How to get kicked out of Afghanistan without really trying -- too hard - By Tom Ricks | The Best Defense

How to get kicked out of Afghanistan without really trying -- too hard - By Tom Ricks | The Best Defense:

By Col. Lawrence Sellin (U.S. Army Reserve)
Best Defense guest columnist

I was assigned to the ISAF Joint Command (IJC) in Kabul for the last two months. Since arriving in Afghanistan my job had changed twice and in both cases I had no clear duties. Twice I asked my superiors for a more substantive assignment.

Once I provided a high-level overview of proven management methodologies that I offered to the command as a means to address the quite apparent organizational issues at IJC. Nothing happened.

That frustrating situation was one of the triggers for writing my now infamous article "ISAF Joint Command -- Power Points 'R' Us."

The second trigger was more serious. Last autumn the US government announced that after 8 years and $27 billion, the Afghan Army training program was being declared a failure. Despite the fact that symptoms of failure were already appearing in the press years earlier, apparently no one in the chain of command spoke up.

I wondered how much American, coalition and Afghan blood was shed while the program was heading toward failure. I wonder how much blood will be shed before the Afghan Army is ready.

With that in mind and after two months of............

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