Word: afghanization
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...heart of military culture. If a President wants to send young people off to war, he must buy into that culture. It is not enough to construct the best argument - or the best policy - in a bad situation, as this President has done. (See pictures of life in the Afghan National Army...
...said he rejected that argument "because if you follow the logic ... then you would never leave. Right? Essentially you'd be signing on to have Afghanistan as a protectorate of the United States indefinitely." And the time limit, he suggested, might give him leverage over Hamid Karzai, the recalcitrant Afghan leader: "In my discussion with President Karzai yesterday," Obama said, "I was able to articulate to him exactly what he's going to need to do over the next two years to be prepared for this transition." (See a video about the soldier's experience: Iraq vs. Afghanistan...
...lost ground to the Taliban this year, by Obama's own admission. And the President could only come up with speed of deployment and a clearer sense of mission as strategic game changers. Later, when I asked him about what changes he had ordered for the training of the Afghan army and police - a frustrating proposition, so far - he deferred to his commanders in the field but said the new order of battle would include "a partnering situation, a one-to-one match between Afghan troops and U.S. troops" in combat, which "produces much stronger results...
Read "Paying for the Afghan...
...Afghan reaction to Obama's speech...