As a former Senior Urban Planning Adviser, Iraq PRT (2007/8), I was a bit taken aback.

I believe what he is saying, at it's core, is that he has lost faith that the military & civilian tools provided, or being considered, are going to create the result sought in Afghanistan.

In that context, my experience in Iraq was that, in general, the US civilian effort was a "lost ball in tall grass," especially at the higher levels, but, having said that, those actual civilian experts who signed up for the Iraq surge did so because we believed that, no matter how screwed up the current activities were, we came over to get the US out of a terrible jam in Iraq.

Especially in Northern Iraq, we always had to fight to get someone with stars on his shoulders to make any big changes and/or get critical projects done---often by-passing the DoS chain of command in Baghdad. What's new about that? All of us came from backgrounds where we had fought for projects in the civilian sector even against stiff political opposition. All experienced civilian experts worth their salt have thick skins, lots of arrows in our backs (the pioneers catch the arrows), and an ability to push past obstacles to get what needs to get done done.

In truth, most of us 50+ year olds were former military, like myself, and were just plain tired of seeing pictures in the paper every morning of kids that looked those for whom we had previously been responsible. So, Ambassador Crocker put out an urgent call for civilian experts to help put Iraq back on its feet---in order to get those troops safely home, and we came to do what we could.

Sure, the handful of us were like a drop of water in a very dry sponge, but we pushed where we could. And many of us, despite having to challenge the bureaucracy to accomplish anything productive, did contribute a lot, and came away from Iraq with a feeling of great accomplishment. Even if, like so many soldiers, our accomplishment was just one drop in a big puddle.

But the Afghan civilian surge always intrigued me because it was, in fact, totally different from Iraq:

Instead of actual US civilian experts (city managers, planners, heath/medical folks, transportation engineers) leaving life and wife behind for a particular urgent mission, the Afghan surge mostly seems to be populated by re-flagged military, or US federal agency staff filling call-up quotas for an otherwise on-going multi-decade effort.

In Iraq, even with security challenges and background animus to the "occupier," there were substantial opportunities for engagement with either a "willing," or a "forced by necessity," relationship between local Iraqis and the US civ/mil structure. This, as Hoh points out, is not the case in many areas.

I have always been aware, for example, that half of Afghanistan's population is heavily urban, but believed that the US strategy was just focused on agriculture and issues related to hard-scrabble Pashtun areas. Thus, there was no reason for me, as an urban planning expert, to leave wife and life to get involved.

Moreover, much of the urban technical skills that served my productive engagement in Iraq would be of little value in Pashtun areas---any more than the US should appoint me, a 50-something civilian planning expert, as a temporary Marine Major to lead a patrol up a hostile Afghan valley.

So, here we have a former US Marine officer with strong military experience in Iraq, but none in Afghanistan, foreign or civilian services, dual-hatted as a State Department temporary foreign service officer unable. But unable to adapt and/or find a way through, either by engagement (directly, indirectly) down low or up above.

Even when offered the chance to actively engage the highest levels of civilian strategy, he turns it down.

What do I make of the whole thing? PTSD?

Very confusing.

Steve