Sigh

Afghan army struggles with ethnic divisions

Within the past month or so, Tom Friedman (!!!) asked (What's Second Prize?),

"Why do we have to recruit and train our allies, the Afghan Army, to fight? That is like someone coming to you with a plan to recruit and train Brazilian boys to play soccer."

In previous post, I suggested to General McChrystal (!!!):

Don't focus solely on military training.
Drill, weapons training, strategy & tactics: all are necessary, but none is sufficient.

Rather, include a rather large dose of Afghan history.

My guess is that one objective of training Afghan forces is to provide a nucleus for an Afghan national identity. If this be true, then Afghan forces need to have some sense that the country they're being trained to defend is worth defending.

Does our training of Afghan forces include curriculum elements designed to build a nationalistic nucleus of an Afghan nation???

Why am I doubtful?
... and why do I continue to believe that a small committee of ordinary U.S. citizens could do a better job with policy - foreign, domestic, economic - than the 'high-powered' brain-trusts who are now in charge?