A couple of points:

DOS trains the majority of the people going to Afghanistan in either Dari or Pashto. The course lasts 44 weeks and includes area/cultural studies as an integral component. While this does not make them fluent, it allows them to interact without interpretation on a reasonable level. For example, last year the DOS officer in an Eastern Afghan PRT was a Pashto speaker. In military terms, this is an impressive force multiplier that wracked up significant achievements. This, despite being a younger woman working in the heart of "Manistan."

Regarding the qualities/utilities issue. I couldn't agree more. It seems that much of the civilian component in Iraq was built around the concept of having as many people there as possible, regardless of their skills or tasks.

This gets to my original point of why we need the proper skill sets. Army/Marine CA are great, there just aren't enough of them (which is why you have PRTs in Afghanistan that are run by SWOS, nukes and F-18 jocks). If we want to be serious, we're going to have to ask the American people to get into the war in a way that the previous administration avoided doing.

That said, there is a large role for FSOs at the PRT/BCT/CJTF level as Polads, as negotiators, as the human face of the US. The issue is force protection. 900 more civilians will need security. Does this mean more military, more Triple Canopy, ANA/ANP? Or will they be expected to go out with no armor, kevlar, up-armored vehicles? Will they be expected to assume an "outside the hesco" level of risk that others don't? I think they should, to some extent, but it's a difficult call.