Some questions about this local police plan:

1) How are we going to prevent these "local police" from simply becoming the militia of whoever is the strongest powerbroker in whatever area they are operating in? I doubt the Ministry of Interior is really going to be keeping a tight leash on things considering the state it's in. Who is going to set the left and right lateral limits for these units and then supervise them to make sure they are adhering to their boundaries? For that matter, who is going to do the initial vetting to prevent the police from becoming filled with Taliban sympathizers from the start, thus invalidating the whole process?

2) The ANP is already notorious for its poor behavior, corruption, and tendency to abuse the general population. These local police seem even less accountable than the ANP--they will belong to a 'looser' institution and they will receive no training.

3) I am by no means an expert on the ANP, but I got the sense that most of the units were already local to begin with. After 5 minutes on Google I found the 2006 DoS IG's Assessment of Afghanistan Police which is quoted below. So how will these local police be different than the local police that already exist (or did circa 2006)?:
Although the Tashkil calls for recruiting officers in all five ANP regional areas, the assessment team was unable to verify their presence in the regions. Based on interviews with the RTC commanders, mentors, and police district chiefs, almost all recruiting occurs at the police district level.In effect, police are recruited locally to serve locally.

The MoI lacks a national assignment system for graduates of the training centers and the police academy. Presently, graduates of the RTCs return to the province from which they were recruited. According to a MoI official, this assignment system promotes corruption. The official said the corruption is systemic and is related to tribal relationships and local or provincial loyalties. Some MoI officials suggest that the only way to fight corruption of this nature is by adhering to a national recruiting and assignment system. Because Afghans are subject to strong tribal influences, officials believe the best method to ensure police loyalty to the central government is to minimize the provincial/ethnic allegiance by assigning them to provinces other than their own.

The MoI intends at some point to improve the assignment process and assign graduates to provinces other than their home areas. The Minister of Interior has appointed himself champion of nationalizing the ANP and has started a recruiting campaign based on national service.

Several Afghan trainees interviewed at the RTCs said they would be willing to move from their province. Those who thought otherwise, however, expressed a more realistic view. For example, one RTC deputy commander said many policemen would be unwilling to move. He recalled that 60 policemen from other provinces had been assigned to serve in his province, but only two arrived for work. Police prefer to serve in their own province because of ethnic affiliations, travel difficulties, and problems sending pay home to families. Young policemen are reluctant to work in a different province than their own because locals do not accept them due to ethnic, religious, and language differences. In Bamiyan province, for example, many local recruits only speak a language unique to their area, making assignment outside the region
I really do hope this works. Any plan for trying to solve the police problem--or really any problem--in Afghanistan is going to have lots of negatives associated with it. In this instance, though, I am not convinced the potential positives outweigh those negatives...