A 'Positive' Report And Analysis On Afghanistan

U.S. and Afghan soldiers prepare to board a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter on Observation Post Mangol in the Nari district in Afghanistan's Kunar province, Feb, 8, 2012. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Trey Harvey

Two Officers Counter Bleak Assessment of Afghan War -- At War/New York Times

Editor’s Note: A week ago, The New York Times (and At War) published pieces about an Army lieutenant colonel, Daniel L. Davis, who felt that the war in Afghanistan was not going well and that senior American military officials were not being honest about it. Lt. Col. Davis’ assertions, detailed in an unclassified report and an essay in Armed Forces Journal , have prompted much debate, pro and con. Below, two special forces officers, one an American who spent last year working with Afghan forces, and the other an Afghan, offer a different view. The officers did not write with the explicit purpose of countering Lt. Col. Davis, but merely to document their observations on the progress and pitfalls of training Afghan security forces in one very unsettled province. But the final product presents a far less pessimistic assessment of the Afghan forces than Lt. Col. Davis.

The first thing we noticed when we stepped off the helicopter in windswept Zabul province was a surprising but unmistakable feeling of pride and purpose among the Afghan soldiers. My friend Khoshal Sadat and I were visiting the first kandaks (battalions) to be declared officially independent in the entire country, and we secretly expected them to be in disarray. We were traveling as part of a tiny, specialized team of Afghan officers and Dari- or Pashto-speaking American advisers. Our job was to embed with units across the country and gain a deeper understanding of their challenges. We wore the same uniforms and rode in the same vehicles as the Afghan troops, spending long hours over dinners, patrols, and guard shifts talking about their hopes and fears now that American forces had pulled back.

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My Comment: The last part in this report sums it up ....

.... This will be a long war, my friend, and I don’t know if I’ll live to see the end of it. But the Afghan Army will fight, and we’ll win. We just need a little help.”

Indeed.