Lt. Gen. William Caldwell is the Commander of the NATO Training Mission in Afghanistan as well as the general in charge of the Combined Security Transition Command. He gave a briefing yesterday at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. He seems like a capable and honest fellow. But he admitted that only 2 to 3 percent of the people that are currently being recruited into the Afghan national police and armed services are coming from the ethnically Pashtun southern region of the country.
I think that that fact alone is one of the most telling signals that we’re screwed. The Pashtun People are the key ethnic group in Afghanistan, and if they are not buying into the national government then we’re failing in Afghanistan. It’s really that simple. People can make any arguments they want about why we have an interest in creating a stable country there, but we’re not going to achieve that if the Pashtuns aren’t invested. The president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, is a Pashtun. But he appears to inspire very few of his brethren to believe in his government. I want good things for Afghanistan. But I just don’t see any signs that we’re succeeding there.
