Tonight and tomorrow, the CBS Evening News is broadcasting from Afghanistan. I'm here to interview and travel with General David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Operation Enduring Freedom.
Yesterday, after we landed in Kabul, I met with Lt. General Bill Caldwell, the man in charge of the NATO training mission. We got to meet two Afghan pilots who are heading to Columbus, Mississippi, to train. They already had to learn English and the principles of aeronautics, and went to two military schools here in Afghanistan.
Their commanding general told me the first thing they have to teach these recruits (many of them are not the pilots) is how to open a car door. They've never driven. Then they have to give them a first grade education in reading because most are illiterate.
I wondered if these two men I met were afraid of attacks against them, but they said they are not and that they're proud of the work they're doing. They feel they need U.S. support to give their country a chance.
Lt. General Caldwell explained that they attract recruits by paying them what they'd get from the Taliban, $140 a month, and that hiring additional trainers has helped them be ahead of schedule on training military and police recruits.
As for combat readiness, the Lt. General said they still have to work on leadership skills before these "very committed and dedicated" guys can go out on their own. There is apparently a drug problem among recruits, and I was told drug use has been found in about 10 percent of the police.
They are trying to change the culture, and to remove infiltrators. The program just kicked out a guy they discovered was from Pakistan, taking photos in places he shouldn't have been. He's in the Afghan judicial system now.
Also, the training mission is taking eye scans, facial photos and finger prints and asking for letters of recommendation for recruits. This, and going on joint patrols, helps mitigate the trust factor which can be a real issue.
The mission is bullish about where they are, but in terms of "they stand up so we can stand down" readiness, that remains to be seen. So far they've trained 240,000 security forces and they're shooting for more than 300,000.
It may be 2016 before the Afghan Air Force can take over, though a transition will be made much earlier. Training a pilot takes two to five years, so I guess it makes sense.
But will the American people have the stomach for that?
General David Petraeus, interviewed by CBS Evening News anchor Katie Couric, in Afghanistan, August 19, 2010.
This post originally appeared at CBSNews.com.
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No, Katie, we won't. We have a history of invading other countries, making them ungovernable, then running away.
they can stay and kill people for years
wont make us heroes
Why don't we have our troops burn down all of the opium fields that are currently growing and stop the flow of heroin into the US/Europe which is destroying more lives than the Taliban could ever dream of? A handful of Americans are making a fortune in Afghanistan off of this war. It should have been stopped already and I'm disappointed in Katie for suggesting another 6 years of war.
The populations in that region have survived continuously for some 7000 years and the Americans are describing them a ILLITERATE. How do illiterate people survive 7000 years and not pollute their land with oil, gas, coal and chemicals as the Americans now have in just 3-400 years?
Just give these people there own FREE source of ELECTRICITY and they will soon manage their so-called illiteracy and soiled living conditions.
Americans had a guy come to their shoreline in NY 100 years ago and from his brain cavity came the concept of AC/DC electrical current flow. He put some water fall driven electrical generators at the base of the Niagara Falls and ran a power line over to Chicago so they could have electric lighting at a World's Fair at their point. Apparently the Afghans weren't invited to that Fair.
His name was Nickolai Tesla and his nine wonderful patents has given rise to the lifestyle enjoyed in North America to this day. Yet the American's own corrupted history permits few in America to even know his name or what he did, because of their own illiteracy.
Give the Afghans free HYDROGEN FUEL CELL electrical generators and they will take care of their own illiteracy!
what nerve
"It" being the squandering of the national treasure and the sacrifice of our young men and women for absolutely no purpose other than the continued enrichment of the owners of this once great land.
Whoops.
well, I will not carry water for Obama anymore, I cannot defend him
no, the correct question is "will the liberal leftist media have the stomach for it"
"It" being the squandering of the national treasure and the sacrifice of our young men and women for absolutely no purpose other than the continued enrichment of the owners of this once great land.
back to my statement, the question is whether the leftist media (nearly every outlet except fox) can stomach it because the left will follow whatever they broadcast, never bothering to look outside their liberal news sources.
I don't have any answers, but I don't see that our presence there has done much to help more than a small percentage of the populace, at a cost in lives and treasure that is ruinous.
In the 10th year the cost has risen from 50 bn last year to 70 bn this year.
The gov't of Afganistan lacks any popular support.
Defense Minister's son got 360 million for transport from the Pentagon but owns no trucks.
They don't have roads, don't have schools.
A Chinese company bought an $88 bn copper mine.
America is funding both sides of an Afghan civil war.
The Afghan Army is not responsible for security in any part of the country.
My feeling is...sadly, in the end, it is the people of these countries who suffer. Governments and corporate backed business go in, and the people are left in poverty the likes of which most US citizens cannot even imagine.
Our accommodating pragmatic president must realize that a moderate approach to overhaul this imbalanced structure will end in failure. Nothing short of a complete massive change could make a difference.