Toppling Karzai and Draining Soldiers

The New York Times reports:

As widespread fraud in the Afghanistan presidential election was becoming clear three months ago, the No. 2 United Nations official in the country, the American Peter W. Galbraith, proposed enlisting the White House in a plan to replace the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, according to two senior United Nations officials.

But remember, parallels with Vietnam are misleading and overblown. That is, unless a modern-day Cable 243 is being prepared as we speak.

And in other news,

Suicides have hit record highs in the Army. Cases of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression, having reached an alarming 300,000 in 2008, according to Invisible Wounds of War, a RAND study, continue to escalate, constituting a mental health crisis for the army.

[...]

It's this under-compensated, over-stressed army that we're sending into Afghanistan to accomplish what could only be termed a Herculean task. It's not only supposed to defeat the Taliban insurgency by force of arms - something its troops are, at least, trained for - but build a nation by negotiating a complex "human terrain". That's army jargon for the reality that roughly 80% of so-called nation-building operations basically add up to armed social work. Simultaneously, our troops are being tasked with training an Afghan army that, despite years of effort, exists more on paper than in the field.

By all appearances, that Afghan army is hollow. Making it solid and reliable in a few short years is truly a bridge too far for our trainers.

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But remember, parallels with Vietnam are misleading and overblown.