Great replies, all of you.
Madhu and Curmudgeon, you've raised the discourse to a macro view, which is refreshing to see considering that I am degreed in Political Science.
Your thoughts could very easily expand into an excellent Foreign Affairs article, and I would enjoy reading it. The point that nation-building is seen as sovereignty-building in the region is a very astute one.
One quick question I want to toss out is if We agree that Red Rat has identified how we got our butts into nation/capacity-building, is there a bread crumb or two that speaks to when we stepped off that path?
I never noticed a shift because I was prepping for my Afghan deploy in 2009 and into 2010 (having finished an Iraq deploy in April '09), and FM 3-24 remained a bible we were leaning on. The notion of the PRT somehow holding the key to the lock box of answers was rampant to the point of a farce by the time I saw the PRT's shoddy work.
I appreciate the thoughts folks because this is important stuff. As I mentioned earlier, history needs to hold people accountable. More importantly, my personal skin in this game comes when one of my grandchildren asks me what Afghanistan was like. I want to know the reality of how it went down, outside of my valley, so I can tell them the truth. I imagine Cole (Infanteer) has the same desire.
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