Wow. That article is STRONG.

The Afghans don’t trust the Pakistanis at all, and blame them for a lot of their troubles, especially for backing the Taliban in the melee after the Soviets left. That Brigadier just confirmed some of that inadvertently.

On your other points; I think that our real message varies from place to place based on what issues they have in that locale, but the message overall is about democracy working, about Afghanistan being one nation, about the rule of law and the necessity for government to work for the people and not be corrupt.

Yeah, I know… good luck with all of that. It’s hard, but I’ve seen it start to sink in.

I don’t know; in one district, the Police Chief was attending the Jirgas and the local version of the “mayors court” was working. They were applying local law the same way that a mayor in a small town here in the States would.

On the other hand, they were resolving issues regarding goats and so on. But sometimes it was as complex as social issues such as “kidnapping,” when a guy and a girl actually run away together, sometimes the end result is that they wind up married, but the groom’s family has to pay a “fine” to the bride’s family. Small society stuff, sure; but it was working, and the local police were involved without it getting into the national legal system.

What I saw was police leadership that was very willing to let locals solve their problems as long as it didn’t involve violence.

You’ve got some great points about the frayed social fabric, though. Still, when you piss them off over a matter of principle that is something waaaaay too advanced for their culture at this point, you stand very little chance of further cooperation.