Greg Mortenson, humanitarian activist, education entrepreneur in Afghanistan and to a great extent Pakistan, spoke to Charlie Rose a few days ago. The conversation was broadcast yesterday.
During the talk Mr. Mortenson highlights the importance of the Afghan tribal elders in achieving a settled peace. That’s to say he is arguing that the U.S and NATO must attend to the specific sociological structure of cooperation in Afghanistan. This also implies that the US and ISAF leadership should decentralize decision making and allocational capacity.
Related to that, he basically says that though it’s somewhat helpful that General Petraeus is a more politically skilled general, it was General McChrystal who got down on the ground and who had a working relationship with many leaders of many tribes. I suspect he’s waiting to see what the outcome of this huge personnel change will be on relationship with the tribal leadership in contested parts of Afghanistan.
Finally consider, Mr. Mortenson claims that it costs the U.S. $1 million a year to have each soldier on the ground. Take away 260 soldiers and fund with $260 million a complete reorganization of higher education in Afghanistan.
Looked at in these terms, that’s sage advice.
Reader, please take some time and watch this video. You’ll find that it has been time well spent