"To a man, the U.S. officers in that unit told me they had nothing but contempt for the Afghan troops in their area."
Read this.
When I used to argue with people about the war in Afghanistan I'd say "go ahead, let's talk about winning it, let's talk about victory - but understand, when you talk about winning that war what you're really talking about is changing the prevailing culture - without a modification of the inherent culture, any victory achieved will be short lived. Because the enemy isn't really the Taliban - the Taliban is just a symptom - the Taliban exists because of a bankrupt culture, of a society weakened and made vulnerable by specific cultural traits and attributes and tendencies that are determinative and identifiable. You wanna talk about victory, start there - and don't be cloaking it in the phony optimism of counter-insurgency theory."
What I found was that no one wanted to talk about culture. Thus the article cited above doesn't surprise me at all.
