<i>Afghans are failing to appreciate the "self-evident benefits" of the American presence. </i>

By John Ballard

This post and video bring back memories of my own military experience in Korea. These are not bad kids. They are just doing what they have been trained to do. They live in a relatively safe cocoon, eat food that reminds them of home and count the days until the assignment is over. By now, after several years, there is a local economy dependent on a population of camp followers marketing the world's oldest profession and a secondary market for products GIs can get which are not available locally. And these kids imagine the locals with whom they interact, speaking broken English, are the real Afghans. Years from now they may discover their impressions were superficial but I doubt it. A handful of journalists and an equally small minority of military and civilian personnel "get it" but damn few venture out of their cocoons.

It's hard to know who more the victims of ignorance, non-combatant locals or those doing the fighting. But when I seen soldiers tromping through carefully cultivated farm crops I know that whoever put in the time and effort to grow those crops looks on with helpless dismay, wishing they would take their fight elsewhhere. This, like most conflicts, pits a dedicated minority against a "tenuous elite" as referenced here---

It's hard to say when the US will end the war in Afghanistan given that there is still a tenuous elite consensus backing it. But a majority of Americans want out and reporting like the clip shown below from the Pech Valley -- in which mid-level commanders and soldiers now openly question whether or not the US presence is making things worse in their area of operation -- directly challenges the pro-war narrative and will almost certainly weaken elite cohesion. (It's also striking to see a battalion commander state that the American presence helps the enemy.) Apparently, the Afghans are failing to appreciate the "self-evident benefits" of the American presence.

But most of the participants, the kids -- theirs and ours --  are ready for the damn mess to end so they can get on with what remains of their lives.  If I felt this conflict were about principles I would feel different, but I don't. This conflict, like most, is about money. And the actors we see here are not very different from shipments of corn, crude oil or other raw materials being processed into end products for the marketplace.