There is a lot to read above; everything from calls for darkening the skies with missile-laden Predators to Cedarford losing his freaking mind and making grand pronouncements about the invincibility of the Afghans.

I was there, and all of that is bullshit, plain and simple. Look, two and three years ago nobody was even talking about Afghanistan, and that’s when the problems were starting. You are seeing now what was well under way then; but you weren’t looking. This is nothing new, and it’s really not all that mind-boggling or baffling. It seems to me that most people are over-analyzing it; and when you do that, you actually lose the simplest of pictures.

It’s not rocket science. It’s really not; unless you are trying to figure out how to continue to do this on the cheap. I was on one of those under-resourced little teams out in the middle of it all. As a matter of fact, I was only a few klicks from where the French had their really bad day. I’ve been through Surobi quite a few times and I knew that it was not a friendly place.

And I absolutely disagree with the idea that any of us deserve to read their AAR on a public site.

It is absolutely up to the Afghans. Unfortunately, they don’t know how to do it. Doing it for them is not going to solve the problem; it will only keep the wolf from the door for a little while. There are nearly 300 districts in Afghanistan and each and every one of them needs a Police Mentor Team. When the guys in the village with the AK are ANP, and life with them as the authority figures and first line of contact with the government is better than life under Mullah Houmeva and Qari Sumbadi, then our national interests will be served and so will theirs. Period.

Getting there is not all that hard, either. You do it the way that Petraeus did it, too. First, you have to make the civilians feel secure. You have to provide them with security. Living under the threat that some computer-riveted geek in an electronics-crammed trailer on a megafob miles away might just lob a Hellfire into your hacienda is not security. Yes, that requires boots on the ground. Some of them American, but more and more Afghan boots.

The ANA is a success story, folks. We need to do the same thing with the ANP. It’s going to take time. We also need for the “senior mentors” in Kabul to do as much ass-kicking as we did downrange. Sometimes you just have to let them know that certain things are unacceptable; like graft and not doing your job. It’s surprising how well they respond to it.

THAT’s what victory looks like. THAT’s what an acceptable end-state looks like. It’s not perfect, and it’s not rocket science; but it does take national commitment and smart, committed people and lots of them. It would take 1800 – 2400 people and 600 – 900 vehicles just to man the PMT’s to that level of effectiveness.

Oh, and Cedarford: EVERYONE has conquered Afghanistan. Alex did it, the Persians did it a lot, the Indians did it, the Mongols did it, everyone did it. When someone else is in charge of a country, that’s called conquered. Resistance be damned; when you control the cities and the roads, you have conquered. Afghans are very resilient people. You can kick their ass a million times, and there will always be survivors. They are like cockroaches because you just can’t kill them all. Not even with nukes. That’s just a question of terrain.

Your continued insistence that Kabul is the only place where there is government authority is asinine, ill-informed, and alarmist/defeatist. In short, it’s bullshit. I sat in Provincial council meetings in more than one province, and I’ve worked with the Police in three, including the Tag Ab Valley and in Nuristan. You don’t know what you’re talking about. Period.

Here’s the secret that all of you are ignoring; nobody ever conquered Afghanistan for Afghanistan. They were always messing with someone else. Nobody ever tried to do any real nation-building in Afghanistan. They just wanted to pacify it long enough to mess with their real target and when it got old messing with whomever they were messing with, they just packed up and left.

They left Afghanistan a mess. No wonder they tend towards xenophobia. They’ve seen a lot of that.

That’s why bailing after however many years is not a demonstration of national will and power. It’s pretty much what everyone else has done. What makes us so special?

Enough talk of conquering. We’re not there to conquer, anyway. We’re there to help get to that end state I described above… Afghanistan ruled by Afghans in a viable way. All the conquering talk is mindless babble from would-be Imperialists. We are not building an empire; we are serving our own interests by helping a formerly ungoverned land become a land ruled by law.

When Michael Yon made his pronouncement (which I tend to disagree with) that we are losing in Afghanistan, it was based on his experiences with civilians who are not being secured by the government. He knows that when the civilians don’t trust the government with that basic task, then we are in real trouble. I believe that we are not winning in parts of Afghanistan, but we are winning in others. Unfortunately, we are not winning in the provinces that border Pakistan. We simply have got to find ways to encourage and assist the Pakistanis in securing their own country. The Taliban encroachment into their political scene may be enough for them to get the message that ignoring and even aiding and abetting the lawlessness in the FATA is only going to harm them in the long run.

I’m reminded of the story of the talking viper who convinced a man to carry him across a river. Short story: the man was bitten and died. Quote: “You knew I was a viper when you picked me up.”

All the yammering about who did what twenty years ago doesn’t solve the problems and only makes the Afghan insurgent seem somehow invincible to many. He’s not. He’s a thug. He’s a smart thug, often dealing with poor counterinsurgents, but he’s not a great thug. He’s crafty but he’s generally backwards. All he has to do is operate when the government isn’t there to see. It’s not hard in many places in Afghanistan. That’s the problem that we need to solve. It’s not some incredibly complex secret hierarchy of masterminds.

Protect the people, and keep beating into the Police, the local governments, and the Government of Afghanistan; “Don’t steal, don’t abuse people, and don’t let family loyalty make all of your decisions for you. Be responsible, and do your job.”

It really is that simple. It can be done. It IS in our national interests, critical even.