Saturday, December 01, 2007
Dazed and confused
There was an interesting article on U.S. counter-insurgency efforts in Afghanistan in yesterday's Wall Street Journal. It is pretty down beat (or up-beat depending on your point of view):
"Today we control no more and no less of Afghanistan than the Soviets did" - said one captain.
The article hints at a reason why the U.S. may not be doing so well there - it hasn't got a clue.
In counter-insurgency training for troops about to deploy to Afghanistan it advises them to learn as much Arabic as they can.
Unfortunately for the U.S. military Afghanis aren't Arabs. Worse still, they don't speak Arabic.
It is worth noting this idiocy came from a U.S. Captain who served a combat tour in Afghanistan. In other words, not only did HE not speak the language, he didn't even know what language it was that was being spoken around him!!
Further, in typical "best and brightest" fasion this dingbat studied at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar.
What can we say, apparently the British don't train officers for imperialist armies like they used to.
BTW, this could even be relevent to upcoming events in Venezuela. Right now, in a secret location in northern Virginia, there are likely dozens of translators working overtime translating anti-Chavez propoganda leaflets denouncing fraud in tomorrows vote into ... Portuguese.
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"Today we control no more and no less of Afghanistan than the Soviets did" - said one captain.
The article hints at a reason why the U.S. may not be doing so well there - it hasn't got a clue.
In counter-insurgency training for troops about to deploy to Afghanistan it advises them to learn as much Arabic as they can.
Unfortunately for the U.S. military Afghanis aren't Arabs. Worse still, they don't speak Arabic.
It is worth noting this idiocy came from a U.S. Captain who served a combat tour in Afghanistan. In other words, not only did HE not speak the language, he didn't even know what language it was that was being spoken around him!!
Further, in typical "best and brightest" fasion this dingbat studied at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar.
What can we say, apparently the British don't train officers for imperialist armies like they used to.
BTW, this could even be relevent to upcoming events in Venezuela. Right now, in a secret location in northern Virginia, there are likely dozens of translators working overtime translating anti-Chavez propoganda leaflets denouncing fraud in tomorrows vote into ... Portuguese.
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