Word: succession
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...time for an Afghan surge as well. The Afghan army is already a great success story: a multiethnic, battle-tested fighting force. The problem is, it's too small, with a projected strength of only 80,000 troops. We need to at least double the size of the Afghan army and establish an international trust fund to provide long-term financing for the effort. We also need a stronger diplomatic effort. I will appoint a special presidential envoy to address disputes between Afghanistan and its neighbors...
...John McCain say that as President, they would send additional combat brigades - from 7,000 to 15,000 troops - to tame the insurgency in Afghanistan. At a June conference in Paris, Western governments committed an additional $20 billion in aid, in the hope that this would finally bring success in counterinsurgency, counternarcotics, rule of law, governance and state-building - and eventually allow us to withdraw from Afghanistan with honor...
...government claims that in 2007, $1.3 billion out of $3.5 billion of aid was spent on international consultants, some of whom received more than $1,000 a day and whose policy papers are often ignored by Afghan civil servants and are invisible to the population. Our lack of success despite our wealth and technology convinces ordinary Afghans to believe in conspiracy theories. Well-educated people have told me that the West is secretly backing the Taliban and that the U.S.'s main objective was to steal Afghanistan's emeralds, antiquities and uranium - and that we knew where Osama bin Laden...
Playing to Our Strengths A smarter strategy would focus on two elements: more effective aid and a more limited military objective. We should target development assistance in provinces where we have a track record of success. Our investment goes further in stable and welcoming places like Hazarajat than it can in hostile, insurgency-dominated areas like Kandahar and Helmand, where we have to spend millions on security and the locals do not contribute to the project and will not sustain it after our departure. We should focus on meeting the Afghan government's request for more investment in agricultural irrigation...
...Mirwais is not the only Afghan pretender to the Colonel Sanders mantle in Kabul. Another is Jamshed, who uses only one name, and runs one of three rival KFCs. Jamshed's recipe for success includes more than just a secret combination of herbs and spices. Young men are drawn like flies to the music videos blasting out of his store's open doors; the slack-jawed patrons watching Shakira, onscreen, writhing while covered alternately in mud, men, and nothing are sampling a bite-size package of Western decadence...