or any real industry besides opium. So if we're funding most of the salaries of the government employees, what happens when we leave? He said he didn't really know, that's something the USAID program has to deal with. He said he suspects they'll just have to cut back without external funding. Not very comforting words. I think most of us just shook our heads.

At least I can say that all the mid to low level afghans I've met are really good people and our efforts with them are not wasted. I don't think they are corrupt or overly lazy, and they are very happy that we're here stabilizing things after the last 30 years of craziness. I think the elite afghan class are milking America for all they can because they know the money is going to dry up before long and they are trying to gain all they can while times are good.